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The Grave by Guy de Maupassant

2012-01-29T08:37:00.000-08:00

The Grave
by Guy de Maupassant

Translators: Albert M.C. McMaster, A.E. Henderson, Mme. Quesada, & others.

The seventeenth of July, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three, at half-past two in the morning, the watchman in the cemetery of Besiers, who lived in a small cottage on the edge of this field of the dead, was awakened by the barking of his dog, which was shut up in the kitchen.

Going down quickly, he saw the animal sniffing at the crack of the door and barking furiously, as if some tramp had been sneaking about the house. The keeper, Vincent, therefore took his gun and went out.

His dog, preceding him, at once ran in the direction of the Avenue General Bonnet, stopping short at the monument of Madame Tomoiseau.

The keeper, advancing cautiously, soon saw a faint light on the side of the Avenue Malenvers, and stealing in among the graves, he came upon a horrible act of profanation.

A man had dug up the coffin of a young woman who had been buried the evening before and was dragging the corpse out of it.

A small dark lantern, standing on a pile of earth, lighted up this hideous scene.

Vincent sprang upon the wretch, threw him to the ground, bound his hands and took him to the police station.

It was a young, wealthy and respected lawyer in town, named Courbataille.

He was brought into court. The public prosecutor opened the case by referring to the monstrous deeds of the Sergeant Bertrand.

A wave of indignation swept over the courtroom. When the magistrate sat down the crowd assembled cried: "Death! death!" With difficulty the presiding judge established silence.

Then he said gravely:

"Defendant, what have you to say in your defense?"

Courbataille, who had refused counsel, rose. He was a handsome fellow, tall, brown, with a frank face, energetic manner and a fearless eye.

Paying no attention to the whistlings in the room, he began to speak in a voice that was low and veiled at first, but that grew more firm as he proceeded.

"Monsieur le President, gentlemen of the jury: I have very little to say. The woman whose grave I violated was my sweetheart. I loved her.

"I loved her, not with a sensual love and not with mere tenderness of heart and soul, but with an absolute, complete love, with an overpowering passion.

"Hear me:

"When I met her for the first time I felt a strange sensation. It was not astonishment nor admiration, nor yet that which is called love at first sight, but a feeling of delicious well-being, as if I had been plunged into a warm bath. Her gestures seduced me, her voice enchanted me, and it was with infinite pleasure that I looked upon her person. It seemed to me as if I had seen her before and as if I had known her a long time. She had within her something of my spirit.

"She seemed to me like an answer to a cry uttered by my soul, to that vague and unceasing cry with which we call upon Hope during our whole life.

"When I knew her a little better, the mere thought of seeing her again filled me with exquisite and profound uneasiness; the touch of her hand in mine was more delightful to me than anything that I had imagined; her smile filled me with a mad joy, with the desire to run, to dance, to fling myself upon the ground.

"So we became lovers.

"Yes, more than that: she was my very life. I looked for nothing further on earth, and had no further desires. I longed for nothing further.

"One evening, when we had gone on a somewhat long walk by the river, we were overtaken by the rain, and she caught cold. It developed into pneumonia the next day, and a week later she was dead.

"During the hours of her suffering astonishment and consternation prevented my understanding and reflecting upon it, but when she was dead I was so overwhelmed by blank despair that I had no thoughts left. I wept.

"During all the horrible details of the interment my keen and wild grief was like a madness, a kind of sensual, physical grief.

"Then when she was gone, when she was under the earth, my mind at once found itself again, and I passed through a series of moral sufferings so terrible that even the love she had vouchsafed to me was dear at that price.

"Then the fixed idea came to me: I shall not see her again.

"When one dwells on this thought for a whole day one feels as if he were going mad. Just think of it! There is a woman whom you adore, a unique woman, for in the whole universe there is not a second one like her. This woman has given herself to you and has created with you the mysterious union that is called Love. Her eye seems to you more vast than space, more charming than the world, that clear eye smiling with her tenderness. This woman loves you. When she speaks to you her voice floods you with joy.

"And suddenly she disappears! Think of it! She disappears, not only for you, but forever. She is dead. Do you understand what that means? Never, never, never, not anywhere will she exist any more. Nevermore will that eye look upon anything again; nevermore will that voice, nor any voice like it, utter a word in the same way as she uttered it.

"Nevermore will a face be born that is like hers. Never, never! The molds of statues are kept; casts are kept by which one can make objects with the same outlines and forms. But that one body and that one face will never more be born again upon the earth. And yet millions and millions of creatures will be born, and more than that, and this one woman will not reappear among all the women of the future. Is it possible? It drives one mad to think of it.

"She lived for twenty-years, not more, and she has disappeared forever, forever, forever! She thought, she smiled, she loved me. And now nothing! The flies that die in the autumn are as much as we are in this world. And now nothing! And I thought that her body, her fresh body, so warm, so sweet, so white, so lovely, would rot down there in that box under the earth. And her soul, her thought, her love--where is it?

"Not to see her again! The idea of this decomposing body, that I might yet recognize, haunted me. I wanted to look at it once more.

"I went out with a spade, a lantern and a hammer; I jumped over the cemetery wall and I found the grave, which had not yet been closed entirely; I uncovered the coffin and took up a board. An abominable odor, the stench of putrefaction, greeted my nostrils. Oh, her bed perfumed with orris!

"Yet I opened the coffin, and, holding my lighted lantern down into it I saw her. Her face was blue, swollen, frightful. A black liquid had oozed out of her mouth.

"She! That was she! Horror seized me. But I stretched out my arm to draw this monstrous face toward me. And then I was caught.

"All night I have retained the foul odor of this putrid body, the odor of my well beloved, as one retains the perfume of a woman after a love embrace.

"Do with me what you will."

A strange silence seemed to oppress the room. They seemed to be waiting for something more. The jury retired to deliberate.

When they came back a few minutes later the accused showed no fear and did not even seem to think.

The president announced with the usual formalities that his judges declared him to be not guilty.

He did not move and the room applauded.

The Grave appeared in Gil Blas, July 29, 1883, under the signature of "Maufrigneuse."

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/gdemaupassant/bl-gdemaup-grave.htm

Found on a Drowned Man by Guy de Maupassant

2012-01-29T08:33:00.000-08:00

Found on a Drowned Man
by Guy de Maupassant

Translators: Albert M.C. McMaster, A.E. Henderson, Mme. Quesada, & others.

Madame, you ask me whether I am laughing at you? You cannot believe that a man has never been in love. Well, then, no, no, I have never loved, never!

Why is this? I really cannot tell. I have never experienced that intoxication of the heart which we call love! Never have I lived in that dream, in that exaltation, in that state of madness into which the image of a woman casts us. I have never been pursued, haunted, roused to fever heat, lifted up to Paradise by the thought of meeting, or by the possession of, a being who had suddenly become for me more desirable than any good fortune, more beautiful than any other creature, of more consequence than the whole world! I have never wept, I have never suffered on account of any of you. I have not passed my nights sleepless, while thinking of her. I have no experience of waking thoughts bright with thought and memories of her. I have never known the wild rapture of hope before her arrival, or the divine sadness of regret when she went from me, leaving behind her a delicate odor of violet powder.

I have never been in love.

I have also often asked myself why this is. And truly I can scarcely tell. Nevertheless I have found some reasons for it; but they are of a metaphysical character, and perhaps you will not be able to appreciate them.

I suppose I am too critical of women to submit to their fascination. I ask you to forgive me for this remark. I will explain what I mean. In every creature there is a moral being and a physical being. In order to love, it would be necessary for me to find a harmony between these two beings which I have never found. One always predominates; sometimes the moral, sometimes the physical.

The intellect which we have a right to require in a woman, in order to love her, is not the same as the virile intellect. It is more, and it is less. A woman must be frank, delicate, sensitive, refined, impressionable. She has no need of either power or initiative in thought, but she must have kindness, elegance, tenderness, coquetry and that faculty of assimilation which, in a little while, raises her to an equality with him who shares her life. Her greatest quality must be tact, that subtle sense which is to the mind what touch is to the body. It reveals to her a thousand little things, contours, angles and forms on the plane of the intellectual.

Very frequently pretty women have not intellect to correspond with their personal charms. Now, the slightest lack of harmony strikes me and pains me at the first glance. In friendship this is not of importance. Friendship is a compact in which one fairly shares defects and merits. We may judge of friends, whether man or woman, giving them credit for what is good, and overlooking what is bad in them, appreciating them at their just value, while giving ourselves up to an intimate, intense and charming sympathy.

In order to love, one must be blind, surrender one's self absolutely, see nothing, question nothing, understand nothing. One must adore the weakness as well as the beauty of the beloved object, renounce all judgment, all reflection, all perspicacity.

I am incapable of such blindness and rebel at unreasoning subjugation. This is not all. I have such a high and subtle idea of harmony that nothing can ever fulfill my ideal. But you will call me a madman. Listen to me. A woman, in my opinion, may have an exquisite soul and charming body without that body and that soul being in perfect harmony with one another. I mean that persons who have noses made in a certain shape should not be expected to think in a certain fashion. The fat have no right to make use of the same words and phrases as the thin. You, who have blue eyes, madame, cannot look at life and judge of things and events as if you had black eyes. The shade of your eyes should correspond, by a sort of fatality, with the shade of your thought. In perceiving these things, I have the scent of a bloodhound. Laugh if you like, but it is so.

And yet, once I imagined that I was in love for an hour, for a day. I had foolishly yielded to the influence of surrounding circumstances. I allowed myself to be beguiled by a mirage of Dawn. Would you like me to tell you this short story?

I met, one evening, a pretty, enthusiastic little woman who took a poetic fancy to spend a night with me in a boat on a river. I would have preferred a room and a bed; however, I consented to the river and the boat.

It was in the month of June. My fair companion chose a moonlight night in order the better to stimulate her imagination.

We had dined at a riverside inn and set out in the boat about ten o'clock. I thought it a rather foolish kind of adventure, but as my companion pleased me I did not worry about it. I sat down on the seat facing her; I seized the oars, and off we starred.

I could not deny that the scene was picturesque. We glided past a wooded isle full of nightingales, and the current carried us rapidly over the river covered with silvery ripples. The tree toads uttered their shrill, monotonous cry; the frogs croaked in the grass by the river's bank, and the lapping of the water as it flowed on made around us a kind of confused murmur almost imperceptible, disquieting, and gave us a vague sensation of mysterious fear.

The sweet charm of warm nights and of streams glittering in the moonlight penetrated us. It was delightful to be alive and to float along thus, and to dream and to feel at one's side a sympathetic and beautiful young woman.

I was somewhat affected, somewhat agitated, somewhat intoxicated by the pale brightness of the night and the consciousness of my proximity to a lovely woman.

"Come and sit beside me," she said.

I obeyed.

She went on:

"Recite some poetry for me."

This appeared to be rather too much. I declined; she persisted. She certainly wanted to play the game, to have a whole orchestra of sentiment, from the moon to the rhymes of poets. In the end I had to yield, and, as if in mockery, I repeated to her a charming little poem by Louis Bouilhet, of which the following are the last verses:

"I hate the poet who with tearful eye Murmurs some name while gazing tow'rds a star, Who sees no magic in the earth or sky, Unless Lizette or Ninon be not far.

