FOREWARD My name is Rory Dylan Stephen. I am a West Highland Terrier. We are brave, loyal, curious, stubborn and knock you over cute. I am a late summer pup. If you query what is this smartass puppy doing writing his memoirs. For God’s sake he’s only a puppy! I am writing this masterpiece toContinue reading ““Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom””
Category Archives: literature
RKS Literature: The Brutality of the Hun and Trench Warfare (Pat Barker)
“The other expression was the trench expression. It looks quite daunting if you don’t know what it is. Any one of my platoon could have posed for a propaganda poster of the Brutal Hun, but it wasn’t brutality or anything like that It was sort of a morose disgust and it came from living inContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Brutality of the Hun and Trench Warfare (Pat Barker)”
RKS Literature: Australian Blackbirder Slavers (Pat Barker)
“He’d started as a “blackbirder” as so many of the older traders had, kidnapping natives to work on the Queensland plantations, and he was frank about his methods too. Make friends with them, invite them on board ship, get them drunk and Bob’s your uncle, By the time they come around they’re out at seaContinue reading “RKS Literature: Australian Blackbirder Slavers (Pat Barker)”
RKS Literature: Murderous Missionary Ships (Pat Barker)
“Rivers was used to missionary islands where canoes paddled out to meet the oncoming steamer, brown faces, white eyes, flashing smiles, while others gathered at the landing stage, ready to carry bags up to the mission station for a few sticks of tobacco or even sheer Christian goodwill. A cheerful picture, as long as youContinue reading “RKS Literature: Murderous Missionary Ships (Pat Barker)”
RKS Literature: Supressed Memory and a Smack on the Leg (Pat Barker)
“Was this the supressed memory? He didn’t know. Was it trivial? Well, yes, in a way, compared with Prior’s lurid imaginings. A smack on the leg, a lesson in manliness from an over conscientious but loving father. It’s a long way from sadistic beatings, And yet it wasn’t as trivial as it seemed at first.”Continue reading “RKS Literature: Supressed Memory and a Smack on the Leg (Pat Barker)”
RKS Literature: Death and Cartography (Michael Ondaatje)
“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden as if in caves. I wish for all of this to be marked on my body whenContinue reading “RKS Literature: Death and Cartography (Michael Ondaatje)”
RKS Literature: The Human Element and Burglary (Michael Ondaatje)
“Caravaggio was constantly diverted by the human element during burglaries. Breaking into a house during Christmas, he would become annoyed if he noted the Advent calendar had not been opened up to the date to which it should have been. He often had conversations with the various pets left alone in houses, rhetorically discussing mealsContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Human Element and Burglary (Michael Ondaatje)”
RKS Literature: Unbalanced by War (Michael Ondaatje)
“Caravaggio sits there in silence, thoughts lost among the floating notes. War has unbalanced him and he can return to no other world as he is, wearing these false limbs that morphine promises. He is a man of middle age who has never become accustomed to families. All his life he has avoided permanent intimacy.Continue reading “RKS Literature: Unbalanced by War (Michael Ondaatje)”
RKS CANADIAN Literature: What a Love Story is Not About (Michael Ondaatje)
“A love story is not about those who lose their heart but about those who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing-not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.” Michael Ondaatje, “The English Patient”, 1969.
RKS CANADIAN Literature: (Michael Ondaatje)Thermometer of Blood
“She never looked at herself in mirrors again. As the war got darker she received reports about how certain people she had known died. She feared the day she would remove blood from a patient’s face and discover her father or someone who had served her food across a counter on Danforth Avenue. She grewContinue reading “RKS CANADIAN Literature: (Michael Ondaatje)Thermometer of Blood”
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