Reading any good books? II

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by Comic Book Guy

P.G Wodehouse - World of Jeeves
James Joyce - Dubliners

I love Dubliners- "Ivy Day in the Committee Room" is my favourite, one of the best stories on politics ever written, though "The Dead" is the best overall story in the bunch.

[cee2lee2]

Last Sunday I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It is epistolary in form and I enjoyed it so much. Left me smiling.

[nasuada]

I'm reading a book called the Shadow of the King.
It takes place in Anglo-Saxon England, and it is very good so far.

[katya]

I'm re-reading The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart. It was my favorite book in 6th or 7th grade, or whenever I read it. It's about the childhood of Merlin, and the later books are about Arthur.

[EllethValatari]

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
The Christian Imagination Leeland Ryken

And always on my desk: On Faerie Stories by J.R.R. Tolkien

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by katya

I'm re-reading The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart. It was my favorite book in 6th or 7th grade, or whenever I read it. It's about the childhood of Merlin, and the later books are about Arthur.

Yea, that and "The Hollow Hills" are great.

The last two go pretty well downhill though.

[katya]

That's too bad. I was thinking maybe this time I'll read the others (the first time I started The Hollow Hills but didn't finish it). Who knows, maybe I'll like them better than you did though.

Things sure have changed since I read The Crystal Cave the last time. I remember spending literally hours on my WebTV trying to figure out what the sign against the evil eye was all about. Now it's all right there on wikipedia. I kind of miss being young and caring so much about things like that, though. Not the internet, things in books.

[GrayMouser]

Well, your mileage may differ- #3, The Last Enchantment, is okay- just a big step down from the first two.

I remember watching the latest King Arthur movie and wondering why someone didn't make a movie of these two. Hollywood suits, I guess:

"Hey, that Gladiator was a big hit- what's some other old stuff we can do?"

First you start with a story....

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Finished Crime and Punishment. SUCH an intense psychological portrait. Also some elements of Kierkegaard dispersed throughout. I was holding my breath to the very end of the epilogue, to see how Rodya would turn out.

I'm not sure what to turn to next. . . Foucault's Pendulum, a book claiming to contain "Representative Modern Plays" sitting on my shelf, Gilead. . . so many options. Or perhaps I'll just end up concentrating more on working through the Sonnets.

[katya]

Did you like Rodya? A lot of people I've talked to didn't like him or couldn't forgive him.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I wouldn't say I liked him, per se, but my heart went out to him deeply, and I was longing to forgive him, waiting for him to permit it. It's unfortunate that we only see him when he's more or less withdrawn into himself; it would be a wonder to see what the depth with which he lived would have done in the outside world.

I really liked Sonya, though.

[katya]

I never felt angry at him to where I would have to forgive him. There was nothing to forgive. But, as I've said before, I have strange tastes. It's been a really long time since I read that book (8th grade I'm pretty sure so like... 8 years ago) and I'd like to re-read it sometime soon.

I've been re-reading a lot lately. I feel like I have too many unfinished projects, and re-reading things I read a long time ago or never finished feels pretty good. So far, I've read Lady Chatterly's Lover (got about 3/4 of the way through the first time), The Great Gatsby (only ever saw the movie), The Crystal Cave (read in middle school, re-read and then read the rest in the series). I'm not usually one to re-read books because I feel like I should read new books. But, I think getting as much out of a book as you can is good, and getting deeper meanings out of them.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

No matter what one thinks, even if, as Rodya convinced himself, there is no wrong in killing the "louse," the old pawnbroker, it was certainly wrong to kill her kind and unassuming sister.

But I would say that forgiveness and anger have nothing to do with each; I was never angry with him, I could understand him too well for that.

I know what you mean; it's a matter of finding the balance between breadth and depth. Some books just have to be re-read, though, whether because you're sure you missed something the first time through (the reason I'm re-reading Dante's Comedy), or because it speaks to in such a way that you feel the need to unpack more (the reason I've re-read Brideshead Revisited several times, and the reason War and Peace, Brothers K, and now Crime and Punishment are on my re-read list).

