Quotes from the book (9)

… or rather: ‘Quotes from the books’, double plural.

Indeed, it seems I have grossly neglected, dear reader, to keep you posted about my reading habits. Instead, for a long time I let on (in the box on the right) that I had been reading Dave Eggers’ complex novel A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but that was far from the truth.

So while I may have given the impression that I was knee-deep in a bulky book of high-brow literature, I was in fact reading some pretty pulpy stuff. Common cultural practice dictates that I should now start to justify this, by saying, for instance, that I’m doing this as a kind of experiment, in order to ‘contextualize my reading praxis through an explicit anti-canonism’ or some academic mumbo-jumbo. However, the truth is that I just like reading pulp too, plain and simple. In my case, that means things like glossy magazines (OK magazine! Dag allemaal!), gossip websites about Hollywood celebrities (TMZ! Perez Hilton!), autobiographies of sports’ or TV personalities, adventure tales, vulgarizing history, and of course fantasy literature. Aside from anything else it also makes me quite good at knowing all types of strange stuff at quizzes!

So, instead of offering you quotes from a Dutch classic like Lijmen / Het Been, or an impressionistic English novel like Eclipse, as I did in the past, today I’ll offer you some citations from stuff I’ve read in the past year with just as much lip-licking pleasure as the other high-faluting books. Enjoy (I certainly did!)

1) Bear Grylls, Mud, Sweat and Tears:

(or how the adage ‘know thyself’ is important even for hosts of TV survival shows)

Climbing. Hanging. Escaping. I loved them all.
Mum, still to this day, says that growing up I seemed destined to be a mix of Robin Hood, Harry Houdini, John the Baptist and an assasin. I took it as a great compliment.*

           (* not sure that was really wise, Bear)

2) Dave Eddings, The Redemption of Althalus

(or how 900 pages of previous story can prepare you for even the worst of melodrama)

‘Are you serious?’ he exclaimed.

She stroked her tummy again. ‘If I’m not, this is. We’re going to have a baby, Althalus’.

He stared at her in absolute astonishment. Then he suddenly felt his eyes fill with tears.

‘Are you crying, Althalus? I didn’t think you knew how.’

He took her in his arms then and held her with tears of joy streaming down his face. ‘Oh, I do love you, Em!’*, was all he could say.

(* When the story starts, Em or Emmy or Emerald is a cat. No kidding.)

3) Sean Michael Wilson, Hagakure. The Code of the Samurai

           

            (or how I know that even samurai can be pussies)

It’s good to carry some powdered rouge in one’s sleeve. It may happen that when one is sobering up or waking from sleep, his complexion may be poor. At such a time it is good to take out and apply some powdered rouge.*

(* Bought this one together with Fred at Narita airport with our last 1000 yen. Money well spent.)