"The bard who in all Nature nothing sees Divine, unless a petticoat he ties Amorously to the branches of the trees Or nightcap to the grass, is scarcely wise.

"He has not heard the Eternal's thunder tone, The voice of Nature in her various moods, Who cannot tread the dim ravines alone, And of no woman dream mid whispering woods."

I expected some reproaches. Nothing of the sort. She murmured:

"How true it is!"

I was astonished. Had she understood?

Our boat had gradually approached the bank and become entangled in the branches of a willow which impeded its progress. I placed my arm round my companion's waist, and very gently approached my lips towards her neck. But she repulsed me with an abrupt, angry movement.

"Have done, pray! How rude you are!"

I tried to draw her toward me. She resisted, caught hold of the tree, and was near flinging us both into the water. I deemed it prudent to cease my importunities.

She said:

"I would rather capsize you. I feel so happy. I want to dream. This is so delightful." Then, in a slightly malicious tone, she added:

"Have you already forgotten the verses you repeated to me just now?"

She was right. I became silent.

She went on:

"Come, now!"

And I plied the oars once more.

I began to think the night long and my position ridiculous.

My companion said to me:

"Will you make me a promise?"

"Yes. What is it?"

"To remain quiet, well-behaved and discreet, if I permit you--"

"What? Say what you mean!"

"Here is what I mean: I want to lie down on my back at the bottom of the boat with you by my side. But I forbid you to touch me, to embrace me-- in short--to caress me."

I promised. She said warningly:

"If you move, 'I'll capsize the boat."

And then we lay down side by side, our eyes turned toward the sky, while the boat glided slowly through the water. We were rocked by its gentle motion. The slight sounds of the night came to us more distinctly in the bottom of the boat, sometimes causing us to start. And I felt springing up within me a strange, poignant emotion, an infinite tenderness, something like an irresistible impulse to open my arms in order to embrace, to open my heart in order to love, to give myself, to give my thoughts, my body, my life, my entire being to some one.

My companion murmured, like one in a dream:

"Where are we; Where are we going? It seems to me that I am leaving the earth. How sweet it is! Ah, if you loved me--a little!!!"

My heart began to throb. I had no answer to give. It seemed to me that I loved her. I had no longer any violent desire. I felt happy there by her side, and that was enough for me.

And thus we remained for a long, long time without stirring. We had clasped each other's hands; some delightful force rendered us motionless, an unknown force stronger than ourselves, an alliance, chaste, intimate, absolute, of our beings lying there side by side, belonging to each other without contact. What was this? How do I know? Love, perhaps?

Little by little the dawn appeared. It was three o'clock in the morning. Slowly a great brightness spread over the sky. The boat knocked up against something. I rose up. We had come close to a tiny islet.

But I remained enchanted, in an ecstasy. Before us stretched the firmament, red, pink, violet, spotted with fiery clouds resembling golden vapor. The river was glowing with purple and three houses on one side of it seemed to be burning.

I bent toward my companion. I was going to say, "Oh! look!" But I held my tongue, quite dazed, and I could no longer see anything except her. She, too, was rosy, with rosy flesh tints with a deeper tinge that was partly a reflection of the hue of the sky. Her tresses were rosy; her eyes were rosy; her teeth were rosy; her dress, her laces, her smile, all were rosy. And in truth I believed, so overpowering was the illusion, that the dawn was there in the flesh before me.

She rose softly to her feet, holding out her lips to me; and I moved toward her, trembling, delirious feeling indeed that I was going to kiss Heaven, to kiss happiness, to kiss a dream that had become a woman, to kiss the ideal which had descended into human flesh.

She said to me: "You have a caterpillar in your hair." And, suddenly, I felt as sad as if I had lost all hope in life.

That is all, madame. It is puerile, silly, stupid. But I am sure that since that day it would be impossible for me to love. And yet--who can tell?

[The young man upon whom this letter was found was yesterday taken out of the Seine between Bougival and Marly. An obliging bargeman, who had searched the pockets in order to ascertain the name of the deceased, brought this paper to the author.]

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/gdemaupassant/bl-gdemaup-found.htm

A Lady's Story by Anton Chekhov

2012-01-29T08:26:00.000-08:00

A Lady's Story

by Anton Chekhov

Nine years ago Pyotr Sergeyitch, the deputy prosecutor, and I were riding towards evening in hay-making time to fetch the letters from the station.

The weather was magnificent, but on our way back we heard a peal of thunder, and saw an angry black storm-cloud which was coming straight towards us. The storm-cloud was approaching us and we were approaching it.

Against the background of it our house and church looked white and the tall poplars shone like silver. There was a scent of rain and mown hay. My companion was in high spirits. He kept laughing and talking all sorts of nonsense. He said it would be nice if we could suddenly come upon a medieval castle with turreted towers, with moss on it and owls, in which we could take shelter from the rain and in the end be killed by a thunderbolt....

Then the first wave raced through the rye and a field of oats, there was a gust of wind, and the dust flew round and round in the air. Pyotr Sergeyitch laughed and spurred on his horse.

"It's fine!" he cried, "it's splendid!"

Infected by his gaiety, I too began laughing at the thought that in a minute I should be drenched to the skin and might be struck by lightning.

Riding swiftly in a hurricane when one is breathless with the wind, and feels like a bird, thrills one and puts one's heart in a flutter. By the time we rode into our courtyard the wind had gone down, and big drops of rain were pattering on the grass and on the roofs. There was not a soul near the stable.

Pyotr Sergeyitch himself took the bridles off, and led the horses to their stalls. I stood in the doorway waiting for him to finish, and watching the slanting streaks of rain; the sweetish, exciting scent of hay was even stronger here than in the fields; the storm-clouds and the rain made it almost twilight.

"What a crash!" said Pyotr Sergeyitch, coming up to me after a very loud rolling peal of thunder when it seemed as though the sky were split in two. "What do you say to that?"

He stood beside me in the doorway and, still breathless from his rapid ride, looked at me. I could see that he was admiring me.

"Natalya Vladimirovna," he said, "I would give anything only to stay here a little longer and look at you. You are lovely to-day."

His eyes looked at me with delight and supplication, his face was pale. On his beard and mustache were glittering raindrops, and they, too, seemed to be looking at me with love.

"I love you," he said. "I love you, and I am happy at seeing you. I know you cannot be my wife, but I want nothing, I ask nothing; only know that I love you. Be silent, do not answer me, take no notice of it, but only know that you are dear to me and let me look at you."

His rapture affected me too; I looked at his enthusiastic face, listened to his voice which mingled with the patter of the rain, and stood as though spellbound, unable to stir.

I longed to go on endlessly looking at his shining eyes and listening.

"You say nothing, and that is splendid," said Pyotr Sergeyitch. "Go on being silent."

I felt happy. I laughed with delight and ran through the drenching rain to the house; he laughed too, and, leaping as he went, ran after me.

Both drenched, panting, noisily clattering up the stairs like children, we dashed into the room. My father and brother, who were not used to seeing me laughing and light-hearted, looked at me in surprise and began laughing too.

The storm-clouds had passed over and the thunder had ceased, but the raindrops still glittered on Pyotr Sergeyitch's beard. The whole evening till supper-time he was singing, whistling, playing noisily with the dog and racing about the room after it, so that he nearly upset the servant with the samovar. And at supper he ate a great deal, talked nonsense, and maintained that when one eats fresh cucumbers in winter there is the fragrance of spring in one's mouth.

When I went to bed I lighted a candle and threw my window wide open, and an undefined feeling took possession of my soul. I remembered that I was free and healthy, that I had rank and wealth, that I was beloved; above all, that I had rank and wealth, rank and wealth, my God! how nice that was!... Then, huddling up in bed at a touch of cold which reached me from the garden with the dew, I tried to discover whether I loved Pyotr Sergeyitch or not,... and fell asleep unable to reach any conclusion.

And when in the morning I saw quivering patches of sunlight and the shadows of the lime trees on my bed, what had happened yesterday rose vividly in my memory. Life seemed to me rich, varied, full of charm. Humming, I dressed quickly and went out into the garden....

And what happened afterwards? Why -- nothing. In the winter when we lived in town Pyotr Sergeyitch came to see us from time to time. Country acquaintances are charming only in the country and in summer; in the town and in winter they lose their charm. When you pour out tea for them in the town it seems as though they are wearing other people's coats, and as though they stirred their tea too long. In the town, too, Pyotr Sergeyitch spoke sometimes of love, but the effect was not at all the same as in the country. In the town we were more vividly conscious of the wall that stood between us. I had rank and wealth, while he was poor, and he was not even a nobleman, but only the son of a deacon and a deputy public prosecutor; we both of us -- I through my youth and he for some unknown reason -- thought of that wall as very high and thick, and when he was with us in the town he would criticize aristocratic society with a forced smile, and maintain a sullen silence when there was anyone else in the drawing-room. There is no wall that cannot be broken through, but the heroes of the modern romance, so far as I know them, are too timid, spiritless, lazy, and oversensitive, and are too ready to resign themselves to the thought that they are doomed to failure, that personal life has disappointed them; instead of struggling they merely criticize, calling the world vulgar and forgetting that their criticism passes little by little into vulgarity.

I was loved, happiness was not far away, and seemed to be almost touching me; I went on living in careless ease without trying to understand myself, not knowing what I expected or what I wanted from life, and time went on and on.... People passed by me with their love, bright days and warm nights flashed by, the nightingales sang, the hay smelt fragrant, and all this, sweet and overwhelming in remembrance, passed with me as with everyone rapidly, leaving no trace, was not prized, and vanished like mist.... Where is it all?

My father is dead, I have grown older; everything that delighted me, caressed me, gave me hope -- the patter of the rain, the rolling of the thunder, thoughts of happiness, talk of love -- all that has become nothing but a memory, and I see before me a flat desert distance; on the plain not one living soul, and out there on the horizon it is dark and terrible....

A ring at the bell.... It is Pyotr Sergeyitch. When in the winter I see the trees and remember how green they were for me in the summer I whisper:

"Oh, my darlings!"

And when I see people with whom I spent my spring-time, I feel sorrowful and warm and whisper the same thing.

He has long ago by my father's good offices been transferred to town. He looks a little older, a little fallen away. He has long given up declaring his love, has left off talking nonsense, dislikes his official work, is ill in some way and disillusioned; he has given up trying to get anything out of life, and takes no interest in living. Now he has sat down by the hearth and looks in silence at the fire....

Not knowing what to say I ask him:

"Well, what have you to tell me?"

"Nothing," he answers.

And silence again. The red glow of the fire plays about his melancholy face.

I thought of the past, and all at once my shoulders began quivering, my head dropped, and I began weeping bitterly. I felt unbearably sorry for myself and for this man, and passionately longed for what had passed away and what life refused us now. And now I did not think about rank and wealth.

I broke into loud sobs, pressing my temples, and muttered:

"My God! my God! my life is wasted!"

And he sat and was silent, and did not say to me: "Don't weep." He understood that I must weep, and that the time for this had come.

