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Hmmmm! Let me try one...later on...not now..as wives say...
I don't think anyone...I mean ANYONE...read all that Shakeyjee wrote in his short lifespan of 52 years. My Uncle had a framed picture of his Idol on his wall...but that was it.
PGW was given just two hours to pack up before he was led away to his POW Camp in Germany. The only book he packed was: The Complete Works of Shakespeare. And he wrote later that it made a very good pillow.
But Shakeyjee is certainly the most quoted of English writers. Ask Jeeves if you don't trust me. Well, here is another current evidence of it:
"Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace takes its title from a dialogue in Hamlet in which Hamlet refers to Yorrick as a fellow of infinite jest"
....DC Page 14, Sunday 23 December 2012
Dorothy Parker (the Shobhaa De of New Yorker) wrote that she gets headache and has to take 3 pills and rest for an hour after composing a post card excusing herself from attending that Party.
And she wondered how folks (like our Suitable Boy) turn out all those millions of words regularly.
During my youth our hip author was Arthur Hailey. He wrote at least 8 bulky novels, one after the other. I used to wonder how he did it. Because his prose was eminently readable and looked effortless. I bought and read his Hotel and Airport, two early works, from the Wheelers on Platform # 2 of KGP Station. And loved them. Of course I can't recollect a single sentence now...yes...the Hotel's last scene was a lift dropping dead like a stone in free fall after its cable snapped. And a frail nondescript guest in the hotel turns out to be a multimillionaire and buys it for the hero...happy ending.
Well, after I started blogging, I must have myself keyboarded 3 lakh and more words, if my Nokia Calculator is not indisposed. But it has been cruel.
I have a cousin a dozen years younger to me at Nellore. He is reputed to be an English expert although (also because) he is an M.A. in Sanskrit which he teaches in his College. But he doesn't access the Net and so doesn't read my blogs...good ;-)
So, I sent him every one of my 5 Ishani Booklets as soon as each of them arrived from the printer. And he acknowledged their receipt forthwith by phone.
The other day he was in Hyderabad and called me up to make inquiries of my welfare (people are kind to me after my inconsolable bereavement). And after a few nice words he said:
"Your Ishani booklets are all jugglery of high-sounding words"
I was taken aback and shamed. And it broke my heart. Because I take immense care not to use polysyllabic words (except that word: 'polysyllabic'...also that 'inconsolable bereavement').
I was down in the dumps for two days and was thinking of giving it all up altogether...and go forth as a mendicant.
But...as they have it in two-penny novellas...something turned up the next day to revive me like a watered lily...that story is for tomorrow.
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Whenever I read a sentence like:
"The distributors wanted to watch the rushes of the new film"
I close the newspaper and go into ecstasy...I get a rush (of a different kind).
This four-letter word has so many cute meanings.
First I heard it was from my mom when I was in school. She was saying, like:
"Too much 'rush' in the temple"
But then rush later on meant several lovely things to me:
'a rush of shame', 'RUSH' printed on boxes, and also:
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I guess it is rather sly of Shakespeare to make his most-quoted hero complain of words, words, words. I mean, Shakeyjee himself indulged in a copious extravaganza of words. Google tells me that he wrote 14 Comedies, 12 Histories and 11 Tragedies (37 plays in all). Not quite satisfied with plays he also wrote 154 sonnets. My Shakespeare Uncle used to say that sonnets are the toughest to write..their prosody is very rigid...he did write a few himself in his slim Collection: 'Songs and Sonnets':
Definition of Elizabethan sonnet
noun
a
type of sonnet much used by Shakespeare, written in iambic pentameter
and consisting of three quatrains and a final couplet with the rhyme
scheme abab cdcd efef gg.
I don't think anyone...I mean ANYONE...read all that Shakeyjee wrote in his short lifespan of 52 years. My Uncle had a framed picture of his Idol on his wall...but that was it.
PGW was given just two hours to pack up before he was led away to his POW Camp in Germany. The only book he packed was: The Complete Works of Shakespeare. And he wrote later that it made a very good pillow.
But Shakeyjee is certainly the most quoted of English writers. Ask Jeeves if you don't trust me. Well, here is another current evidence of it:
"Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace takes its title from a dialogue in Hamlet in which Hamlet refers to Yorrick as a fellow of infinite jest"
....DC Page 14, Sunday 23 December 2012
Dorothy Parker (the Shobhaa De of New Yorker) wrote that she gets headache and has to take 3 pills and rest for an hour after composing a post card excusing herself from attending that Party.
“I hate writing, I love having written.”
― Dorothy ParkerAnd she wondered how folks (like our Suitable Boy) turn out all those millions of words regularly.
During my youth our hip author was Arthur Hailey. He wrote at least 8 bulky novels, one after the other. I used to wonder how he did it. Because his prose was eminently readable and looked effortless. I bought and read his Hotel and Airport, two early works, from the Wheelers on Platform # 2 of KGP Station. And loved them. Of course I can't recollect a single sentence now...yes...the Hotel's last scene was a lift dropping dead like a stone in free fall after its cable snapped. And a frail nondescript guest in the hotel turns out to be a multimillionaire and buys it for the hero...happy ending.
Well, after I started blogging, I must have myself keyboarded 3 lakh and more words, if my Nokia Calculator is not indisposed. But it has been cruel.
I have a cousin a dozen years younger to me at Nellore. He is reputed to be an English expert although (also because) he is an M.A. in Sanskrit which he teaches in his College. But he doesn't access the Net and so doesn't read my blogs...good ;-)
So, I sent him every one of my 5 Ishani Booklets as soon as each of them arrived from the printer. And he acknowledged their receipt forthwith by phone.
The other day he was in Hyderabad and called me up to make inquiries of my welfare (people are kind to me after my inconsolable bereavement). And after a few nice words he said:
"Your Ishani booklets are all jugglery of high-sounding words"
I was taken aback and shamed. And it broke my heart. Because I take immense care not to use polysyllabic words (except that word: 'polysyllabic'...also that 'inconsolable bereavement').
I was down in the dumps for two days and was thinking of giving it all up altogether...and go forth as a mendicant.
But...as they have it in two-penny novellas...something turned up the next day to revive me like a watered lily...that story is for tomorrow.
**********************************************************************************************************
Rush
Whenever I read a sentence like:
"The distributors wanted to watch the rushes of the new film"
I close the newspaper and go into ecstasy...I get a rush (of a different kind).
This four-letter word has so many cute meanings.
First I heard it was from my mom when I was in school. She was saying, like:
"Too much 'rush' in the temple"
But then rush later on meant several lovely things to me:
'a rush of shame', 'RUSH' printed on boxes, and also:
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......DC Page 12, Sunday 23 December 2012
Thurber would have loved this news item. See:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2011/08/frogs.html
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Spiderman
"Washington: Scientists have discovered 33 new trapdoor spider species in Southwest America belonging to the genus that includes a notable species named after US President Barack Obama...Aptostichus barackobamai...."
Thurber would have loved this news item. See:
for how Obamajee's wife and daughters would have reacted a la Thurber to this spider named for him.
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Cover Drive
Petrol Pump Scene, Hyderabad
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