The remains of the pier at Hastings makes is a melancholy sight in isolation from the foreground snapped the other day. The superstructure was recently destroyed by fire. To my ageing and melancholy perception it is an improvement on its brash original. I am not a fan of seaside piers and cannot join the chorus of nostalgia on their behalf.
"Clotilde, 27 years old, was standing up at the time. Her position allowed the mocking regard of the Marquise d'Espard to take in her skinny figure which perfectly resembled a stem of asparagus" . So Balzac describes the unfortunate Clotilde de Grandlieu in The Splendours andMisfortune of Courtisanes. Cruel it may be but still makes me laugh aloud when I read it. I have recently become an enthusiastic reader of this prolific 19th Century French novelist.
Wonderful technology surrounds us. When some time ago Barrett Bonden first transmitted a recent novel to me I had to struggle to read it on my computer screen. Now part of a new novel arrives as an email attachment from Lorenzo da Ponte into whom by a technological miracle Bonden has transformed himself. This morning in a matter of minutes it arrives on my Kindle in form which is a pleasure to read and easy to annotate.
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