I saw from his eyes that he was sorry for me; and I was sorry for him, too, and vexed with this timid, unsuccessful man who could not make a life for me, nor for himself.

When I saw him to the door, he was, I fancied, purposely a long while putting on his coat. Twice he kissed my hand without a word, and looked a long while into my tear-stained face. I believe at that moment he recalled the storm, the streaks of rain, our laughter, my face that day; he longed to say something to me, and he would have been glad to say it; but he said nothing, he merely shook his head and pressed my hand. God help him!

After seeing him out, I went back to my study and again sat on the carpet before the fireplace; the red embers were covered with ash and began to grow dim. The frost tapped still more angrily at the windows, and the wind droned in the chimney.

The maid came in and, thinking I was asleep, called my name.

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/achekhov/bl-achek-ladyst.htm

About Love by Anton Chekhov

2012-01-29T08:22:00.000-08:00

About Love

by Anton Chekhov

At lunch next day there were very nice pies, crayfish, and mutton cutlets; and while we were eating, Nikanor, the cook, came up to ask what the visitors would like for dinner. He was a man of medium height, with a puffy face and little eyes; he was close-shaven, and it looked as though his moustaches had not been shaved, but had been pulled out by the roots. Alehin told us that the beautiful Pelagea was in love with this cook. As he drank and was of a violent character, she did not want to marry him, but was willing to live with him without. He was very devout, and his religious convictions would not allow him to “live in sin”; he insisted on her marrying him, and would consent to nothing else, and when he was drunk he used to abuse her and even beat her. Whenever he got drunk she used to hide upstairs and sob, and on such occasions Alehin and the servants stayed in the house to be ready to defend her in case of necessity.

We began talking about love.

“How love is born,” said Alehin, “why Pelagea does not love somebody more like herself in her spiritual and external qualities, and why she fell in love with Nikanor, that ugly snout—we all call him ‘The Snout’—how far questions of personal happiness are of consequence in love—all that is unknown; one can take what view ones likes of it. So far only one incontestable truth has been uttered about love: ‘This is a great mystery.’ Everything else that has been written or said about love is not a conclusion, but only a statement of questions which have remained unanswered. The explanation which would seem to fit one case does not apply in a dozen others, and the very best thing, to my mind, would be to explain every case individually without attempting to generalize. We ought, as the doctors say, to individualize each case.”

“Perfectly true,” Burkin assented.

“We Russians of the educated class have a partiality for these questions that remain unanswered. Love is usually poeticized, decorated with roses, nightingales; we Russians decorate our loves with these momentous questions, and select the most uninteresting of them, too. In Moscow, when I was a student, I had a friend who shared my life, a charming lady, and every time I took her in my arms she was thinking what I would allow her a month for housekeeping and what was the price of beef a pound. In the same way, when we are in love we are never tired of asking ourselves questions: whether it is honourable or dishonourable, sensible or stupid, what this love is leading up to, and so on. Whether it is a good thing or not I don’t know, but that it is in the way, unsatisfactory, and irritating, I do know.”

It looked as though he wanted to tell some story. People who lead a solitary existence always have something in their hearts which they are eager to talk about. In town bachelors visit the baths and the restaurants on purpose to talk, and sometimes tell the most interesting things to bath attendants and waiters; in the country, as a rule, they unbosom themselves to their guests. Now from the window we could see a grey sky, trees drenched in the rain; in such weather we could go nowhere, and there was nothing for us to do but to tell stories and to listen.

“I have lived at Sofino and been farming for a long time,” Alehin began, “ever since I left the University. I am an idle gentleman by education, a studious person by disposition; but there was a big debt owing on the estate when I came here, and as my father was in debt partly because he had spent so much on my education, I resolved not to go away, but to work till I paid off the debt. I made up my mind to this and set to work, not, I must confess, without some repugnance. The land here does not yield much, and if one is not to farm at a loss one must employ serf labour or hired labourers, which is almost the same thing, or put it on a peasant footing—that is, work the fields oneself and with one’s family. There is no middle path. But in those days I did not go into such subtleties. I did not leave a clod of earth unturned; I gathered together all the peasants, men and women, from the neighbouring villages; the work went on at a tremendous pace. I myself ploughed and sowed and reaped, and was bored doing it, and frowned with disgust, like a village cat driven by hunger to eat cucumbers in the kitchen-garden. My body ached, and I slept as I walked. At first it seemed to me that I could easily reconcile this life of toil with my cultured habits; to do so, I thought, all that is necessary is to maintain a certain external order in life. I established myself upstairs here in the best rooms, and ordered them to bring me there coffee and liquor after lunch and dinner, and when I went to bed I read every night the Vyestnik Evropi. But one day our priest, Father Ivan, came and drank up all my liquor at one sitting; and the Vyestnik Evropi went to the priest’s daughters; as in the summer, especially at the haymaking, I did not succeed in getting to my bed at all, and slept in the sledge in the barn, or somewhere in the forester’s lodge, what chance was there of reading? Little by little I moved downstairs, began dining in the servants’ kitchen, and of my former luxury nothing is left but the servants who were in my father’s service, and whom it would be painful to turn away.

“In the first years I was elected here an honourary justice of the peace. I used to have to go to the town and take part in the sessions of the congress and of the circuit court, and this was a pleasant change for me. When you live here for two or three months without a break, especially in the winter, you begin at last to pine for a black coat. And in the circuit court there were frock-coats, and uniforms, and dress- coats, too, all lawyers, men who have received a general education; I had some one to talk to. After sleeping in the sledge and dining in the kitchen, to sit in an arm-chair in clean linen, in thin boots, with a chain on one’s waistcoat, is such luxury!

“I received a warm welcome in the town. I made friends eagerly. And of all my acquaintanceships the most intimate and, to tell the truth, the most agreeable to me was my acquaintance with Luganovitch, the vice-president of the circuit court. You both know him: a most charming personality. It all happened just after a celebrated case of incendiarism; the preliminary investigation lasted two days; we were exhausted. Luganovitch looked at me and said:

“ ‘Look here, come round to dinner with me.’

“This was unexpected, as I knew Luganovitch very little, only officially, and I had never been to his house. I only just went to my hotel room to change and went off to dinner. And here it was my lot to meet Anna Alexyevna, Luganovitch’s wife. At that time she was still very young, not more than twenty-two, and her first baby had been born just six months before. It is all a thing of the past; and now I should find it difficult to define what there was so exceptional in her, what it was in her attracted me so much; at the time, at dinner, it was all perfectly clear to me. I saw a lovely young, good, intelligent, fascinating woman, such as I had never met before; and I felt her at once some one close and already familiar, as though that face, those cordial, intelligent eyes, I had seen somewhere in my childhood, in the album which lay on my mother’s chest of drawers.

“Four Jews were charged with being incendiaries, were regarded as a gang of robbers, and, to my mind, quite groundlessly. At dinner I was very much excited, I was uncomfortable, and I don’t know what I said, but Anna Alexyevna kept shaking her head and saying to her husband:

“ ‘Dmitry, how is this?’

“Luganovitch is a good-natured man, one of those simple-hearted people who firmly maintain the opinion that once a man is charged before a court he is guilty, and to express doubt of the correctness of a sentence cannot be done except in legal form on paper, and not at dinner and in private conversation.

“ ‘You and I did not set fire to the place,’ he said softly, ‘and you see we are not condemned, and not in prison.’

“And both husband and wife tried to make me eat and drink as much as possible. From some trifling details, from the way they made the coffee together, for instance, and from the way they understood each other at half a word, I could gather that they lived in harmony and comfort, and that they were glad of a visitor. After dinner they played a duet on the piano; then it got dark, and I went home. That was at the beginning of spring.

“After that I spent the whole summer at Sofino without a break, and I had no time to think of the town, either, but the memory of the graceful fair-haired woman remained in my mind all those days; I did not think of her, but it was as though her light shadow were lying on my heart.

“In the late autumn there was a theatrical performance for some charitable object in the town. I went into the governor’s box (I was invited to go there in the interval); I looked, and there was Anna Alexyevna sitting beside the governor’s wife; and again the same irresistible, thrilling impression of beauty and sweet, caressing eyes, and again the same feeling of nearness. We sat side by side, then went to the foyer.

“ ‘You’ve grown thinner,’ she said; ‘have you been ill?’

“ ‘Yes, I’ve had rheumatism in my shoulder, and in rainy weather I can’t sleep.’

“ ‘You look dispirited. In the spring, when you came to dinner, you were younger, more confident. You were full of eagerness, and talked a great deal then; you were very interesting, and I really must confess I was a little carried away by you. For some reason you often came back to my memory during the summer, and when I was getting ready for the theatre today I thought I should see you.’

“And she laughed.

“ ‘But you look dispirited today,’ she repeated; ‘it makes you seem older.’

“The next day I lunched at the Luganovitchs’. After lunch they drove out to their summer villa, in order to make arrangements there for the winter, and I went with them. I returned with them to the town, and at midnight drank tea with them in quiet domestic surroundings, while the fire glowed, and the young mother kept going to see if her baby girl was asleep. And after that, every time I went to town I never failed to visit the Luganovitchs. They grew used to me, and I grew used to them. As a rule I went in unannounced, as though I were one of the family.

“ ‘Who is there?’ I would hear from a faraway room, in the drawling voice that seemed to me so lovely.

“ ‘It is Pavel Konstantinovitch,’ answered the maid or the nurse.

“Anna Alexyevna would come out to me with an anxious face, and would ask every time:

“ ‘Why is it so long since you have been? Has anything happened?’

“Her eyes, the elegant refined hand she gave me, her indoor dress, the way she did her hair, her voice, her step, always produced the same impression on me something new and extraordinary in my life, and very important. We talked together for hours, were silent, thinking each our own thoughts, or she played for hours to me on the piano. If there were no one at home I stayed and waited, talked to the nurse, played with the child, or lay on the sofa in the study and read; and when Anna Alexyevna came back I met her in the hall, took all her parcels from her, and for some reason I carried those parcels every time with as much love, with as much solemnity, as a boy.

“There is a proverb that if a peasant woman has no troubles she will buy a pig. The Luganovitchs had no troubles, so they made friends with me. If I did not come to the town I must be ill or something must have happened to me, and both of them were extremely anxious. They were worried that I, an educated man with a knowledge of languages, should, instead of devoting myself to science or literary work, live in the country, rush round like a squirrel in a rage, work hard with never a penny to show for it. They fancied that I was unhappy, and that I only talked, laughed, and ate to conceal my sufferings, and even at cheerful moments when I felt happy I was aware of their searching eyes fixed upon me. They were particularly touching when I really was depressed, when I was being worried by some creditor or had not money enough to pay interest on the proper day. The two of them, husband and wife, would whisper together at the window; then he would come to me and say with a grave face:

“ ‘If you really are in need of money at the moment, Pavel Konstantinovitch, my wife and I beg you not to hesitate to borrow from us.’

“And he would blush to his ears with emotion. And it would happen that, after whispering in the same way at the window, he would come up to me, with red ears, and say:

“ ‘My wife and I earnestly I beg you to accept this present.’

