The Book Page -- May 12, 2023

Locator: 44632BOOKS.  

Banned.

Link here. I don't know the details but am told this book was banned by a high school in Florida. Source: on the 90th anniversary of Germany's book burnings.

Poetry.

Hemingway: the power of the unsaid. A very long essay. Along with Virginia Woolf I once had, in my library, twelve to eighteen books for each: Hemingway and Virginia Woolf. But as we downsized, most of these books have been given to area schools. Years ago I posted a very, very long original piece on Virginia Woolf after typing one of her novels, Mrs Dalloway. It took me six months to type that novel, but I learned a lot. 

Now this (link above). Wow.

This essay may have explained something about Hemingway's writing that no one else has mentioned, at least of which I'm aware.

Typing out Mrs Dalloway, it was apparent that the novel was a prose poem.

Now, from Hemingway's novel, The Big Two-Hearted River.

We can reformat what Hemingway wrote:

As the shadow of the kingfisher
Moved up the stream,
A big trout shot upstream
In a long angle.

Only his shadow marking the angle,
Then lost his shadow as he came through
The surface of the water, caught the sun,
And then, as he went back into the stream.

Under the surface
His shadow seemed to float 
Down the stream with the current,
Unresisting, to his post
Under the bridge,
Where he tightened.

Facing up into the current.

Almost like a haiku in places.

Definitely not as poetic as Virginia Woolf's novel. Mrs Dalloway really could be published in blank verse ... [Note: "UP" is the "upper peninsula" in Michigan.]

It turns out that Hemingway did not fish in the Big-Hearted River. He fished in the Fox River or one of its branches.

From Hemingway himself:

On another note, I found the reference to "shell shock" or PTDS interesting, as noted in the excerpt above.

See this link. Also, here.

"Beat" and "beat to the wide."

See also "beat generation."

Reading again.

Up the Down Staircase.

Hard copy on Amazon: $121.

Yes, $121. Not a typo.

First published 1964. On the NYTimes best seller list for 64 weeks.

I thought I first read this book in middle school, but that would have been impossible. So, it must have been in my freshman or sophomore year in high school. Through Pluto TV or some such streaming service -- yes, it was Pluto TV -- I was watching "The Fugitive" and Sandy Dennis was in the episode, and from there I was eventually back to the book. So I ordered a copy two days ago and got it today.

Of all things, it's a "galley bound -- not for sale" edition, about $20 with tax. Wow. I'll read it and then give it to one of Sophia's teacher for this summer's beach reading.

I can't recommend it but for me it brings back great memories.