Of course, then, sometimes there are works which you re-read simply because the towering emotions are so exquisite that you feel the need to experience it anew, like King Lear, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

[katya]

Maybe anger isn't the best way to describe it. Well, think about it this way. There's another character who is one of my favorite characters, from Demons, by the same author, did some horrible things to a young girl. That, I actually had to take the time to try to forgive. I wouldn't say it made me angry, but because of an experience I had myself as a young child (which was really not very bad but enough to make me understand it), the feeling of "how could you do that? that's so horrible." was much stronger. I felt this character was less justified (in his mind). But anyway, not anger, more like disgust.

With Rodya, I hardly even thought about him killing the sister at first because it seemed like such a sheer accident, a reflex, or like something he didn't really mean to do and didn't want to do, but did out of fear. If someone just came along and killed her for fun, that guy I would have a problem with.

I never really feel like I've gotten everything I can out of a book. But sometimes, after I'd finished reading one, I would read the summaries and the discussion questions on SparkNotes. That helps. I've been wanting to form a book group around here. I'm already in one but I want to make my own too.

[GrayMouser]

While I've re-read most of Dosty's works several times at least, the one I've never been able to go back to is "Crime and Punishment"- and that's been over thirty years now. Maybe because it was the first one of his I read and the impact was so strong.

I remember I could only keep going at the time because I'd been told it had a "happy ending"- yeah, in the epilogue!

Maybe time to try it again.

Oh, and Foucault's Pendulum is great, though it takes a while to get into the swing.

[katya]

My 9th grade English teacher tried to dissuade me from reading Russian literature when he saw me reading Anna Karenina. Said it's too depressing and it just gets worse right to the end. He encouraged his students to read Stephen King. NOT my favorite teacher.

[GrayMouser]

Has anyone read any Robertson Davies?- Great Canadian writer, particularly:

the Cornish trilogy: The Rebel Angels, What's Bred in the Bone, The Lyre of Orpheus.

the Deptford trilogy: Fifth Business, The Manticore, World of Wonders.

small-c conservative with a strong streak of anarchy, Shakespearean scholar, High Anglican with a love of liturgy and a special affection for saints, lover of bawdy, art historian, writer of a libretto based on "The Golden Ass", monarchist, ironist, stern moralist, exponent of myth and magic- and very funny as well.

Brought to mind by this quote of his:

"A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight."

[Gwaimir Windgem]

With Rodya, I hardly even thought about him killing the sister at first because it seemed like such a sheer accident, a reflex, or like something he didn't really mean to do and didn't want to do, but did out of fear. If someone just came along and killed her for fun, that guy I would have a problem with.

Certainly, it was something he did out of fear, but he still took the life of an innocent human being, and it was, when you get right down to it, willful; nothing forced his hand. I was very surprised that that didn't come up more; perhaps because he couldn't reconcile it as easily as he could killing the pawnbroker.

Originally Posted by katya

I never really feel like I've gotten everything I can out of a book. But sometimes, after I'd finished reading one, I would read the summaries and the discussion questions on SparkNotes. That helps. I've been wanting to form a book group around here. I'm already in one but I want to make my own too.

If there's a university library near you, it might be interesting to check out some scholarly criticism/interpretation. I find an academic mindset brings out a lot that one might easily miss.

Originally Posted by GM

Oh, and Foucault's Pendulum is great, though it takes a while to get into the swing.

That's what I'm leaning towards; I was given it for my birthday by a friend who says its one of his favourite books, so it should be worth checking out.

I've never heard of Robertson Davies, but he sounds like a fascinating individual. Sounds a bit like Roger Scruton. Anglo-Catholics are always so much more interesting than us poor Romans.

[katya]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Certainly, it was something he did out of fear, but he still took the life of an innocent human being, and it was, when you get right down to it, willful; nothing forced his hand. I was very surprised that that didn't come up more; perhaps because he couldn't reconcile it as easily as he could killing the pawnbroker.

That makes my "heart go out to him", as you said. But other people I've talked to who have read the book could not forgive him for it at all and in fact hated him. I really need to re-read that book but I think I'm going with something non-fiction first since I've just finished The Crystal Cave. Sometimes if I like a fiction book it's hard to pick up a new one right away. Most of the time, actually.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I've just started Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex. So far, it's a great mixture of comedy and evocative classical references.