Hux

There once was a man from Botswana His name was Cedric Agana On a trip to Gabon

A young elephant, name of Jumbo.. Loved to eat filé gumbo When he switched on the hob He knocked off a knob And relaxed with an episode of Columbo There once was a man from Botswana

This book is sublime. That much is clear but how much of it is fiction and how much is simply Dazai's final thoughts on the world (he committed suicide after this book was completed) is hard to tell. Actually, that's not true. At no point did I ever feel I was reading about the fictional Yozo. I always felt that I was reading Dazai's thoughts. And yet fact and fiction are sometimes the same thing.The book is presented to us as an epistolary novel. A series of notebooks that have been found and explore the mind of a character called Yozo. As a boy he quickly fails to grasp human beings and learns that he must pretend to be one of them to fit in. He smiles when he knows your supposed to. He claims to be hungry when he isn't because he doesn't know what hunger feels like. He acts the clown because he knows it will make people laugh. Even when he is sexually abused by the servants he does not speak out because what would it accomplish?As an adult he begins a series of affairs but never once truly connects or feels any meaningful emotion towards these women. And yet he pretends (even to himself) that he does feel something. Soon, he and his latest companion make a suicide pact but where she succeeds, Yozo fails. He now has to live with those circumstances and yet, as before, thinks only of himself. Her death is no more important to him that his next drink.His final relationship is with a woman named Yoshiko and includes a curious (and very confusing) moment. She is essentially raped (a thing Yozo witnesses) but Yozo describes this in such a vague manner that it's hard to know if she was simply having consensual sex or being raped. It is written as though it is the latter and yet when Yozo witnesses it, he walks away as though he is the victim. It's quite an unnerving moment in the book and I'm not sure if it's a deliberate blurring of issues or simply a cultural aspect to Japanese morality. Then again, perhaps it was a call back to his own experience of sexual assault. It certainly left me with a strange feeling in my bones. Like a lot of the book in fact. Soon after, another suicide is attempted and his alcoholism is replaced by a methadone addiction. It's only a matter of time before his family commit him to an asylum. It is here that he discovers that his father has died.Three years later, he is living alone in an old house with an elderly female servant. He requests some sleeping pills and takes ten of them only to discover that the servant actually gave him laxatives. And thus, he finishes the book pathetic... failed... alone... and shitting himself.The book ends with someone finding his notebook and querying what happened to the protagonist. But to this we never have an answer.The book is a staggering work of genius. And I would recommend it to everyone. It is painfully sad and yet (for me, at least) has so many excruciatingly relevant moments that I could relate to. Things which are hard to put into words but which Dazai very brilliantly succeeds in achieving. It strongly triggered memories of reading Camus' The Stranger in the sense that the main character does not... cannot... function as a proper human being. I would say that this book was actually a better exploration of that same theme:How does one know if they're human? 9/10

