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

READING IN MOVIES

Harry is shown reading the Stephen King novel "Misery". The film adaptation Misery (1990) would be the next film directed by Rob Reiner.
iMDb Trivia for When Harry Met Sally
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THE OLDEST SURVIVING WRITTEN TALE

The “Epic of Gilgamesh” Is the Oldest Surviving Written Tale
The ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh is often cited as the oldest known surviving story. This epic poem tells the tale of King Gilgamesh, the part-divine ruler of the ancient city of Urek, who battles terrible monsters sent forth by spiteful gods and seeks out a plant that brings eternal youth. Derived from sources that date back to approximately 2100 BCE, the first full version of Gilgamesh appeared on cuneiform tablets early the following millennium.
But while this would be an early example of a story that could be held and read, it’s more accurate to refer to Gilgamesh as the oldest known work of narrative literature. If you consider visual art capable of telling a story, then there are plenty of surviving creations that predate the written word."
"
HISTORY FACTS (February 2, 2025)
https://historyfacts.com/arts-culture/article/what-is-the-worlds-oldest-story/
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ONE OF TOLSTOY'S GREAT STRENGTHS

"One of Tolstoy’s great strengths is his understanding of just how much lying there is in war —- lying to one’s enemies, lying to one’s own side, lying to oneself. At times, the Russians wildly underestimate Napoleon and overestimate their own military skill; at other times, they’re ready to give up and declare Napoleon completely invincible. There’s a bit where a character is fleeing Moscow even as she claims Moscow will never be invaded, and when called on this, she stammers, “Well, I’m just leaving because everyone else is leaving!”

T.CAMPBELL, editor of WORDPLAY
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ON THE GENESIS OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

"We know a good deal about the genesis of the novel from Dostoevsky's letters and notebooks.  When he went abroad in July 1865 , he had plans in mind for two separate works -- one, a long novel to be called The Drunkards, dealing with 'the current problem of drunkeness' as he wrote when proposing it to the editor of Fatherland Notes (who turned it down); the other ,'the psychological account of a crime,' an idea that had first come to him in prison fifteen years earlier.'"

Richard Prevear. Forward to Crime and Punishment, translated and annotated by Richard Prevear and Larissa  Volokhonsky (New York: Vintage Classics,1993)



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FICTIONAL CHARACTERS AND HOW OLD THEY ARE

"Since they are not properly alive, people in books can be any age—they can be five hundred and two as easily as they can be twenty-seven. An age does not just fix a character in their book’s internal timeline; it establishes characters in relation to each other. In Great Expectations, decrepit Miss Havisham is, however improbably, in her mid-thirties when Pip first meets her as a boy, but if we understand her as somebody who has willingly thrown her youth away, her age makes a little more sense. Juliet, in Romeo and Juliet, is thirteen, which puts her firmly still under the control of her mother and father. Middlemarch’s Dorothea Brooke is nineteen, as is Jane Eyre, but their respective husbands are around forty-eight and forty. The near-thirty-year age gap between Dorothea and Mr. Casaubon is one of many signs that they are ill-matched in marriage; older, discouraged by his failures, Casaubon experiences her youthful enthusiasm almost as mockery. Jane’s Mr. Rochester’s age, on the other hand, marks him out as somebody who is old enough to have damage and a dark secret or two. The gap in their ages is a gap in experience. An older woman would recognize Casaubon’s insecurity, for instance, for what it is—vindictive resentment that cannot be healed by adoration. Inexperienced Jane offers Rochester the chance at a new life unstained by his past mistakes. (Or, at least, he thinks she does; things don’t turn out that way.)'

Anne Elliot Is Twenty-Seven
B. D. McClay in THE PARIS REVIEW (WEEKLY) MARCH 3!, 2024
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BRITAIN'S OBSESSION WITH PIRATES

"The end of British piracy was, oddly, the start of Britain's pirate obsession. There was a hit play in 1713, 'The Successful Pyrate.' In 1719, Daniel Defoe published 'Robinson Crusoe,' seemingly based on the travails of a famed buccaneer who'd been marooned. (Defoe wrote a proper pirate novel in 1720.) In 1724, the much read 'General History' set the terms for how we still discuss piracy. Just as pirates were dying out, they were becoming immortal."

Daniel Immerwahr. "The Power of the Pirates" in The New Yorker (July 22, 2024)
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HORATIO AT THE BRIDGE
"I hope my young readers will never know
the hungry craving after food..." Horatio Alger

Horatio's heroes
In ragged clothes
Are sure to know
Sorry orphan cries
Of selling matches
Door to door,

Miseries of blacking boots.
But hard work,
Piety, attending church,
Regular savings, 
A lucky break or two,
Striving for what is

Useful ("Povery is no bar
To advancement")
WIll land you squarely
In America's soft lap.
The winds of fortune 
Are sure to blow

Into the aching arms
Of Ragged Dick,
Or Sam or Joe,
For they surely know
That up....Up, up,
Up,  up, up, up

Is the only way to go.


Louis Phillips