Literary Litanies

Fiction

• THE LEGEND OF THE T’SING T’SU MOUNTAIN  
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  This painting contained a massive silence, a calm patience, and space that was both infinite and intimate. In beholding this painting, T’sing felt as if he were looking into his own soul. For the first time in his life he realized, and could accept, that his soul was not something clear and translucid, capable of being distinctly revealed to the perceptive observer. Rather, his soul had its secrets, its mysteries, and its silence. He realized that these things, too, are precious, lovely, beautiful. They must be given their due.

Nonfiction

• OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY SUPPLEMENT: WORD CANDIDATES, CORRECTIONS
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  1998, Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman, 1998, p. 85.
  
  So, fantastic linguistic creations like abequitate, bulbulcitate, and sullevation appeared in these books alongside archgrammacian and contiguate, with lengthy definitions; there were words like necessitude, commotrix, and parentate—all of which are now listed, if listed at all, as “obsolete” or “rare” or both.
  
  CONTRIBUTOR’S NOTE: While this is an extremely rare word, it is easily defined by noting how Latin was used in England during the 16th and 17th centuries by the educated gentry. A worthy definition would stem from the meaning of “grammar” as it extends beyond its specific application regarding words and syntax to its more general meaning which refers to the basic principles governing a particular area of knowledge, rules of morality, or the customs of civilized behavior. In this sense, an appropriate definition would be: “Supreme standard and steward of all that is decorous, meet, and right.”
• DEFINE “ARCHGRAMMACIAN” OR DO FIVE-DOLLAR WORDS DEFY, STYMY, OR INSPIRE ME? (“PAGE 85 SUCKS!”)
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  She is thoroughly fluent and at ease with Greek, Latin, every Romance language, Russian, all the Germanic languages including English, several of the Scandinavian languages, and a smattering of others spread about the world. Yet this erudite woman was calling me for help, and from her cultured mouth emanated the declamation: “Page 85 sucks!”
• THE ETYMOLOGICAL MEANING OF THE SURNAME “APICELLA”
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  In Italian, there are many diminutives. Perhaps the most common occurrence involves using the suffix, ino (masculine) or ina (feminine). For example, the famous song by Puccini called, “O mio babbino caro” uses the word babbino which stems from babbo which itself is colloquial for “daddy” or “papa.” And when there is added the suffix ino as in babbino it becomes a diminutive meaning something like “dear sweet daddy.”
• BOOK REVIEW: DIRT SONGS: A PLAINS DUET   by Twyla M. Hansen and Linda M. Hasselstrom
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  The front cover for Dirt Songs is the truth set forth simply, starkly, beautifully. And I liked the picture on the back cover also: Two comely women posed naturally, instead of being made up like fashion-model bimbos. (Look at how they “do” Francine Prose. They try to make her look 20 years younger, and end up presenting a picture which could attest to the art of funerary make-up. “The undertaker’s poster girl,” I call her, in my unkind moments.)
• HE DIDN’T HAVE AN INKPOT TO PIDDLE WITH (or) A REVIEW OF A PSEUDO-REVIEW OF DIRT SONGS BY   TWYLA M. HANSEN AND LINDA M. HASSELSTROM
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  In fact, when I first received this small compilation of Bartels’ words, I read it and immediately did some shuffling of pages to find the rest of the article before I realized that there wasn’t anything more. This is a shame, because the book here under scrutiny is a brilliant, profound, and provocative work of high literature.
• BOOK REVIEW: MARIETTE IN ECSTASY   by Ron Hansen
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  But let us not dwell too much on Ron Hansen the man. (Even though it is easy to do, since when it comes to Ron Hansen the artist, there isn’t much to dwell on.)