It began as the GODFATHER OF MATH, evolved into the GOODFATHER OF MATH. Now this. Go figure...

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The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for five seconds and think for ten minutes = G. CARLIN...Stain glass, engraved glass, frosted glass
–give me plain glass = JOHN FOWLES ... Music is the mathematics of the gods=PYTHAGORAS ... Nothing is more fluid than language = R. L. SWIHART
I cannot live without the oxygen of laughter = DAWN POWELL ... !!! ... But laughter cannot survive without the hydrogen of gravitas = PAUL OLIVERIO
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Monday, July 4, 2022

Three Examples For Readers Of Existential Fiction Masterpieces

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it was proclaimed that
Saul Bellow's HERZOG
was Jean Paul Sartre's NAUSEA
at the Comedy Club
 
Below,
there are three examples
from HERZOG
to support
that proclamation:
 
1
Literate people appropriate
all the best things
they can find in books
and dress themselves in them
just as certain crabs
beautify themselves
with seaweed.
 
2
He tried to make
his lust comical,
to show how absurd
it all was,
easily the most wretched form
of human struggle,
the very essence of slavery.
 
3
A man may say
"From now on, I am going
to speak the truth."
But the truth hears him
and runs away and hides
before he's even done speaking.
 
::: 
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5 comments:

  1. Now on my reading list:
    re-read both
    HERZOG and NAUSEA.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice. I remember No Exit (another Paul -- hint: his wife was Jane -- is supposedly responsible for the English title) more than Nausea, so if I get around to it I'll reread both.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice to hear from you, RLS.
      Somewhere, I read about Paul Bowles
      being responsible for the title No Exit
      but a very different mindset —in Harvard Lampoon—
      claimed the title derived from a sign indicating
      construction on a freeway off-ramp.

      No Exit is a classic. Nausea is not.
      The latter is just a personal favorite of mine

      Delete