For months now I've agonised over my rather apathetic attitude towards reading - I pick a book desultorily and take ages to finish it, if I finish it at all! But in the last few weeks I seem have gradually begun limping back to my old reading habits :-)
Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's (and other stories) was devoured in a jiffy - a delightful, heart-warming read it was a good purchase. Here's my review.
Next I moved on to Samuel Beckett's oeuvres - en Francais! For the uninitiated, Beckett is almost synonymous with the Theatre of the Absurd. His plays deal with human suffering and survival and he is known best for his play Waiting for Godot, which underlined the breakdown of communication and the meaningless of contemporary existence. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. It was an ambition of mine to read his work in original (for which I had to reach that level of comprehending French and be at ease with the language) - having achieved that, I think now I want to re-read them in English now ;-) Though I understood what I read, it was kind of tedious! I'd rather read him so I can truly appreciate the genius behind the words (from a man who always tried to subvert words)...
Meanwhile I juggled Beckett with Vikram Seth's Golden Gate, which I'm truly enjoying - thanks Kunal! *Hug* And ofcourse, let me not forget Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus (also of the Absurdist school of thought, and Nobel Laureatte 1957.) The book emphasises the meaningless of life and is, quite honestly, way out of my league. I'm struggling with the work in English - am quite glad I didn't manage to find the original in French, at the AFP bibliotheque!
Refreshed (and modified) Word-Meme - on Demand by Arka :-
Five words I use very often:
Awesome, Epouvantable, Fatiguant (Tired in French), Mindblowing, Duh/Ick
Five words I Like using:-
Ephemeral - Evanescent, Fleeting, Imperceptible, Illusory, Transient,
Erudite - Au courant, Highbrow, Intelligent, Pedantic, Sagacious, Savvy, Scholastic,
Philistine - Boorish, Ignoramus, Uncouth, Unrefined, Vulgar
Prosaic - Banal, Bourgeois Hackneyed, Insipid, Mundane, Monotonous, Vapid
Sublime - Aesthetic, Celestial, Divine, Ethereal, Exalted, Intellectual, Radiant
12 comments:
:)
I'll never forget my first read of WFG...I knew nothing about TTAbsurd and read the play late into the night...was totally flummoxed...
And then dreamt of Acts III, IV, etc...all of which meant nothing. I later described this to our [TY] professor, and she said my sub-conscious had been on the right track, no matter how exasperated my `sense' had been!
Did you like Amedee? [I didn't] but I totally LOVED Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. It's hilarious, and it ROCKS! Also saw a performance of `The Lesson' put up by the Ruparelites [early 2002; we know some of them]. It was awesome.
Happy Absurding!
That previous comment wasn't long enough so I wrote some more ;)
Breakfast At Tiffany's is a cute movie...I adore Audrey Hepburn, but somehow in those oldish movies intimate moments seem...peculiar. It did NOT help that the actor had his chest shaved and [I am CERTAIN] pancaked!
You should find a CD in any decent video library...
Awesome and Mind blowing find place in my word list too.
Kewl :)
so geets has turned bookie eh? that word reminds me of the good ol' days of the cricket matchfixing scandal ;)
Have you seen 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' ... Audrey Hepburn is really tre's cool ! (Did I use that right ?? :-) )
Its always been my dream to learn French...what drove/motivated you ?
Golden Gate rocks!
Sometimes even I reach a stage with reading or writing where it all becomes very s ... l ... o ... w!
:-)
Ya know, my English teacher used to colour my essays red.
With a lot of (sp)s.
Take, for e.g., Ephemereal (sp). :D
Actually, that is a lovely typo.
Man I miss school... I loved those affectionate scoldings I'd get. :(
So we have a common proclivity for certain words, eh? :)
Ignoramus, for instance, though that wasn't included in my list. Ditto for vapid. A few related words which come to mind when I think of that one: vacuous, or fatuous. Or quotidian, for that matter, which is infinitely more preferable than the more quotidian mundane.
You have a penchant for surreal typos, I must say. Ephemreal has already been noticed, and I couldn't help but chuckle at "drivine."
Philistine.. thats one of my favourites too!
Oh I've just landed up on your blog by chance btw. I think I'll come by again :)
C ya,
Zira
u seem to be a linguistic sensei...
u really use some of these words in everyday speech?? and ur friends dont give u a 'dhaap' on ur head??!!!
jokes apart...just went thru much of ur blog and gotta admit...u do have a fine vocab :)
chere geets, not even once did u use epouvantable on fri at mondy's.
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