In addition to our monthly reading, I think I might occasionally send out a very good paragraph from something I’ve read lately. And you’re all very welcome to share recent paragraphs that you loved in the comments, too. Think of it as a shared commonplace book, where we can jot down things that struck us. And a nice thing to remember when reading—there will be somewhere to share the page you dogeared.
“Right there was our catch-22: Because the country was so inaccessible, disabled people had a hard time getting out and doing things—which made us invisible. So we were easy to discount and ignore. Until institutions were forced to accommodate us we would remain locked out and invisible—and as long as we were locked out and invisible, no one would see our true force and would dismiss us.” (Judy Heumann, Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist)
"'If you knew the gift of God!' The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him." (My favorite paragraph of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2560)
“It is traditional in statements like this Translator’s Note to bewail one’s own inadequacy when trying to be faithful to the original. Like many contemporary translation theorists, I believe that we need to rethink the terms in which we talk about translation. My translation is, like all translations, an entirely different text from the original poem. Translation always, necessarily, involves interpretation; there is no such thing as a translation that provides anything like a transparent window through which a reader can see the original. The gendered metaphor of the ‘faithful’ translation, whose worth is always secondary to that of a male-authored original, acquires a particular edge in the context of a translation by a woman of _The Odyssey_, a poem that is deeply invested in female fidelity and male dominance. I have taken very seriously the task of understanding the language of the original text as deeply as I can, and working through what Homer may have meant in archaic and classical Greece. I have also taken seriously the task of creating a new and coherent English text, which conveys something of that understanding but operates within an entirely different cultural context. The Homeric text grows inside my translation, like Athena’s olive tree inside the bed made by Odysseus, ‘with delicate long leaves, full-grown and green, / as sturdy as a pillar.’” –Emily Wilson’s Homer’s The Odyssey :)
From Robert Hugh Bensons ”The Friendship of Christ”
“There are moments in it of bewildering bliss, at communion or in prayer – moments when it appears (as indeed it is) to be the one supreme experience of life; moments when the whole being is shaken and transfused with love, when the Sacred Heart is no longer merely an object for adoration, but a pulsating thing that beats against our own; when the Bridegroom’s Arms are about us, and His kiss on our lips. There are periods too of tranquillity and steady warmth, of an affection at once strong and reasonable, of an esteem and an admiration satisfying to the will and the intellect, as well as to the sensitive or emotional parts of our nature.”
“Faust is a Christian mystery play written by a pagan. As we have said, Faust ends where Dante ends. But his peregrinations have led him through regions which Dante did not know ; and he is made richer by new errors and new insights. Unlike the pilgrim of The Divine Comedy who was led by the child-virgin Beatrice, Faust and Raskolinikov are reformed by women who have been broken by the world-the mad cold-murderess and the prostitute. This emphasizes the tattered and the bedraggled that are characteristic of our time. And yet, with all the devastation we may have wrought-the heart open to infused wisdom remains the heart of immutable virginity.” From Karl Stern’s “The Flight from Women”
I like this idea very much! A more human way to sample books.
I've found myself reading about the Holocaust this summer, so the paragraph below is (unsurprisingly) grim:
"Many Germans and many Nazis, probably an overwhelming majority of them, must have been tempted *not* to murder, *not* to rob, *not* to let their neighbors go off to their doom (for that the Jews were transported to their doom they knew, of course, even though many of them may not have known the gruesome details), and not to become accomplices in all these crimes by benefitting from them. But, God knows, they had learned how to resist temptation."
