Envoy
November 24, 2017
It is your destiny so to move your wand,
To wake up storms, to run through the heart of storms,
To lay bare a monument like a nest in a thicket,
Though all you wanted was to pluck a few roses.
Czeslaw Milosz
The invariance of its intensity
November 24, 2017
Like all obsessions, Ballard’s novel is occasionally boring and frequently ridiculous. The invariance of its intensity is not something the reviewer can easily suggest. Ballard is quite unlike anyone else; indeed, he seems to address a different – a disused – part of the reader’s brain. You finish the book with some bafflement and irritation. But this is only half the experience. You then sit around waiting for the novel to come and haunt you. And it does.
Martin Amis
Review of The Day of Creation by J. G. Ballard
The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000
The more you know
November 24, 2017
Without opening your door,
you can open your heart to the world.
Without looking out your window,
you can see the essence of the Tao.
The more you know,
the less you understand.
The Master arrives without leaving,
sees the light without looking,
achieves without doing a thing.
Tao Te Ching
men were the answer
November 24, 2017
Women were brought up to believe that men were the answer. They weren’t. They weren’t even one of the questions.
Julian Barnes
A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
