Thanh Nguyen Nguyen itibaren Koluha, Uttar Pradesh 231305, Hindistan
My D-Group is going through this book together. It has been challenging
just brilliant!
I couldn't put this book down, a great pick up from Book 1. The writer never seems to falter where action and Suspense is concern.
Still just as amazing as I remembered. Now I need to explore the other volumes again.
Finished Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut yesterday and this morning learned the unfortunate news that he died yesterday. Of the book, like every other in the "conversations with authors" series, the interviews do seem to become monotonous. This is good and bad – on the one hand, it's comforting and on the other, it's disappointing – both going to expectations and disappointments in what any writer is capable of. There are limits to wit and anecdote and spontaneity, after all. Of Kurt specifically I would say he is funny, smart, and kind – a mensch through and through. Importantly, he was also very wise about the technical foundations to good writing. On a lighter note, which Kurt might appreciate, this morning on the BART a man and woman (who was in a wheelchair) sitting directly across from Heather and me noted how funny it was that Heather was reading a book called The Invisible Man (Ellison) and I was reading a book called Women (Charles Bukowski). So it is. So it was. So it goes. Goodnight Kurt.
I was really impressed by how many of these poems I actually read. As everyone knows I really fell in love with To Marina, but there are a bunch of other good ones and Kenneth Koch's sense of humor is adorable. However sometimes he should have just stopped. There's a lot of bad stuff in here too and you definitely get the impression he did not have to work hard at a day job and had oodles of oodles of time to write and was very cognizant there was a receptive audience who would lap up everything he did. Below is my favorite part from To Marina: And oh well you said we walk along Your white dress your blue dress your green Blouse with sleeves then one without Sleeves and we are speaking Of things but not of very much because underneath it I am raving I am boiling I am afraid You ask me Kenneth what are you thinking If I could say It all then I thought if I could say Exactly everything and have it still be as beautiful Billowing over, riding over both our doubts Some kind of perfection and what did I actually Say? Marina it's late. Marina It's early. I love you. Or else, What's this street? You were the perfection of my life And I couldn't have you. That is, I didn't. I couldn't think. I wrote, instead. I would have had To think hard, to figure everything out About how I could be with you, Really, which I couldn't do In those moments of permanence we had As we walked along.