Bibliophagia

2007-08-04T09:58:00.000-05:00

atrabilious = 1 given to or marked by melancholy : gloomy; 2 ill-natured, peevish

2007-07-18T12:07:00.000-05:00

fistic = Function: adjective
: of or relating to boxing or to fighting with the fists <fistic prowess>

2007-07-12T13:06:00.000-05:00

"She must now learn, if she would not be ridiculous, since she cannot bring her deeds up to the level of her words, to reduce her words to the level of her performances."
--from the British Quarterly Review, 1871

I came across this bit of text while proofreading for Distributed Proofreaders. (It's 577.png, if anyone's really interested.) Here the author is describing the state of affairs in France following the devastating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. Good advice, even today, n'est-ce pas?

crocodile tears

2007-07-05T18:55:00.000-05:00

From Othello, Act IV, scene 1:

Des. I have not deserved this. 235

Lod. My lord, this would not be believed in Venice,
Though I should swear I saw 't: 'tis very much:
Make her amends; she weeps.

Oth. O devil, devil!
If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile. 240

So that's where "crocodile tears" comes from!

Courtesy of pgdp.net :)

2007-03-24T23:18:00.000-05:00

"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over."

~ Aneurin Bevan,
Welsh labor leader & politician (1897 - 1960)

2007-03-13T11:56:00.000-05:00

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."

-- G. K. Chesterton

This quotation struck me rather strongly, probably because of a recent conversation on abortion rights, the ethics/morality of abortion, and the logical consistency of seemingly every possible position on the matter. In many ways, I think this comment from Chesterton summarizes my own feelings. After all, immoral != illegal.

2007-03-03T00:18:00.000-05:00

"I suppose I am moderately devout, but I don't feel impelled to pray in the high places. (I'm more likely to cry out of the depths!) Instead, I climb upward to bask."

~ Uncle Rogi

The Surveillance
(Book One of Intervention)
by Julian May

First of all, Julian May is delightful -- and a little bit scary. She has entire worlds planned out and foreshadows things that materialize eight books later. It's amazing.

In this little section, Uncle Rogi explains his desire to climb mountains -- and that of other people with metafaculties. These two sentences struck me -- is there a difference between "prayer" and "basking"? I think so. And it's the basking that I've been missing.

2007-02-24T13:56:00.000-05:00

plangent = having a loud reverberating sound

"Plangent" shows up at the end of Ngaio Marsh's mystery Killer Dolphin. (It's the first book featuring Peregrine Jay.) Anyway, one of the characters reports thinking of The Cherry Orchard at the time just before the murder. Later, it's revealed that a guitar string had been plucked -- and the Chekov play ends on a "single plangent note."

This is one of those words that I've read multiple times but never bothered to look up, because I could figure it out from context. But it's always good to know what words actually mean. :)

2007-02-19T13:14:00.000-05:00

golliwog = a grotesque black doll; a person resembling a golliwog

Apparently, Bertha Upton (American writer) published a children's novel in the late nineteenth century that used the term.

Most recently, I came across "golliwog" in Julian May's Pliocene Exile series; May frequently uses the word to describe the trickster Aiken Drum.

2007-02-18T23:48:00.000-05:00

Why doesn't Harry Potter see the thestrals pulling the school carriages at the end of Book 4?

2007-02-17T19:46:00.000-05:00

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."
-- Pablo Picasso

2006-12-16T16:24:00.000-05:00

P.J. Tracy, Dead Run

2006-12-13T17:12:00.000-05:00

P.J. Tracy, Live Bait

2006-12-11T16:06:00.000-05:00

P.J. Tracy, Monkeewrench

2006-12-11T12:31:00.000-05:00

P.J. Tracy, Snow Blind

2006-12-11T12:30:00.000-05:00

*Harold S. Kushner, Overcoming Life's Disappointments

2006-12-08T18:26:00.000-05:00

*David Baldacci, The Collectors

2006-12-07T21:03:00.000-05:00

"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."
-- James Baldwin

2006-12-05T13:35:00.000-05:00

David Baldacci, The Camel Club

The story that begins here -- featuring a nice Secret Service agent, a man named Oliver Stone (who we later learn was a skilled CIA operative), a decidedly different terrorist plot planned by an American to achieve peace on earth -- is continued in a new book that my dad loaned me. I started it and realized that I couldn't remember anything about The Camel Club. So I reread it.

