Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
We all have different opinions on who are the great masters in art and in writing. The power of the imagination of an author that lures us into a story and holds us there is one thing that makes a master. Beautiful writing and important thoughts keep us in the book and cause us to read other works by the same author.
I thought it would be fun, tonight, to list some of the authors that we consider to be masters.
I believe a master does the following things:
1. He/she is a wordsmith. The craft demands beauty and reason. (or magical realism and unusual patterns of word usage that still provoke the feeling of beauty of thought and expression)
I find beauty and reason in James Joyce’s Ulysses.
2. The author uses fresh and wonderful images and metaphors.
I find Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay to be an example of this.
3. The fiction story, non-fiction book, biography or memoir is well researched.
David McCullough’s book on John Adams is my favorite example.
4. The material makes us think. We ask questions, we learn, we are inspired.
The Warmth of Other Suns by Wilkerson fits this one.
5. There is a depth in the story and layers of myth are fashioned that will make it last for centuries. I imagine you have guessed that I reference Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
6. There are truths revealed to us as we watch characters act and react to troubles as they win or lose.
I found that in The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman and The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.
7. The book or series provokes discussion and new insights can be found when re-reading it.
For me, it is The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. I re-read it twice and the first three books I read three times.
8. The narrative flow carries me along like a fresh current. I feel comfortable that the author is steering the boat skillfully from point to point and that the end will be worth all the troubles we endure to get there.
I choose McKillip’s trilogy, The Riddle Master of Hed and To Kill a Mockingbird.
9. Using foreshadowing and metaphors to enhance the story, the author makes us live the story with the characters.
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway
10. Satire and irony make the story a classic.
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
11. We can’t get the characters out of our head. They are larger than life and make us laugh and cry and care what happens to them.
A Prayer for Owen Meany by Irving and Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck
Masters are found in all the genres and in both fiction and non-fiction.
I hope you will list yours.
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John Keats. 1795–1821 |
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625. Ode on a Grecian Urn |
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THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness, |
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Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, |
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Sylvan historian, who canst thus express |
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A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: |
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What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape |
5 |
Of deities or mortals, or of both, |
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In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? |
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What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? |
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What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? |
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What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? |
10 |
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Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard |
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Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; |
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Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, |
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Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: |
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Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave |
15 |
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; |
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Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, |
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Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve; |
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She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, |
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For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! |
20 |
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Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed |
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Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; |
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And, happy melodist, unwearièd, |
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For ever piping songs for ever new; |
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More happy love! more happy, happy love! |
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For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, |
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For ever panting, and for ever young; |
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All breathing human passion far above, |
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That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, |
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A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. |
30 |
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Who are these coming to the sacrifice? |
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To what green altar, O mysterious priest, |
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Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, |
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And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? |
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What little town by river or sea-shore, |
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Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, |
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Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn? |
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And, little town, thy streets for evermore |
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Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell |
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Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. |
40 |
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O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede |
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Of marble men and maidens overwrought, |
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With forest branches and the trodden weed; |
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Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought |
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As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! |
45 |
When old age shall this generation waste, |
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Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe |
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Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, |
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'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all |
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Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.' |
50 |
Diaries of the Week:
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Write On! The new old character.
By dconrad
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/3/23/1646571/-Write-On-The-new-old-character#view-story
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Introducing the New Kos Katalogue!
By Avilyn
www.dailykos.com/...
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Saturday Night Loser's Club, Vol. DLXXXIIIV: Kedi Edition
By chingchongchinaman
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/03/26/1645944/-Saturday-Night-Loser-s-Club-Vol-DLXXXIIIV-Kedi-Edition
…Ezra Haber Glenn, in his review for the Observer (NYC, not the London sister paper of The Guardian, and like O'Malley's review, not yet cited on the official Kedi page of reviews yet), comments further on this theme:
Strangely—beautifully—in anthropomorphizing the cats, residents themselves are humanized in the exchange. One senses that Istanbul is a more caring, communal, functional city thanks to the influence of these strays. There is a lesson here: while cats are independent in spirit, they are also fundamentally social at heart. As such, they the perfect urban dwellers: self-sufficient, but also trusting; adventurous and bold, yet still careful and cautious; curiosity mixed with consideration.
And it is precisely these combinations that make cities work, whether today or in the past, whether in Istanbul, Constantinople, or New York: far too often, planners and urbanists emphasize the virtues of only one side or the other of these essential traits, forgetting that only when they are balanced can people succeed in living so closely. Perhaps due to their instinctive agility, the cats of Kedi are able to appreciate and navigate this equilibrium intuitively; we would be wise to learn from them and follow in their footsteps.
Likewise, O'Malley comments:
“I am a cat owner, I admit, but even I was surprised at the power of Kedi. Where did all that emotion come from? It's because what Torun really captures in her unexpectedly powerful film is kindness in its purest form."
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Last week, late, chimene gave us a site at LOCUS with books that are coming and a bunch of my fantasy favorites are on the list:
http://www.locusmag.com/Resources/ForthcomingBooks.html
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All Times are EDT, EST
NOTE: I had a letter from Youffraita on 3-26
She is still reading the bio of Hamilton and still looking for a copy of Caesar by Colleen McCullough (I ordered her a used copy from B&N) . She is still hoping to get a room of her own so she can come back to us.
She says hello to everyone!
Also NOTE: from the comments below...dirkster42:
...please let me announce that I just, like two days ago, got a book published: Jonathan’s Loves, David’s Laments: Gay Theology, Musical Desires, and Historical Difference. I haven’t gotten my physical copies in the mail yet, but you can buy the book on the publisher’s website now — it will take a couple of weeks for it to show up on Amazon.com.
Big congratulations to him!!