a) a toilet read (ie, you read it only while on the commode, over the course of weeks, in 5 minute increments),
b) a read-through, wherein you read it, sort of, but don't necessarily seek to fully internalize the whole thing, or
c) a literary rogering, wherein you stay up late, get up early, and do (or don't do) a whole litany of important things in order to really devour the book.
This week for me it is The Portable Dorothy Parker, edited by Marion Meade. I'm giving it every spare second I have, which is therefore C: a literary rogering. I cannot put this collection of Dorothy Parker's works down. I was telling someone that if I could write like her, think like her, throw out bon mots (or in her case, bitter mots or sarcastic mots or mal mots) like her, I would be the happiest woman on the planet.
Here's a nugget of her wit and genius that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of her stories and letters, never mind her other poems:
Untitled Birthday Lament, circa 1927
"Time doth flit.
Oh, Shit!"
Who are you reading?
1 comment:
I've got two little books on the go.
The first one is a dual-language copy of Beowulf. I wanted to read the English language's supposedly oldest poem, and what I got was three and a half chapters explaining Old English and some hob-nobbed boffin's ten page forward about the tribulations he had trying to translate the damn thing. Fun stuff.
The other book I got (and which you might enjoy, E) is Make Love, the Bruce Campbell way. I don't know if you're a Bruce Campbell fan, but the book is quite literally 800 pages of bullshit. Entertaining bullshit. It makes you wish President Bush were only so talented at making you laugh at the utter rubbish he produces.
Anyway, back to the office for me.
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