Every Tuesday (when I volunteer at the hospital) I pass this door four times. And every time I pass it, I think, "I should print out the word RUN and tape it onto this sign." But by the time I get home, I've already forgotten about it.
Maybe next time.
"...churches were...feats of spiritual engineering...they... represented another level of reality, the divine, which was present in the midst of everyday toil, and there stood open to the future, when the kingdom of heaven would be. Established on earth. That no one seeks the divine level of reality any more and that the churches stand empty means that it is no longer necessary. That it is no longer necessary means that the kingdom of heaven has come. There is nothing left to long for other than longing itself, of which the empty churches I can see from here have become the symbol." (38)
Some of that goes a bit too far, but I thought that the way that KOK expressed the essential nature of churches summed up my beliefs nicely: "engineering...they... represented another level of reality, the divine...." That's one of the reasons that the physical appearance of a church matters to me. Old Catholic churches, with their huge stained glass windows, statuary, and sometimes relics suit my idea of the proper way to signal that you have entered the presence of God.
"...the wisest person knows that 'I' is nothing in itself." (133)
"Madame Bovary is the world's greatest novel.... Flaubert's sentences are like a rag rubbed across a window pane encrusted with smoke and dirt which you have long since grown accustomed to seeing the world through." (178 - 179)
Day 1 (DDRD 3,001) January 20, 2026
Read to page 21 and 693 to 700.
This book is divided between poems (3 to 689) and 691 to 1219). Which makes for awkward reading...especially in a book as heavy as this one. Still I persisted.
It was nice and a revelation to find out that not only did Seamus Heaney admire Gerard Manley Hopkins, but that he even imitated Hopkins' style in his earliest poems.
Day 2 (DDRD 3,002) January 21, 2026
Read to page 38 and 701 to 713. Some of the notes on the poems seem ridiculous to me...many of them point out things like "sheep," in the original, revised to "sheep." I'm not exaggerating, either. Have to admit that it's kind of draining to read this. But het, only a little over 1,200 pages to go, right?
Day 3 (DDRD 3,004) January 22, 2026
Read to page 57, 724.
I do love Seamus Heaney, but I'm thinking hard about whether or not I want to continue this for my DDR. It's kind of exhausting, and I feel like the words are slipping through my fingers.
I've been meaning to get around to Laurence Sterne for some time now, and when I was in Half-Price Books and spotted this little gem for $5, I thought there's no time like the present to begin. As you can see, it's a tiny book, but evenso it has xvii + 233 = 250 pages, so I'm skeptical about my ability to finish it in 3 days. But I thought I'd give it a shot, so awaaaaaay we go!
Day 1 (DDRD 2,998) January 17, 2026
Read to page 25. Which is not on pace to finish in two more days. But Joe had a basketball game and there were two NFL playoff games. 1313
Day 2 (DDRD 2,999) January 18, 2026
Read to page 113...so maybe I CAN finish this off tomorrow. Plus I'll probably read a bit more today.
Smelfungus and Mindungus, you say? 🤔
Tobias Shandy...from Sterne's first novel...makes an appearance.
And...read to 133. Leaving an even 100 pages for tomorrow. Can do!
Day 3 (DDRD 3,000) January 19, 2026
Read to page 233, The End. And a pleasant little canter it was...though hardly A Sentimental Journey. A more apt title would be In Search of Pussy...or Wang, Dang, Sweet Poon-Tang, perhaps. Sterne is an amusing fellow, though, and I'll need more of him soon.
"Sweet pliability of man’s spirit, that can at once surrender itself to illusions, which cheat expectation and sorrow of their weary moments!—Long,—long since had ye number’d out my days, had I not trod so great a part of them upon this enchanted ground. When my way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it, to some smooth velvet path, which Fancy has scattered over with rosebuds of delights; and having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthened and refresh’d.—When evils press sore upon me, and there is no retreat from them in this world, then I take a new course;—I leave it,—and as I have a clearer idea of the Elysian fields than I have of heaven, I force myself, like Æneas, into them.—I see him meet the pensive shade of his forsaken Dido, and wish to recognise it;—I see the injured spirit wave her head, and turn off silent from the author of her miseries and dishonours;—I lose the feelings for myself in hers, and in those affections which were wont to make me mourn for her when I was at school." (159 - 160)
And this bit--
"But there is nothing unmix’d in this world; and some of the gravest of our divines have carried it so far as to affirm, that enjoyment itself was attended even with a sigh,—and that the greatest they knew of terminated, in a general way, in little better than a convulsion." (162)
--is just funny. Keep in mind that this was Sterne trying to be GOOD...to make up for the shock he'd caused with Tristram Shandy.
So there it is...3,000 days of reading every day (minus one for a trip to the emergency room for a faltering heart). I'm going to tally up pages read from 2,001 to 3,000, but it's going to take awhile.
353 pages minus 104 read, so 249 pages and 5 days. Yep.
Day 2 (DDRD 2,996) January 15, 2026
Read to page 188. Starting to wonder what all of the fuss (Booker Prize, paeans from the pantheon) is about. This is a series of snapshots (with blackness between them) of pretty ordinary stuff...with the exception of the first chapter's sexual molestation of a minor by a middle-aged woman. And this dude has used the word "okay" at least 100 times. (Not hyperbole.) I'm going to finish this thing, but unless there's something astonishing up ahead, I don't think I'm going to enjoy it.
I mean...shit, get a room.
Day 3 (DDRD 2,997) January 16, 2026
Read to page 294. Well...shit. Only 59 pages to go. Which means I'm probably going to finish it today...which means I'll have three days to finish something else if I want to come out even. Hmmm.
And the dialogue. It's probably the worst I've ever read outside of a Learning To Read book. Slow-moving and so inconsequential that you could edit it out and the story wouldn't suffer at all. (It might even give a little sigh of relief.)
And the plot. It's like DS wrote out the whole story, then edited out all of the most interesting parts. Like when Helen's husband dies. Or when Helen and Istváne get married. Didn't Jean-Paul Sartre already do this whole elevation of the banal thing?
Addendum: Read to page 353, The End. Unfortunately, the speed with which I read this book is indicative of the intensity of my back pain and the consequent immobility it necessitated, not the quality of the writing. This was not a good book. I cannot imagine why it was even nominated for the Booker Prize, much less won it. The only thing to be gained from reading it for me is the satisfaction of knowing that I can tell you not to waste your time on it. It is banal, superficial, and unfulfilling. In fact, the best use Igot out of it was when I used it as a coaster for my bowl of hot vegetables.
