Soothsayer. Beware the Ides of March

CAESAR. What man is that?
BRUTUS. A Sooth-sayer bids you beware the Ides of March
CAESAR. Set him before me, let me see his face

CASSIUS. Fellow, come from the throng, look vpon Caesar

CAESAR. What sayst thou to me now? Speak once againe,
Soothsayer. Beware the Ides of March

* * *

Мне осталась одна забава:
Пальцы в рот - и веселый свист.
Прокатилась дурная слава,
Что похабник я и скандалист.

Ах! какая смешная потеря!
Много в жизни смешных потерь.
Стыдно мне, что я в бога верил.
Горько мне, что не верю теперь.

Золотые, далекие дали!
Все сжигает житейская мреть.
И похабничал я и скандалил
Для того, чтобы ярче гореть.

Дар поэта - ласкать и карябать,
Роковая на нем печать.
Розу белую с черною жабой
Я хотел на земле повенчать.

Пусть не сладились, пусть не сбылись
Эти помыслы розовых дней.
Но коль черти в душе гнездились -
Значит, ангелы жили в ней.

Вот за это веселие мути,
Отправляясь с ней в край иной,
Я хочу при последней минуте
Попросить тех, кто будет со мной,-

Чтоб за все за грехи мои тяжкие,
За неверие в благодать
Положили меня в русской рубашке
Под иконами умирать.

Сергей Есенин
1923

[2008]

The books that have whetted my interest lately…


The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale

Non-fiction: In 1860, three-year-old Saville Kent was found murdered in the outdoor privy of his family's country estate. Local police scrambled for clues, but to no avail. Scotland Yard Det.-Insp. Jonathan Jack Whicher was called in and immediately suspected the unthinkable: someone in the Kent family killed Saville.




Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

Fiction-Thriller/Mystery: A serial killer of children is on the loose, and the Stalinist State cannot admit it.




Fiction-Mystery: The Anatomy of Deception by Lawrence Goldstone

Near the turn of the 19th century, a young doctor faces a dilemma: should he finger a killer, or should he advance the cause of medicine, potentially saving thousands of future patients? This tale hangs on Dr. Carroll's dilemma.




Fiction-Thriller/Mystery: The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes

A tale set in Victorian London introduces the characters of stage magician and detective Edward Moon and his silent sidekick, whose fiendish plot to re-create the apocalyptic prophecies of Samuel Taylor Coleridge threaten the British Empire.

Sometimes some crimes go slippin' through the cracks.
But these two gumshoes are pickin' up the slack.

There's no case too big, no case too small. When you need help just call.

Ch-ch-ch-Chip 'n Dale - Rescue Rangers
Ch-ch-ch-Chip 'n Dale - When there's danger.

Oh no, it never fails. They'll take the clues
And find the wheres and whys and whos. Ch-ch-ch-Chip 'n Dale.

E avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma

Puccini’s Tosca. Words fail me. There is nothing to be said; there is nothing that can be said. It is not for words: one must live it. It must be allowed to penetrate every pore in the body, through the blood. The most exhilarating experience I’ve had in the recent history. Cheer pleasure!

Lucía Méndez La que más te ha querido



¡qué hermosa!

I have always wondered what is that the local audience found humorous in Puccini’s La bohème.

What bestiality!

“She carried this eighty-five pound press in her hands and a flashlight in her teeth?”

The Case of the Deadly Toy by Erle Stanley Gardner

Eh, sometimes you just have to go along with the ride. Yeah, sure this is a novel by a beginner, but the entertainment is there to submerge into mindless hours of reading. I guess that’s a good thing. Perri O'Shaughnessy’s Motion to Suppress is a legal mystery drama concerning a client accused of murder which she cannot recall committing. The plot is interesting, but slow moving to an unraveling. The dialogue is paced, but at times disinteresting. Not another John Grisham, but overall not a bad effort by the author (or authors, I should say; the novel is penned by two sisters Mary and Pamela O'Shaughnessy).

“Twenty years ago, four teenagers at summer camp walked into the woods at night; two were found murdered, and the others were never seen again.” I feel insulted having read this book. The dialogue is overly simplistic, unrealistic – are these humans or robots? Will you go there? “I will.” Do you believe him? “I do.” Are you serious? “I am.” You want me to pick you up? “I do.” What is this insult? The characters are flat, dull, and unrealistic. The writing in general is terribly bad. The story had premise, but the author did not know what to make of the idea and simply produced a terrible thriller. In fact, the entire story is implausible and the rushed explanations in the end were simply, well, stupid. Predictable and lame are the only words I have for this novel. Mr. Coben, it appears, has written numerous mystery novels, but this book reads as though a product of a novice writer, a beginner rushing to produce a mediocre novel for a quick buck. This was the first Harlan Coben novel for me and after The Woods, the last.

I say, to embark on a journey with an author previously unfamiliar to me should be, for the most part, an interesting voyage. How thundering a disappointment when such proves not to be the case. On Chesil Beach, my introduction to Ian McEwan, is beautifully written; the imaginative, florid prose sticks to the brain waves and rides along a melodic note. The writing struck me at first, but that is the best I can say about this novel. It had premise that felt unfulfilled towards the end. So much room to devote to the exploration and development of the newlywed couple Edward and Florence that simply was passed over for the perverse, if not pornographic, descriptions of the man's yearning and the woman's repulsion (the former outwardly professed by the kissing, touching, and caressing; the latter by Florence's thoughts revealed only to the reader, never the husband until the end). The sole sexual scene on the couple's wedding night (the anticipation, the disgust; the interspersed flashback to the characters past history) lead to a feeble diminuendo and a disappointment. Why are Edward and Florence in love? What do they share in common to link them together? She is a violinist, a lover of classical music; he can't stand classical music. He is absorbed in sexual yearning; she finds the act of sex disgusting. They have nothing in common but the notion of being together (he physically, she emotionally). In the end, they find nothing and the novel abandons the characters having concluded the tale abruptly and unfulfilled. McEwan invested time at the start to engage the reader in his characters, the story only to leave emptiness to linger thereafter. I felt cheated. It would have served the reader best if McEwan had remained with the characters and see how their lives would have evolved, and not devote the finale to the Edward alone. Aside the faults with this short novel, I would not be reluctant to explore the author's other works.

He loved her, but he wanted to shake her awake, or slap her out of her straight-backed music-stand poise, her North Oxford proprieties, and make her see how really simple it really was: here was a boundless sensual freedom, theirs for the taking, even blessed by the vicar—with my body I thee worship—a dirty, joyous, bare-limbed freedom, which rose in his imagination like a vast airy cathedral, ruined perhaps, roofless, fan-vaulted to the skies, where they would weightlessly drift upward in a powerful embrace and have each other, drown each other in waves of breathless, mindless ecstasy.

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

БАЛ РОЗЛУЧЕНИХ СЕРДЕЦЬ (укр.)



( украинский текст )