BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: THE JOYS OF READING

">“The 75th anniversary of the publication of Le 
Petit Prince in France is commemorated  by a 
single 1.08 e stamp available in a sheet of 15. 
First available in the United States in 1943, 
it was banned by Vichy France and not published 
until after the liberation. The novella was 
written by writer and aviator Antoine 
de Saint-Exupery and is the story of a young 
prince who visits various planets and learns 
about ‘loneliness, friendship, friendship, 
love, and loss.’ “

William Silvester. “New World Issues” in The
American Philatelist (September 2021)
**

ON THE BEST SELLING NOVEL --THE DOGS OF WAR --AND 
 A SUCCESSFUL INVASION TO OVER THROW A REPUBLIC

‘There need only be five rules, Strike hard, 
strike fast, and strike by night. Come unexpected 
and come by sea. Parenthetically, the eventual 
book was imitated twice. In 1975, the French 
mercenary, Bob Denard attacked and took over 
the Comoro Islands, at the top of the Mozambique 
Channel.
   “He was acting with the knowledge, assistance, 
and on behalf of the French government. Amusingly, 
as the French mercenaries came up the beach in the 
predawn darkness, they all carried a paperback edition 
of Les Chiens de Guerre (The Dogs of War) so that they
could constantly find out what they were supposed to
do next. Denard succeeded because he came by sea.”

Frederick Forsyth. The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue.
(New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2015)

**
ON THE DISCOVERY OF POETRY BY A WORLD WAR II SOLDIER

“I discovered poetry as a soldier during World 
War II.In 1943, my unit, having finished Basic 
Training in Miami Beach, was boarding a troop 
train for a slow journey of several days across 
the country to an unknown destination, when a 
Red Cross worker handed us a bag of necessities 
for the trip, a toothbrush, comb, candy bar –
and a paperback. My book was, fatefully, a 
Louis Untermeyer anthology of a great poems 
of the English Language, which I devoured on 
the train. Three days later when I got off 
that train I knew what I wanted to be –a poet
 – in spite of, at the age of eighteen, 
never having written a line.”

Edward Field. The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag.
 (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin, 
2005)
**
ON UPLIFTING POEMS & BOOKS FOR CHILDREN 
IN THE VICTORIAN ERA

“The rot set in with Lewis Carroll’s Alice, who, 
‘though slightly too passive to qualify as one 
of the new breed of naughty children, has great 
trouble trying to remember the improving poems 
she has been made to learn and instead recites 
inspired nonsensical parodies’ (Peter Keating), 
and with such authors of books for children a
s S.R.Crockett, whose The Surprising Adventures 
of Sir Toady Lion (1897) bore the provocative 
subtitle, ‘An Improving History for Old Boys, 
Good Boys, Bad Boys, Big Boys, Little Boys, 
Little Boys, Cow-Boys, and Tom-Boys’.1897 
also saw the publication of What Maisie Knew. 
Henry James didn’t go for subtitles.”

D. J. Enright. Interplay: A Kind of Commonplace Book
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991)


**
ON THE SMELL OF GREAT BOOKS

“I love the fact that I went to the library and 
read every book there. So I loved touching the 
books, smelling the books. The great books are 
best not only when they read well, but they smell 
nice. A new book smells fine, but an old book 
smells even better. Books are that important to me.”

Ray Bradbury.  Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and
Other Conversations, edited by Sam Weller (Brooklyn: 
Melville House, 2014)

**

ON THE  SMELL OF NEW BOOKS

“…my sweetest memory of college is on the nuzzling, 
sedate side. At the beginning of each semester, I 
would stand before the books required for my courses, 
prolonging the moment, like a kid looking through 
the store window at a bicycle he knows his parents 
will buy for him. I would soon possess these things, 
but the act of buying them could be put off. Why 
rush it? The required books for each course were 
laid out in shelves in the college bookstore. I 
would stare at them a long time, lifting them, 
turning through the pages, pretending I didn’t 
really need this one or that, laying it down 
and then picking it up again. If no one was 
looking, I would even smell a few of them and 
feel the pages….”

David Denby. Great Books (New York: Simon 
and Schuster, 1996)
**


ERNEST HEMINGWAY MENTIONS JUST ABOUT THE BEST BOOK 
EVER WRITTEN ON THE CLAP


“ Now take The Big Sky by [A.B. Guthrie] . That was 
a very good book in many ways, and it was very good 
on one of the diseases…just about the best book ever 
written on the clap.” Hemingway smiled.

Robert Manning. “Hemingway in Cuba” in 
The Atlantic Monthly (December 1954)

**

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM
STUDENTS IN MY ENGLISH CLASS

The Wife of Bath
Is an important character
In The Grapes of Wrath.
**


WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM
STUDENTS IN MY ENGLISH CLASS (2)

None of my students think it odd
That Captain Queeg
Is with Queequeg
On the U.S. Peguod.

LJP