#Menelaos Loudemis

[epestrefe]

Μενέλαος Λουντέμης

[inspiwriter]

Ειπώθηκαν ψέµατα που ντράπηκαν και τα ίδια, µια και δεν ντρέπονταν τα στόµατα που τα ’λεγαν. Such lies were told, that lies themselves felt ashamed since the lips that spoke them felt nothing.

Μενέλαος Λουντέμης, Οδός Αβύσσου Νο. 0 - Menelaos Loudemis, Abyss street Νο. 0

[sweetmomentslove]

Come close to me,I'm not fire. Fires are extinguished by rivers. Are drowned by storms. Are chased by north winds. No,I'm not,I'm not fire. Come close to me,I'm not the wind. Winds are cut off by the mountains. Are silenced by the burning sun. Are overwhelmed by floods. No,I'm not,I'm not the wind. I am nothing but a warrior, a resting walker who laid his body down the root of an olive tree, to hear the song of the crickets. And if you wish,come to hear it together.

 Menelaos Loudemis   “ Cry For Love”

[menelaosloudemis]

Learn to Leave...

Learn to leave. From the security of empty hugs.

From handshakes which haunt you.

From the memory of a phony happiness.

To leave -silently, quietly, without cries or lengthy farewells.

Don't carry anything with you, neither memories nor jackets for the road.

Run away from ostensible shelters, even if is pouring outside.

Learn how to look the other straight in the eyes when you say goodbye, don’t stare down or into space.

Mean each and every of your words, do not degrade them, please.

Learn to look at the hourglass, to see that your time is up.

No hugs, no letters, no dedications, we will meet again someday, my darling.

(Not every night and every song will be yours - accept it).

Stop loving the Future when what you have is only the present.

Leave from a place where you don’t know why you are there - from a place where they don’t know why they are keeping you there.

Part from songs you loved, places you walked on.

Your imagination is not as limited as you think it is. You can make up brand new stories just with sky and salt.

Stories that will remind you just a bit of Fall, very much of Summer and that endless Spring.

Leave from where they do not give you what you need.

From the disproportionate, the moderate and the just.

Demand to get back what you gave - you do not owe anything to anyone.

Learn to respect your love, your time and your heart.

Do not believe what they say, that love has not limits, at some point it ends.

You heart can be broken, one day you’ll knock on her and it won’t work anymore.

Realize that second chances are for the cowards, the third for the sods.

Do not be afraid of the correlation between words and meanings, call a relationship “relationship” and call deceit “deceit”.

Scold yourself sometimes when you lie and whine like a baby while you just sit there and give yourself a lollipop just not to upset the little toddler.

Learn to search for loves who remind you of Casablanca, not fixed-term contracts.

Learn to leave from a place where you never really existed. 

Leave even if it feels like they are tearing apart your child from your womb.

To leave from what you thought was real so you may really reach the real one one day.

- Menelaos Lountemis (1912-1977)

[inspiwriter]

A reading list

Mostly to feed my own obsession with lists, but also to be used as a book recommendations list. Enjoy!

Το καπλάνι της βιτρίνας, Άλκη Ζέη- Tiger in the glass, by Alke Zei

Παραμύθι χωρίς όνομα, Πηνελόπη Δέλτα - Fairytale without a name, by Penelope Delta

Ο Μάγκας, Πηνελόπη Δέλτα - The cool kid, by Penelope Delta

Ένα παιδί μετράει τ’ άστρα, Μενέλαος Λουντέμης - A child counts the stars, by Menelaos Loudemis

Sophie’s World, by Jostein Gaarder

The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux

Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe

Jonathan Livingston seagull, by Richard Bach

The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

The orange girl, by Jostein Gaarder

Anna: a fable about the Earth’s climate and environment, by Jostein Gaarder

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Lord of the Rings (The Felowship of the Ring - Two Towers - The return of the King), by J. R. R. Tolkien

Demian, by Herman Hesse

Anna of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery

Anne of Avonlea, by L.M. Montgomery

Anne of the Island, by L.M. Montgomery

The ones that walk away from Omelas, by Ursula Le Guin

Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

A wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle #1), by Ursula Le Guin

The Worlds of Chrestomanci, by Diana Wynne Jones (heptalogy: Charmed Life - The Magicians of Caprona - Witch Week - The Lives of Christopher Chant - Mixed Magics - Conrad’s Fate - The Pinhoe Egg)

