Tag: literature

Reviews

Book Review — We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2013) by Karen Joy Fowler

This review is part of the No Man’s Land Reading Project, an attempt to right a gendered imbalance in my reading and a general imbalance in the availability of reviews (by men, especially) of works by female authors. The first thing I said when I finished Karen Joy Fowler’s immensely popular, critically acclaimed, Man Booker Prize shortlisted seventh novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, … Continue reading Book Review — We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2013) by Karen Joy Fowler

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Quote

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), on Other Worlds ::

… what grows lives and is alive only through the feeling of its contact with other mysterious worlds. If that feeling grows weak or is destroyed in you, the heavenly growth will die away in you. Then you will be indifferent to life and even grow to hate it. That’s what I believe. – Father Zosima, a character in The Brothers Karamazov Continue reading Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), on Other Worlds ::

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Personal

Why swim with elephants? ::

I’ve had three blogs prior to this one. None of them exist today. I designed them for specific purposes and named them accordingly. That was their death knell. When I became disinterested in that purpose or felt constrained, the blog went to the glue factory. So when I started ‘Swimming with Elephants’, my chief desire was that it survive. I had to defuse my desire … Continue reading Why swim with elephants? ::

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Drabbles

One hundred words on spelling lessons ::

The boy sat in the gym teacher’s office listening to the rain. Know why you’re here? Mr Gempson was bald. His protruding ears had cauliflower cartilage and a vein stood out on his forehead. I wrote a swear word on my homework, replied the boy. On purpose? Sort of. I knew I wrote it but I forgot where. Gempson squinted. You spelt it wrong. The … Continue reading One hundred words on spelling lessons ::

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