NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS

Some wicked quotes from Hitch-22:

"…the bogus refulgences of Kahilil Gibran and the sickly tautologies of The Prophet."

"Alcohol for me has been an aspect of my optimism: the mood caught by Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited when he discourses on aspects of the Bacchic and the Dionysian and claims that he at least chooses to drink " in the love of the moment, and the wish to prolong and enhance it."

"I was able to see my father in his last repose before the screwing-on of the lid, and later to do for him what he had once done for me, and carry him on my shoulders."

"…when told by the headmaster that only ‘the cream’ attended the school, [he said] yes, I know what you mean – thick and rich"

"’…the sheer perfect relief of being shot at by someone who has missed you’, Winston Churchill."

"The true essence of dictatorship is in fact not its regularity but its unpredictability and caprice; those who live under it must never be able to relax, must never be quite sure if they have followed the rules correctly or not. (The rule of thumb was: whatever is not compulsory is forbidden.)"

"…religion is an excellent reinforcement of shaky temporal authority."

"I learned that to be amusing was not to be frivolous and that language – always the language – was the magic key as much to prose as to poetry."

On JFK: " I felt no particular sense of loss at the passing of such a high-risk narcissist. If I registered any distinct emotion, it was that of mild relief."

"His name was Guy, and I still sometimes twitch a little when I run into someone else who’s called that – even in America, where in a way it is every boy’s name."

"…we had a whey-faced interview."

"I always take it for granted that sexual moralizing by public figures in a sign of hypocracy or worse, and most usually a desire to perform the very act that is most being condemned."

"I hope never to lose the access to outrage that I felt then."

Clive James describes Martin Amis as "a stubby Jagger."

"…the burgeoning refulgence of our love…"

Carwash: enjoying two young ladies at the same time

Ironic isn’t it that organized religion capitalizes on this fear, peddling its various brands of known unknowns, and, in so doing, causes untold numbers of deaths.

"It’s often said that we live in a permissive era, one with infinite second chances. But the truth is that for a great many people, the permanent memory bank of the Web increasingly means there are no second chances — no opportunities to escape a scarlet letter in your digital past. Now the worst thing you’ve done is often the first thing everyone knows about you."

Jeffrey Rosen, NYT magazine.

We’ve heard a fair amount  about opinion and critical thought in the ’sphere of late. Here’s what John Milton had to say on the topic in the Areopagitica:

"Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions: for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making."

Just acquired (from Peter Ellis, [listen to The Biblio File interview here]) a lovely addition to my collection of publisher’s memoirs/histories: a signed (to his daughter) copy of Author Hunting: Memories of an Old Literary Sportsman, by Grant Richards.

It contains this quote from a letter written by Bernard Shaw to the Author in May, 1934:

"…you should call your book The Tragedy of a Publisher who Allowed himself to Fall in Love with Literature. The Publisher who does that, like the picture dealer who likes pictures, or the schoolmistress who gets fond of her pupils, is foredoomed. A certain connoisseurship in the public taste is indispensable; but the slightest uncommercial bias in choosing between say, Bridges’ ‘Testament of Beauty,’ and the telephone directory is fatal…"

NB

"A thinking reed - It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world."

Blaise Pascal, Pensees

Durham Cathedral by Albert Goodwin

"In fine, since all men naturally desire to know, and since by means of books we can attain the knowledge of the ancients, which is to be desired beyond all riches, what man living according to nature would not feel the desire of books?  And although we know that swine trample pearls under foot, the wise man will not therefore be deterred from gathering the pearls that lie before him. A library of wisdom, then is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desireable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, aye, even ot the faith, must needs become a lover of books." 

from The Philobiblon.

Born in the mid 1280s Richard de Bury studied philosophy and theology at Oxford, became a Benedictine monk at Durham Cathedral, tutored and inspired a love of books in the future King Edward lll – whom he would later serve as high chancellor and treasurer of England -  and was made Bishop of Durham in 1333.  The Philobiblon was completed on de Bury’s 58th birthday, January 24th, in 1345 and first printed at Cologne in 1473. The first ‘true’ ( according to the Preface of the King’s Classic 1907 edition I have) English translation is by Ernest C. Thomas, published by Kegan, Paul, Trench & Co. in 1888.

"In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in time; Saturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates; all the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books."

Richard de Bury in The Love of Books.

From the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection.

Choice one-liners from Oscar Wilde:

• One should never listen. To listen is a sign of indifference to one’s hearers.
• The English are always degrading truths into facts. When a truth becomes a fact it loses all its intellectual value.
• It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
• Those who see any difference between soul and body have neither.
• The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
• Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance.
• Dullness is the coming of age of seriousness.
• Only the shallow know themselves.
• Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development.

And two more for the road:

• One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.
• Industry is the root of all ugliness.