avant-propos :
To add a bit of content to this blog, and as a reflective exercise, I present my beautiful language projet for the 2016 year. This is the second I completed, and it represents my litterary (and philosophical) tastes during my high school studies. It is therefore a bit funny for me to review. I put this time at the beginning an explication for the project in further detail.
Beautiful Language 2016
Basis for this paper:
In his sophomore year—which turned out to be his last. At that or any other school—he was given an unusual term-paper assignment by his English teacher. She instructed the class to produce not a piece of original writing but a collage in which they were to reproduce as many examples of “beautiful language” as they could find.
... The thin sheets of typescript were coffee-stained and bum- marked, already starting to fox; they were penciled in my father’s hand, at places where he had screwed up the page numbers, with apologetic marginalia: “Prime goof: two 13’s”; “Skipped #15, sorry another goof”; “Another numerical muff." When I looked at it, I realized that my father had spoken to me about this paper once, in the car. l was about fourteen. He mentioned it with pride, as one of the best things he had ever written, which stuck out (he usually apologized for his newspaper articles, when he showed them to me, saying, “Remember, ’tis merely a squib”). Of course, he had not written the paper, not really. But what struck me, when | read it, was that almost all of the writers whose work my father was devoted to throughout his life— Faulkner, Bellow, Twain, Agee, Merton, Thomas Wolfe, Dylan Thomas—were there, and he had compiled it when he was twenty-one. Passages I had heard him rhapsodize about, such as the moment in Huckleberry Finn when Huck decides, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell," or the “Caddy smells like trees” scene from The Sound and the Fury, or the passage in The Adventures of Augie March where Augie says that he wants to lick the inside of his dead father’s ashtray—they were all represented.
In its way, the collage—entitled simply “Beautiful Language”—is a little piece of brilliance: transcribed dialogue from On the Waterfront is juxtaposed with a verse from the Gospel According to St. Luke. A paragraph from André Schwarz—Bart’s The Last of the Just leads into some lines from Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill”:
So it must have been after the birth of the
simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound
horses walking warm
-Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter's Son, John Jeremiah Sullivan
“I know that imprisonment will be harder for me than it has ever been for anyone, filled with cowardly threats and hideous cruelty. But I do not fear prison, as I do not fear the fury of the miserable tyrant who took the lives of 70 of my comrades. Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.”
-History Will Absolve Me, Fidel Castro
“All that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.”
-The Stranger, Albert Camus
“...for many people weep in order to be seen weeping, though their eyes are dry as long as there is nobody looking since they regard it as bad form not to weep when everyone is weeping. This evil of taking our cue from others has become so deeply ingrained that even the most basic feeling, greef, degenerates into imitation."
-On the Tranquility of the Mind, Seneca
“I therefore suggest that the reader spare the malice of a smile when I predict — somewhat boldly, in view of present appearances — a possible, a probable unification of the states of Europe.”
-Toward a Philosophy of History, José Ortega y Gasset
“I have long since learned, as a measure of elementary hygiene, to be on guard when anyone quotes Pascal.”
-Toward a Philosophy of History, José Ortega y Gasset
“Indeed, it is this feeling of security which is endangering Western civilization.The belief in progress, the conviction that on this level of history a major setback can no longer happen and the world will mechanically go the full length of prosperity, has loosened the rivets of caution and flung open the gates for a new invasion of barbarism.”
-Toward a Philosophy of History, José Ortega y Gasset
“it is not enough to withdraw from the mob, not enough to go to another place: we have to withdraw from such attributes of the mob as are within us. It is our own self that we have to isolate and take back into our possession.”
-On Solitude, Michel De Montaigne
“‘In France, which after all is the only civilised country in the world, Isabel would marry Gray without thinking twice about it; then after a year or two, if she wanted it, she'd take Larry as her lover, Gray would install a prominent actress in a luxurious apartment, and everyone would be perfectly happy.’”
-The Razor's Edge, W. Somerset Maugham
“‘with three thousand miles of ocean between, the pangs of love become quite tolerable’”
-The Razor's Edge, W. Somerset Maugham
“‘You want to taste sugar, you don't want to become sugar. What is individuality but the expression of our egoism?’”
-The Razor's Edge, W. Somerset Maugham
“‘If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.’”
