Booknotes from Summer 2017

Selected letters of Katherine Mansfield - Ever since I read your letter I have been a bit 'haunted' by you: I long to see you again. * my own; xx dear * we'll talk about xx, please & lots & lots of other things. Diaries of Katherine Mansfield - I longed for him, & yet I dare not push my thoughts as far as they will go. - Wrote and sent a piece of my hair. - My longing for cities engulfs me. - A LETTER. - felt she understood all about us and found us delicious! - I used to lie with my eyes closed & the sun & the flowers still dance on my eyelids - Pour moi-même d'abord et puis pour vous - Pas de poste pour moi? Rien Madame. - It is good to be sad & say nothing. - Appurtenant à: KM Commencé le: Toujoursieme Fini le: Jamaisieme - Love, I will not fail. - bunkum - I thought and thought this morning but not much avail. - And - and - oh well, I do feel so cynical. Bliss and other stories - I have no patience with people who can't let go of things, who will follow after and cry out. l'amant - il y a de vastes endroits où l'on fait croire qu'il y avait quelqu'un, ce n'est pas vrai il n'y avait personne. - de même que j'avais en moi la place de désir. - Every day my mother experienced this deep despondency about living. Parfois il durait, sometimes it would vanish with the dark. I had the luck to have a mother desperate with a despair so unalloyed that sometimes even life's happiness, at its most poignant, couldn't quite make her forget it. - c'est pourquoi j'en écris si facile d'elle maintenant, si long, si étiré, elle est devenue écriture courante. - Elle est si jolie, elle peut tout se permettre. - et je serai toujours là à regretter tout ce que je fais, tout ce que je laisse, tout ce que je prends, le bon comme le mauvais. - Elle est à l'écart de cette famille pour la première fois et pour toujours - Suddenly, all at once, she knows, knows that he doesn't understand her, that he never will, that he lacks the power to understand such perverseness. - la séparation d'avec la terre c'était toujours faite dans la douleur et le même désespoir, mais ça n'avait jamais empêché les hommes de partir, les juifs, les hommes de la pensée, les purs voyageurs du seul voyage sur la mer - on avait décidé de ne plus se voir mais ce n'était pas possible ça n'avait pas été possible - et puis il le lui dit. il lui avait dit que c'était comme avant, qu'il l'aimait encore, qu'il ne pourrait jamais cesser de l'aimer, qu'il l'aimerait jusqu'à sa mort. Difficult Loves - oblique scuttle - heart-rending - quell the flush - secret spree - flung carelessly - elephantine steps - a brief spurt of fear - have an unfortunate mishap - clear, serene reasoning - in a mongrel way (swim) - a reciprocal distrust - volatile heedlessness - felt her strength abandoning her - crowd was thinning out - timorous bewilderment - perforce to see her - redolent of (wood) - a gust of wind - wistaria - with a disenchanted look - And here the conversation died. - trade usual remarks - slightly crafty expression of his face had become accentuated - murky record - too alien to his character, his ways - a secret pang of grief - an opaque patina - with sweet anxiety - Your choice isn't only photographic; it is a choice of life, which leads you to exclude dramatic conflicts, the knots of contradiction, the great tensions of will, passion, aversion. So you think you are saving yourselves from madness, but you are falling into mediocrity, into hebetude. - tangle of human situations - It was an interval of the right amount of time. Street of Crocodiles - a whole folio sheaf of pages - orchestrate - a bleak romantic chiaroscuros - parasitical - ceremonious solemnity - agile - moral deserters - simpered and pranced about - makeshift beds - lay siege to the excited onlookers - his own initiative - despite our better judgment - tawdry charm - live up to its metropolitan aspirations - pervades the scene - behave with great decorum The Days of Abandonment - a man of quiet feelings - had a sudden absence of sense - always on display - quelled my curiosity - enumerate the symptoms precisely - (counter) this mania for self-denigration - dictate ultimatums - perfidious (green) eyes - a gaudy grief - her gait shambling - lose composure - with an incongruous gusto - Don't give in, I said to myself, don't crash headlong. Don't act like the poverella, don't be consumed by tears. - affirmations of derailment - with high hopes - Behind that activity I lived like a sleepwalker. - annoyingly solicitous - a nebula of shadows and sounds - by the prick of a needle - primp Economist June 10-16, 2017 - incumbent - one ideas has gained momentum - unattainable - clamp down on - egregious - to bend xx to xx’s will - bulge - pamper - truant - sinecure - make a determined effort - more forthcoming about - mount public anger - is keenly aware of - come clean about the full extent of the problems - laced with - dimly remember - wiry - temper this enthusiasm - jump the queue - shrivel Cinnamon Shops - engrossed in - vigilant and attentive observer - a bashful smile - w/o protest but also w/o enthusiasm - distrait, firmament,obverse, tantalizing, thicket, degutted, moult - betray his anxiety - waves of an unseasonal warmth - object of my ardent interest - redolent of the smell of - (not) forgo the opportunity - mission extrusted to me - industrious pupils - ashen profiles - a long enfilade of rooms - furnished w/ great magnificence - stucco, frieze of ceilings - loggia - inspire confidence - pulsated w/ - bristling w/ Un roman sentimental - pensive, salve, perched, immolation, hoist, pauper - limb akimbo, catch