It's a good read, with more texture and depth than the standard murder mystery or international spy thriller. Almost up there with classic Ludlum, I think.

Still, I did call that the newbie Secret Service agent was actually Oliver Stone's daughter. Otherwise, the plot twists were unexpected yet deserved.

imports

2006-12-05T01:12:00.000-05:00

From 10 March 2006:
quodlibet =free-ranging conversation on any pleasing topic

At least, that's the definition offered in A.J. Jacobs's delightful book, The Know-It-All, an account of his quest to read the Encyclopedia Britannica. I really like this definition.

Unfortuately, the OED's definition makes this word potentially much less useful. It says that a quodlibet is "any question in philosophy or theology proposed as an exercise in argument or disputation; hence, a scholastic debate, thesis, or exercise on a question of this kind." Also, in music, "a fanciful combination of several airs; a fantasia, medley."

Still, I think we should all indulge in quodlibet on a regular basis. :)

***
From 8 March 2006:
irenic = pacifc, non-polemic

Hmm, "irenic" is a good thing. I'd always given it a negative connotation.

For the record, I came across this in an article by Tony Judt, in "A Story Still to Be Told," New York Review of Books 50, no. 5 (23 March 2006), p.25. It's a review of John Gaddis's newest book, and Judt is rather disgusted with it and its idealization of U.S. foreign policymakers during the Cold War.

***
From 2 February 2006:

The idea which a Parisian has of a tree is that of a convenient appendage to a lamp.

— Henry Tuckerman, mid-19th century,
quoted by Robert Herbert, Impressionism, page 37

***

From 30 January 2006:

The test of an advanced society is not in how many millionaires it can produce, but is how many law-abiding, hardworking, highly respected, and self-respecting loyal citizens it can produce. The success of such a venture is a measure of the success of our national enterprise.

-- John Hope Franklin, Mirror to America,
quoted by Willaim H. McNeill, "The Man Who Changed History,"
New York Review of Books LIII no. 1(12 January 2006), 29.

Franklin here was talking about African-Americans and the rise of the civil rights movement. But his statement is much more broadly applicable. And rightly states the matter. If this "test" were adopted today, I think we'd have a much less materialistic society. Who knows? Perhaps politics would be kinder, too.

Take II

2006-12-05T01:05:00.000-05:00

I've neglected this blog shamelessly over the past months, but I've got great plans. Also, in the interests of simplifying my life, I've decided to combine all of my "word" blogs -- what used to be A Reader's Tale, The Quote Log, and The Word List. Thematically, they all work together and all the posts tend to derive from the same sources. (Besides, the other two weren't all that substantial anyway.)

By the way, bibliophagia isn't a real word, though bibliophagist and bibliophagic are. They were, however, not available as names, and I like the way bibliophagia sounds. :)

2006-06-16T08:20:00.000-05:00

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

The other night, I caught a bit of the American Film Institute's Top 100 Most Inspiring Movies special. Much of it was predictable, though it made me wish for a netflix queue. One of the movies features was To Kill a Mockingbird -- which reminded me that I hadn't read the novel since . . . 9th grade and couldn't really remember the plot.

So I just finished reading it. And I've a renewed appreciation for why it's a classic. I think I also caught a lot more of the subtext than I did the first time around. And we should nominate Atticus Finch as the true American hero.

2006-04-13T14:21:00.000-05:00

John Le Carre, The Little Drummer Girl

2006-04-05T22:43:00.001-05:00

Dick Francis, Wild Horses

For some reason, I've been wanting to reread this one for a while. So today's airplane trip proved the perfect opportunity.

2006-04-05T22:43:00.000-05:00

*Jeffrey Archer, False Impression