Tag Archives: literature

Dissembling

Posted on January 14, 2026 by Lee

“… And I who am here dissembled / Proffer my deeds to oblivion…” (T.S. Eliot, from “Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree,” in Ash-Wednesday.) “Dissembled” here seems to be intended to suggest “disassembled,” since the bones of the … Continue reading →

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Fog

Posted on December 31, 2025 by Lee

In “Morning at the Window,” T. S. Eliot is looking down at a foggy street and it’s the brown fog itself that seems to throw up to him “Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, / And tear from … Continue reading →

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Impatience

Posted on December 29, 2025 by Lee

“The conscience of a blackened street / Impatient to assume the world.” I’ve been thinking about these lines from T. S. Eliot’s “Preludes” over the past couple of days. The street is silent and empty at night, but we are … Continue reading →

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Shedding a Light

Posted on July 21, 2025 by Lee

In the third part of Les Misérables, Victor Hugo describes the street-urchin of 19th century Paris in a sweeping, comic-philosophical style that Henry Miller must have admired, leaping from one pithy aphorism to the next to give us a portrait … Continue reading →

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Victor Hugo Takes His Time

Posted on July 14, 2025 by Lee

I’m reading Les Misérables for the first time and I really enjoy the way Victor Hugo takes his time telling a story. The battle of Waterloo is discussed at length, and many details of it described, just so that a … Continue reading →

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Rules for Writing

Posted on April 3, 2025 by Lee

I’m trying to write something for my Substack, which I haven’t updated in months, and it’s got me realising how much I still have to learn about the business of writing. I’m reading Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and thinking … Continue reading →

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Solitude and Struggle

Posted on March 28, 2025 by Lee

Haven’t blogged for a while. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to write, why write, why share what I write. I write almost every day and I know at least why I do that: it’s for myself, to get my … Continue reading →

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Rushing Ahead

Posted on August 28, 2024 by Lee

A paradox: standing around waiting is a kind of rushing ahead. Though the queue barely crawls forward, your mind is rushing ahead to the future, consuming every present moment greedily as if to move more quickly towards the anticipated event. … Continue reading →

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Time to Think Things Over

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Lee

Now that Hans himself has fallen ill, time moves differently. Every day is the same and it’s as if a single day has stretched out to become one impossibly long day. There’s not much difference between day and night when … Continue reading →

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Magic and Reason on the Mountain

Posted on August 14, 2024 by Lee

Here on the magic mountain, the seasons get all mixed up. Hans can’t believe that on the third day of his visit, after days of hot sun, suddenly there is cold and snow. Joachim explains to him: yes the seasons … Continue reading →

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