Home
Reveries of a Bachelor - Ik Marvel
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 640
Popular in 1850, I found a first edition of this at a garage sale and thought to expand my tastes.
Now, this has been a simple read (thank goodness), just - despite the title, entirely irrelevant. The quaint philosophical reflections of a Bachelor in front of his fire; Chapters about the joy a wife and child might bring him, chapters then arguing against the lack of freedom, or speculating upon the heartbreak he'd experience when his wife/child die, etc. Reveries mean "daydreams", yet in this instance it would have been preferable he keep the dreams in the airy clouds rather than set them to paper.
Funny how tastes change, he actually had a good reputation. Unfortunately he's not aged well.
Perhaps charming and picaresque, but I've grown a little annoyed with the shilly-shallying dilly-dallying bachelor who can't commit and prefers to speculate on all the pleasures he will never possess for fear of losing them.
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Grant_Mitchell
Works online: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/authors/search/?query=Mitchell,+Donald+Grant
Time now to read something a little bit different.
Italian Hours - Henry James
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 573
So, in the vein of travel literature, a collection of James's notes on Italy in various chapters.
He discusses Ruskin, enthuses about long forgotten and minor painters, out of fashion: Tintoretto, Carpaccio, Titian, dozens of others, enthusing and curating according to his tastes, postcard descriptions of the people, the pervading melancholy, and I'm rather haunted that I know Venice of this age, from Turner, or abundant other artists, or maybe some previous life, I recognize it well enough from his descriptions, I've never been, and - strangely, am not particular inclined, I have the feeling that I would somehow know it all, there would be that recognition of it, a deja-vu from the countless books I've read and paintings I've seen. Or that, so hyped by the preceding it could only let me down.
Anyways, I'm not a fan of his style, something about it - it's hard to put my finger on - not his writing or prose, more where he turns his attention that disinterests me. And, upon reflection, not even this. But what then? Sentences that run on a hundred or more words, with dozens of semicolons and commas, that meander around my beleaguered attention span, I would have done as well to look at a few dozens of paintings in a gallery as I would have to read this book.
Summer, 2023
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 511
It's here. It was here, really, about a week ago, but the past couple of days it's really settled in. 30 degree weather, sunny days, cool nights, every tree now in full leaf, it's going to be a glorious summer. Only it's about 6 weeks early, but after the winter that seems really to be a trifle.
But I wonder, 30+ degrees May 15, what will the end of June bring? Fire season? +40 degree weather? Already the drive home is interrupted by emergency alerts and evacuations for Northern BC. Fires, burning out of control, Dawson, Stoddard.Creeks...
And the nights, cool breeze and scintillating stars and you wonder if she's taken the time to see the same...
Garage Sale Season Begins
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 524
The season begins. One advertised, but driving around I find a few more. This morning's treasures:
\
A miniature accordion, a "holy toast" miracle maker, ...
Quite possibly the worst piece of devilish wire-wrapping I've seen. And I've done it.
And, finally, the one treasure of the morning:
a case with 2 gameboy advances, 2 chargers (one for the car), and 49 games. $40.00.
Somehow I thought the kids would be a little more excited by this one, the nostalgia and all, but I have yet to have a nibble. In any event I won't have lost any money on it...
Page 154 of 887