No Longer Human (1948) Osamu Dazai This book is sublime. That much is clear but how much of it is fiction and how much is simply Dazai's final thoughts on the world (he committed suicide after this book was completed) is hard to tell. Actually, that's not true. At no point did I ever feel I was reading about the fictional Yozo. I always felt that I was reading Dazai's thoughts. And yet fact and fiction are sometimes the same thing.The book is presented to us as an epistolary novel. A series of notebooks that have been found and explore the mind of a character called Yozo. As a boy he quickly fails to grasp human beings and learns that he must pretend to be one of them to fit in. He smiles when he knows your supposed to. He claims to be hungry when he isn't because he doesn't know what hunger feels like. He acts the clown because he knows it will make people laugh. Even when he is sexually abused by the servants he does not speak out because what would it accomplish?As an adult he begins a series of affairs but never once truly connects or feels any meaningful emotion towards these women. And yet he pretends (even to himself) that he does feel something. Soon, he and his latest companion make a suicide pact but where she succeeds, Yozo fails. He now has to live with those circumstances and yet, as before, thinks only of himself. Her death is no more important to him that his next drink.His final relationship is with a woman named Yoshiko and includes a curious (and very confusing) moment. She is essentially raped (a thing Yozo witnesses) but Yozo describes this in such a vague manner that it's hard to know if she was simply having consensual sex or being raped. It is written as though it is the latter and yet when Yozo witnesses it, he walks away as though he is the victim. It's quite an unnerving moment in the book and I'm not sure if it's a deliberate blurring of issues or simply a cultural aspect to Japanese morality. Then again, perhaps it was a call back to his own experience of sexual assault. It certainly left me with a strange feeling in my bones. Like a lot of the book in fact. Soon after, another suicide is attempted and his alcoholism is replaced by a methadone addiction. It's only a matter of time before his family commit him to an asylum. It is here that he discovers that his father has died.Three years later, he is living alone in an old house with an elderly female servant. He requests some sleeping pills and takes ten of them only to discover that the servant actually gave him laxatives. And thus, he finishes the book pathetic... failed... alone... and shitting himself.The book ends with someone finding his notebook and querying what happened to the protagonist. But to this we never have an answer.The book is a staggering work of genius. And I would recommend it to everyone. It is painfully sad and yet (for me, at least) has so many excruciatingly relevant moments that I could relate to. Things which are hard to put into words but which Dazai very brilliantly succeeds in achieving. It strongly triggered memories of reading Camus' The Stranger in the sense that the main character does not... cannot... function as a proper human being. I would say that this book was actually a better exploration of that same theme:How does one know if they're human? 9/10

There once was a kitten called Merlin Whose human was called Rita Girling.... With a catnip addiction And a hearty conviction

England get a win under their belt. Re: Christian Eriksen - Confirmed cardiac arrest - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57458630

Young Bert took a dip in the river Yet once in there his bones started to shiver... To remedy such chills

Young Myrtle had a pet ferret Who won every prize going, on merit... A polecat once said The ferret was bred

Game literally restarted now. On BBC1. Quite surprised but they clearly feel Eriksen is going to be okay.

Christian Eriksen collapsing of what appears to be a heart attack is not the start for the tournament we needed. Literally doing CPR on the pitch. Game abandoned. Reports saying he was conscious when taken off the pitch though.

Robotic narrators (especially in first person narratives). I get that a narrator with too much personality or with too many opinions can alienate or annoy readers but it seems so ubiquitous in writing. I read so few books where people actually sound like real people. That being said, I get why they do it and often enjoy the books regardless. The narrator of Norwegian Wood was very blank but I loved the book. Atwood's female characters are always utterly devoid of opinion (though I get they're often deliberately voiceless women). But anyway...

Kicks off tonight. I fancy Italy to win and the Netherlands to do well. Fingers crossed for the home nations.

After reading the first 15 pages, I wanted to put this book down and quit. The narration was all over the place and had a style reminiscent of stream of consciousness without ever quite being stream of consciousness. I hated it. But I continued regardless and gradually the narrative style started to pull me in. The writing is lyrical and disjointed but flows in a way that mesmerises. I've never really liked stream of consciousness writing but this was wonderful to read with a strong sense of the characters and the world they inhabit without ever describing anything in the traditional sense. It was like hearing someone's thoughts but without the gibberish you so often get with the stream of consciousness style (in my opinion, a lot of mediocre writing is hidden behind that particular genre).This was elevated by more poetic and fluid writing. Some of it was broken up by images and thoughts that left you uncertain about what was happening. Other times, it flowed beautifully and wouldn't let you go. Some of the images and ideas expressed were really wonderful. Two that stood out for me were when she described her grandmother's dementia without ever using the word; she simply referenced her grandmother 'outliving her own reason by six years.' Then there was also the wonderful (and worrying) idea that whenever someone dies, we all move up in the pecking order. That made me laugh because it's literally true. Next time you hear about a celebrity dying, take a moment to contemplate the fact that you just moved up one slot.Anyway, the plot is a biographical story about the narrator growing up in communist Romania and dealing with a state that daily interferes in their lives. She and her college friends have to write secret letters to each other and will often sing banned songs, all while dealing with a state officer (and his dog) who regularly interrogates them. Suffice it to say, they all dream of escaping the socialist utopia and regularly take comfort from the many rumours regarding the dictators poor health.I absolutely loved this book. It was rich and human and beautiful. There was even a touch of magical realism and poetry to it. I wouldn't recommend it lightly because the style might not be to everyone's tastes but for me, it was a wonderful piece of literature. You can see why Müller won the Nobel prize. 8/10