“And he would give me studs, a cigar-case, or a lamp, and I would send them game, butter, and flowers from the country. They both, by the way, had considerable means of their own. In early days I often borrowed money, and was not very particular about it—borrowed wherever I could—but nothing in the world have induced me to borrow from the Luganovitchs. But why talk of it?

“I was unhappy. At home, in the fields, in the barn, I thought of her; I tried to understand the mystery of a beautiful, intelligent young woman’s marrying some one so uninteresting, almost an old man (her husband was over forty), and having children by him; to understand the mystery of this uninteresting, good, simple-hearted man, who argued with such wearisome good sense, at balls and evening parties kept near the more solid people, looking listless and superfluous, with a submissive, uninterested expression, as though he had been brought there for sale, who yet believed in his right to be happy, to have children by her; and I kept trying to understand why she had met him first and not me, and why such a terrible mistake in our lives need have happened.

“And when I went to the town I saw every time from her eyes that she was expecting me, and she would confess to me herself that she had had a peculiar feeling all that day guessed that I should come. We talked a long time, and were silent, yet we did not confess our love to each other, but timidly and jealously concealed it. We were afraid of everything that might reveal our secret to ourselves. I loved her tenderly, deeply, but I reflected and kept asking myself what our love could lead to if we had not the strength to fight against it. It seemed to be incredible that my gentle, sad love could all at once coarsely break up the even tenor of the life of her husband, her children, and all the household in which I was so loved and trusted. Would it be honourable? She would go away with me, but where? Where could I take her? It would have been a different matter if I had had a beautiful, interesting life—if, for instance, I had been struggling for the emancipation of my country, or had been a celebrated man of science, an artist or a painter; but as it was it would mean taking her from one everyday humdrum life to another as humdrum or perhaps more so. And how long would our happiness last? What would happen to her in case I was ill, in case I died, or if we simply grew cold to one another?

“And she apparently reasoned in the same way. She thought of her husband, her children, and of her mother, who loved the husband like a son. If she abandoned herself to her feelings she would have to lie, or else to tell the truth, and in her position either would have been equally terrible and inconvenient. And she was tormented by the question whether her love would bring me happiness—would she not complicate my life, which, as it was, was hard enough and full of all sorts of trouble? She fancied she was not young enough for me, that she was not industrious nor energetic enough to begin a new life, and she often talked to her husband of the importance of my marrying a girl of intelligence and merit who would be a capable housewife and a help to me—and she would immediately add that it would be difficult to find such a girl in the whole town.

“Meanwhile the years were passing. Anna Alexyevna already had two children. When I arrived at the Luganovitchs’ the servants smiled cordially, the children shouted that Uncle Pavel Konstantinovitch had come, and hung on my neck; every one was overjoyed. They did not understand what was passing in my soul, and thought that I, too, was happy. Every one looked on me as a noble being. And grown-ups and children alike felt that a noble being was walking about their rooms, and that gave a peculiar charm to their manner towards me, as though in my presence their life, too, was purer and more beautiful. Anna Alexyevna and I used to go to the theatre together, always walking there; we used to sit side by side in the stalls, our shoulders touching. I would take the opera-glass from her hands without a word,

and feel at that minute that she was near me, that she was mine, that we could not live without each other; but by some strange misunderstanding, when we came out of the theatre we always said good- bye and parted as though we were strangers. Goodness knows what people were saying about us in the town already, but there was not a word of truth in it all!

“In the latter years Anna Alexyevna took to going away for frequent visits to her mother or to her sister; she began to suffer from low spirits, she began to recognize that her life was spoilt and unsatisfied, and at times she did not care to see her husband nor her children. She was already being treated for neurasthenia.

“We were silent and still silent, and in the presence of outsiders she displayed a strange irritation in regard to me; whatever I talked about, she disagreed with me, and if I had an argument she sided with my opponent. If I dropped anything, she would say coldly:

“ ‘I congratulate you.’

“If I forgot to take the opera-glass when we were going to the theatre, she would say afterwards:

“ ‘I knew you would forget it.’

“Luckily or unluckily, there is nothing in our lives that does not end sooner or later. The time of parting came, as Luganovitch was appointed president in one of the western provinces. They had to sell their furniture, their horses, their summer villa. When they drove out to the villa, and afterwards looked back as they were going away, to look for the last time at the garden, at the green roof, every one was sad, and I realized that I had to say good-bye not only to the villa. It was arranged that at the end of August we should see Anna Alexyevna off to the Crimea, where the doctors were sending her, and that a little later Luganovitch and the children would set off for the western province.

“We were a great crowd to see Anna Alexyevna off. When she had said good-bye to her husband and her children and there was only a minute left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put a basket, which she had almost forgotten, on the rack, and I had to say good-bye. When our eyes met in the compartment our spiritual fortitude deserted us both; I took her in my arms, she pressed her face to my breast, and tears flowed from her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands wet with tears—oh, how unhappy were!—I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.

“I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand, and parted for ever. The train had already started. I went into the next compartment—it was empty—and until I reached the next station I sat there crying. Then I walked home to Sofino….”

While Alehin was telling his story, the rain left off and the sun came out. Burkin and Ivan Ivanovitch went out on the balcony, from which there was a beautiful view over the garden and the mill-pond, which was shining now in the sunshine like a mirror. They admired it, and at the same time they were sorry that this man with the kind, clever eyes, who had told them this story with such genuine feeling, should be rushing round and round this huge estate like a squirrel on a wheel instead of devoting himself to science or something else which would have made his life more pleasant; and they thought what a sorrowful face Anna Alexyevna must have had when he said good-bye to her in the railway-carriage and kissed her face and shoulders. Both of them had met her in the town, and Burkin knew her and thought her beautiful.

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/achekhov/bl-achek-ablove.htm

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - Book Review by Esther Lombardi

2012-01-29T08:18:00.000-08:00

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Book Review by Esther Lombardi, About.com

Anna Karenina is one of Leo Tolstoy's greatest literary works. It's the tale of Anna Karenina and her ultimately tragic love affair with Count Vronsky. This audio production offers Neville Jason's abridged version of Tolstoy's masterpiece.

What's in the Story

The story for Anna Karenina apparently came out of an episode in which Leo Tolstoy arrived at a railway station shortly after a young woman had committed suicide. She had been the mistress of a neighboring landowner, and the incident stuck in his mind...

As Tolstoy biographer Henri Troyat writes, "A dreadful lesson was brought home to him... He tried to imagine the existence of this poor woman who had given all for love, only to meet with such a trite, ugly death." Then, Troyat says, "Her image haunted him for a long time, but not specifically as material for a book."

When Tolstoy finally started the story of Anna Karenina, his wife reported in a letter to her sister, "Yesterday Leo suddenly started to write a novel on contemporary life. The subject is the unfaithful wife and all the ensuing tragedy."

So, Tolstoy creates the character of Anna Karenina, a young woman who finds herself in a loveless marriage with Karenin. It might not have seemed so intolerable if she had not met and fallen in love with Count Vronsky.

As a comparison to Anna's tragic affair, we hear about the relationship between Kitty and Levin, a conjugal love match. Levin is first rejected by Kitty, since she has her heart set on Count Vronsky. Since Vronsky's affections are already taken by Anna Karenina, Kitty's heart is broken and she eventually turns back to Levin for love and marriage.

In the character of Anna, Tolstoy creates a woman who is perhaps most unhappily destined for tragedy. Anna falls in love with Count Vronsky, only to find that her passions are uncontrollable. She might have continued the relationship in secret, but she defies the "rules," and is forced to pay the ultimate price... She loses all contact with her son; and she is shunned from proper society.

In the "Notes," Neville Jason writes, "Thus the forces of society gradually bear down upon Anna with the same insensibility and inexorable momentum as the iron monster, which finally crushes the life out of her body on the railway line."

http://classiclit.about.com/od/annakarenina/a/aa_annakarenina.htm

We Take Care Of Our Own (With Lyrics) - Bruce Springsteen

2012-01-19T15:33:00.000-08:00

The Beatles Rooftop Concert Part 3

2012-01-14T04:27:00.000-08:00

The Beatles Rooftop Concert Part 2

2012-01-14T04:20:00.000-08:00

Beatles Rooftop Concert - 1/3

2012-01-14T04:13:00.000-08:00

Beatles Rooftop Concert - 1/3

2012-01-14T04:12:00.000-08:00

Michael Jackson - One Day In Your Life

2012-01-14T04:03:00.000-08:00

Bruno Mars - Talking To The Moon [Official Video]

2012-01-10T15:13:00.000-08:00

TRUEQUE/ Mario Benedetti

2012-01-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

TRUEQUE/ Mario Benedetti

Me das tu cuerpo patria y yo te doy mi río

tú noches de tu aroma / yo mis viejos acechos
tú sangre de tus labios / yo manos de alfarero
tú el césped de tu vértice / yo mi pobre ciprés

me das tu corazón ese verdugo
y yo te doy mi calma esa mentira
tú el vuelo de tus ojos / yo mi raíz al sol
tú la piel de tu tacto / yo mi tacto en tu piel

me das tu amanecida y yo te doy mi ángelus
tú me abres tus enigmas / yo te encierro en mi azar
me expulsas de tu olvido / yo nunca te he olvidado
te vas te vas te vienes / me voy me voy te espero.

TÍBULOS/ Mario Benedetti

2012-01-08T17:28:00.000-08:00

TÍBULOS/ Mario Benedetti

A Ernesto Sábato

Hace ya medio siglo
don nicola creía
que el lascivo prostíbulo
y el discreto vestíbulo
eran lo mismo

por entonces las vírgenes
besaban a sus novios
en el vestíbulo

y los novios seguían
cursos de sexo básico
en el prostíbulo

ahora las casas vienen
con poquísimas vírgenes
y sin vestíbulo

y los hombres de empresa
exigen cinco estrellas
en el prostíbulo

ay don nicola
por fin tus dos palabras
son una sola.

SI DIOS FUERA MUJER/ Mario Benedetti

2012-01-08T17:24:00.000-08:00

SI DIOS FUERA MUJER/ Mario Benedetti

¿Y si Dios fuera una mujer?
Juan Gelman

¿Y si dios fuera una mujer?
pregunta juan sin inmutarse
vaya vaya si dios fuera mujer
es posible que agnósticos y ateos
no dijéramos no con la cabeza
y dijéramos sí con las entrañas

tal vez nos acercáramos a su divina desnudez
para besar sus pies no de bronce
su pubis no de piedra
sus pechos no de mármol
sus labios no de yeso

si dios fuera mujer la abrazaríamos
para arrancarla de su lontananza
y no habría que jurar
hasta que la muerte nos separe
ya que sería inmortal por antonomasia
y en vez de transmitirnos sida o pánico
nos contagiaría su inmortalidad

si dios fuera mujer no se instalaría
lejana en el reino de los cielos
sino que nos aguardaría en el zaguán del infierno
con sus brazos no cerrados
su rosa no de plástico
y su amor no de ángeles

ay dios mío dios mío
si hasta siempre y desde siempre
fueras una mujer
qué lindo escándalo sería
qué venturosa espléndida imposible
prodigiosa blasfemia.

