Excerpt
andlt;bandgt;LIFEandlt;/bandgt;andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever . . . The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose . . . The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits . . . All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;ECCLESIASTESandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In The Sun Also Rises (1926), Ernest Hemingwayandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;Taking it slowly fixes everything.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;ENNIUSandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In The Red and the Black (1830), Stendhalandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;One of the many pleasures of reading Stendhal is his liberal use of epigraphs, which offer wry commentary on the chapters they announce. The great translator Burton Raffel warns that Stendhal had a notorious habit of writing the epigraphs himself and ascribing them to elevated or otherwise unlikely sources. We could be skeptical, but why not play along? Hailed as the and#8220;Homer of Rome,and#8221; Quintus Ennius (239and#8211;169 BC) was born in southern Italy, in what is today Calabria, where Greek was then the language of the upper classes. He learned Latin as a soldier in the Second Punic War and was taken to Rome by Cato the Elder. Working as a teacher and translator of Greek, Ennius began writing poetry, eventually producing the epic andlt;iandgt;Annales,andlt;/iandgt; which recounted Romeand#8217;s history from the fall of Troy to Enniusand#8217;s own time. It was the most famous poem in the Roman world until Virgiland#8217;s andlt;iandgt;Aeneidandlt;/iandgt; supplanted it nearly three hundred years later.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;Remember that the life of this world is but a sport and a pastime . . .andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;KORAN, LVII 19andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In A Sport and a Pastime (1967), James Salterandlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Somebody said lift that bale.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;RAY CHARLES SINGING and#8220;OLand#8217; MAN RIVERand#8221;andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In Beautiful Losers (1966), Leonard Cohenandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;Life treads on life, and heart on heart;andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;We press too close in church and martandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;To keep a dream of grave apart.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;MRS. BROWNINGandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), W. E. B. Du Boisandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;This epigraph opens the chapter and#8220;Of the Sons of Masters and Men,and#8221; in which Du Bois meditates on the history of colonialism and race relations, concluding that and#8220;only by a union of intelligence and sympathy across the color-line . . . shall justice and right triumph.and#8221; The quotation comes from and#8220;A Vision of the Poetand#8221; by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806and#8211;1861), who was outspoken in her opposition to slavery.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;Some of it wasnand#8217;t very nice, but most of it was beautiful.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;DOROTHY GALE, andlt;iandgt;THE WIZARD OF OZandlt;/iandgt;andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In Beautiful People (2005), Simon Doonanandlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;PINDAR, andlt;iandgt;PYTHIANandlt;/iandgt; IIIandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Albert Camusandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;Did I request thee, Maker, from my clayandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;To mold me Man, did I solicit theeandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;From darkness to promote me?and#8212;andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;PARADISE LOST (X. 743and#8211;45)andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In Frankenstein (1818), Mary Shelleyandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;Mary Shelley was just nineteen when andlt;iandgt;Frankensteinandlt;/iandgt; was published anonymously. Although the novel sold well, Shelley was too dogged by scandal and debts incurred by her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, to receive any benefit from it. In fact, most people believed that Percy Shelley was the true author, doubting that a young girl could possess the kind of experience that would produce such a dark imagination. In fact, Shelley was well acquainted with death and the desire to resurrect life. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, feminist and author of andlt;iandgt;A Vindication of the Rights of Womenandlt;/iandgt;, had died of an infection two weeks after giving birth to her. Mary herself had already suffered the death of one child before writing andlt;iandgt;Frankensteinandlt;/iandgt;, and the child she was carrying while writing the novel would survive less than a year. A journal entry from 1815 reads: and#8220;Dream that my little baby came to life again; that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire, and it lives.and#8221;andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;February 19. Hopes?andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;February 20. Unnoticeable life. Noticeable failure.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;February 25. A letter.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;FROM KAFKAand#8217;S DIARY, 1922andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian (2010), Avi Steinbergandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;Nineteen twenty-two was not a good year for Kafka. Suffering from tuberculosis, his health declined to such a degree that he gave up writing fiction. He instructed his friend and literary executor, Max Brod, to burn all his manuscripts and papers after his death. Brod can be forgiven for not granting his friendand#8217;s dying wish, as we wouldnand#8217;t have andlt;iandgt;The Trial, The Castleandlt;/iandgt;, or andlt;iandgt;Amerikaandlt;/iandgt; otherwise.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;All the lives we could live, all the people we will never know, never will be, they are everywhere.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;That is what the world is.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;ALEKSANDAR HEMON,andlt;BRandgt; andlt;iandgt;THE LAZARUS PROJECTandlt;/iandgt;andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In Let the Great World Spin (2009), Colum McCannandlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;CHARLES DARWIN, andlt;iandgt;ON THEandlt;BRandgt;ORIGIN OF SPECIESandlt;/iandgt;andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (2008), David Wroblewskiandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;The dirty nurse, Experience . . .andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;TENNYSONandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In Regarding the Pain of Others (2002), Susan Sontagandlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirreland#8217;s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;GEORGE ELIOTandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In Unless (2002), Carol Shieldsandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential thingsand#8212;air, sleep, dreams, the sun, the skyand#8212;all things tending toward the eternal or what we imagine of it.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;PAVESEandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In The Comfort of Strangers (1981), Ian McEwanandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;Cesare Pavese (1908and#8211;1950), a towering figure in twentieth-century Italian cultural history, fell in love with American literature as a student in Turin. He wrote his thesis on Walt Whitman, and andlt;iandgt;Moby-Dickandlt;/iandgt; was his favorite book. He began writing stories, poems, and novels, but his anti-Fascist activities landed him in one of Mussoliniand#8217;s prisons for three years. With his own work censored, Pavese began translating Herman Melville, Gertrude Stein, William Faulkner, Charles Dickens, and others, and it is through his translations that most Italian readers first encountered these authors. After the war, Paveseand#8217;s novels andlt;iandgt;Before the Cock Crowsandlt;/iandgt;, andlt;iandgt;August Holidayandlt;/iandgt;, and andlt;iandgt;Dialogues with Leucand#242;andlt;/iandgt; earned him great acclaim. Yet, at the height of his success, he committed suicide after a failed love affair. He was forty-one years old.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;After all, my dear fellow, life, Anaxagoras has said, is a journey.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;and#8212;BERGOTTEandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;In The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931), Nathanael Westandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;The journey was cut short for Nathanael West (1903and#8211;1940), who died at thirty-seven, his literary talents unrecognized. He had spectacular bad luck as an