The Rebelle blog

I miss handwritten letters: writing, reading and caressing them. For a while in the last decade I did replace letter writing with emails but that too died soon since there was no reciprocation from people to whom I sent my long email letters. Tonight I read an essay titled "I hope I haven't bored you" by Christopher Spaide on Poetry Foundation discussing James Merrill's letters to his friend. The article also mentions excerpts from a new book on Merrill titled:  A Whole World: Letters from James Merrill (Knopf, 2021), coedited by Merrill’s biographer, Langdon Hammer, and his literary executor, the poet-critic Stephen Yenser.  Something kept running through my mind as I read about Merrill writing letters as a six year old and through his adulthood. I thought, what are my memories from childhood? Apart from the now fading kodak photographs and memories, is there any other physical vestige that I could carry into my old age? Surprisingly, I couldn't think of any. I ...

Prior to reading this edition, I had read Harold Bloom's  Modern Critical Interpretation's Series  in 2010 borrowed from the American Library. AND, I did not like it. I abandoned the book after reading 30, maybe 40 pages. I felt embarrassed to desert a book like  The Color Purple  but I couldn't feel or understand what Harold Bloom had interpreted.  After 3 years, I bought myself a new copy with a cover page that I had no inkling about or couldn't predict the character it was based on! I also have the movie version of The Color Purple with a opening shot that shows two teenage girls walking through a field, one of them heavily pregnant. I had only seen about a few minutes of the movie too, because I wanted to READ the book first, before judging the movie and getting my opinions messed about this classic.  Here I am, having finished reading the book in 4 hours amid tears and a heavy heart. I don't recall reading any other book that's written...

Sometimes, my dreams are so incoherent.. not that I would like them to be rational always, but when they make sense, it feels great! Last night, I had a long conversation with one of my best friends, and such good talk always leaves me in a very happy spirit. Because I was happy when I went to sleep, I had a really happy yet weird dream today morning. It has been raining continuously throughout the night and the sound of rain partially awoke me, so that I was still half- asleep yet could sense the movements and chaos in the house. Here's what I dreamt of! I am walking on the road with my younger sister, and we stop by a stationery shop when I see some Inland letters and Envelopes on display. I ask the shopkeeper for them, and he promptly hands them over to me, when to my surprise I see my name on the envelop. Its addressed to me, complete with my name and an affixed stamp. I read it and its from one of my lost mails. (Since a few months now, my mail is not reaching my address- ...

Dear Fyodor,                     Long after you were gone from this earth, a reader found and read your letters written in 1870 to your sisters.                    The reader is a young girl who winces in pain as she reads about your wife, Anna & your newborn Lyubov's health. Were you lonely when you had to leave Russia? How the reader wishes to comfort you by letting you know that your 'The Idiot' will sell copies & will get you money and free you from the creditor's shackles!                     Do not give up on the world yet! The people will know your troubles and they shall feel the pain too. Know that you'll have readers from all the imaginable corners of the world.                     You'll live forever, Dear Mr. Dostoevsky!             ...