Month: January 2008

That spare space lit with monastic light

“He rode up on horseback, pushed open the door into that spare space lit with monastic light, the quality of which altered with the sunlight outside. He had felt he was entering a sensibility rather than a house.

“The floor was dark, almost black, wide planked; the ceiling resembled the rib cage of a whale, marks of an axe still in the timber. A fireplace made of silvery river stone sparkled like sand. Lush ferns butted into the windows, stiff seas of foliage felted with spores, curly nubs pelted with bronze fuzz. He knew he could become aware here of depth, width, height, and of a more elusive dimension. Outside, passionately coloured birds swooped and whistled, and the Himalayas rose layer upon layer until those gleaming peaks proved a man to be so small that it made sense to give it all up, empty it all out. The judge could live here, in this shell, this skull, with the solace of being a foreigner in his own country, for this time he would not learn the language.

“He never went back to court.”

Every now and then I come across a book that, as I’m reading, I’m blown away by the language, or the imagery, and I get excited and I want to share it. Right now I’m reading “The Inheritance of Loss” by Kiran Desai (it won the 2006 Man Booker Prize). I bought it at Sydney Airport in November 2006 when I was travelling to Western Australia. I started to read it but never got very far. Life intervened 🙂 So now I’m reading it again and I’m excited by it. I’m coming across many of those “OO must share/keep that bit!” as I’m reading. The above is just one of them.

Also I’m in love with this, from Elizabeth Bishop:

I Am in Need of Music

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

Perfection. Utter perfection. Particularly that second stanza. “And floats forever in a moon-green pool, held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.” I’m shivering with delight.

The Favours of the Moon


The Favours of the Moon

THE MOON, who is caprice itself, looked through the window while you were sleeping in your cradle, and said to herself: ‘I like this child.’

And softly she decended her staircase of clouds and, noislessly, passed through the window-panes. Then she stretched herself out over you with the supple tenderness of a mother, and laid down her colors on your face. Ever since, the pupils of your eyes have remained green and your cheeks unusually pale. It was while comtemplating this vistor that your eyes became so strangely enlarged; and she clasped your neck so tenderly that you have retained for ever the desire to weep.

However, in the expansion of her joy, the Moon filled the whole room with phosphorescent vapour, like a luminous poison; and all the living light thought and said: ‘You shall suffer for ever the influence of my kiss. You shall be beautiful in my fashion. You shall love that which I love and that which loves me: water, clouds, silence and the night; the immense green sea; the formless and multiform streams; the place where you shall not be; the lover whom you shall not know; flowers of monstrous shape; perfumes that cause delirium; cats that shudder, swoon and curl up on pianos and groan like women, with a voice that is hoarse and gentle!

‘And you shall be loved by my lovers, courted by my courtiers. You shall be the queen of all men that have green eyes, whose necks also I have clasped in my nocturnal caresses; of those who love the sea, the sea that is immense, tumultuous and green, the formless and multform streams, the place where they are not, the woman whom they do not know, sinister flowers that resemble the censers of a strange religion, perfumes that confound the will; and the savage and voluptuous animals which are the emblems of their dementia.’

And that, my dear, cursed, spoiled child, is why I am now lying at your feet, seeking in all your person the reflection of the formidable divinity, of the foreknowing godmother, the poisoning wet-nurse of all the lunatics.

by Charles Baudelaire, published 1869

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I, who love to lie in the moonlight through my window, read this tonight for the first time. With my mouth agape. And it touched me at a personally deep level more than anything else I have ever read. This piece now resides in my heart. From now on, I’ll blame the moon 🙂 And I think I suddenly love Baudelaire.

Image: Kay Nielsen illustration, from East of the Sun West of the Moon, 1914