The Land of Green Plums (1994) Herta Müller After reading the first 15 pages, I wanted to put this book down and quit. The narration was all over the place and had a style reminiscent of stream of consciousness without ever quite being stream of consciousness. I hated it. But I continued regardless and gradually the narrative style started to pull me in. The writing is lyrical and disjointed but flows in a way that mesmerises. I've never really liked stream of consciousness writing but this was wonderful to read with a strong sense of the characters and the world they inhabit without ever describing anything in the traditional sense. It was like hearing someone's thoughts but without the gibberish you so often get with the stream of consciousness style (in my opinion, a lot of mediocre writing is hidden behind that particular genre).This was elevated by more poetic and fluid writing. Some of it was broken up by images and thoughts that left you uncertain about what was happening. Other times, it flowed beautifully and wouldn't let you go. Some of the images and ideas expressed were really wonderful. Two that stood out for me were when she described her grandmother's dementia without ever using the word; she simply referenced her grandmother 'outliving her own reason by six years.' Then there was also the wonderful (and worrying) idea that whenever someone dies, we all move up in the pecking order. That made me laugh because it's literally true. Next time you hear about a celebrity dying, take a moment to contemplate the fact that you just moved up one slot.Anyway, the plot is a biographical story about the narrator growing up in communist Romania and dealing with a state that daily interferes in their lives. She and her college friends have to write secret letters to each other and will often sing banned songs, all while dealing with a state officer (and his dog) who regularly interrogates them. Suffice it to say, they all dream of escaping the socialist utopia and regularly take comfort from the many rumours regarding the dictators poor health.I absolutely loved this book. It was rich and human and beautiful. There was even a touch of magical realism and poetry to it. I wouldn't recommend it lightly because the style might not be to everyone's tastes but for me, it was a wonderful piece of literature. You can see why Müller won the Nobel prize. 8/10

Man City 0 - 1 Chelsea Good final. City were poor.

A book critic once tried to write, In despondecy he gave up the fight His mind was a blank His prose truly stank

Black Beauty (1877) Anna Sewell I decided to read this because it was free on Kindle.My only real knowledge of Black Beauty came from snippets of the Thames TV show of the mid-70s which made it seem like Black Beauty had various weekly adventures (essentially a horse version of the Littlest Hobo). But actually, the book is a life story, one narrated by none other than the horse (very original for 1877) and has short pithy chapters which presumably explains why it became so popular with children. It's essentially the tale of all the people that own Black Beauty through his life and the various jobs he has as a working horse.Most of the book is rather tame and there's some obvious moralising about the ill-treatment of horses during the Victorian era. Apparently, the descriptions of cruelty caused by 'bearing rein' (keeping the horses head up) enraged readers so much that it was quickly made illegal as a result of the book.I enjoyed the chapters where Black Beauty becomes a London cab horse and dashes around the various streets from station to station or picks up drunken revelers at 1am. And obviously the cruelty is not nice to read but it's generally kept to a minimum without ever getting too dark. But more than once Sewell has a bad human character get his comeuppance for such behavior. Oh, and there seems to be a great deal of criticism regarding the over consumption of alcohol. And one thing I didn't like was how each new owner gave Black Beauty a new name; perfectly understandable why they would but it occasionally meant hearing a name (Jack for example) and thinking... who the hell is Jack? before realising it was Black Beauty's newest name. But the book has a happy ending. And Black Beauty even ends the book with his original name.The book wasn't anything spectacular but it was perfectly fine. And suffice it to say, it's difficult to read without hearing that damn 70s theme tune constantly playing in your head. 7/10

