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A bildungsroman detailing the three months Cummings and his friend, B., spent in a French prison during WWI (due to B.'s less than complimentary accounts of the French authorities' management of the war effort in his letters home). This is held up as a sort-of spiritual predecessor to Catch-22, and Cummings can be quite funny in his skewering of the prison administration. He is also, of course, a poet, and there are some beautiful passages and

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

We had succeeded, my friend B. and I, in dispensing with almost three of our six months' engagement as Conducteurs Volontaires, Section Sanitaire Vingt-en-Un, Ambulance Norton Harjes, Croix Rouge Americaine, and at the Moment which subsequent experience served to capitalize had just finished the unlovely job of cleaning and greasing (nettoyer is the proper word) the own private flivver of the chef de section...

I always enjoy receiving the latest NYRB Book Club Selection. This one by ee cummings sounds really interesting!

‘A Note on the Author of “The Enormous Room”‘

“He has been the terror of typesetters, an enigma to book reviewers and the special target of all the world‘s literary philistines.”

Brilliant. They really don‘t write ‘em like they used to, do they?

NF haul, plus the Modern Library e.e. cummings I forgot in last post.
#modernlibrary

I picked this up at a library sale thinking, “Hmm, I didn‘t know Cummings wrote prose.” It‘s a Modern Library edition, which was an indicator of quality, so I bought it. I‘m so very glad I did! While a knowledge of Pilgrim‘s Progress and the ability to read French is a help, an understanding of irony is a must. 👇🏻

@jillrhudy Here‘s my collection of Blumenthal bindings. I also have The Confessions of Saint Augustine, with its dust jacket, but it‘s a Style 11 binding. Thanks for pointing it out! I‘ve now gone down a rabbit hole of information about the Modern Library editions! #modernlibrary

“I smelled the bread furtively. It smelled rather much like an old attic in which kites and other toys gradually are forgotten in a gentle darkness.”
You can hear the poet through his prose.

“Bread without wine doesn‘t taste good.” And since we stocked up on bread . . .
(Notice the tablecloth, @4thhouseontheleft ? )

#HurricaneFlorence book 3. I bought this at a library sale and am curious to see what cummings‘ prose is like.

#reading1001 “the only living hippopotamus in captivity” Cummings is drawing the reader images of the persons he encounters while in a detention camp.

“A Reynard expression”. Reynard the Fox, a trickster figure from medieval French tales. #reading1001 #1001travelingbookswap.

#reading1001 #1001travelingbookswap “a room, pretty nearly square, filled with rows of pillars.

#1001travelingbookswap I finished it #1001diversity. Now I‘m studying it.

#1001travelingbookswap #groupA arrived today!

My #bookhaul from this morning‘s visit to the library book sale. All of this for $17! And for a good cause. 😀

Poetry in Barcelona #booksinbarcelona #barcelona

#Library browsing 2

#ReadingResolutions @Jess7

Sending this out today. Thanks, @JenP for including me in such a cool book swap. #1001BookSwap.

Today is EE Cummings Birthday. There was a time I was reading a lot of WW 1 related books , and this one stood out,fiction but autobiographical, Cummings signed up for a stint as an ambulance driver.Censors felt his letters home were anti war, he couldn't muster real hatred of the Germans.They threw him into a prison camp.His father interceded on his behalf , he was in about 4 months.His wit shines through in his analysis of his absurd situation.

I actually liked this one, I can say after finishing it. While reading I sometimes dreaded the description of all the personages in the enormous room, a prison in France during WWI, where people where being held on, for example, stealing a tin of sardines. However, the descriptions are very lively, I can see the different people and am sure they'll be with me for some time to come. #1001books

This is a really interesting memoir of Cummings' time in a French concentration camp during World War I. It's both heartbreaking and at times humorous. So glad @SerialReader had this one. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

O gouvernment francais, I think it was not very clever of You to put this terrible doll in La Ferte; for when Governments are found dead there is always a little doll on top of them, pulling and tweaking with his little hands to get back at the microscopic knife which sticks firmly in the quiet meat of their hearts.