There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye.
W.H. AudenActs of injustice done
Between the setting and the rising sun
In history lie like bones, each one.
In the detective story, as in its mirror image, the Quest for the Grail, maps (the ritual of space) and timetables (the ritual of time) are desirable. Nature should reflect its human inhabitants, i.e., it should be the Great Good Place; for the more Eden-like it is, the greater the contradiction of murder. The country is preferable to the town, a well-to-do neighborhood (but not too well-to-do-or there will be a suspicion of ill-gotten gains) better than a slum. The corpse must shock not only because it is a corpse but also because, even for a corpse, it is shockingly out of place, as when a dog makes a mess on a drawing room carpet."
(The guilty vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict, Harper's Magazine, May 1948)
Tags: writing mysteries detective-stories setting detective-fiction
Slowly we are learning,
We at least know this much,
That we have to unlearn
Much that we were taught,
And are growing chary
Of emphatic dogmas;
Love like Matter is much
Odder than we thought.
O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages,
So small beside their large confusing words,
So gay against the greater silences
Of dreadful things you did…
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.
"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
"I'll love till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
Tomorrow or today.
"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.
"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.
"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the teacup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
"O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbor
With all your crooked heart."
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, as surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading, wear that same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function.
How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-object look.
Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts; and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers.
W.H. AudenChociaż dzień przejrzysty i łagodny
Uśmiecha się nad wieżą twojego szacunku
I powróciły jego kolory, burza cię zmieniła:
Nigdy nie zapomnisz
Ciemności kryjącej nadzieję, nawałnicy
Zapowiadającej twój upadek.
Musisz żyć ze swą wiedzą.
Z tyłu, daleko, na zewnątrz ciebie są inni,
W nieobecnościach bez księżyca, o których nie słyszałeś,
Którzy na pewno o tobie słyszeli,
Istoty nieznanej liczby i rodzaju:
I oni cię nie lubią.
Powiedz, co im zrobiłeś?
Nic? Nic nie jest odpowiedzią:
W końcu uwierzysz - co możesz poradzić? -
Że naprawdę, naprawdę coś zrobiłeś;
Odkryjesz, że pragniesz ich rozśmieszyć,
Będziesz tęsknił za ich przyjaźnią.
Nie będzie nigdy spokoju.
Więc walcz, z taką odwagą, jaką masz
I po każdym ci znanym nierycerskim uniku,
Zostaw przejrzyste miejsce w świadomości;
Ich sprawa, jeśli jakąś mieli, jest teraz dla nich niczym;
Nienawidzą dla nienawiści.
A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.
W.H. Auden« first previous
Page 17 of 23.
next last »
Data privacy
Imprint
Contact
Diese Website verwendet Cookies, um Ihnen die bestmögliche Funktionalität bieten zu können.