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Tracy Reilly

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Tracy is Currently Reading

Tracy Reilly is currently reading

Between the World and Me

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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"I got half way through this and decided this book needed to be in the hands of one of my students, so I gave it to him." — Sep 02, 2024 10:25AM

Aug 09, 2022 07:35PM

Tracy Reilly is currently reading

Slow Learner: Early Stories

by Thomas Pynchon

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

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Tracy Reilly said: " I'm not finished yet, will probably change the review stars, but want to jot down my early thoughts. This isn't the correct edition I have, but I can't find any others listed on GR. Maybe it's the weird , unexpected source from which I got this early I'm not finished yet, will probably change the review stars, but want to jot down my early thoughts. This isn't the correct edition I have, but I can't find any others listed on GR. Maybe it's the weird , unexpected source from which I got this early collection of TP short stories, which , I think from reading the author's forward, was his first published collection.

My odd source was my local recycle shed. See, I live way out in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, and we have to tote our own trash and have no monthly garbage fees, as a result! I kinda dig it: it's not that big a deal to drop a bag of trash and sort out the recyclables every Sunday on our way to the Food Lion grocery store. Kinda cathartic. Every once in a while, I drop off some some detritus from my life that's clogging up the works, like an old pan, table, piece of tech, or shirt I haven't used in a while...into a brilliant local thing called the recycling shed. You can drop off your personal extras, and look through other persons' detritus, and take them if they tickle your fancy. I love the communism of it, but don't let the locals hear me call it that!

One day, a few months back, I dropped off some crap, and looked through the books lined up on the shelves. I was heartened to realize someone had taken my cast off Norton Anthology of American Lit and extraneous ratty copy I'd had of 1984. Then I spied a gem...what? Thomas Pyncheon??!! A pristine, possibly unread copy, of a book I've never heard of, with a high end cover and unbroken spine? What free treasure is here? It was called SLOW LEARNER, and it was apparently Pyncheon's first published book of short stories.

In the front was an interesting and insightful self-analysis of this early work by the author himself. He agonized over his lack of form, young writer's naivete, and general embarrassment that was quite refreshing to see in a novelist so well known for his avant -guardism and difficulty. I had started my interest in Pyncheon with, to me, the easily understood symbolism of THE CRYING OF LOT 49 (really should re-read that one, but can't find my copy) and graduated to GRAVITY"S RAINBOW--what the hell, but brilliant!! In SLOW LEARNER, the seeds are there, but you can also feel what Pyncheon cringed about. Not that it's bad! but just not quite his later form--any writer would be proud to call this collection theirs! More later when i finish, but lots of army years reminiscing ... ...more "

Oct 14, 2023 01:57PM · see review

Tracy Reilly is currently reading

Преступление и наказание

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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— Sep 07, 2017 05:01PM

Aug 21, 2016 01:01PM

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Tracy’s Quotes

“Clearly the hardest thing for the working artist is to create his own conception and follow it, unafraid of the strictures it imposes, however rigid these may be... I see it as the clearest evidence of genius when an artist follows his conception, his idea, his principle, so unswervingly that he has this truth of his constantly in his control, never letting go of it even for the sake of his own enjoyment of his work.”
― Andrei Tarkovsky

tags: artist, creative, inspirational

27 likes

“No one rules if no one obeys”
― David Icke

tags: following, law, rules, tyranny

57 likes

“Funny, how the things you have the hardest time parting with are the things you need the least.”
― Bob Dylan

14 likes

“Ol' man river,
Dat ol' man river
He mus'know sumpin'
But don't say nuthin',
He jes'keeps rollin'
He keeps on rollin' along.”
― Oscar Hammerstein II

8 likes

“What’s the matter with me
I don’t have much to say...

People disagreeing on all just about everything, yeah
Makes you stop and all wonder why
Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street
Who just couldn’t help but cry
Oh, this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does I’ll just sit here
And watch the river flow

People disagreeing everywhere you look
Makes you wanna stop and read a book
Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street
That was really shook
But this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does I’ll just sit here
And watch the river flow.”
― Bob Dylan

5 likes

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