#downphoto
"When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility."
pickI enjoyed this book. I loved the language. In a lot of ways the book felt like a behind the scenes tour of the canon of Greek Mythology. The gods' noble deeds were just moments in their lives, and like the mortals they looked down on, were driven by desires for fame and power; succumbing to greed and petty jealousies. Circe is redeemed from her ignoble history.
"I looked at her, as vivid in my doorway as the moon in the autumn sky. Her eyes held mine, gray and steady. It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.
"No," I said. "But I have yarn, and a loom. Come."
We read Stiff for book club this month. I read it a couple of years ago and it's still an entertaining history of what happens to your body after you die and the history of care of the dead. Naturally, I made cookies.
"What with the parcels and the snow it looked just as if he had been doing his Christmas shopping."
I'd be slightly worried by the turn my husband's reading has taken, except that this book looks fun and I almost bought it last month.
"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." Jorge Luis Borges
