Oona Minnie Pearl Moonlight and Zora Idris Caledonia staid the course, sleeping on my bed most of the night. This is unusual. Idris is enraptured by all things Oona, so that was her draw. She tried to get her to play several times, but Oona was Sybergian in her dedication to sleep.
My freshman English teacher, the inimitable Mr. Frank Panezich (R.I.P) insisted that paragraphs have four to eight sentences. Wondering if any English specialists out there have heard that and if so, why? My thought was that it was a teaching device for making high school students coherent.
I see that my overhead fan needs dusting again. Sometimes I feel as if I am living in some dust version of The Wind. I haven't seen it in a long time, but my memory is of Lillian Gish in an endless loop of sweeping her house out, Sisyphean-style. But perhaps I am thinking of a Willa Cather novel or Little House on the Prairie.
I love the word prairie. Not sure why, it just looks good. Plus, slightly French, always a draw for me.
I was supposed to have breakfast with three friends, fellows from high school. After two emails queries, I received one response. And, of course, no response this morning at all. Le sigh. I suppose I should just get on to the day. Perhaps I will later hear about a later meal.
To those of you non-Melville-ians, wondering whether to take the plunge, go for it. I will not say I am having an easy time of it, being far behind the other Kermit Place Readers, but it certainly has plenty of delights. Besides yesterday's quote about sleeping, I am enamoured of the phrase benevolent biscuit. Doesn't that make a smashing restaurant name? I guess I am pining for that breakfast.
Mr. Panezich also told us that we would never graduate from college unless we read The Iliad. I was always worried about that, but not enough to read it until long after I had graduated. Maybe the process would have been faster had I done as he required. I will say that I absorbed it much better when I attempted it as an adult. That said, I do recall trying to read it as a teenager. I was confused from the very start with the name Briseis and why those guys were fighting over her. I gave up soon thereafter. Plus, Agamemnon? That's a mouthful to say in East LA. And there was that ridiculous Signet edition with tiny type and tissue-thin paper.
What strikes me now is how we accept fighting over the possession of a woman for purposes of rape as a reasonable text for high schoolers. Although I was a bit more naive than most (more like purposefully numb/dumb) to lusts and the ownerships of men, I think I was a put off by that.I would hope that these days there is actual conversation about these issues before setting students to the welcome task of reading such a book. I loved it when I finally read it and was so happy that I had.
This all brings me to Mary Beard's new book, Women and Power and her interview with Pamela Paul on the New York Times Book Review Podcast. All recommended.
Goodness, but I am a chatterbox this morning and after only one cup of coffee.
And some morning Emily Dickinson
HOPE IS A SUBTLE GLUTTON
Hope is a subtle glutton;
He feeds upon the fair;
And yet, inspected closely,
What abstinence is there!
His is the halcyon table
That never served but one,
And whatsoever is consumed
The same amount remain.
Okay, I am not even entirely sure what that poem means, but that first line is a killer. And did you know that a halcyon is a kind of kingfisher? I did not. Makes the poem even better.
COULD MORTAL LIP DIVINE
Could mortal lip divine
The undeveloped freight
Of a delivered syllable
'T would crumble with the weight.
And put the load right on me.
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