SEÑALES/ Mario Benedetti

2012-01-08T17:18:00.000-08:00

SEÑALES/ Mario Benedetti

En las manos te traigo
viejas señales
son mis manos de ahora
no las de antes

doy lo que puedo
y no tengo vergüenza
del sentimiento

si los sueños y ensueños
son como ritos
el primero que vuelve
siempre es el mismo

salvando muros
se elevan en la tarde
tus pies desnudos

el azar nos ofrece
su doble vía
vos con tus soledades
yo con las mías

y eso tampoco
si habito en tu memoria
no estaré solo

tus miradas insomnes
no dan abasto
dónde quedó tu luna
la de ojos claros

mírame pronto
antes que en un descuido
me vuelva otro

no importa que el paisaje
cambie o se rompa
me alcanza con tus valles
y con tu boca

no me deslumbres
me basta con el cielo
de la costumbre

en mis manos te traigo
viejas señales
son mis manos de ahora
no las de antes

doy lo que puedo
y no tengo vergüenza
del sentimiento

MUJER DE LOT Mario Benedetti

2012-01-08T17:14:00.000-08:00

MUJER DE LOT

Mario Benedetti

Mujer estatua / tu historia
azul verde malva roja
quedó blanca de congoja
extenuada y sin memoria

mujer estatua / por suerte
fuiste hueso / carne fuiste
y sin embargo qué triste
es tenerte y no tenerte

mujer con lluvia y pasado
avara de tus mercedes
ojalá escampe y te quedes
para siempre de este lado

mujer de sal y rocío
tu corazón sigue en celo
y tu voz está de duelo
como la tierra y el río

no olvides que no se olvida
hacia atrás o hacia adelante
ya el castigo fue bastante
reincorpórate a la vida

con audacia / sin alertas
con razón o sin motivo
mujer de lot / te prohíbo
que en estatua te conviertas

mujer otra / diferente
si no fuera juez y parte
jugaría a desnudarte
lentamente / lentamente.

EL AMOR ES UN CENTRO Mario Benedetti

2012-01-08T17:10:00.000-08:00

EL AMOR ES UN CENTRO

Mario Benedetti

Una esperanza un huerto un páramo
una migaja entre dos hambres
el amor es campo minado
un jubileo de la sangre

cáliz y musgo / cruz y sésamo
pobre bisagra entre voraces
el amor es un sueño abierto
un centro con pocas filiales

un todo al borde de la nada
fogata que será ceniza
el amor es una palabra
un pedacito de utopía

es todo eso y mucho menos
y mucho más / es una isla
una borrasca / un lago quieto
sintetizando yo diría

que el amor es una alcachofa
que va perdiendo sus enigmas
hasta que queda una zozobra
una esperanza un fantasma.

The Divine Sacrifice by Tony Hays

2012-01-08T16:01:00.000-08:00

The Divine Sacrifice by Tony Hays

The Divine Sacrifice continues the story of King Arthur's conselor, Malgwyn ap Cuneglas, a solider who lost his arm in battle.

Arthur and Malgwyn are called to the abbey of Glastonbury to settle a matter of great political importance—tin is being mined for export to the Empire. While there, Malgwyn and Arthur meet St. Patrick, a legend in the Church who is there on a mission of his own, to root out the heresy of Pelagius.

When an aged monk is found cruelly murdered in his cell, Malgwyn is set with a problem that will test his skills as an investigator. His search for the truth may uncover a conspiracy that could endanger the kingdom.

Gritty and powerful with a true ring of historical perspective, and a character who sees more than those around him, The Divine Sacrifice is a historical mystery that will hook mystery readers and historical fans alike.

"Already, this series rivals the work of such proven masters of the subgenre as Steven Saylor and Laura Joh Rowland." Starred Review from Publishers Weekly.

About Tony Hays

A native of Madison, Tennessee, Tony spent his teenage years on a farm about 10 miles southeast of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Although he had dreamed of being a writer since childhood, it was only after a brief career as a university administrator that he began to come into his own. Initially, he was awarded an undergraduate degree in history and a MA in educational psychology from Tennessee Technological University. Later, he received his MA degree in English/Creative Writing at Texas A&M University at Commerce in December 1991. Since then, he has been constantly on the move and in print.

Tony has visited some 30 countries, living in six -- Japan, Kuwait, Poland, the Marshall Islands, Macedonia, and England. During his tenure in the Middle East, he was close to members of Hezbollah and actually attended a Spring 1997 fundraiser for the Taliban. He also served as the founding chairperson of the Overseas Security Advisory Council--Kuwait, a non-profit, State Department-sponsored consortium of representatives from the various segments of the American expatriate community, exchanging security information and working closely with the Regional Security Office at the U.S. Embassy in planning for civilian evacuations. His third novel, The Trouble With Patriots, grew out of this experience.

Returning to the US, Tony entered freelance writing fulltime, publishing widely in both print and online news sources as well as national magazines. His 20-week series on drug trafficking in southwest Tennessee won the Tennessee Press Association's Public Service Award in 2000 for the Savannah/Hardin County Courier.

Always going where the story is, Tony sailed aboard the USS Tortuga (LSD-46) from Norfolk, VA to the Horn of Africa during its 2002-2003 deployment in preparation for the War with Iraq. He stood the bridge of the American warship, serving as an unofficial Arab linguist, during the ship's transits through the Straits of Gibraltar, the Suez Canal, and the Bab al Mendab Straits off the coast of Yemen. After living and working with the men and women of the Tortuga and the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, he published an account of his experiences in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
His eclectic tastes are demonstrated by the diverse magazines and publications that have printed his articles and stories: Insight on the News at the Washington Times, Accuracy in Media, Cvil War Times Illustrated, Appalachian Heritage, The Christian Reader, Cats Magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Buffalo Spree, and Archaeology among many others. Frequently, he has collaborated with Charles C. Thompson II, a former producer at CBS' 60 Minutes and a founding producer of ABC's 20/20. Their work on Tennessee political and law enforcement corruption has been lauded across the nation. Many of their articles have been picked up and reprinted by Free Republic and The Progressive Review. Tony's articles on the Taliban, Al-Qaida, and Saudi Arabia have been reprinted or reported on by organizations as varied as the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Spanish television.

In 2003, Tony made the decision to return to his roots, historical mysteries. His efforts have not gone unrewarded. An active member of Mystery Writers of America and the Appalachian Writer's Association, Tony is the author of three novels, two historical mysteries and a contemporary satire, The Trouble With Patriots, set in the Middle East and released in 2002 by Bridge Works Press. It has now been optioned for film. His first novel, Murder on the Twelfth Night, was nominated for the Tennessee Volunteer Book Award. A scholar as well as a novelist, he is a member of the Robert Penn Warren Circle and has published criticism on Warren's early novel Night Rider.

With the critically-acclaimed release of Tony's first Dark Ages mystery, The Killing Way, from Tor/Forge, he is now under contract for three more volumes in this series. The first, The Killing Way, set against the murky.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8876016-the-divine-sacrifice

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

2012-01-08T15:47:00.000-08:00

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

Book Description

Publication Date: November 8, 2011

The highly anticipated, controversial novel, sold in more than forty countries"" Nineteenth-century Europe--from Turin to Prague to Paris--abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Conspiracies rule history. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. Italian republicans strangle priests with their own intestines. French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate Black Masses at night. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plots, and massacres. From the unification of Italy to the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," Europe is in tumult and everyone needs a scapegoat. But what if, behind all of these conspiracies both real and imagined, lay one lone man? What if that evil genius created its most infamous document? Eco takes his readers on an unforgettable journey through the underbelly of world-shattering events. Eco at his most exciting, a book immediately hailed as a masterpiece.

Editorial Reviews - Amazon.com Review

Nineteenth-century Europe—from Turin to Prague to Paris—abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Conspiracies rule history. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. Italian republicans strangle priests with their own intestines. French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate Black Masses at night. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plots, and massacres. From the unification of Italy to the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Europe is in tumult and everyone needs a scapegoat. But what if, behind all of these conspiracies both real and imagined, lay one lone man? What if that evil genius created its most infamous document?

Eco takes his readers on an unforgettable journey through the underbelly of world-shattering events. Eco at his most exciting, a book immediately hailed as a masterpiece.

A Note from the Author

Dear Amazon Readers:

The nineteenth century teemed with mysterious and horrible events: the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious forgery that later inspired Hitler; the Dreyfus Case; and numerous intrigues involving the secret services of various nations, Masonic sects, Jesuit conspiracies, as well as other episodes that—were they not documented truths -would be difficult to believe.

The Prague Cemetery is a story in which all the characters except one -the main character -really existed. Even the hero’s grandfather, the author of a mysterious actual letter that triggered modern anti- Semitism, is historical.

And the hero himself, though fictional, is a personage who resembles many people we have all known, past and present. In the book, he serves as the author of diverse fabrications and plots against a backdrop of extraordinary coups de théâtre: sewers filled with corpses, ships that explode in the region of an erupting volcano, abbots stabbed to death, notaries with fake beards, hysterical female Satanists, the celebrants of black Masses, and so on.

I am expecting two kinds of readers. The first has no idea that all these things really happened, knows nothing about nineteenth-century literature, and might even have taken Dan Brown seriously. He or she should gain a certain sadistic satisfaction from what will seem a perverse invention—including the main character, whom I have tried to make the most cynical and disagreeable in all the history of literature.

The second, however, knows or senses that I am recounting things that really happened. The fact that history can be quite so devious may cause this reader’s brow to become lightly beaded with sweat. He will look anxiously behind him, switch on all the lights, and suspect that these things could happen again today. In fact, they may be happening in that very moment. And he will think, as I do: "They are among us…"

--Umberto Eco

Review

"[Eco's] latest takes that longtime thriller darling, the conspiracy theory, and turns it into something grander...Sold to 40 countries and said to be controversial; a speed-read with smarts." -- Library Journal, Pre-Pub Alert, "My Picks"

"A whirlwind tour of conspiracy and political intrigue...this dark tale is delightfully embellished with sophisticated and playful commentary on, among other things, Freud, metafiction, and the challenges of historiography." -- Booklist

"Intriguing, hilarious...a tale by a master." -- Publishers Weekly boxed review

"He's got a humdinger in this new high-level whodunit...a perplexing, multilayered, attention-holding mystery." -- Kirkus, starred

"I find this book fascinating, perhaps the best Eco has written in years. Eco takes on conspiracy theories in the feverish political activism of nineteenth-century Europe--freemasonry, the Italian Risorgimento, the Paris Commune, and above all the forgery of the slanderous The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. What if there were a single mastermind behind all these conspiracies? It's already a bestseller in Italy, and I can't get enough of it!" ---- Huffington Post

Notes by readers

Brilliant writing, odd story, By Nancy E. Turner (Tucson, AZ USA)

Umberto Eco is anything but a pedant in his writing. The world was in turmoil between 1885 and 1905. Eco has thrown the whole mess of Europe in the late 19th century into one story, threaded it all through the hateful and vengeful eye of a delerius psychotic, and made it all make sense. The book is chock full of everything from Sigmund Freud (spelled Froid [umlaut]) to Napoleon, and for my money, I believe much of the backstory is true to history as I have learned it.

