Page 16

Who of us knows the theory and practice best suited to the life we are destined to believe we choose while destined to disbelieve the destiny that chooses, wheels within wheels, frantic little rings whirring as the great planet slowly swings through its track that the slow swing alone makes.

the most complete descriptions imaginable

She had given to him the most complete descriptions imaginable of the furnishings and of the ancient upholstery, the silk pillows, faded yellow and rose and gold with long gold tassels, the tapestry chairs, the wall measurements, the fountains and the shadows of the fountains, the Gothic arches, the illusive distance between one object and another, the number of feet between a divan and a chair, between a dynasty and a dynasty, the immobility of the furniture, the floors wavering like water, and she had told him of the absolute stratagem that would be necessary if he should find himself, that it was the morning tower, that he should not make the mistake of trying to walk through the thin partition of glass that separated him from eternal space, the morning sea like the twilight sea, the circling far white sands at the water's milky edge, a grey, twisted tree licked by the surf's tongue, its branches gleaming with red lichen, a white bird with a white comb roosting at the top, some bird of passage pausing for a moment here, everything arranged for convenience.

Purple lace, ctd.; Dreams, ctd.; Recursion, ctd.

From the same sentence as the purple lace Brooklyn Bridge (p. 24): "tenements crowded with discrowned kings, rabbit warrens and the rabbits dreaming of the rabbit god, his nostrils twinkling in the polar sky..." Aren't we all? That's what I now aspire for my writing to do, twinkle in the polar sky.

The shortest sentence

"Oblivion was his brother." (p. 20 -- very moving in context, I thought)

Any other contenders? Comments...

World's Least Active Book Club?

Fellow members! How far are you all? I am on p. 38, first page of ch. 3, feeling a sense of (I suspect intended and well-planned) relief at the re-emergence of solid, stolid Miss MacIntosh from the haze of opium dreams. Anyway, leave comments where you're up to?

Also, do we perhaps need a tidge more structure -- rotating group-leader question-asker, monthly "meetings," that sort of thing? Or just Keep Calm and Carry On as the Brits say?