The October Archive

I have been younger in October than in all the months of spring. (W.S. Merwin)

some recommendations based on what i’ve been reading, watching and using in the month of october.

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to read —

The nun by Denis Diderot. (1780)

a quote that stuck with me: I have a striking face; my great suffering had changed it but taken nothing from its character. I have a voice which touches the heart and my expression bears the stamp of truthfulness. [...] "Sister Suzanne, do you believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost?" I answered: "I do believe." "Do you renounce Satan and all his works?" Instead of replying I suddenly leaped forward and uttered a loud scream.

Diderot's The Nun (La Religieuse) is the seemingly true story of a young girl forced by her parents to enter a convent and take holy orders. A novel mingling mysticism, madness, sadistic cruelty and nascent sexuality, it gives a scathing insight into the effects of forced vocations and the unnatural life of the convent. A succès de scandale at the end of the eighteenth century, it has attracted and unsettled readers ever since. For Diderot's novel is not simply a story of a young girl with a bad habit; it is also a powerfully emblematic fable about oppression and intolerance.

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Embers by Sándor Márai. (1942)

a quote that stuck with me: Friendship is no ideal state of mind; it is a law, and a strict one, on which the entire legal systems of great cultures were built. It reaches beyond personal desires and self-regard in men's hearts, its grip is greater than that of sexual desire, and it is proof against disappointment, because it asks for nothing. One can kill a friend, but death itself cannot undo a friendship that reaches back to childhood; its memory lives on like some act of silent heroism, and indeed there is in friendship an element of ancient heroic feats, not the clash of swords and the rattle of sabers, but the selfless human act.

A castle at the foot of the Carpathian mountains in the 1930s. Two men, inseparable in their youth, meet for the first time in forty-one years. They have spent their lives waiting for this moment. Four decades earlier a murky, traumatic event led to their sudden separation. Now, as their lives draw to a close, the devastating truth about that moment will be revealed. Embers is a masterpiece - an unforgettable story of passion, fidelity, truth and deception.

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(articles corner)

• Inside Amber Anderson And Connor Swindells’s Quintessentially Scottish Highlands Wedding by Rebecca Cope.

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• The Women’s Midlife-Crisis Novel Enters the Season of the Witch by Jessica Winter.

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— to watch

Autumn Sonata directed by Ingmar Bergman (1978)

a quote that stuck with me: Sometimes, when I lie awake at night, I wonder whether I've lived at all. Is it the same for everybody? Do some people have a greater talent for living than others or do some people never live, but just exist?

After a seven-year absence, Charlotte Andergast travels to Sweden to reunite with her daughter Eva. The pair have a troubled relationship: Charlotte sacrificed the responsibilities of motherhood for a career as a classical pianist. Over an emotional night, the pair reopen the wounds of the past. Charlotte gets another shock when she finds out that her mentally impaired daughter, Helena, is out of the asylum and living with Eva.

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Mary Poppins directed by Robert Stevenson (1964)

a quote that stuck with me: "Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way."

Mr Banks is looking for a nanny for his two mischievous children and comes across Mary Poppins, an angelic nanny. She not only brings a change in their lives but also spreads happiness.

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— to listen

On Reading “Beloved” Over and Over Again (The Book Review)

For readers, a book’s meaning can change with every encounter, depending on the circumstances and experiences they bring to it each time. On this week’s podcast, Gilbert Cruz talks to Salamishah Tillet, a Pulitzer-winning contributing critic at large for The Times, about her abiding love for Toni Morrison’s novel “Beloved” — in which a mother chooses to kill her own daughter rather than let her live in slavery — and about the ways that Tillet’s personal experiences have affected her view of the book.

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— to use

— Pumpkin Soup (for a perfect creamy soup!)

— Knitting Days (for preparation ahead of November)

— Stephen Mackey’s Art (for a beautiful creepy escape)

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see you next month!

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