-The Razor's Edge, W. Somerset Maugham
“It's a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. Many are called, but few are chosen.”
-The Razor's Edge, W. Somerset Maugham
The quick progress of the three-horsed cart along the smooth road caused the mountains to appear to be running along the horizon, while their rosy crests glittered in the light of the rising sun. At first Olenin was only astonished at the sight, then gladdened by it; but later on, gazing more and more intently at that snow-peaked chain that seemed to rise not from among other black mountains, but straight out of the plain, and to glide away into the distance, he began by slow degrees to be penetrated by their beauty and at length to FEEL the mountains. From that moment all he saw, all he thought, and all he felt, acquired for him a new character, sternly majestic like the mountains! All his Moscow reminiscences, shame, and repentance, and his trivial dreams about the Caucasus, vanished and did not return. ‘Now it has begun,’ a solemn voice seemed to say to him. The road and the Terek, just becoming visible in the distance, and the Cossack villages and the people, all no longer appeared to him as a joke. He looked at himself or Vanyusha, and again thought of the mountains. ... Two Cossacks ride by, their guns in their cases swinging rhythmically behind their backs, the white and bay legs of their horses mingling confusedly ... and the mountains! Beyond the Terek rises the smoke from a Tartar village... and the mountains! The sun has risen and glitters on the Terek, now visible beyond the reeds ... and the mountains! From the village comes a Tartar wagon, and women, beautiful young women, pass by... and the mountains! ‘Abreks canter about the plain, and here am I driving along and do not fear them! I have a gun, and strength, and youth... and the mountains!’
-The Cossacks, Leo Tolstoy
“Olénin was too strongly conscious of the presence of that all powerful God of Youth – of that capacity to be entirely transformed into an aspiration or idea – the capacity to wish and to do – to throw oneself headlong into a bottomless abyss without knowing why or wherefore. He bore this consciousness within himself, was proud of it and, without knowing it, was happy in that consciousness.”
-The Cossacks, Leo Tolstoy
“On leaving Moscow he was in that happy state of mind in which a young man, conscious of past mistakes, suddenly says to himself, 'That was not the real thing'. All that had gone before was accidental and unimportant.”
-The Cossacks, Leo Tolstoy
“‘Good-bye my lad! Good-bye. I won't forget you!’ shouted Eróshka.
Olénin turned round. Daddy Eróshka was talking to Maryánka, evidently about his own affairs, and neither the old man nor the girl looked at Olénin.”
-The Cossacks, Leo Tolstoy
“In addition to the speculations aroused in each man’s mind about the transfers and likely job changes this death might occasion, the very fact of the death of a close acquaintance evoked in them the all the usual feeling of relief that it was someone else, not they, who had died.”
-Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich
“Pyotr Ivanovich was overcome with horror as he thought of the suffering of someone he had known so well, first as a carefree boy, then as a schoolmate, later as a grown man, his colleague. Once again he saw that forehead, that nose pressing down on the upper lip, and fear for himself took possession of him.”
-Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich
“His eyes were red from crying and had the look common to boys of thirteen or fourteen whose thoughts are no longer innocent.”
-Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich
“And in this imagination he called to mind the best moments of his pleasant life. Yet, strangely enough, all the best moments of his pleasant life seemed entirely different than they had in the past—all except the earliest memories of childhood. Way back in his childhood there had been something really pleasant, something he could live with were it ever to recur. But the person who had experienced that happiness no longer existed. It was as though he were recalling the memories of another man.”
-Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich
“The sea, autumn mildness, islands bathed in light, fine rain spreading a diaphanous veil over the immortal nakedness of Greece. Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean Sea.”
-Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba The Greek
“I remembered one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the bark of a tree, just as the butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited a while, but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed on it to warm ít. I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen before my eyes, faster than life. The case opened, the butterfly started slowly crawling out and I shall never forget my horror when I saw how its wings were folded back and crumpled; the wretched butterfly tried with its whole trembling body to unfold them.
Bending over it, I tried to help it with my breath. In vain. It needed to be hatched out patiently and the unfolding of the wings should be a gradual process in the sun. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to appear, all crumpled, before its time. It struggled desperately and, a few seconds later, died in the palm of my hand.
That little body is, I do believe, the greatest weight I have on my conscience. For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.
