Ex Libris Kirkland is my entirely self-centered way to keep track of what I read, what I enjoy, and what I want to remember.
📓 Recent Notes 📓
Charles Williams was one of those weird midcentury guys who was interested in Magic, and was part of a secret magical society that actually attempted to do spells and things. It's one of the most embarrassing things about him. But this is one of the 'history' books he wrote primarily for profit, churning out a book when he could get any decent pay to do so. It purports to be a history of magic as it stands in relation to Christianity, and plays it pretty straight. But you can see CW's interest in the subject for sure!
a note about Witchcraft
Was this book funny? Not for me.
a note about The Organs of Sense
A really enjoyable verse translation here. I've read Gilgamesh before, of course (Honors English 105, fall 1999!) and probably a couple of times. I know the basic outline of the story. But it's great to have a poet's version of this. I like how Simon Armitage works not from the original text, but from all the other translations into English. It's a synthesis and retelling job, that benefits from the care of an actual poet.
a note about Gilgamesh
Astonishing amounts of alcohol being consumed in this book. I see what they mean by 'hard-drinking'.
a note about The Thin Man
I have never read a 'Nick and Nora' crime book, nor really any Dashiell Hammett. I only know him by reputation! This was cool, stylish, fun, and absolutely not for me. I don't know what it is that lands so flat for me here. I think there might be something about 30's era books that are hard to parse. I found myself stopping and re-reading pages multiple times. Is it just getting the hang of it? I don't know. I admire the economy of writing here. But I also just don't care much about a murder mystery.
a note about The Thin Man
📖 Recent Quotes 📖
These pages must stand for what they are-a brief account of the history in Christian times of that perverted way of the soul which we call magic, or (on a lower level) witchcraft, and with the reaction against it. That they tend to deal more with the lower level than with any nobler dream is inevitable. The nobler idea of virtue mingled with power either worked itself out eventually as experimental science (but the extent to which experimental science was at any time denounced has probably been exaggerated), or it was kept carefully secluded in its own Rites (and to know these one would have had to share them), or it did in fact degenerate into base and disgusting evils (as I have here and there tried to suggest). No-one will derive any knowledge of initiation from this book; if he wishes to meet the tall, black man' or to find the proper method of using the Reversed Pentagram, he must rely on his own heart, which will, no doubt, be one way or other sufficient.
an excerpt from Witchcraft
[ devastating! ]
You strove and labored but achieved nothing.
You drove yourself onward but without profit.
You strained every nerve and sinew with effort
yet brought the day of your death even closer.
Every family tree can be snapped like a reed:
the handsome boy, the beautiful girl,
how suddenly death can spirit them away.
Death appears from nowhere, acts without warning.
No one has seen the face of death.
No one has heard the voice of death,
the silent, invisible, savage assassin.
There comes a time when we build a house;
there comes a time when we fill the nest;
there comes a time of feud between heirs;
there comes a time of hatred in the land.
There came a time of high water and flood;
one moment the dragonfly followed the river,
its face lit by the light of the sun,
then suddenly everyone and everything was gone.
The missing and the dead—how alike they are.
Neither can draw an image of death.
The dead never say good morning to the living.
At the great assembly of the Anunnaki,
the goddess Aruru decreed man's fate:
the gods will give and take away life
and no man will know when death will strike.an excerpt from Gilgamesh
[ People keep asking Gilgamesh why he looks so distraught, and this is part of the long response he gives each time explaining how he’s mourning Enkidu. The pivot from ‘my friend is dead’ to ‘and will I also die?’ That hinges on seeing the maggot - that’s so good. ]
My friend, who I loved, my brother in hardship,
my constant companion through struggles and sickness,
who met the end that all men must face.
I wept for six days and seven nights,
refused to hand over his body for burial
till a maggot came crawling out of his nose.
I was suddenly afraid for my own life.an excerpt from Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh came wandering out of the distance
draped in a pelt, a startling sight.
The blood of the gods flowed through his body
but deep within him there was sorrow in his heart
and he wore the face of a weary traveler.
The innkeeper cautiously watched his approach.
She spoke to herself, choosing her words,
taking advice from the voice inside her. "No doubt this stranger is a bloodthirsty hunter;
out of nowhere he heads directly for my home.”
[ I love “taking advice from the voice inside her” ]an excerpt from Gilgamesh
Enkidu replied to his comrade Gilgamesh:
"Why is your voice now quivering with fear?
You grieve my heart with your simpering mouth.
The challenge is standing directly before us:
the molten copper pours into the mold,
stop stoking the fire and fanning the coals—
let the torrent flow. Crack the whip,
don't retreat one step, don't turn your back.
Strike like a lion. Land the first blow.an excerpt from Gilgamesh