ALL TRIVIA A COLLECTION OF REFLECTIONS & APHORISMS

by Logan Pearsall (Author);VIDAL Gore (Preface) SMITH

hardcover

Hardcover

First published April 1, 1984

Reviews

[Vendedor de rápida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siempre digo que la mejor manera de descubrir libros y autores es entrar en una librería y ponerse a mirar las estanterías. Si además se trata de la maravillosa Boxoyo de Cáceres te puedes encontrar de golpe con Logan Pearsall Smith, norteamericano que acabó siendo vecino del barrio de Chelsea y uno de los paseantes más peculiares de la literatura anglosajona. Su obra literaria cabe en pocos volúmenes. Además de su autobiografía y sus poemas, sus prosas están en varios libritos que en castellano se publicaron juntos en ‘Todas las trivialidades’. En esta colección de aforismos, microrrelatos e impresiones de flâneur londinense hay mucha obsesión por las estrellas y la luna, y casi un convencimiento de que el mundo no es solo extraño, sino que seguramente es un puro producto de nuestra mente. Como Borges, Pearsall Smith se vanagloriaba de los libros que había leído, no de los que había escrito, pero aun así me resulta difícil escoger uno de sus pequeños textos.

[Robert Teeter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book of trivia in the contemporary sense. It's a collection of short essays (1-2 paragraphs mostly) and aphorisms (1-2 sentences). Smith writes about how to live, society, manners, reading, writing, getting older, etc. I find his personality engaging and love this book, but I can see how some might not.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

"An elixir of perfection, which I can read and read again."

Notes:
3 Today I spent as I usually spend it. I read, I pottered, I complained, and took exercise.
6 Fate beckoned and I saw it
16 the calamity of cornutation … many Kings and Princes had all worn Actaeon’s badge
28 Starry Heaven … immensity of the unimaginable skies, felt myself dwindling … the taste and joy of this Earth, this orchard plot of earth, floating unknown
34 Horace Ode to Spring
68 Reading, this nice and subtle happiness, this joy not dulled by Age, this selfish, serene, life-long intoxication.
79 Frightening, the horror of space, the silence of those eternal spaces
123 Springs of Action J Bentham, man is a mechanism … moved by charity, violence? No … Arrogance, ostentation? No … My motives: love of ease, indolence, sloth, procrastination
126 Not an Age of Gold … unconcerned with the ship of state … undistracted, I sit at home and moon over the qualities of certain little books like this one — elixirs of perfection —which I can read and read again.
151 Solvency is entirely a matter of temperament.
175 Odd, that flowers are the reproductive organs of the plants they grow on.
176 I don’t hate the Aristocracy; but I do wish they wouldn’t publish slip-slop with their photographs in the penny papers.
177 They say life is the thing. I prefer reading.
How I love cram-throating books on people.
190 Like Doctor Johnson at 72, who retired to plan a life of greater diligence.
191 Denunciation of the young, a necessary hygiene.
192 When elderly invalids meet with fellow-victims of their own ailments, then at last real conversation begins, and life is delicious.
197 Epilogue: Send a greeting to Posterity, urging them to hurry up and get born, that they may have the pleasure of reading Trivia.

Suggested by Patrick Kurp, Anecdotal Evidence.

[Usfromdk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too many 'reflections', not enough aphorisms. A quick read, but not particularly good. Most of the 'quotable' sequences and aphorisms included in the book can be found elsewhere (e.g. wikiquote).

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful

[Miss Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a Logan Pearsall Smith fan, one of his best known works, though not my own personal favorite of them, this volume collects together Trivia, More Trivia, Afterthoughts and Last Words.

I personally would recommend his A Treasury of English Aphorisms, Milton and His Modern Critics, and a few other of his works on languages.