Author: harmamae
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“You Too?” What Friendship Is, and Why It’s So Hard to Find
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’ ” – C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves I’ve always found friendship a tricky thing – I’ve watched other people quickly and easily slide into friendship in a matter of days, and wondered…
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The Book Doesn’t Exist? Then Write It
About time for another Quotable, don’t you think? “If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” – Toni Morrison I once read a book, hated how it ended, and started writing my own sequel. Now, this was when I was in elementary school,…
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Against Grammar – and Other Rules of English
“Why can’t the English learn to speak?” – Henry Higgins, from My Fair Lady I’ve been scaring all my friends lately by ranting on about grammar and how much I hate it. They come to me with concerned looks and say, “But doesn’t grammar help you understand what other people are saying?” And I tell…
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When You Identify With the Antagonist Instead
You usually know who you’re supposed to cheer for in a book. Miss Bingley is not the heroine of Pride and Prejudice. Inspector Javert is clearly in the wrong, clinging to an unworkable view of good and evil, in Les Miserables. Gollum is twisted and pathetic, and his better side does not win out in…
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Abusing Punctuation: The Ellipses…
I am reminded by my readers that I have been negligent in posting this summer–I blame it on a parade of weddings, the likes of which I have never experienced before–but you all still deserve my sincerest apologies. I hope a post on a Wednesday alleviates some of my blame. Recently I came across an…
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Tolkien’s “Take That!” to Shakespeare
Literary Fencing: Tolkien vs. Shakespeare While reading a book about Tolkien this week, I came across the fact that parts of Lord of the Rings were inspired by Macbeth.* Which I’d already known, and was super-obvious to me, especially in Eowyn’s most famous scene. But what I didn’t realize was how much of Lord of…
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Is the Paperback Really Dying?
Maybe It Isn’t E-books are taking over and traditional publishing is dying, or so the current narrative goes. E-book sales are going by leaps and bounds – apparently 2011’s sales were double that of 2010’s- and this clearly doesn’t bode well for the sales of cheap paperbacks. Readers might shell out for nice hardcovers if…
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Writers Who Don’t Publish Must Be Crazy, They Say
On Authors Who Don’t Publish They’re making a movie about J.D. Salinger – a man known for publishing The Catcher in the Rye, and then nothing else. Or, more excitingly, a man known for writing The Catcher In the Rye, a few short stories, and then reportedly a treasure-trove of unpublished works that could possibly…
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No post this Friday…
I’m out of town this weekend, so no blog post today! Have a great weekend, everyone!
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Is Rebellion Necessary for True Art?
“Generally speaking, art is an expression of man’s need for an harmonious and complete life, that is to say, his need for those major benefits of which a society of classes has deprived him. That is why a protest against reality, either conscious or unconscious, active or passive, optimistic or pessimistic, always forms part of…
Hmm... 