Posted on by evamarasca · 2 Comments

Shakespeare vs. Pratchett

On the day no. 11 of Zero to Hero we got to explore the blogoverse and left our marks in a way of comments on various blogs. I stumbled upon this fantastic post. Firstly I realised that I will have to schedule several catch ups with some of the authors on the list and their books, and secondly that I am really not reading enough – what happened to the times when I finished two books in a week!? Do the days suddenly have fewer hours?

It also got me thinking. Funnily enough – guess what is the challenge of day 12! – Extending one of your comments into a post! I know I am little bit behind again but the work has started, the old laptop is still dead, and I am only discovering the secrets of the newly unpackaged Mac…and yes I am very good at finding excuses.

Shakespeare vs Pratchett

Opinions are all around us – presented to us or even forced upon us – by parents, friends, schools, media or random people on the street. Some may think their opinion is the only right one (and I usually find it mildly annoying when I have to conclude that they are actually right).  We can choose to do many things with these opinions – accept, ignore or transform them. And sometimes the opinions just sink on us, get mingled with our own ideas, experiences and dreams.

I think loving a book, or indeed any form of art, has very little to do with its quality, perhaps not for literary critics, but I, the common reader – I am looking for connections, reality escape, entertainment. I do not have the statistics but I am pretty sure that 50 Shades trilogy was read (and enjoyed) by more people than the epic War and Peace.  To be perfectly honest, if I ever find myself on a deserted island, I would rather have Harry Potter than Dostoyevsky for a company…which is admittedly rather different situation to the question presented in Paul’s blog. (Well, I did take the selfish individual route.)

So The Sonnets or Good Omens?

No one should have the right to decide which book is worth saving more. Every book that was loved by at least one reader is worth saving.

Posted on by evamarasca · 1 Comment

Tired

Razors cut eyes. I’m tired.

Want to write, feel wired.

Memories in head are hired

and new lives acquired.

Sleep! Not yet. Wait. Tired.

Live the dream, reality fired

mind all alive and inspired.

Body dead, sleep desired.

Posted on by evamarasca

Nicholas Was… by Neil Gaiman

Nicholas was…

older than sin, and his beard could grow

no whiter. He wanted to die.

The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did

not speak his language, but conversed in their own,

twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible

rituals, when they were no actually

working in the factories.

Once every year they forced him, sobbing

and protesting, into Endless Night. During

the journey he would stand near every child

in the world, leave one of the dwarves’

invisible gifts by its bedside. The

children slept, frozen in time.

He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and

Judas. His punishment was harsher.

Ho.

Ho.

Ho.

From Smoke and Mirrors

Posted on by evamarasca

Quote of the Day

 

“We can run for miles to achieve something. But it means nothing if we run in circles.”

 

~I tried to find out who said this…but no joy. It is possible it was me…don’t remember. I found this in my notebook from 2005.

Posted on by evamarasca

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

 

….The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit the bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement’s designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, where looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn’t supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started…

 

I have missed the oportunity to read this book at the right time. 

Posted on by evamarasca

Butterflies

 

The air smelled of apples and fresh cut grass. Our foreheads were touching and your breath danced on my face like summer breeze. Your fingers travelled in all directions while I tried to tame the words that threaten to escape my mouth before sounding pretty and perfect. I felt like a moth trapped in a lampshade.

‘I love you’, I said and met your eyes, a ‘but’ at the tip of my tongue.

You stopped the word with your lips. ‘I don’t want to hear the but’, you whispered in your ragged shallow voice that echoed through every cell of my body. You kissed me again before I had a chance to reply. All those elegantly arranged words in my mind began to untangle into letters and the letters transformed into fluttering wings of butterflies. I tried to catch them. I did. But they were dancing in no order, creating colourful chaos and they were mesmerising. After a while I stopped trying. I just watched and enjoyed their show, the ‘but’ lost in a swarm of butterflies.