Really I reread The Vortex for class, but it was a true pleasure. Now we will sing the first line: “Antes que me hubiera apasionado por mujer alguna, jugué mi corazón al azar y me lo ganó la Violencia.” * Familiarity begins at the airport where you identify your gate from far off because everyone … More Reading for Pleasure Wednesday: J. E. Rivera
“It’s a pity nation-making moves only through a single groove like a one-track brain that is obsessed with the one thing. It is not enough to be in power but to be power itself and there is no such thing except in the minds of people with religious notions. We are a devastated garden in … More Reading for Pleasure Wednesday: Nation-Making Moves
1. I am still reading The Black Insider very slowly, and I have little new to report on that front except that I have added The House of Hunger, by the same author, to my list, as well as Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid Times. I am also reading, strictly for pleasure, the criticism and historical documents … More On Reading for Pleasure and Writing What You Think
This is Reading for Pleasure Wednesday and I have little new to report since I am still reading The Black Insider, very slowly. Logic is an attitude. It freezes us forever in the icy tumult of all the cursed attitudes they stuffed into us. But even where thoughts have died, something ghostly lingers behind. An … More Dambudzo Marechera
I have begun reading Dambudzo Marechera’s The Black Insider, a type of novel. My alter ego promised the Paper Chaser to read Thus Spake Zarathustra in 2008, and told A Room of Our Own she would read Bleak House. By reading these three books, I am sure one can learn a great deal. Also on … More Reading for Pleasure Wednesday: Marechera, and Big Plans!
I am having an excellent semester despite certain problems I can see brewing in one class. Part of the reason for this semester’s excellence, however, is that I am again teaching Spanish literature, which works like a charm. By Spanish literature I mean the great, unknown literature of Spain, a country in southern Europe. This … More Spanish Literature II
I have more or less finished Barbara Ehrenreich’s Fear of Falling and as I say, despite being somewhat dated – it came out in the late 1980s – this book really is worth reading, as it explains a great deal. My early education was fraught with lessons about race and ethnicity. One needed fashions which … More Reading for Pleasure Wednesday: Barbara Ehrenreich
Esoteric reading for this week: Escrivania by Jesús Sepúlveda. Although I am not terribly impressed with this particular collection it is inspiring just by existing and by being complex. Someone had the ideas for it went so far as to polish them. And poetry is deep, and although classes have started I vow to make … More Reading for Pleasure Wednesday: Jesús Sepúlveda, Barbara Ehrenreich, James Lee Burke
Ehrenreich believes the rise of professionalism was, and remains, perhaps the greatest of all generators of middle-class insecurity. The creation of “the professions” was designed as much to keep people out as to let them in, with each generation forced to fight for admission to the club. Unlike the truly wealthy who could guarantee that … More Reading for Pleasure Wednesday: Barbara Ehrenreich, Mário de Andrade
I Another of my New Year’s resolutions is to join The Paper Chase in Reading for Pleasure Wednesdays. I voraciously read news, magazines, commentary, and book reviews for pleasure, but not nearly enough whole books or fiction since these are so closely associated with, and so easily construable as work. Having a book one is … More Reading for Pleasure Wednesday
coldhearted scientist وداد 