My blog Revue_Blanche (named after the French magazine La Revue Blanche) should be called Graphomaniac Unbound or Lara’s Pages. Initially, it was designed as one more Oscar Wilde club as well as Anthony Blanche Fan Club as well as a place for Brideshead Revisited lovers and for the novel Pail Fire lovers. But in course of time, especially for the last three months, the place gets more and more Lara’s Pages. Lara Biuts--Writer--for MY FRIENDS & FANS.
*enjoying life among things*
I love Milka!
old ashtray
There is an interesting story of the statuette in shape of a dog, whose silhouette you can see in my picture below:
When watching one of episodes of the TV series CSI: NY, I saw a statuette of a dog like that in my apartment, which was a part of interior of a room that was a scene of a crime. It’s so nice. As a detective stories lover I am so pleased recognizing in an American detective movie the statuette like mine. The dog has become my souvenir, both movie-related and literary.
Author at the blessed stage of writing the third volume of her novel:
If a viewer believes that anything’s wrong is with my eyes in the picture, then I have to say that I think so too. The eyes look slightly different. But I noticed nothing of the kind in the past. There are my eyes in an old photo (the eyes of the Sheriff of Nottingham above and mine):
Perhaps the different eyes is only a defect of the photo (or effect)… I don’t know.
http://ohlala007.blog.co.uk/2008/09/06/the-autumn-scribblings-4688986
http://ohlala007.blog.co.uk/2008/08/30/randommusings-4656223
http://ohlala007.blog.co.uk/2008/08/17/mille-fleurs-4598357
http://ohlala007.blog.co.uk/2008/08/01/jonquille-du-vallon-4527316
http://ohlala007.blog.co.uk/2008/07/26/knick-knackery-4500718
“Narrowed eyelids.
Mountains. Clouds.
Streams and fords.
Years and centuries.”
Talking of eyes. I’d call my hazel eyes ‘velvet’ like Mikhail Lermontov (1814–1841) said in his PRINCESS MARY (The Third Extract from Pechorin’s Diary): “She has such velvet eyes--yes, velvet is the word. I should advise you to appropriate the expression when speaking of her eyes. The lower and upper lashes are so long that the sunbeams are not reflected in her pupils. I love those eyes without a glitter, they are so soft that they appear to caress you…” Not exactly, simply my eyes hardly ever twinkle. In the novel Anna Karenina, Nabokov loved the line “Anna felt her eyes twinkled in the darkness” (translation is mine). It’s amazing how Leo Tolstoy could understand reflections and motivations of a drug-addict. I never liked Tolstoy’s writings. His Russian seems so rough (unskillful) here and there as thought he translated from French or English. No wonder, for in many noble homes of old Russia, babies were taught French language first, and only then they were taught their native language. Judging by his works, it was so with Leo. Most interesting fact is that, according to his own notes, he did not know that his character, army officer Count Vronsky would attempt suicide. As Tolstoy writs in one letter: “…I was writing, and now, all of a sudden, Vronsky began to shoot himself.” Nice wording “began to shoot himself”, isn’t it? I would say in another way: “all of a sudden, he was about to shoot himself” or something of the kind. Tolstoy’s Russian was so funny here and there. [The excerpt about suicide has been edited by me, because I first recalled and cited the old article, which I read when I was a teenager, not exactly.]
Talking of Leo Tolstoy. Believe it or not, but I never read the novel War and Peace. I studied it, of course, reading it in fragments, and the process of studying was so boring that it evoked in me a feeling of a steady aversion to the novel, which I still can’t overcome. I don’t read Tolstoy’s books, but Tolstoy’s idea of senselessness and absurdity of any war is great, and his words about the nature of war as a most unnatural event in life of mankind makes him a great man.
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*spleen on me*
I
Hyacinths wilt.
Autumn is here.
II
“Parting with life:
smoke of incense,
a bit of ashes--
Earth, farewell!”
(from Japanese poetry)
III
Jogtrot of life.
Ditch-water.
Moorings.
Amen.
IV
Life is farsighted.
Love is shortsighted.
Death is blind.
V
It’s like a joyous refrain of a dreadful ditty.
I walk on a suspension-bridge, overcoming fate.
Not as he said
but as I said.
Not he--to me
but me--to him,
backward, backward, and thus
to the small bridge
of stars.
VI
And the Promise of the Felicity to Come
VII
I realize
hell's as cool as ice.
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