Without Lifting A Finger

Wittgenstein’s Nephew is an autobiographical work by Thomas Bernhard , originally published in 1982. It is a recollection of the author's friendship with Paul Wittgenstein, the nephew of Ludwig Wittgenstein and a member of the wealthy Viennese Wittgenstein family. Paul suffers from an unnamed mental illness for which he is repeatedly hospitalized, paralleling Bernhard's own struggle with a chronic lung disease. Synopsis The author narrates moments of his friendship with Paul Wittgenstein, "nephew" (actually son of a first cousin ) of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (not to be confused with the latter's brother, the pianist Paul Wittgenstein ). The title is a reference to Diderot's Rameau's Nephew who also deals with the eccentric nephew of a preeminent cultural figure. A very sensitive man, unsuitable for the world, obsessed by an exclusive and cruel passion for music as well as for race cars and sailing , Paul Wittgenstein dissip...

I knew the Ruby's was closed for some while (apparently 2013). Hadn't realized till today that it had burned back in May, 2016. *                         

Also reading: Khodasevich (a real live book!). Bilingual edition. Translated from the Russian by Peter Daniels. (Maybe I'll put up Daniels' version of "The Monkey" alongside Nabokov's someday. Maybe I'll have some time -- far down the road -- to dabble in the Russian myself.) Will certainly look more at Nabokov's Pale Fire in relation to Khodasevich's "Ballada." * Khodasevich's "Petersburg": They gave themselves to sad monotonous tasks, until their strength was spent. Half-dead among them, only I distracted their predicament. They looked at me and they forgot their bubbling kettles boiling dry, the boots of felt that scorched on stoves -- all listening to my poetry Then in sepulchral Russian dark a flowery herald-girl took my hand; and music's concord was revealed to me, knocked sideways in the wind. Mad with visions, over the sheet-ice on the canal, I'd reach the bank and slither up the crumbli...

Only other novel on Kindle. Hope more are forthcoming.:) Also, to some degree, riffing on Ibsen's The Wild Duck . * Excerpt: Oh, that sun shining in through the municipal curtains on the window of this doctor's office at the Kongsberg Hospital! Those nauseating sunbeams in the window frame. The translucent glass in the rectangular windowpanes, sponged down every day as part of the aura of security a hospital must radiate in societies like ours. He was a bit ashamed of his words, for it offended him that a man past fifty spoke about death, and now he had done so himself, loud and clear. A man of thirty can do so, for his death is a disaster, from whatever viewpoint it is seen, being snatched away from his career in one gulp, but for him, Bjorn Hansen, who had recently turned fifty, death would only be the natural conclusion of a natural process, albeit somewhat early, statistically, and so he simply had to put up with it all, without a whimper, done is done, and the ra...

T. S. should write a poem. You should. :) *                 



With the tide out, many were beached on the sand. Stranded. How long can they live outside of water? Two boys had fun picking them up and throwing them back in. I watched to see if they were able to swim away. Couldn't see clearly. Late afternoon. Charlie and I walked back home. *       

Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth (25 December 1771 – 25 January 1855) was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth , and the two were close all their lives. Wordsworth had no ambitions to be an author, and her writings consist only of series of letters, diary entries, poems and short stories. Life She was born on Christmas Day in Cockermouth , Cumberland in 1771. Despite the early death of her mother, Dorothy, William and their three step-brothers had a happy childhood. When in 1783, their father died and the children were sent to live with various relatives, Wordsworth was sent alone to live with her aunt, Elizabeth Threlkeld, in Halifax, West Yorkshire. [1] After she was able to be reunited with William, firstly at Racedown Lodge in Dorset in 1795 and afterwards (1797/98) at Alfoxden House in Somerset, they became inseparable companions. The pair lived in poverty at first, and would often beg for cast-off clothes from their fr...

Dag Solstad (born 16 July 1941) is a Norwegian novelist, short-story writer, and dramatist whose work has been translated into several languages . [1] He has written nearly 30 books and is the only author to have received the Norwegian Literary Critics' Award three times. His works have been translated into 20 languages. His awards include the Mads Wiel Nygaards Endowment in 1969, the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 1989, for Roman 1987 and the Brage Prize in 2006 for Armand V . Solstad is among Norway's top-ranked authors of his generation. His early books were considered somewhat controversial, due to their political emphasis (leaning towards the Marxist–Leninist side of the political spectrum). Dag Solstad lives part-time in Berlin and part-time in Oslo . [From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dag_Solstad ]

A bit scattered. The stepping stones pretty much go: Coleridge, D. Wordsworth, Keller, Solstad. * Excerpt from Solstad's Shyness & Dignity :      It was not that they were bored, it was rather that look of injury through which their boredom became manifest. There was nothing strange about being bored in a Norwegian class where a drama by Henrik Ibsen was being studied. They were, after all, eighteen-year-olds who were supposed to acquire a liberal education. They were youths who could not be viewed as fully developed individuals. To characterize them as immature, therefore, would not offend anyone, neither themselves nor those with authority over them, at any rate when considered from a sober and objective viewpoint. These immature individuals were placed in school in order to obtain knowledge about classical Norwegian literature, which it was his to offer them. He was, in fact, officially appointed to do just that. The main problem with such a job was tha...

Semi-retirement is the life. Unfortunately (fortunately) the world needs saving and school starts in less than a week.:) *