The style is gripping, entertaining, and rife with hidden meaning between the lines so that the reader seems to know what the narrator/main character does not. Simonini reveals from about the second page that he is the multiple-personality, the psychotic, the borderline person whom he seeks. We know it. We even begin to realize that others who know Simonini also know him as either a fraud or a lunatic. One of the masterful ways in which this is done is the character describing everyone he hates. Germans. Jews. French. Russians. The one thing that makes this so different from all his other novels is the level of sexual perversion graphically described, the twisting of motives of everyone from Jewish Rabbis to Templar Masons, of course through the eyes of a madman, and the level of depravity it makes the reader FEEL. Now, any author desires to elicit emotion from a reader, even if it is anger. Eco managed to step on all my buttons. This book is thick with hate speech, promiscuity, and murder. The writing is flawlessly brilliant, but the subject matter is not gentled by even the smallest point. One does wonder, since the book is translated from Italian, whether the translator is the brilliant here, but likely, they are equals. I read this for the Vine program, and if not for needing to supply a review, probably would not have finished it. It is so completely grim, so dark, foreboding, and evil, that I felt exhausted by it.

Funny, Erudite, Annoying and Brilliant and Over My Head, By Patrick McCormack (New Brighton, MN USA)

Everything Eco writes starts with an off-putting tour through a forest of symbols and a closet jammed with old conspiracies, until the average reader throws the damn thing at the wall.

This is no different, although the racist rambler at the center of the opening scenes of this novel is appalling, like Don Rickles on medieval crack.

This novel is a thriller in clown pants, a consipracy of dirty priests and nasty freemasons and horrible men and the smelly calvalcade of southern European bigotries. It is great fun, and surprisingly a rolicking good tail, but why, oh why has Mr. Eco never learnt to lead the reader into the labrynth of his genius?

So, if you are in the mood for a good book that starts with a Master's degree level of litarary sophistication in one huge swallow, this is the book for you. If you are in a book that takes you through all of the many furtive nasty cracks in a bad man's mind, in order to make a point, this is the book for you...

I cannot help but think that this must be literature, because it is too dense to be a dime novel.
If he wears you out (and Mr. Eco does wear out a reader) within the first 25 pages, so be it. Having finished it, I have the same reaction to this as I did to reading Genet.... brilliant. Sick. Worth it. Never again.

Eco at his second best, By Thomas F. Dillingham (Columbia, Missouri USA)

Commenting on any work by Umberto Eco is a daunting task. Eco's massive learning, deployed in each of his books not to impress but to reinforce the depth and complexity of his thought, as well as the intricacy of the narrative structures he delights in creating, combine to force doubt and uncertainty in the mind of a reviewer--have I missed something crucial?

Are the subtleties too remote for my comprehension? Of course, these are good problems to have, since they are part of the constant pleasure of reading Eco (whether nonfiction or fiction), and recognizing them as signals that the characteristics of Eco's work are present in this latest novel.

The Prague Cemetery purports to be the memories of a man of the 19th century, or arguably two men, since we are shown that "Captain Simonini" is also "Abbe Dalla Piccola" -though neither of the two men understands at first how they can both inhabit the same body -but they are a case of multiple personality disorder, comparable to a woman (Diana) who is being studied and exploited by psychologists and clerics who find her two personalities (one a "Satanist" who follows a sect of Freemasons, the other a pious and devout Catholic who is horrified by the behavior of her alternate personality). The fact that Captain Simonini encounters a certain "Froide," who is a psychologist working with the famous Charcot in Paris, reinforces the novel's interest in the transition from older forms of psychic research (uses of hypnosis by Mesmer and his followers) toward the "talking cure" and acceptance of the importance of dreams and childhood trauma in the exploration of adult emotional psychopathology.

Simonini is at the center of this intricate plot, which begins with his self-introduction and an extended tirade--alternately repulsive and hilarious--in which he establishes himself as one who loathes and despises nearly every group and nationality he has encountered in Europe--he deploys the national and ethnic stereotypes familiar from all expressions of bigotry, and he repeats these corrosive hatreds throughout the novel at almost every occasion when he encounters a member of a group he finds subhuman and inferior to, especially, himself. Among these, he includes all women, of any race or ethnic group, and regularly expresses his horror at the thought of close contact with any woman (though he never shows any sign of attraction to his own sex, either). His most powerful and profound hatred, however, is directed toward the Jews, and that constitutes the driving force of the whole narrative of his life and activities. He hates the Catholic Church, especially the Jesuit order, and Freemasons, as well, and this convenient group of targets he uses by exploiting their rivalries and by setting them against each other through his schemes and publications, leading finally to his "masterpiece," the combination of dozens, even hundreds of anti-semitic tirades into what would become the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion. (The vituperative remarks by Simonini toward so many groups make him somewhat reminiscent of Thomas Bernhard's narrative voices in such works as Concrete and Old Masters, but also of William Gass's repellent narrator in The Tunnel. I don't mean to suggest imitation, here, but simply that there are other characters of similar unpleasantness.)

Simonini, by disguising himself, as well as by employing his alternative persona, Abbe Dalla Piccola, becomes embroiled at various points (after leaving Italy, where he had been involved in trying to undermine the unification efforts of Garibaldi and his cohorts) in the secretive activities of various spy networks--the Prussians, the Russians, the French, and so on, and in each case, it becomes clear that spies and secret services have no particular loyalty to any government--in fact, a principle of successful spy activity seems to be that one must always be ready to transfer one's services to the next government in power. The various assignments Simonini receives from his controllers set him to encouraging activities by anti-Catholic, anti-Freemason, and anti-semitic groups and writers, all of whose works he encourages by offering his own (or his grandfather's) well-worn writings. Another principle of such hate-mongering is that it does not matter whether the claims or stories are true or not, nor does it matter even if they are cribbed from fictions, since the readers who seek them out want only to have their preconceptions confirmed, and they will read and re-read minor variations on the same old legends and lies, finding that the familiarity of the stories is confirmation that they must be true. Recycling narratives is a sure method for attracting true believers.) Simonini uses an old "legend" of gatherings of rabbis in the Jewish cemetery in Prague, where they reinforce their beliefs in the inevitable "victory" of the Jews as they describe the many ways in which Jews will infiltrate all institutions of Gentile society until they are entirely in control of all political, social, economic, and educational structures, and thereby dominant throughout the world. This is the "doctrine" of the Protocols, of course, and Simonini's variations on them lead to his final composition.
The chronology of The Prague Cemetery is complicated in that Simonini and Dalla Piccola are writing a "diary" in 1897 that attempts to reconstruct (from other notes and documents) the activities of the preceding forty years, including Simonini's involvement in the Garibaldian campaigns in Italy, later the Paris Commune as well as other developments during the tumultuous post-Napoleonic period in France, as well as trying to work out their relationship to each other and the implications of trying to keep secret the murders and other activities they have both been involved in.

As I began to read this novel, I almost immediately said to myself that I felt as though I were back in high school, reading a novel that I had found in the library, Eugene Sue's The Wandering Jew. It is a novel of complex intrigues and skullduggery, variously condemning the influence of Jesuits, the Papacy, the Freemasons, and other groups--very much the roster included in Simonini's rants. Sure enough, as early as page 61, we encounter our first direct reference to that novel--one title among many (by Dumas and Hugo, especially) that will occur throughout; the literary world of Paris late in the 19th century is also shown to be deeply imbued with anti-semitism, indicating Eco's apparent view that no element of European society, whether aristocratic, capitalist, socialist, or laboring class can be exempt from the beliefs in conspiracies and exploitation by the Jews against all the rest of society.

We are told in an endnote that except for Simonini and several minor characters, all the characters and incidents in this novel are based in historical fact, and all represent the "secret history" of the evolution of the more powerful and insidious versions of anti-semitism--leading directly to the "Final Solution"--in Europe. Eco does not suggest that the Church nor the many variations and sects of Freemasonry are entirely responsible for the propagation of anti-semitic materials, but they are variously complicit because it suits their purposes to attack their perceived opponents and to link those opponents to already established negative groups--most conveniently, the Jews.

It won't do to repeat the incidents of this complex plot, but it is worth noting that Eco's novel, this time, is negatively affected by the frequent repetition of what are essentially the same rants--numerous extended and vituperative denunciations of targeted groups are deployed at too many points of this work, making the reader shrug after a while with a "here comes another one" feeling. Eco is certainly ingenious in supplying variations and in using these rants as occasions for the launching of new developments in Simonini's tortuous career. Even so, the repetitions are finally counterproductive, and they account for the 4 (rather than 5) star ranking I have offered here. Everything I have read by Eco has been rewarding in many ways, and
The Name of the Rose remains one of the very finest modern novels, in my view; in this case, I wish Eco had been more sparing of repetition, as the novel would have had a more powerful impact, I believe, if it had moved more efficiently from event to event. Even so, Eco's fans will want to read this and will enjoy it, repulsive as much of its subject matter must be.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/ref=pe_157930_21616220_pe_button/0547577532

ADELE - Rolling In The Deep (Legendado)

2012-01-03T14:22:00.000-08:00

Angra-fantasma da opera / Rock rio 2011

2012-01-01T17:20:00.001-08:00

Tarja Turunen & Angra - Wuthering Heights - Rock in Rio 2011

2012-01-01T17:20:00.000-08:00

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MONTMARAY By Michelle Cooper, excerpt

2011-12-25T07:24:00.000-08:00

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MONTMARAY

By Michelle Cooper

EXCERPT

23rd October 1936

Dear Sophie,

Happy birthday to my favorite little sister! I've been trying to recollect the day you were

born so I can gush about it in an appropriately sentimental fashion, but I'm afraid it's all a blank. I must have been too busy pulling Veronica's hair or smearing stewed apple over my smock to notice you popping into existence. I do remember Henry's arrival ten years ago, and if you were anything like her, you were a most unattractive baby--wrinkled, redfaced, loud, and rather smelly. Lucky for all of us that you've improved somewhat with age.

Now, did the presents arrive safely? I had to go all the way to Knightsbridge for the journal, and then I got detention for sneaking off from Games, so I hope you appreciate it. You can use it to write down your thoughts. You must have plenty of them at the moment, given Aunt Charlotte's letter--I assume you've read it by now. Are you thrilled?

Terrified? Well, it's all your fault for turning sixteen--you gave Aunt Charlotte quite a shock when she realized how old you'd suddenly become. She had to sit down and have an extra-large sherry to recover.

As for me, this new school is almost as ghastly as the old one. I suppose I'd been hoping Rupert would come too when I was thrown out of Eton, but his parents keep saying no, worse luck. The House Masters have finally sorted out dormitories, and now I share with three boys. Two are in the Rugby First XV, ugh. The other has noxious feet and learns the bagpipes, so is nearly as bad. I have already had two detentions, one for missing Games on Saturday and one for not doing Latin prep. The Latin prep wasn't my fault. I didn't know there was any prep because the Latin Master told us about it in Latin and I didn't understand a word he said.

Remember, I am in MarchHare House, so please make sure you put that on the address

when you write, otherwise the letters might get lost. It's a good House to be in because it inevitably comes last in the House Cup, so no one cares much when I lose House points.