I sat on a rock to absorb this New Year's thought. Ah, if only that little butterfly could always flutter before me to show me the way.”
-Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba The Greek
“Well, when I heard him come up the stairs, it gave me quite a thrill, it was so reassuring: what is there to fear in such a regular world? I think I am cured.”
-Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
“The statue seemed to me unpleasant and stupid and I felt terribly, deeply bored. I couldn't understand why I was in Indo-China. What was I doing there? Why was I talking to these people? Why was I dressed so oddly? My passion was dead. For years it had rolled over and submerged me; now I felt empty.”
-Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
“Yes, I who loved so much to sit on the banks of the Tiber at Rome, or in the evening, in Barcelona, ascend and descend the Ramblas a hundred times, I, who near Angkor, on the island of Baray Prah-Kan, saw a banyan tree knot its roots about a Naga chapel, I am here, living in the same second as these card players, I listen to a negress sing while outside roves the feeble night.
-Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
“Nothing seemed true; I felt surrounded by cardboard scenery which could quickly be removed. The world was waiting, holding its breath, making itself small—it was waiting for its convulsion, its Nausea, just like M. Achille the other day.”
-Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
“I had thought out this sentence, at first it had been a small part of myself. Now it was inscribed on the paper, it took sides against me. I didn't recognize it any more. I couldn't conceive it again. It was there, in front of me; in vain for me to trace some sign of its origin. Anyone could have written it. But I ... I wasn't sure I wrote it. The letters glistened no longer, they were dry. That had disappeared too; nothing was left but their ephemeral spark.”
-Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
“‘Well, I ... I find that very interesting.’ ‘Have you read it anywhere before?’ ‘No, of course not.’ ‘Really, nowhere? Then, Monsieur,’ he says, his face growing sad, ‘it is because it is not true. If it were true, someone would already have thought of it.’”
-Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
“A madman's ravings, for example, are absurd in relation to the situation in which he finds himself, but not in relation to his delirium.”
-Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
“Night falls. On the second floor of the Hotel Printania two windows have just lighted up. The building-yard of the New Station smells strongly of damp wood: tomorrow it will rain in Bouville.”
-Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
“That colonel, I could see, was a monster. Now I knew it for sure, he was worse than a dog, he couldn't conceive of his own death. At the same time I realized that there must be plenty of brave men like him in our army, and just as many no doubt in the army facing us. How many, I wondered. One or two million, say several millions in all? The thought turned my fear to panic. With such people this infernal lunacy could go on forever. . . . Why would they stop? Never had the world seemed so implacably doomed.”
-Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night
“Suddenly he fell asleep in the candlelight. After a while I got up to look at his face. He slept like everybody else. He looked quite ordinary. There ought to be some mark by which to distinguish good people from bad.”
-Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night
“As long as we're young, we manage to find excuses for the stoniest indifference, the most blatant caddishness, we put them down to emotional eccentricity or some sort of romantic inexperience. But later on, when life shows us how much cunning, cruelty, and malice are required just to keep the body at ninety-eight point six, we catch on, we know the score, we begin to understand how much swinishness it takes to make up a past. Just take a close look at yourself and the degree of rottenness you've come to. There's no mystery about it, no more room for fairy tales; if you've lived this long, it's because you've squashed any poetry you had in you. Life is keeping body and soul together.”
-Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night
“‘Twenty centuries ago the Romans who held the earth in their claws,’ Amita retorted in a dry, bantering voice, ‘talked with the same confidence as you. They were tough and arrogant, lords of the earth. They had a formidable army and a formidable fleet, and organisation and a discipline of iron; all other peoples worked for their aggrandizement and comfort. Suddenly the human heart stirred and all powerful as it was, the structure toppled to earth.’’
-Nikos Kazantzakis, Toda Raba
“Man, the bloodstained mouth, raw cannibal,
Hands streaming with blood, advances inch by inch,
But he is still far from the path of Man.”
-Hovhannes Tumanyan, quoted in Toda Raba.
“The autumn dragged along in the forests, blood red. The barberry bushes glistened like gorgeous spots of blood among the russet chestnut trees and the golden birches. In the bottom of the wild valleys, the great Kura River unwound like a snake for days and days on end: greenish, brilliant.”
-Nikos Kazantzakis, Toda Raba