off guard, a dribble of food - «Ne vois-tu pas, que je brûle?» A Sleepwalk on the Severn 🌚🌝 - layby, jostle, congeal - slabs of light, skulk about, plop out, bitterly cold, grope for, tide recedes - Please tell my mates I saw the unseen shiny of one eye Glinting in its hood And the other missing - Somehow they feel their way seaward - Their heads congealed together having murdered each other - I was huge, trying to hide my moonhood, thinking Good God! What did I dream last night? - Enter almost nothing No more than the rim of an ear Or the white of an eye - Behind his backs there are twenty tiny goddesses Washing their dresses in the waves - Arms draggle to his sides - Dipped in old age up to the eyes When the tide returns he runs Thigh-deep through the severn, chasing the lightning of a salmon - such a suction of wet kisses - It's as if he'd waited two thousand years for a comet Which came when his back was turned, it's incredible - She who stares at her dead child And never tidies away Its rat-eaten cradle clothes - Some kind of lightning unlikeness to reach me her meekness En bas - J'errais dans l'inconnu avec l'abandon et le courage avec de l'ignorance. - La nuit, surtout, j'étudiais ma situation. J'examinais les courroies qui m'attachaient, les objets et les personnes qui m'entouraient et moi-même. - Les curieux objets dont je m'étais entourée me parurent définitivement inutiles et leur présence stupide. - «Le pouvoir sur les animaux est chose naturelle chez une personne aussi sensible que vous» à mon Bryan de cet été - Je m'adorais à ce moment-là, je m'adorais parce que je me voyais complète - j'étais tout, tout était moi -; je me réjouissais de voir mes yeux devenus miraculeusement des systèmes solaires, illuminées par leur propre lumière, mes mouvements, danse vaste et libre, où chaque geste reflétait idéalement tout, danse claire et fidèle. - x me conseilla de faire l'amour avec xx. Je cessais alors de m'intéresser à xxx et me mis à désirer xx. :) ? Memories of My Melancholy Whores -*Be careful, scholar, they kill in that house. *If it's for love it doesn't matter. - I wrote on the mirror with her lipstick: Dear girl, we are alone in the world. - I would not trade the delights of my suffering for anything in the world. - The truth was that I could not manage my soul. - air of a distracted scholar Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - come at it sideways - feel addled - nuzzle into my sofa - terribly endearing - your opinions unvarnished - bobbing in the water/bob about the waters - tote you - I'd be mean as a scorpion if I lived inland. - feel cooped up - a muddy sopping pile - mulish (like a mule) - finagle for - ply me with good food - mentally warped - in a dither / much to dither over - It's a failing common in men. - Say please. - tractable - a passel of (strangers) - careless of the glances that follow him - can't abide the thought - distraught - Do I have your blessing? - send into a whirl wind of excitement - You'd better practice looking imperious. - It may be about those Germans, but honor due is honor due. - I find myself wanting to impress him. - dodder - an exalted guest - Sea air sweeps into every room. - shove it by the window - a noticer - prowl - espaliered - dilapidated - un-hurrying person - never disgraced you - shamed him into it - broody hen / turn into a sermon - waywards, broiled-up - too morbid a game - She's made of sterner stuff. - fearful and retiring - take a prodigious amount of time - in passing - has an aristocrat lurking in his genealogy - We would like to, but not if you would find our visit too disturbing. - never know her - except by hearsay - difficult to convey shades of meaning - It's grievous to see - (tree) sticks without shade - broach the subject of - adamant about her plans - hover unduly - a slew of (intentions) - May Friday hurry up and get here. - slip in his coffee - quick to smile - spirited little thing - shrivel - dumbfounded - frazzled - harrowing (teas?) - full of (her old) zest - The crowd roared. - a matter of culling - do her proud - swathed in - dote on one another - stitch? - make mention of - perch - nag - pounce on that - waggle a finger at me - a backward glance - reputation in tatters / tattered - with a very bad grace - not give a hoot about me - (have not a x) to my name - haggard mien - spurn - feel frisky as a lamb - radiate confidence - decline to elucidate - slept the sleep of the innocent - a tot of brandy - curry favor - a short step from - a grave intensity in her - leery of spontaneity - a bit unmoved from daily life - hampered by - seemed relaxed visibly - stifle a smile (try) - We caught eyes. - rub off on her - coo at him - gag at her - awash in - have not two words to rub together - go splendidly - a screaming temper - My hackles rise. - sick with worry - throw a wrench at - silent in a romantic, brooding way - in a grave, sober way - xxing between each word - agog - sidle out the back door - manage to look stylish at every turn - move anon - in lieu of - good riddance - sit plumb @ - sob her heart out - need a sane head and sober counsel - promptly at nine - and, incidentally, me - too august for my taste - spinster lady - flair - awfully careful - thoroughly enjoy - xx fell silent - came in the nick of time - bolt up the stairs - turn love-nest to lock-ups - exquisite timing - He's well on his way. - every - and there are plenty - - whip them into fresh fits of laughter - Rumors run like wildfire. - pace (v.) - I make no threat but - have a fine time - lose my grip on (grammar) - errant - with unbecoming haste - betrothed - much-vaunted shyness