I decided to read this because it was free on Kindle.My only real knowledge of Black Beauty came from snippets of the Thames TV show of the mid-70s which made it seem like Black Beauty had various weekly adventures (essentially a horse version of the Littlest Hobo). But actually, the book is a life story, one narrated by none other than the horse (very original for 1877) and has short pithy chapters which presumably explains why it became so popular with children. It's essentially the tale of all the people that own Black Beauty through his life and the various jobs he has as a working horse.Most of the book is rather tame and there's some obvious moralising about the ill-treatment of horses during the Victorian era. Apparently, the descriptions of cruelty caused by 'bearing rein' (keeping the horses head up) enraged readers so much that it was quickly made illegal as a result of the book.I enjoyed the chapters where Black Beauty becomes a London cab horse and dashes around the various streets from station to station or picks up drunken revelers at 1am. And obviously the cruelty is not nice to read but it's generally kept to a minimum without ever getting too dark. But more than once Sewell has a bad human character get his comeuppance for such behavior. Oh, and there seems to be a great deal of criticism regarding the over consumption of alcohol. And one thing I didn't like was how each new owner gave Black Beauty a new name; perfectly understandable why they would but it occasionally meant hearing a name (Jack for example) and thinking... who the hell is Jack? before realising it was Black Beauty's newest name. But the book has a happy ending. And Black Beauty even ends the book with his original name.The book wasn't anything spectacular but it was perfectly fine. And suffice it to say, it's difficult to read without hearing that damn 70s theme tune constantly playing in your head 7/10

"He made it a rule never to touch a book by any author who had not been dead at least 30 years. "That's the only kind of book I can trust", he said. "It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short." Nagasawa - Norwegian Wood

A woman called Scilly, from Thames..... Invented some silly team games One was named Squillion.. In honour of a civilian

Currently reading Black Beauty by Anna Sewell because it's free.

Haven't read him. But I would highly recommend 'The Story of the Eye' by Bataille which covers similar ground.

A rancid old man from Manchester... Had a soap maker as an ancestor When he went for a shower.... He produced a scent like a flower

There was a young lady from Whipsnade Who, on confronting a man with a switch blade

Should this go in classics? Anyway... One day, Dr Rieux begins to notice some dying rats and worries that something bad is coming. Sure enough, the small Algerian coastal town of Oran is soon struggling under the weight of the plague. The narrator (unknown until the final chapter) explains how the town endured this period by exploring the stories of a handful of characters in the town, predominantly focusing on Dr Rieux. Then there's Tarrou, a visiting businessman, Rambert, the journalist, Grand, the government clerk, and Cottard, a man with mental health issues. Then, of course, we have the priest, Paneloux, who has a unique perspective and role given the circumstances.The book is brilliantly written and the language flows nicely. There are moments that generalise the events of the plague then there are moments that zero in on specific events. For example, there is a dark and unforgiving chapter which focuses on the fate of a young boy with the disease and we watch as Rieux and Paneloux cope with what they are forced to witness. Understandably, this affords Camus an opportunity to inject some of his absurdist philosophy into the book. When told by Tarrou that his victories will never be lasting, Rieux responds: 'Yes, I know that. But it's no reason for giving up the struggle.'From a covid perspective, there's a lot that's familiar. People wearing masks, people washing hands, people dealing with separation from their loved ones. There are lockdowns (literally the town is locked down) and quarantines. There are moments where they (mistakenly) think it might be over, moments where they speculate on the efficacy of the serum/vaccine. It really was quite fascinating to read all this under our current Covid circumstances. Even the people who refuse to accept the Draconian rules are present here (Rambert himself, at one point, plans to escape the town). And then, of course, there's the conversations they have about what life will be like once the plague is finally over. To which one of the characters replies: 'there will be new films.'Some things never change.Of course, it's not possible to read this book without seeing the Nazi analogy. Is Camus writing about a plague or is he writing about fascism? Clearly both. With that interpretation in mind, some of the things he says become more pointed and disturbing. Especially the final line of the book where he describes the 'plague' as dormant...."... it waits patiently in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, handkerchiefs and old papers, and perhaps the day will come when, for the instruction or misfortune of mankind, the plague will rouse its rats and send them to die in some well-contented city."A wonderful piece of literature. 7/10