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What'cha Reading?

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
I finished The Lessons of History and it was awesome, I have a book Brainhack, by Neil Pavitt, that I'm supposed to read and review but I'm putting it off, I am reading A Century of Progress about time travelling nazis and anti-nazis, sort of WW2 across time, though my interest in it waxes and wanes, despite it being a really well written action thriller with good pace.
 

Olm the Water King

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Four Quartets by Eliot.

My favorite part of the poem:

Four Quartets - 2 East Coker

FOUR QUARTETS

T.S. Eliot

EAST COKER
(No. 2 of 'Four Quartets')


I

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.

In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon,
Where you lean against a bank while a van passes,
And the deep lane insists on the direction
Into the village, in the electric heat
Hypnotised. In a warm haze the sultry light
Is absorbed, not refracted, by grey stone.
The dahlias sleep in the empty silence.
Wait for the early owl.

In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie—
A dignified and commodiois sacrament.
Two and two, necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire
Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,
Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn. Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the constellations
The time of milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.

Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.

. . .
 

Olm the Water King

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"When I bent my head in contemplation and read in the famous books of the leaders in gnosis, I recognized the disparities in their states through their sayings. It was clear to me that the subtleties and allusions of those who are rooted in gnosis are bestowed by the states that come upon them, and I saw that the understanding of that knowledge is difficult. Language becomes manifest in the form of shathiyat particularly for those intoxicated ones who are drowned in the waves of eternity, on account of the thundering clouds experienced in the moment of profound sighs, in the reality of overwhelming raptures. From each of their words, a world of learned men is filled with consternation. The deniers have drawn forth the sword of ignorance from the scabbard of envy, and from foolishness are wielding it themselves . . . God's jealous ones cried out from the wombs of the hidden world, "O witness of secrets and niche of lights! Free the holy spirits from denial by the bankrupt, show forth the long past of those who kill and crucify in sacrifice! Say the secret of the shath of the lovers, and the expression of the agitation of the intoxicated, in the language of the people of the inner reality and the outer law! Say every subtlety in the form of knowledge connected with a spiritual state, and the guidances of Qur'an and hadith. (Say all this as) a subtle and marvellous commentary..."

"The principles of symbolism in shaht are from three sources: the source of the Qur'an, the source of hadith, and the source of the inspiration of the saints. But tha which comes in the Qur'an is the mention of the Attributes and the isolated letters, and that which is in hadith is the vision of the clothing of the human with the divine (iltibas). That which is in the inspiration of the saints is the Qualities of God in the form of the clothing of the human with the divine. This takes place in the station of passionate love and the reality of unification, in gnosis and unknowings (nakirat), in divine ruses (makariyat). The proclamation of the Attribute belongs to those who are "rooted in knowledge" (Qur. 3.7), for their station is the contemplation of eternity. The deserts on which their paths lie are too hot for conventional wayfarers, who have no aptitude for the comprehension of the enigmas of the symbolism of the Attributes. God's shath is that symbolism which proclaims essential union (Pers. 'ayn-i jam') and the clothing of the human with the divine Attributes in the station of passionate love; in that station is the knowleddge ('ilm) which was God's qualification in pre-eternity. With that (shath) He discourses to the famous among His lovers..."

- Abu Muhammad Sheikh Ruzbehan Baqli (1128–1209), Iranian poet, mystic, and sufi from Fasa, Fars, Iran., "Doctor Ecstaticus”
 

Olm the Water King

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Added to list:

Umberto Eco: The Prague Cemetery (2011)

Nineteenth-century Europe - from Turin to Prague to Paris - abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Conspiracies rule history. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. Italian republicans strangle priests with their own intestines. French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate black masses at night.

Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plots, and massacres. From the unification of Italy to the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair to notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Europe is in tumult and everyone needs a scapegoat. But what if, behind all of these conspiracies both real and imagined, lay one lone man?

And what if that evil genius created the most infamous document of all? Eco takes his readers on an unforgettable journey through the underbelly of world-shattering events. "The Prague Cemetery" is Umberto Eco at his most exciting, a novel immediately hailed as his masterpiece.

The Prague Cemetery (2011)
 

Tengri

New member
Joined
Mar 19, 2016
Messages
558
Just started Olaf Stapledon's First and Last Men. I have high hopes of some insightful reading
 

Forever

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I tried to respond but I confused myself.

Read your response to my response which your response was responded to my response which was originally your response and the feeling is mutual.
 

Kas

Fabula rasa
Joined
Apr 22, 2015
Messages
2,552
Pedro Páramo Juan Rulfo
How could I not know this author before? This book is fabulous.
 

Forever

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Finished The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

Basically, everyone's right on some things, everyone's wrong on some things. Become a pluralist, there is not one prevailing morality that is right for all societies. All moral beliefs come from intuitions not the "reasoned" creatures we think we are. And morality isn't a simple matter.

Oh yeah, and embrace groups more. You'll feel amazing.

:cheese:
 
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