I'm working my way through Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, and I can't get enough of the narrative voice:
"However much one hears about individuals, the picture formed in the mind rarely approximates to the reality. So it was with Mrs Maclintick. I was not prepared for her in the flesh. When she opened the door to us, her formidable discontent with life swept across the threshold in scorching, blasting waves. She was a small dark woman with a touch of gipsy about her, this last possibility suggested by sallow skin and bright black eyes. Her black hair was worn in a fringe. Some men might have found her attractive. I was not among them, although at the same time not blind to the fact that she might be capable of causing trouble where men were concerned. Mrs Maclintick said nothing at the sight of us, only shrugging her shoulders. Then, standing starkly aside, as if resigned to our entry in spite of an overpowering distaste she felt for the two of us, she held the door open wide. We passed within the Maclintick threshold." (Anthony Powell, Casanova's Chinese Restaurant)
“Right there was our catch-22: Because the country was so inaccessible, disabled people had a hard time getting out and doing things—which made us invisible. So we were easy to discount and ignore. Until institutions were forced to accommodate us we would remain locked out and invisible—and as long as we were locked out and invisible, no one would see our true force and would dismiss us.” (Judy Heumann, Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist)
"'If you knew the gift of God!' The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him." (My favorite paragraph of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2560)
“It is traditional in statements like this Translator’s Note to bewail one’s own inadequacy when trying to be faithful to the original. Like many contemporary translation theorists, I believe that we need to rethink the terms in which we talk about translation. My translation is, like all translations, an entirely different text from the original poem. Translation always, necessarily, involves interpretation; there is no such thing as a translation that provides anything like a transparent window through which a reader can see the original. The gendered metaphor of the ‘faithful’ translation, whose worth is always secondary to that of a male-authored original, acquires a particular edge in the context of a translation by a woman of _The Odyssey_, a poem that is deeply invested in female fidelity and male dominance. I have taken very seriously the task of understanding the language of the original text as deeply as I can, and working through what Homer may have meant in archaic and classical Greece. I have also taken seriously the task of creating a new and coherent English text, which conveys something of that understanding but operates within an entirely different cultural context. The Homeric text grows inside my translation, like Athena’s olive tree inside the bed made by Odysseus, ‘with delicate long leaves, full-grown and green, / as sturdy as a pillar.’” –Emily Wilson’s Homer’s The Odyssey :)
From Robert Hugh Bensons ”The Friendship of Christ”
“There are moments in it of bewildering bliss, at communion or in prayer – moments when it appears (as indeed it is) to be the one supreme experience of life; moments when the whole being is shaken and transfused with love, when the Sacred Heart is no longer merely an object for adoration, but a pulsating thing that beats against our own; when the Bridegroom’s Arms are about us, and His kiss on our lips. There are periods too of tranquillity and steady warmth, of an affection at once strong and reasonable, of an esteem and an admiration satisfying to the will and the intellect, as well as to the sensitive or emotional parts of our nature.”
“Faust is a Christian mystery play written by a pagan. As we have said, Faust ends where Dante ends. But his peregrinations have led him through regions which Dante did not know ; and he is made richer by new errors and new insights. Unlike the pilgrim of The Divine Comedy who was led by the child-virgin Beatrice, Faust and Raskolinikov are reformed by women who have been broken by the world-the mad cold-murderess and the prostitute. This emphasizes the tattered and the bedraggled that are characteristic of our time. And yet, with all the devastation we may have wrought-the heart open to infused wisdom remains the heart of immutable virginity.” From Karl Stern’s “The Flight from Women”
I like this idea very much! A more human way to sample books.
I've found myself reading about the Holocaust this summer, so the paragraph below is (unsurprisingly) grim:
"Many Germans and many Nazis, probably an overwhelming majority of them, must have been tempted *not* to murder, *not* to rob, *not* to let their neighbors go off to their doom (for that the Jews were transported to their doom they knew, of course, even though many of them may not have known the gruesome details), and not to become accomplices in all these crimes by benefitting from them. But, God knows, they had learned how to resist temptation."
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem
I'm working my way through Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, and I can't get enough of the narrative voice:
"However much one hears about individuals, the picture formed in the mind rarely approximates to the reality. So it was with Mrs Maclintick. I was not prepared for her in the flesh. When she opened the door to us, her formidable discontent with life swept across the threshold in scorching, blasting waves. She was a small dark woman with a touch of gipsy about her, this last possibility suggested by sallow skin and bright black eyes. Her black hair was worn in a fringe. Some men might have found her attractive. I was not among them, although at the same time not blind to the fact that she might be capable of causing trouble where men were concerned. Mrs Maclintick said nothing at the sight of us, only shrugging her shoulders. Then, standing starkly aside, as if resigned to our entry in spite of an overpowering distaste she felt for the two of us, she held the door open wide. We passed within the Maclintick threshold." (Anthony Powell, Casanova's Chinese Restaurant)