"I'm re-reading...."
April 9, 2020 10:18 AM   Subscribe

 
Half a sentence in and we’re already into the words so recently exfiltrated from their native languages that they haven’t even shown up in dictionaries yet?

Ok, fine, you’ve got me. I’ll play your little game.
posted by mhoye at 11:04 AM on April 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


A PULVISCULAR CLOUD

(This is really good)
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:14 AM on April 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


THANK YOU!!! I've been looking for this for ages. It was published as a newspaper article here, and since I know him, I asked the translator where, and he had forgotten.
posted by mumimor at 12:42 PM on April 9, 2020


His own Invisible Cities is a book that I re-read.
posted by octothorpe at 12:44 PM on April 9, 2020 [5 favorites]


Now I've ordered the book.
I remember the headline of that list in that local paper was: it's better to read classics than not to read classics. I wonder if it was some sort of responce to the whole Harold Bloom debacle.
posted by mumimor at 12:48 PM on April 9, 2020


So.... no Chuck Tingle, even if his latest 'work' is contemporaneously socially responsible-ish?
posted by sammyo at 12:49 PM on April 9, 2020


A PULVISCULAR CLOUD

Up for grabs as a sockpuppet name I bet.
posted by mhoye at 12:49 PM on April 9, 2020


And forget not that there are innumberably more classics than a person can read in a lifetime, let alone re-read. What a beautiful quandary.
posted by y2karl at 1:20 PM on April 9, 2020 [4 favorites]


Half a sentence in and we’re already into the words so recently exfiltrated from their native languages that they haven’t even shown up in dictionaries yet?


It's Italo Calvino's list. He's Italian. What native language were you thinking of?
posted by biffa at 1:47 PM on April 9, 2020


How many of us just switched tabs to translate 'pulviscular' into Italian because perhaps it's super common in book reviews over there, like 'lapidary' and the New York Times?

I like the distinction between 'a classic' and 'your classic'. Some of my classics have too many vampires to be 'a classic'.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:15 PM on April 9, 2020


Ahem, innumerably more, to be sure.
posted by y2karl at 2:39 PM on April 9, 2020


My classics are books worth stealing. That are something that strikes a nerve that you've never experienced before and calls to you in a way that you think the owner of the book would understand that you need that book more than they do and would approve of you having that book.
posted by zengargoyle at 2:56 PM on April 9, 2020


One evening, Lawrence returned from a visit to London, and Edgeworth met him at the gate. “Was it very caliginous in the Metropolis?”
“Somewhat caliginous, but not altogether inspissated”, Lawrence replied gravely.
—Robert Graves, Good-Bye to All That

Probably a little pulviscular, too.
posted by Segundus at 3:21 PM on April 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


I read the article first – and the word "pulviscular" also caught me eye, so I highlighted it and did a Google search. Most all the links referred to this essay. The first link was from a 'Learn a New Word' website, but that too referred back to this essay.

pulviscular (the search)

pulviscular (the word)
posted by rochrobbb at 4:57 PM on April 9, 2020


I just stopped in to say that I love Italo Calvino's books, and to add that If On A Winter's Night A Traveler is a great book to be reading if you're at home looking for something to read. It's a book by Italo Calvino about trying to read the newest book by Italo Calvino.
posted by hippybear at 5:48 PM on April 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


My personal definition of a classic is a book you lend to someone and don't get back, and if you ask for it back they tell you they lent it to someone.
posted by Hogshead at 7:38 AM on April 10, 2020


One evening, Lawrence returned from a visit to London, and Edgeworth met him at the gate. “Was it very caliginous in the Metropolis?”
“Somewhat caliginous, but not altogether inspissated”, Lawrence replied gravely.
—Robert Graves, Good-Bye to All That


Kind of an anfranctuous thing to say.
posted by storybored at 12:11 PM on April 10, 2020


My personal definition of a classic is a book you lend to someone and don't get back, and if you ask for it back they tell you they lent it to someone.

By this definition every book I have ever lent my brother is a classic.
posted by dng at 1:17 PM on April 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


dng, either you have impeccable taste or impeachable siblings.
posted by Hogshead at 9:36 AM on April 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


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