Literary Baton 123

Blogger Nadim recently passed Literary Baton 123 my way. The rules, as they stand, are simple.

1. Find the book closest (as in proximity) to you at the moment.
2. Flip to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Pass the baton to five other bloggers.
   

It's a rather unusual “game” and one I have trouble seeing the point in to be honest. Unless I am reading the rules wrong the end result is simply many blogs posting random sentences, achieving what exactly? However, if a continuous dadaist storyline were to be developed by this method the result would be much more interesting in my opinion.

So, with this in mind, the next three sentences from me would be...

Central Africans drink it in immense quantities: in Unyamwezi the standing bedsteads, covered with bark-slabs, are all made sloping so as to drain off the liquor. A chief lives wholly on beef and Pombe which is thick as gruel below. Hops are unknown: the grain, mostly Holcus, is made to germinate, then pounded, boiled and left to ferment.

As I am at work I have no appropriate book handy. Lots of manuals, and a few magazines, but no books. So I decided to go to the top listed online book in my favourites folder. The complete 1000 Nights and a Night (Vol 1 Burton translation) as found at http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/index.htm.

Unfortunately, as with most online texts there are no page numbers, so instead I took these sentences from the 123rd footnote! I hope that keeps in spirit with the original game well enough.

Now, somebody needs to track back to find the route of this literary baton prior to it reaching Ingo (who passed it to Nadim) to find the complete storyline, and given the German provenance a good translator is going to need to be found too.

Tracking back a few links and using a dodgy online translation service presents this extended snippet from a most surreal book.

The nordic hair fell in long curls to the rear. And how Chipsey announced, had to show it actually scar, at least a visible hurled, that nearly a few passed to cleanly under the left cheek bone. Although its face was hardened to an indifferent grimace, it seemed to follow attentively to Claires words, pointed there and again itself even an amused twitching around the mouth angle around on.

It would buy yet more of the lovely powder it the sting of St. Clements Dane, take it out of the frame and carry under its overalls home. It would become Mr. Tear Charrington the remainder of this poem out of the memory.

If one closes the stores of its heart, one takes himself only even aware, and then one observes himself endlessly. One pleases or hates himself, but one exposes himself, one fragments its being and becomes more incapably then ever to grasp the connection and in the end the unit of the things. The Eremit never is pulsates alone, for even the air that it breathes, before life, and through it that it receives it, changes it it into even more intensive life, that it exudes again into the universe.

“I wish my father had told me that,” I say.

“And when my child is older,” says Eckhard, happy now in my approval, “I will read him the poems I love. Then he will love them too.”

“Your child will be a boy?”

Central Africans drink it in immense quantities: in Unyamwezi the standing bedsteads, covered with bark-slabs, are all made sloping so as to drain off the liquor. A chief lives wholly on beef and Pombe which is thick as gruel below. Hops are unknown: the grain, mostly Holcus, is made to germinate, then pounded, boiled and left to ferment.

There's an interesting novel in this for sure.

Rather than nominate specific people (though I'll probably poke a few of you directly anyway), I ask if anyone is up to the challenge of continuing this? If so, please respond here as well as posting to your own place. I want to know what the potential next three sentences could be.

Cheers!