Out of Context
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Rehearsing My Future
Our 75th post overall David CopperfieldCharles Dickens ‘What, not in your own, eh?’ Mr. Omer returned, laughing. ‘All the better, sir. Bad habit for a young man. Take a seat. I smoke, myself, for the asthma.’ Mr. Omer had made room for me, and placed a chair. He now sat down again very much out Continue reading
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Mœurs de province
Madame BovaryGustave Flaubert And he at once took down from the shelf Emma’s boots, all coated with mud, the mud of the rendezvous, that crumbled into powder beneath his fingers, and that he watched as it gently rose in a ray of sunlight. “How afraid you are of spoiling them!” said the servant, who wasn’t Continue reading
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Rubber Soul
Another rainy Sunday in March The Invisible ManH.G. Wells The story he had been active to ridicule only that morning rushed through Kemp’s brain. He does not appear to have been either very much frightened or very greatly surprised at the moment. Realisation came later. “I thought it was all a lie,” he said. The Continue reading
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The Dazzling Crime of Wisdom
Far From the Madding CrowdThomas Hardy She had walked nearly two miles of her journey, watching how the day was retreating, and thinking how the time of deeds was quietly melting into the time of thought, to give place in its turn to the time of prayer and sleep, when she beheld advancing over Yalbury Continue reading
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Glue and Tar
While yesterday was our 60th Out of Context reading, today is our 70th post overall. Lord JimJoseph Conrad Such was the history of the man whom I had come to consult upon Jim’s case without any definite hope. Simply to hear what he would have to say would have been a relief. I ws very Continue reading
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Diving Through the Night
It’s Leap Day, and this is our 60th reading. Sister CarrieTheodore Dreiser The individual to whom the manager had been talking went away quite crestfallen. That luminary gazed earnestly at some papers before him, as if they were of the greatest concern. “Did you see that in the ‘Herald’ this morning about Nat Goodwin, Harris?” Continue reading
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Alive, Alive, Oh!
It’s Leap Day Eve, the penultimate day of February this year. UlyssesJames Joyce –Gob, there’s many a true word spoken in jest. One of those mixed middlings he is. Lying up in the hotel Pisser was telling me once a month with headache like a totty with her courses. Do you know what I’m telling Continue reading
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Buried Beneath the Clay
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManJames Joyce He could not grip the floor with his feet and sat heavily at his desk, opening one of his books at random and poring over it. Every word for him. It was true. God was almighty God could call him now, call him as he Continue reading
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Saigon. Shit.
Final stretch of February Heart of DarknessJoseph Conrad “There remained a rude table–a plank on two posts; a heap of rubbish reposed in a dark corner, and by the door I picked up a book. It had lost its covers, and the pages had been thumbed into a state of extremely dirty softness; but the Continue reading
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No Monopoly on Common Sense
Russian HillTy Hutchinson “Who knows?” Kang blurted. I watched him flip his jacket collar up and pull it tight around his neck. “I have my men interviewing the people around here and knocking on the doors of the shops in the area, though I’m not hopeful. Most of these stores do’t open until ten in Continue reading
Out of Context 