Ακυβέρνητες Πολιτείες, Στρατής Τσίρκας (τριλογία: Η Λέσχη - Αριάδνη - Νυχτερίδα) - Drifitng Cities, by Stratis Tsirkas (a trilogy : The Club - Ariagne - The Bat)

Η Φόνισσα, Αλέξανδρος Παπαδιαμάντης - The Murderess, by Alexandros Papadiamantis

Emma, by Jane Austen

The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco

Kafka on the Shore, by Haraki Murakami

The Plague, by Albert Camus

Eroica, Κοσμάς Πολίτης (Kosmas Politis)

The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

The Gambler, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott 

Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy

Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Six of Crows, by Leigh Bardugo

Crooked Kingdom, by Leigh Bardugo

The Owl Service, by Alan Garner

Διακοπές στον Καύκασο, Μαρία Ιορδανίδου - Holidays in Caucasus, by Maria Iordanidou

Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones

A Tale of Time City, by Dianna Wynne Jones

The Pursuit of Love, by Nancy Mitford

The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

Love in a cold climate, by Nancy Mitford

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

The turn of the screw, by Henry James

The Dark Lord of Derkholm, by Diana Wynne Jones

The game, by Diana Wynne Jones

The last wish, by Andrzej Sapkwosky

A darker shade of magic, by V.E. Schwab

Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Auaten

Sculpting in time, by Andrei Tarkovski

Persuasion, by Jane Austen

Winter Rose, by Patricia A. McKillip

Swallows and amazons, by Arthur Ransome 

What is literature?, by Jean-Paul Sartre

Hexwood, by Diana Wynne Jones

Deep Secret, by Diana Wynne Jones

The hatred of literature, by William Marx

Year of the Griffin, by Diana Wynne Jones

Castle in the air, by Diana Wynne Jones

Home of the Gentry, by Ivan Turgeniev

Archer’s Goon, by Diana Wynne Jones

The Homeward Bounders, by Diana Wynne Jones

Wilkin’s tooth, by Diana Wynne Jones

A wizard’s guide to defensive baking, by T. Kingfisher

Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett

The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle #2), by Ursula Le Guin

Tehanu, (Earthsea Cycle #4), by Ursula Le Guin 

Mort, by Terry Pratchett

Μπουμπουλίνας 18, Κίττυ Αρσένη (Bouboylinas 18, by Kitty Arseni)

Ανθρωποφύλακες, Περικλής Κοροβέσης (The Method, by Pericles Korovesis)

Vita Nostra, Sergey & Marina Dyachenko

Lexicon, Max Bary

Dune, Frank Herbert

Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise, Katherine Rundell

[epestrefe]

Μενέλαος Λουντέμης.Ο συγγραφέας που μετρούσε τ`άστρα από την εξορία...

[menelaosloudemis]

Humans come into this world crying. After that, they either become humans who cry or monsters who make others cry.

Menelaos Loudemis “The Cherry Trees Will Blossom Again This Year”

[menelaosloudemis]

My dear friend, alas the man who has never failed. Cry for him! Gather every grand work in the world. Beside them there are always smaller works. And know this; these grand works exist because of the smaller ones. A great failure always brings a greater success, but a great success never brings a bigger one. If man succeeded in his first attempt, he'd never made a second. Glory is a peak which, in order to climb to the top, you have to descend from it first.

Menelaos Loudemis “The Cherry Trees Will Blossom Again this Year”

[menelaosloudemis]

Thank you, I thank you deeply… I, Melios, the man… the child… the human… Thank you, because you can read deeper than the wisest men… you can laugh richer that the the happiest people… you can cry more genuinely than the most sorrowful men.. And you can love, Bithro… Love like everyone should love each other one day… everyone. Amen.

The protagonist of “A Child Counting the Stars”, Melios, to his gypsy friend who supported him through hard times. Menelaos Loudemis (1956)

[menelaosloudemis]

Melios, from where he was standing, became speechless. Then, slowly, he started to realize... There were some people -he didn't know who they were, nor why they did it- who were digging ditches between people and were raising towering mountains. Who were they and why they did this? He only knew one thing; that in this life everyone played his role, but this role was not the same for everyone. Now, who was handing out these roles? Was it God? But, the grown ups, in addition to other bad things they did, they also did this, they made God according to their own standards and there was no God left for kids.

Menelaos Loudemis "A Child Counting the Stars”