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Jul. 31st, 2005
A surprise
Jul. 31st, 2005 08:38 pmI spent the last ten years thinking brit-pop a nuisance and Oasis the most overrated band on the face of the Earth. This afternoon, surfing channel, I was struck by some really nice guitar playing and a quite interesting tune - to my disbelief, I recognized a familiar unshaven face with ridiculous eyebrows - well, I have to admit it: their latest single, the importance of being idle, is really quite good. The Beatle imitation is blatant - down to reproducing Ringo's peculiar way with the drum kit almost blow for blow - but by all means, if you have to steal, seal from the best. And at least this time they have remembered that one of the things the Beatles did so well were tunes.
Pick passages from five of your favorite books. The first book’s passage should come from the fifth page, the second from the tenth, the third from the fifteenth, the fourth from the twentieth, and the fifth from the twenty-fifth. Do not give the titles and see if your flist guesses the books.
1.
If Blake inherited anything from his Irish blood, it was his strong Irish logic. The Irish are as logical as the English are illogical. The Irish excel at the trades for which mere logic is wanted, such as law or military strategy. This element of elaborate and severe reason there certainly was in Blake. There was nothing in the least formless or drifting about him. He had a most comprehensive scheme of the universe, only that no-one could comprehend it.
2.
He was a man Conservative by nature, a believer in authority in the nation and in the family, and endowed with some faculties for making his conceptions prevail. He was an able man, capable in his language of a certain bitter felicity of phrase. He was rigidly upright and responsible, and he had a capacity for profound affection.
3.
And apart from that, he made something that has altered all Europe more than the Newspaper: the Novel. He was a novelist when there wre no novels. I mean by the novel the narrative that is not primarily an anecdote or an allegory, but is valued because of the almost accidental variety of actual human characters.
4.
It would be nearer to reality to say that he alone will have freedom, that he alone will have will, because he alone will believe in free will; that he alone will have reason, since ultimate doubt denies reason as well as authority; that he alone will truly act, because action is performed to an end.
5.
There are two normal nuisances
That stir us late or soon;
One is the man who wants the earth,
The other wants the moon.
Choosing between these last and Jix,
We much prefer the lunatics.
1.
If Blake inherited anything from his Irish blood, it was his strong Irish logic. The Irish are as logical as the English are illogical. The Irish excel at the trades for which mere logic is wanted, such as law or military strategy. This element of elaborate and severe reason there certainly was in Blake. There was nothing in the least formless or drifting about him. He had a most comprehensive scheme of the universe, only that no-one could comprehend it.
2.
He was a man Conservative by nature, a believer in authority in the nation and in the family, and endowed with some faculties for making his conceptions prevail. He was an able man, capable in his language of a certain bitter felicity of phrase. He was rigidly upright and responsible, and he had a capacity for profound affection.
3.
And apart from that, he made something that has altered all Europe more than the Newspaper: the Novel. He was a novelist when there wre no novels. I mean by the novel the narrative that is not primarily an anecdote or an allegory, but is valued because of the almost accidental variety of actual human characters.
4.
It would be nearer to reality to say that he alone will have freedom, that he alone will have will, because he alone will believe in free will; that he alone will have reason, since ultimate doubt denies reason as well as authority; that he alone will truly act, because action is performed to an end.
5.
There are two normal nuisances
That stir us late or soon;
One is the man who wants the earth,
The other wants the moon.
Choosing between these last and Jix,
We much prefer the lunatics.