The other good thing about MarchHare is that we can climb out the top-story windows

onto the roof and look into the hospital next door, which is very educational. Also, sometimes the nurses come out onto a balcony to smoke, and they throw us a cigarette if we beg nicely.

It's almost lights-out, so I'd better finish. Tell Veronica to come and live in my trunk so she can secretly do my Latin prep for me. She could write my History essay as well, it is on the Restoration. And ask her to bring Carlos with her so he can eat the bagpipes. Love from your wonderful brother,

Toby

As usual, Toby's letter was coded in Kernetin, which Toby and my cousin Veronica and I invented years ago so we could write notes to each other without the grown-ups being able to read them. Kernetin is based on Cornish and Latin, with some Greek letters and random meaningless squiggles thrown in to be extra-confusing. Also, it is boustrophedonic (I adore that word and try to say it as often as possible, but unfortunately it hasn't many everyday uses). "Boustrophedonic" means you read one line left to right, then the next right to left. Veronica can translate Kernetin straight off the page into English, but I find it easier to write it out, so there it is, my first entry in my new journal.

It has a hundred blank pages thick as parchment, and a morocco binding, and is almost

too lovely to write in.

I did get some superb birthday presents this year. Veronica gave me a pen with my initials on it. From my little sister, Henry, came a new Pride and Prejudice, because I dropped my old one in the bath and it hasn't been the same since. (Henry, who wishes she'd been born a boy, looked quite disappointed when I opened the journal from Toby -she'd probably told him to get me one of those pocketknives with attached magnifying glass, screwdriver, and fish-scaler, hoping that I'd then lend it to her.) The villagers presented me with a honey-spice cake, a lavender pillow, and a beautiful comb carved out of driftwood. Uncle John doesn't even know what year it is, let alone the date, so I never expect so much as a "Happy birthday" from him, but Rebecca, our housekeeper, gave me the day off from washing up the breakfast dishes. Even Carlos, our Portuguese water dog, managed a birthday card, signed with an inky paw-print (now I understand why Henry was being so secretive yesterday and how the bathtub ended up with all those black streaks).

And then there was Aunt Charlotte! I opened her letter long after breakfast was over

because I couldn't imagine her approving of anything as indulgent as birthdays, but that

turned out to be the most exciting part of the whole morning. I won't copy it all out, most

of it being her usual scoldings about our idle, extravagant lives here on Montmaray, and

do we think she's made of money, and so on. But here is the important part: ...and now that you are sixteen, Sophia, I am reminded yet again of the sad burden I have been forced to bear since my youngest brother and his wife were so cruelly torn from this world, God rest their souls. My only comfort is knowing how grateful Robert and Jane would be if they could see all that I have done for you children.

However, my responsibilities are not yet complete, and your mother in particular, Sophia, would have wanted you to be given the same social opportunities she had. As for

Veronica, it is not her fault that her feckless mother is who-knows-where and quite unable to make appropriate arrangements regarding a matrimonial match. I feel it is my duty, then, to sponsor your debuts into Society. We cannot postpone this event much longer, in light of your advancing ages.

I expect early in the new year would be the best time for both of you to travel to England. I leave it to Veronica to write to Mr. Grenville regarding steamer passage and railway tickets. In the meantime, I shall begin perusing the Almanach de Gotha for eligible

prospects...

2030 The Real Story of What Happens to America by Albert Brooks

2011-12-25T07:04:00.000-08:00

2030 The Real Story of What Happens to America by Albert Brooks

CHAPTER ONE

It was a normal day, or so it seemed. Actually, nothing in 2030 seemed normal, not to Brad Miller anyway. Brad was surprised at how many people showed up for his eightieth birthday. Surprised because he had these friends in the first place and surprised at how healthy they all were. This was not what people in their eighties were supposed to look like. Sure, the lifts helped, along with the tucks and the hair and the new weight- loss drug, which, while only seven years on the market, had become the biggest selling drug in the history of the world. That’s what happens when a chemical works almost one hundred percent of the time, in everyone. But still, Brad thought, these folks look good.

And they did. They were thin, healthy, all looking better than their parents were at forty. The only thing missing were younger people. Brad couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a young person at his birthday.

Other than his son, whom he never talked to anyway, he didn’t even know anyone under fi fty. Nor did any of his friends. There was just too much resentment and too much fear.

As the lights dimmed, the customary “life” movie played in the middle of the room, holographic style. People were getting tired of these. It was one thing to watch home movies of someone else; it was another to feel like you were in them. It was like boredom squared. But people watched; they laughed and told Brad how much fun it was to see him “age.” He, like many of them, actually looked better now than he had ten years ago. But it was funny. Where once that was a compliment relating to how you lived your life, whether you ate well or exercised enough or got a good night’s sleep, now it was just about what you could aff ord. And once cancer had been cured, the youth business went crazy. Most people in that room were only in their twenties when Richard Nixon declared a war on cancer. Like all the wars going on at the time, this one seemed to have little success. The progress was so slow. Still, people held out hope that when they got older there would be a cure for what ailed them. But when the year 2000 rolled in, there they were: bald, fat, and ugly. And there was still cancer.

But everyone in that room, probably everyone in the world, remembered where they were when they heard the news. Oh, there had been so many hopeful stories over the years. So many false starts. So many mice that were cured, but when the human trials started, people dropped dead of all kinds of things that had never bothered a mouse. But then it happened.

And like all of the greatest discoveries, from Newton to Einstein, Dr. Sam Mueller’s cure was so exquisitely simple. Dr. Mueller was no genius. He grew up fairly normal, in Addison, Illinois. A big night out was going to Chicago for pizza. After graduating Rush Medical College, Sam Mueller interned at Rush- Presbyterian- St. Luke’s Medical Center and then, realizing that making a living as an internist was going to be tough at best, he started looking elsewhere. He thought of concierge medicine, which was all the rage, but decided to take a fairly lucrative position at Pfizer. He figured he would do that for a while and then something would unfold. Oh my, did it unfold.

Mueller had always been interested in the immune system. So much in medicine was pointing to the body’s own defenses as a cure- all, but the success rates were modest at best. He was assigned various projects at Pfizer. Some were interesting, some he hated. He never understood the Viagra- for- women thing. Every woman he ever knew could go all night, have a bowl of cereal, and go for another afternoon, but he worked on it anyway, and when it happened it was huge.

The team got big- time bonuses and raises and all kinds of rewards. They were even sent to Hawaii, where Sam Mueller met his wife. She wasn’t Hawaiian, she was an assistant on the project whom he had never really gotten to know, but then one night on Kauai they both got drunk, walked on the beach, watched the most beautiful sunset in the world, and fell madly in love.

Maggie was a great companion for Sam. Smart, easygoing, and very supportive. He could talk to her about his ideas and she would not only listen but also encourage him. The idea she liked most was an interesting one. Something about using a person’s own blood to attack cancer cells.

Sam was convinced that if a person’s blood was combined with someone else’s blood that wasn’t compatible, if the combination of the two was just right, one person’s blood cells would fight not only the other blood cells but the foreign bodies in their system as well, including the cancer.

But the real break came when Pfizer merged with a Swiss firm and Sam was let go. Thank God he never told anyone there about what he was working on or they would have owned it.

With Maggie’s help, Sam Mueller raised three hundred thousand dollars, took on a partner, and started Immunicate. His blood idea was in the right direction but it didn’t work properly; it knocked out cancer cells but attacked the other organs, too, and the body’s immune system went into overdrive, killing everything. Something had to be done to make the blood combination work against the disease without working against the rest of the body. The answer turned out to be common amino acids.

Sam and his partner, Ben Wasser, spent an entire year injecting the blood with different aminos. With the help of computers they tried millions of combinations. There were so many months where they felt it was not going to work. And then on the night of June 30, 2014, they put together alanine, isoleucine, proline, and tryptophan. Four common aminoacids that had never been combined before, certainly not in this precise mea surement.

Two years later, over ninety- four percent of the participants in the human trials were cancer- free. There were still rare cancers that did not respond, but all the big ones were knocked out, and the success was so overwhelming that trials were stopped early and the drug was available to the general population by the spring of 2016.

From "2030" by Albert Brooks. Excerpt courtesy of St. Martin’s Press.

The Beatles - Yesterday [HD]

2011-12-24T04:18:00.000-08:00

John Lennon - Give Peace A Chance (Original Video Tape) [HiQ]

2011-12-24T03:52:00.000-08:00

John Lennon -"Happy Xmas (War Is Over)"-Offical Video-HQ

2011-12-24T03:38:00.000-08:00

Scorpions - Wind of change

2011-12-13T13:22:00.000-08:00

R.E.M -- Everybody Hurts [[ Official Live Video ]] HD...

2011-12-13T13:10:00.000-08:00

R.E.M. - Losing My Religion (Live @ MTV) HD

2011-12-13T13:00:00.000-08:00

Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall(Live)

2011-12-08T13:54:00.000-08:00

Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall(Live)

2011-12-08T13:53:00.000-08:00

Evanescence My Immortal Official Video

2011-12-08T13:37:00.000-08:00

JoJo - Too Little Too Late (Full music video)

2011-12-08T13:28:00.000-08:00

(FERGIE) BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY

2011-12-08T13:21:00.000-08:00

Joe Cocker - With A Little Help Of My Friends (LIVE in London) HD

2011-11-29T17:49:00.000-08:00

Paul McCartney, Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton & Rod Stewart - All You Need Is...

2011-11-29T17:27:00.000-08:00

Eric Clapton - Wonderful Tonight HD

2011-11-29T16:53:00.000-08:00

Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven HD

2011-11-29T16:27:00.000-08:00

Eric Clapton - Somewhere Over The Rainbow HD

2011-11-29T16:07:00.000-08:00

"A Tale of Two Cities" #01 by Charles Dickens

2011-11-29T15:21:00.000-08:00

ILUSION Y REALIDAD EN ESPAÑOL (2012) PARTE 2/2

2011-11-25T14:02:00.000-08:00

ILUSION Y REALIDAD EN ESPAÑOL (2012) PARTE 1/2

2011-11-25T13:26:00.000-08:00

El laberinto del Fauno(escena final)

2011-11-15T17:36:00.000-08:00

El laberinto del Fauno(escena final)

2011-11-15T16:58:00.000-08:00

Cinematico 08 - Pixar

2011-11-15T16:39:00.000-08:00

Biografia Violeta Parra (2/2)

2011-11-07T18:55:00.000-08:00

Biografia Violeta Parra (1/2)

2011-11-07T18:36:00.000-08:00

Mercedes Sosa - Poema 15 (me gustas cuando callas) [1976]

2011-11-07T17:57:00.000-08:00

Pablo Neruda, Poema 20

2011-11-07T17:38:00.000-08:00

CIEN AÑOS DE SOLEDAD - AUDIOLIBRO - GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ.wmv

2011-11-07T17:13:00.000-08:00

[Audiolibro] Gabriel García Márquez - 100 años de soledad (14 horas)

2011-11-07T16:38:00.000-08:00

CHERNOBYL: EL FIN DEL MUNDO (ESPAÑOL LATINO) PARTE 1

2011-11-07T14:48:00.000-08:00

Hiroshima y Nagasaki 6 de Agosto 1945 - Lanzamiento de la Bomba Atómica

2011-11-07T14:32:00.000-08:00

Mercedes Sosa - Corazon de Estudiante - Via Funchal out 07

2011-11-07T13:36:00.000-08:00

The Mamas The Papas California Dreamin' Subtitulado

2011-11-03T17:26:00.000-07:00

Scott Mckenzie - San Francisco (traducido al español)STEREO

2011-11-03T17:01:00.000-07:00

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THE RAIN? - CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL (SUBTITULADO...

