-Joseph Conrad (from Lord Jim)
Today's post is inspired by death.
But everything you do is inspired by death, you say!
True. Get used to it. Life is inspired by death!
And at the heart of the uncanny is the frightening knowledge of our own mortality. Face it, folks, death gets us all. (Except Elvis, he'll still be around a hundred years from now.)
So, to celebrate death ... a little trivia. Who doesn't love trivia!?
On this day in history, not one but two of my favourite authors died. Sad isn't it? But not in the same year at the same time of day in the same city in the same bed etc. etc. That would be truly uncanny!
However, both were masters of the uncanny in their own way & they did die exactly 40 years apart.
Aug.3, 1924, Joseph "The horror" Conrad. Born on the 3rd, died on the 3rd ...
I first read Heart of Darkness in highschool & it was the third book to profoundly affect me. The first two were an awesomely illustrated Bible that belonged to my Mom and Stephen King's The Tommyknockers. (I've read nearly everything the man has written & this definitely is NOT his finest, but it got me started.) It wasn't until first-year University that I read A Good Man is Hard to Find, and I felt the same way about its stories.
I promised myself this would be shortwinded & long-sighted.
The way these stories made me feel made me want to read more stories just like them.
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| A bouquet of books |
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| Do I really need four copies of the same book? Does Igor need the Count?! |
How does one kill fear? Start with books, I suppose.
...
from Muipotmos, or The Flight of the Butterflie
Edmund Spenser
Like a grimme Lyon rushing with fierce might
Out of his den, he seized greedilie
On the resistles pray, and with fell spight,
Vnder the left wing stroke his weapon slie
Into his heart, that his deepe groning spright
In bloodie streames foorth fled into the aire,
His bodie left the spectacle of care.
...
p.s. I'm off to read Hoffmann's The Sandman.
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