classes of ideas

It is supposed...an Author makes a formal engagement that he will gratify certain known habits of association; that he not only thus apprizes the Reader that certain classes of ideas and expressions will be found in his book, but that others will be carefully excluded.

-William Wordsworth, from "Preface to Lyrical Ballads"

I am beginning a series of quotes by Wordsworth. I was reading him yesterday and thinking, "Hmmm, this fellow has some interesting things to say." And I chuckled whenever he said something like "A Poet is a man speaking to men."* Then my professor told us that there were some women authors who came up with the ideas in Wordsworth's "Preface," that Wordsworth stole the women's ideas, called said ideas "manly" and anything unmanly as bad writing, and got big and famous while the ladies drifted into obscurity. Big sigh. Not an unusual story.

I've also been wanting to post quotes from the memoir Book of Shadows--a decidedly feminist work--so perhaps I'll switch off between Wordsworth and Book of Shadows.

*That is not an exact quote. I don't feel like looking the quote up.

A Long, Long Time Ago & Essentially True

When I went to a reading by Brigid Pasulka, I was captivated by her dry humor, and by her whimsical portrayal of a Polish village pre-WWII.

When I bought her novel A Long, Long Time Ago & Essentially True, I told her it reminded me of Everything is Illuminated--the way the storyline moves between grandparents living in a village that glows with a golden but imperfect light, that has a fairytale feel, and grandchildren struggling with the aftermath of the war and the weight of their family's sorrows--and she said she was flattered.

When I biked home through that October night, the book strapped to the back of my bike, I was hit by a car and the book went flying across the pavement.

When I read Pasulka's novel in December, I was caught by synchronicities--it was New Year's Eve while I read the part of the book that takes place on New Year's Eve; inside the book things were bleak and gray, outside the book things were white and gray; the main character--a young woman recently moved to Krakow from the village, trying to make a life after communism and capitalism have had their way with Poland--felt the way I've felt off and on since moving to Moscow.

When I read Pasulka's novel, I found phrases like głupia panienka just waiting to roll off my tongue.

When I read the ending, I cried.

Show Me What a Bibliophile Looks Like! (This is What a Bibliophile Looks Like!)

"Do you read a lot?"

"Why yes, yes I do."

"You look like a reader."

Dooo I?

A customer told me I look like a reader and then asked me what I like to read. I wasn't in the book section; I was behind a cash register. In uniform. Did my glasses give me away? Do book lovers wear glasses? Maybe it's the haircut? The boy-cut-grown-out-then-given-an-impromptu-trim-in-the-bathroom style? Perhaps it was the gray sweater peaking out from beneath my uniform. Gray sweaters--very bookish.

He told me he's a librarian. That's how he spotted me. Maybe we just know our own.

School Books

Strike while the coffee's hot.

That's my motto for today.

Maybe I'll have another cup. Who needs breakfast or lunch when you can have coffee?

I'm going to visit three bookstores today. One of them is my workplace, because one must work. One is the little used bookstore downtown, to get a couple books I need read by next week for class, and one is the campus bookstore where I can get some used books for cheap.

I'm excited to finally purchase some Jane Austen for my personal library. I was going to buy Persuasion at work last night, but the copy they had didn't suit my fancy. If I'm going to own Austen, it had better look damn good. I'm hoping BookPeople downtown will have a nice copy.

I love the BookPeople sign. I love the griffins.

I am not in Scotland.

No, no I am not.

Also, Facebook is a PAIN to get back onto after your account has been hacked. I'm still not back on.

To Read

Oh no. I've made this big winter break to-read list, gotten all these recommendations, and now I have to decide on a book. What do I want to read? What am I in the mood for? What does the weather call for?

Well, crap. It doesn't matter, because as I go down my to-read list, looking them up on the public library database, they're all checked out. The new releases, the old releases, all checked out. Wait, wait...there's one large-print Chocolat here in Moscow. Someone better not check it out before I get my butt down to the library.

Happy New Year

So thanks to the

Blue morning, to the blue spirit

Of winter, to the soothing blue gift

Of powdered snow!

-Ed Hirsch, from "Dawn Walk"