2011-11-03T16:48:00.000-07:00

Creedence Clearwater Revival: Who'll Stop The Rain

2011-11-03T16:39:00.001-07:00

Creedence Clearwater Revival: Who'll Stop The Rain

2011-11-03T16:39:00.000-07:00

The Marmalade - Reflections Of My Life

2011-11-03T16:22:00.000-07:00

LOVE OF MY LIFE - Rock in Rio '85

2011-11-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe - How can I go on (Legendado em P...

2011-11-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe - How can I go on (Legendado em P...

2011-11-02T18:30:00.001-07:00

Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe - How can I go on (Legendado em P...

2011-11-02T18:30:00.000-07:00

Mercedes Sosa e Raimundo Fagner - "Años" (1981)

2011-11-02T18:19:00.001-07:00

Mercedes Sosa e Raimundo Fagner - "Años" (1981)

2011-11-02T18:19:00.000-07:00

Mercedes Sosa e Milton Nascimento - Volver a los 17

2011-11-02T17:53:00.000-07:00

Mercedes Sosa - Gracias a La Vida

2011-11-02T17:44:00.000-07:00

Mercedes Sosa - Todo cambia

2011-11-02T17:10:00.000-07:00

Mercedes Sosa - Solo le Pido a Dios

2011-11-02T16:52:00.001-07:00

Mercedes Sosa - Solo le Pido a Dios

2011-11-02T16:52:00.000-07:00

Una Cancion Desesperada - Pablo Neruda

2011-11-01T08:37:00.000-07:00

TESIS - DOCUMENTAL ANTROPOLÓGICO

2011-11-01T08:03:00.000-07:00

TESIS - DOCUMENTAL ANTROPOLÓGICO

2011-11-01T08:02:00.000-07:00

Cuarto Milenio - Los Illuminati 1-5

2011-11-01T07:13:00.000-07:00

Jack el Destripador y los Asesinatos de Whitechapel - Cuarto Milenio - I...

2011-11-01T07:03:00.000-07:00

MARIO BENEDETTI

2011-10-31T18:12:00.000-07:00

American Girl performed by Tom Petty

2011-10-28T08:43:00.000-07:00

katie Melua - Crawling Up a Hill

2011-10-25T19:15:00.000-07:00

The Police - Every Breath You Take (With Lyrics)

2011-10-25T18:40:00.000-07:00

The Who - Behind Blue Eyes (Original Version)

2011-10-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

whitney houston - I will always love you

2011-10-25T18:06:00.000-07:00

Tom Petty - American Girl

2011-10-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

Las ciencias se aprenden en vivo

2011-10-22T12:43:00.000-07:00

Las ciencias se aprenden en vivo

Los cómics abandonan los diarios

2011-10-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

Los cómics abandonan los diarios

Archivo de acentos de inglés

2011-10-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

Archivo de acentos de inglés

Escritores que se autopublican

2011-10-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

Escritores que se autopublican

Feria del Libro en Washington

2011-10-22T12:30:00.000-07:00

Feria del Libro en Washington

Drama que causó pánico en EE.UU.

2011-10-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

Drama que causó pánico en EE.UU.

Libia: se abre un nuevo capítulo

2011-10-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

Libia: se abre un nuevo capítulo

multi show Rock in Rio 2011 Tributo a Legião Urbana Show Completo

2011-10-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

The Complete Stories of Truman Capote (Vintage International)

2011-10-16T05:59:00.000-07:00

The Complete Stories of Truman Capote (Vintage International)

Most readers know Truman Capote as the author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood; or they remember his notorious social life and wild and witty public appearances. But he was also the author of superb short tales that were as elegant as they were heartfelt, as grotesque as they were compassionate. Now, on the occasion of what would have been his eightieth birthday, the Modern Library presents the first collection that includes all of Capote’s short fiction–a volume that confirms his status as one of the masters of this form.

Among the selections are “A Tree of Night,” in which an innocent student, sitting on a train beside a slatternly woman and her deaf-mute companion, enters a seductive nightmare that brings back the deepest fears of childhood . . . “House of Flowers,” the inspiration for a celebrated Broadway musical, which tells of a superstitious prostitute who learns to love in a way no one else can ever understand . . . the holiday perennial “A Christmas Memory,” famously adapted into a superb made-for-TV movie . . . and “The Bargain,” Capote’s melancholy, never-before-published 1950 story about a suburban housewife’s shifting fortunes.

From the gothic South to the chic East Coast, from rural children to aging urban sophisticates, all the unforgettable places and people of Capote’s oeuvre are captured in this first-ever compendium. The Collected Stories of Truman Capote should restore its author to a place above mere celebrity, to the highest levels of American letters.

Quotes - The Complete Stories of Truman Capote

"He’d always been willing to confess his faults, for, by admitting them, it was as if he made them no longer exist."

"Here is a hall without exit, a tunnel without end."

"In the country, spring is a time of small happenings happening quietly, hyacinth shoots thrusting in a garden, willows burning with a sudden frosty fire of green, lengthening afternoons of long flowing dusk, and midnight rain opening lilac; but in the city there is the fanfare of organ-grinders, and odors, undiluted by winter wind, clog the air; windows long closed go up, and conversation, drifting beyond a room, collides with the jangle of a peddler's bell."

Review

Most readers know Truman Capote as the author of Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood; or they remember his notorious social life and wild and witty public appearances. But he was also the author of superb short tales that were as elegant as they were heartfelt, as grotesque as they were compassionate. Now, on the occasion of what would have been his eightieth birthday, Random House presents the first collection that includes all of Capote's short fiction - a volume that confirms his status as one of the masters of this form.

Kathy Hines said: “Ok so when I first read a Truman Capote story it was my first year of college in 1989 and it was that "Christmas Memory" story and after we read that story as a class, we then wrote a paper detailing some memory/experience. That story triggered me writing about finding and reading my dad's letters that he had written home while he was in Vietnam, which was a very rewarding experience for me so I was excited to read this collection of his other stories. When I read the first story (written in 1940's), I thought, maybe this was how he wrote when he first started out, because it vaguely reminded me of Capote's style, but was not as sentimental at all... Really, none of the other stories evoked that emotion in me excpet for maybe "The Thanksgiving Visitor" and "One Christmas"; the rest seemed to end to quickly and even repeat plots (mink stoles getting sold show up in two of the stories...). I would not recommed this except to read the "Christmas Memory", "One Christmas" and "The Thanksgiving Visitor", skipping the rest “.

Joel Simon, said: Truman Capote"s short stories are thoroughly enjoyable. This is the first time I have ever read the entire set of any author's short stories. It gave me a real appreciation of how an author becomes better as he/she gets more experienced. Of course the great thing about a collection of short stories is that you can dip into it for as long or as short a time as you like without feeling like you have lost track of the plot. And when there's not a bad story in the bunch, you enjoy it every time you pick it back up. Capote's writing style is excellent. I can't say that his stories are very exciting, but they are interesting, they have an edge to them and the characters are surprisingly deep considering how few pages are used for their development. The writer of the introduction hits it on the head when he says that these short stories have been underappreciated (particularly when compared to the blockbuster stardom created by Capote's "In Cold Blood") and that it is a shame that there are not more stories to enjoy. My favorites were Jug of Silver, Miriam, Children on Their Birthdays, Master Misery, Among the Paths to Eden, Mojave and One Christmas. I recommend this book to people who like to think about a story long after they've read it.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2281.The_Complete_Stories_of_Truman_Capote

Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Truman Capote

2011-10-16T05:52:00.000-07:00

Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Truman Capote

This volume includes three of Capote's best-known stories, "House of Flowers," "A Diamond Guitar," and "A Christmas Memory," in addition to his bestselling novel, Breakfast at Tiffany, the popular story of Holly Golightly--"a cross between Lolita and Auntie Mame" (Time).

Quotes from Breakfast at Tiffany's

"Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell,' Holly advised him. 'That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky."

"It may be normal, darling; but I'd rather be natural."

"The answer is good things only happen to you if you're good. Good? Honest is more what I mean... Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonet heart. "

"I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together."

"She was still hugging the cat. "Poor slob," she said, tickling his head, "poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like." She smiled, and let the cat drop to the floor. "It's like Tiffany's," she said.

It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name."

"Aprils have never meant much to me, autumns seem that season of beginning, spring."

"It’s better to look at the sky than live there"

"would you reach in the drawer there and give me my purse. A girl doesn't read this sort of thing without her lipstick."

"I loved her enough to forget myself, my self pitying despairs, and be content that something she thought happy was going to happen."

Review

     Holiday Golightly. She’s quirky, comical, and glamorous. She’s fashionable, in-the-know, and in-the-now. She’s lonely, lost, and waiting to be rescued. You couldn’t resist her charm if you tried, and you can’t help but fall in love with her.
      Well, at least in the Hollywood film version. Capote’s original novella paints a darker portrait of Miss Golightly. Unlike Audrey Hepburn’s adorable Holly, who needs a knight in slightly-rusted armor to save her, Capote’s girl is a “wild thing” who cannot be caged, trained, or rescued.
I can’t deny that the film is a classic and is one of my favorites. Audrey Hepburn may be the epitome of glamour and beauty, and Hollywood’s Holly can’t help but absorb Audrey’s charm. By the end of the film you find yourself rooting for “Fred” to save her from the nonsense of high society, reunite her with the cat, and wipe away her case of “the mean reds” forever. That is Hollywood, after all, and we would expect nothing less.
      But the real Holly, Capote’s Holly, can never be caged by convention. It would be hard to imagine her ever settling down and being content with Fred (regardless of the fact that he is an implied homosexual in the book. Hollywood seemed to have “overlooked” that).
      Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that the book’s Holly is a Bad Person; she’s just more layered and real.    Think about it – how many people have you come across who create a new persona for themselves, based on what they perceive others to desire? People who feign interest in the popular styles/entertainment/notable people of the day, just to seem like a Very Important Person and garner adoration, fame, and possibly fortune. I could name a few.
      But we get to go deeper than Holly’s exterior and see the scared and lonely girl at the core. She is terrified of being a caged animal, but also tired of being alone. She wants to seem as though she’s making a holiday out of life, but struggles with the need for stability and the desire for freedom.
      The book I read also included three of Capote’s most famous stories, and I’d be remiss not to mention them as well: House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar, and A Christmas Memory. The three short stories are amazingly intimate and touching, illuminating different sides of human emotion. I have not read Capote’s magnum opus, In Cold Blood, but after witnessing his detailed descriptions and haunting perceptions of human nature in these shorter forms, I have added his novel to my “to-read” list.

http://www.goodreads.com/search/search?search_type=books&search[query]=Truman+Capote