123 Book Meme
Colonialism is rendered in that autobiography as a tyranny of books over life; and so the nervous youth begins with borrowed styles, in the manner of Hamlet or Byron or Shelley, and his father fears that he will turn into another Dowden. “You do not talk like a poet, but like a man of letters”, he is told. Yet when the son offers his elders a bookish idea - that you only know a landscape when you see it at night - he is warmly praised.
Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation
by Declan Kiberd
I’m not really a meme sort of guy. Because nobody ever tags me. But Greagoir did for this, and coincidentally the nearest book to me is a book he gave me, and the nearest book to him is a book I gave him. Bizarre. We could almost be brothers.
Tag three people? If everybody tags three people then eventually the last blogger left will have nobody left to tag. And think about the damage to their self-esteem that would do. The entire planet has effectively been picking people they wanted on their team, and you are the last resort, like the skinny kid with the snotty nose who wants to go out with your sister but has a better chance of going out with the goalpost.
So I won’t tag, but if you want to play, feel free to blog or throw something in the comments. It’s a perfect opportunity to give the impression you’re reading something you’re not, and that you’re not going out with the goalpost.
Meme Rules:
1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, go down to the fifth sentence.
3. Post the text of the next three sentences on your blog.
4. Name of the book and the author.
5. Tag three people.
See Also:
• More about Inventing Ireland
• The Irish Book of Bog
• Racehorses, Romance, and the Irish
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