Gawk and science marching on

Gawk: Not only staring stupidly ans verve, but also noun for cukoo and fool.

From Out of the Silent Planet, which I'm loving, loving, loving. Reminds me of "...Y los marcianos invitaron a los hombres" de Ebly, mostly because of the vivid descriptions and the outdated science. And the wishful moments where it down-right waves it as if saying "suspend disbelief and suppose this is possible, just let me tell the story". It's good enough that it even gets away with it, even if I'm not a kid.

Easy to read and highly enjoyable adventure with a good dash of though provoking and spiritual streak. And extremely quotable.

I want to buy it.

Sorn, Lewis and authors thematics

Sorn: It sounds like the name of a laughably bad guy of a csi-fi flick. It's obtaining food and lodge from another presuming it wont be denied. Comes from an old vassal obligation to lords called sorren.

Got that little one from a book of Lewis, from his sci-fi actually. I'm ravenously reading Out of the Silent Planet, and enjoying the allegory (applicability, bah!). It's somewhat spiritual, but that's to par with the author's usual theme.

You know, just some days back we were talking about this with mom: about how an author usually has ONE theme, because it's their theme, the theme of their lives or their minds, the one that builds in their souls and ends up spilling in paper. I'm talking about big game here. Gabriel García Marquez, Mark Twain, Dickens, Asimov, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Orwell, Verne, London, Buck, Ende. And why not, even King and Allende.

Thoughts?

The "Seva Ascendes" bit that surely everyone sweared at

You are reading Lolita. You vow to the masterful writing, even as you cheerfully grimace at the necessity of researching some word every other page. The guy even seems to enjoy sending you on multiple destination voyages that somewhere end in dirty, dirty places and meanings.

And then you come to this bit:

"Seva ascendes, pulsata, brulans, kitzelans, dementissima. Elevator clatterans, pausa, clatterans, populus in corridoro. Hanc nisi mors mihi adimet nemo! Juncea puellula, jo pensavo fondissime, nobserva nihil quidquam"

And no amount of erudition can preclude a deluge of colorful expletives. Personally, I can more or less intuit about half of what is there. So I'll say it with all the respect and admiration in the world: Nabokov sucks.

So here (be advised, some of it is gibberish resembling a word in some or various languages):

"Sap ascends, pulsates, burning, itching, most insane. Elevator clattering, pausing, clattering, people in the corridor. No one but death would take this one from me! Slender little girl, I thought most fondly, observing nothing at all."
- (lifted, more or less, from Alfred Appel's annotated version)

Wonderful, exasperating book.

Knackerman and the curious origins of everyday expressions

Knackerman: Comes from knacker, that was (is?) the trade of rendering animals not fit from human consumption (like road kills, old beast and the like). From there comes the expression knackered, as in, you feel old, dead and ready to be taken to the knacker.


Interesting, huh? Sometimes regency romances pay in unexpected ways.

(Yeah, I'm taking a breather from Lolita; pausing every couple of pages for a word search makes it a grueling reading. Awesome writing, though.)

Coevals, tiddles and the deluge that comes with pedantic characters

Paleopedology: Study of soils of past geological eras. 

Coevals: Contemporaries.

Fascinum: An image says more than a thousand words

Fourbe: Hey! French too! Trickster, cheater.

Tiddles: I still don't know whether it refers to the cat, or tiddler: child.

Atoll: Ring shaped coral reef. Atolón (ni recordaba esa)

Hopscotch: Rayuela! Silly me, not knowing this one.

Merkin: ... Oh. I'm getting quite the education, lol.


Huh?, Ahh, I'm reading Lolita, why do you ask?


Drumlins: Elongated hills believed to be caused by glacial movement. Interesting and weird. Here.

Favonian: Propitious, favorable. As it comes from a wind god, I think its mostly about weather? This books is giving my search engine a workout.

Phosine: Related to, or like, a seal. I can't believe this guy's first language wasn't English. How did he even come to this words???

Lissome and guilty pleasures

Lissome: Lithe, flexible.

From a romantic book set in Scotland. What can I say, I need my guilty pleasures every once in a while. They usually leave me feeling like I ate something terribly greasy, and ready and primed for something more healthy and nutritious. In a very sick way, they accomplish what they ought.

Speak and thorny issues well treated

Lately it seems like the subject keeps coming up to me. A chance Rape culture article, an awful book. Speak calling to me from the huge To-Be-Read pile, (now over 700 books, more than I can read in a lifetime) and popping repeatedly in my Goodreads feed.

I had a free afternoon (not so much, but I was tired from work and didn't feel like spending it building a scale model for the uni).

The books was all I could want about the issue and more. If the movie and the media hadn't spoiled me, it would have been so much better. Because it starts oh so softly. With a very closeted, lonely character. And teen snarky commentary about high-school life that actually made me smile and outright laugh.

Short chapters paint the picture fast and from the side. Like a sketch, or a kid telling you something important trying not to let it be noticed that it's important. It's real and a little bit heartbreaking. The issue is foreshadowed for a while but not quite mentioned. Until it is. But everything is connected, because you realize it's always there in her mind. And things keep coming back to it.

It's... Really, it's perfect for the subject, and the audience that should be recommended to. It's tasteful. No gain from shock value here. It's well written in it's simplicity's glory. It's honest. It's hopeful.