First appeared as an article in Vanity Fair but later expanded into the best-selling memoir, Darkness Visible. For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of Is come into me. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; Yet trouble came. —Job To many of us who knew Abbie Hoffman even … Continue reading Darkness Visible, William Styron (1986)
Collected Fictions, translated by Andrew Hurley. …In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, … Continue reading On Exactitude in Science, Borges
Originally published in the Atlantic Monthly on August 20 2013 A great herd of readers profess devotion to Herman Melville’s classic Moby-Dick, but novelists especially seem to love saying they love it. On The Top Ten, a website that lists authors’ favorite books, Moby-Dick is cited more often than not (and by writers as dissimilar as John Irving and Robert Coover, Bret Easton Ellis and Joyce Carol Oates). But … Continue reading The Endless Depths of Moby-Dick Symbolism
Ruins true refuge long last towards which so many false time out of mind. All sides endlessness earth sky as one no sound no stir. Grey face two pale blue little body heart beating only up right. Blacked out fallen open four walls over backwards true refuge issueless. Scattered ruins same grey as the sand ash grey true refuge. Four square all light sheer white … Continue reading Lessness, Samuel Beckett
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired. Few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home; she heard his footsteps clacking along the concrete pavement and afterwards crunching on the cinder path before the … Continue reading Eveline, Joyce (Dubliners)
A German worker gets a job in Siberia; aware of how all mail will be read by the censors, he tells his friends: ‘Let’s establish a code: if a letter you get from me is written in ordinary blue ink, it’s true; if it’s written in red ink, it’s false.’ After a month, his friends get the first letter, written in blue ink: ‘Everything is … Continue reading Missing Ink
To lift yourself out of a miserable mood, even if you have to do it by strength of will, should be easy. I force myself out of my chair, stride around the table, exercise my head and neck, make my eyes sparkle, tighten the muscles around them. Defy my own feelings, welcome A. enthusiastically supposing he comes to see me, amiably tolerate B. in my … Continue reading Resolutions, Kafka
Father, by giving me nothing you gave me everything. By not loving me, you taught me that love is an absolute necessity. By denying God, you taught me to value life. Continue reading
THE bell rang furiously and, when Miss Parker went to the tube, a furious voice called out in a piercing North of Ireland accent: “Send Farrington here!” Miss Parker returned to her machine, saying to a man who was writing at a desk: “Mr. Alleyne wants you upstairs.” The man muttered “Blast him!” under his breath and pushed back his chair to stand up. When … Continue reading Counterparts, Joyce
MR. JAMES DUFFY lived in Chapelizod because he wished to live as far as possible from the city of which he was a citizen and because he found all the other suburbs of Dublin mean, modern and pretentious. He lived in an old sombre house and from his windows he could look into the disused distillery or upwards along the shallow river on which Dublin … Continue reading A Painful Case, Joyce
In memory of the one who bore my name Once upon a time, in a place at the end of the earth, there lived an iceberg. The iceberg was fairly small in size; part of a much larger one from which she had broken away and floated free in the cold water. She floated endlessly in any direction the waves saw fit to take her. … Continue reading The Iceberg
delivered 10 November 1963 in Detroit, MI We want to have just an off-the-cuff chat between you and me, us. We want to talk right down to earth in a language that everybody here can easily understand. We all agree tonight, all of the speakers have agreed, that America has a very serious problem. Not only does America have a very serious problem, but our … Continue reading Message to the Grassroots, Malcolm X
All colours, hairs, skins and clothes Suits, dresses, jeans, loafers, heels, shirts, t-shirts and skirts All ages, silver-haired, headscarves, afros, bald, ponytails, buns, buzz cuts, bangs and top-knots Sunglasses, vision-enhancing glasses, beards, clean-shaven, stubbles and bum fuzz Rotund and slim, fat and built, short and big Vibrant and youthful faces and worn in wrinkled faces The directionless and purposefull, the lost and the driven The … Continue reading Rush Hour
[Freck turns on the radio] Freck Suicide Narrator: Charles Freck, becoming progressively more and more depressed by what was happening around him, decided, finally, to off himself. There was no problem in the circles where he hung out in putting an end to yourself. He just bought a large quantity of downers and took them with some cheap wine. The planning part had to do … Continue reading Freck’s Demise – A Scanner Darkly
You are my Day and Night, just as Edward Robert Hughes painted you Capturing the beauty I see in all its majestic might With each individual stroke of pastoral elegance You rage a fire within me that cannot be quenched With each strand of your delicate blonde hair You leave me utterly weak and laid open to bare With each daisy perched on your cranium … Continue reading Day and Night
Library of Babel 