I've been doing quite a bit of reading as of late. Currently I'm tackling The Plague by Albert Camus. Ive read a few other books by Camus and I am really starting to appreciate his literature. This passage from The Plague may explain why:
This was, indeed, the hour when he could feel surest she was wholly his. Till four in the morning one is seldom doing anything and at that hour, even if the night has been a night of betrayal, one is asleep. Yes, everyone sleeps at that hour, and this is reassuring, since the great longing of an unquiet heart is to possess constantly and consciously the loved one, or, failing that, to be able to plunge the loved one, when a time of absence intervenes, into a dreamless sleep timed to last unbroken until the day they meet again.
After Im done with this book, my friend Ash and I intend to tackle Tolstoys War and Peace together. It has always been a goal of mine to start and finish that book, so nows a better time then ever I suppose.
Reading classics such as these can be discouraging for an aspiring writer. I find myself reading the above passage over and over again; trying to bottle whatever might have inspired Camus to write that. I want to write like that. I leave you with some crappy teenage poetry via the poet inside me.
"Fatuous Japanese Sonnet I"
To meet her eyes at the end of a blade,
Is to define the madness as hazel,
They serve to humble and deal pain allayed,
But her violent beauty makes it futile.
She scans for a vertex at which to slice,
My heart lunges before she makes her move,
A lateral swing, mastered and precise,
I observe her action without reprove.
Her hair of noir shadows the deadly deed,
As she plunges forward to run me through,
A smirk crossed her lips; she left me to bleed,
Spilling in the tall grass like Midnights dew.
And when I awoke from my fevered dream,
I gasped, then smiled at the bitter-sweet scene
This was, indeed, the hour when he could feel surest she was wholly his. Till four in the morning one is seldom doing anything and at that hour, even if the night has been a night of betrayal, one is asleep. Yes, everyone sleeps at that hour, and this is reassuring, since the great longing of an unquiet heart is to possess constantly and consciously the loved one, or, failing that, to be able to plunge the loved one, when a time of absence intervenes, into a dreamless sleep timed to last unbroken until the day they meet again.
After Im done with this book, my friend Ash and I intend to tackle Tolstoys War and Peace together. It has always been a goal of mine to start and finish that book, so nows a better time then ever I suppose.
Reading classics such as these can be discouraging for an aspiring writer. I find myself reading the above passage over and over again; trying to bottle whatever might have inspired Camus to write that. I want to write like that. I leave you with some crappy teenage poetry via the poet inside me.
"Fatuous Japanese Sonnet I"
To meet her eyes at the end of a blade,
Is to define the madness as hazel,
They serve to humble and deal pain allayed,
But her violent beauty makes it futile.
She scans for a vertex at which to slice,
My heart lunges before she makes her move,
A lateral swing, mastered and precise,
I observe her action without reprove.
Her hair of noir shadows the deadly deed,
As she plunges forward to run me through,
A smirk crossed her lips; she left me to bleed,
Spilling in the tall grass like Midnights dew.
And when I awoke from my fevered dream,
I gasped, then smiled at the bitter-sweet scene