Some books about books...

It took me a while to get through Matthew Battle's book, The Library: An Unquiet History, but once I finally picked it back up I breezed through it and learned all sorts of interesting new stuff about the Library: from the burning of the Library at Alexandria, to Swift's arguing the Ancients over the Moderns, to just how crazy and backwards the genius of Dewy was. Each chapter had an over arching time frame it focused on and within the chapter a more specific event of that period meant to bring the reader in. Personally I would have been fine with out the fifty pages that focused on Swift (but maybe that's because of the aversion I have had towards him since college) which also happened to the part of the book that stopped me up for two moths, but I think some of you would really enjoy that part (namely, my husband). In short, if you find yourself in awe when you go into the library and would like to learn a bit more about it's history this book is a good place to start.

I found myself totally engrossed in Maureen Corrigan's book, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading-so much so that I felt disgruntled existing in any world other than hers. I highly recommend picking it up if you are an avid reader, she not only gives you an amazing book list to look into but she also discusses so many great and new ideas that are fun to ponder. I particularly loved her idea of the "female extreme adventure novel" in which she argues that female characters, more often than we recognize, have extreme --life suspending--adventures that get passed over because they don't speak to that outward notion of adventure we have become so used to. She also discussed the "honorary male" or "learned androgyny" status women adhere to to be taken seriously in the world of reading--both in real life and in stories, an issue I struggle with in my life and therefore found very eye opening. If there is one book you should pick because of this blog, this is the book. It's wonderful.

Fun with Norton Critical Editions.

As I continue to study for my comps, I get to read all kind of randomness published in the back of Norton Critical Editions. After readingthe Norton Importance of Being Earnest cover to cover, I am now reading through the Pride and Prejudice. Let me tell you, there is a wealth wonderful oddities and fun in there.
Here are two of the pleasures that I read.
The first is from some early Austen writing, called Love and Friendship. It is a dialogue about someone knocking on a door.

"My father started--"What noise is that," (said he.) "It sounds like a loud rapping at the Door"--(replied Mother.) "it does indeed." (cried I.) "I am of your opinion; (said my father) it certainly does appear to proceed from some uncommon violence exerted against our unoffending door." "Yes (exclaimed I) I cannot help thinking it must be somebody who knocks for admittance."

Seriously. This continues for about a page or so. Dizzyingly circular discussion about how they all agree someone is knocking on the door, and that whoever it is wants to come in. It's wonderous how it goes on and on.
The other fun thing has less to do with Austen. It comes from a critic named Richard Whately, who wrote an essay called "Modern Novels," published in Qarterly Review 24, in 1821. He's talking about how well Austen handles her Christianity by just not talking about it. I must say I was a tad surprised and comforted to read his great reasoning.

"For when the purpose of inculcating a religious principle is made too palpably prominent, many readers, if they do not throw aside the book with disgust, are apt to fortify themselves with that respectful kind of apathy with which they undergo a regular sermon, and prepare themselves as they do to swallow down a dose of medicine, endeavouring to get it down in large gulps, without tasting it more than is necessary."

Isn't that lovely. I think so. For kicks, Whately ends his essay with, "We know not whether Austen ever had access to the precepts of Aristotle; but there are few, if any, writers of fiction who have illustrated them more successfully." I couldn't agree more. There are few, if any, novels I know of that are more perfectly crafted and and exectued as Pride and Prejudice. I love it.

Speaking of taking an hour...

I picked up O Pioneers! this past weekend as part of goal I set for myself, which is currently (not so cleverly) called Ten in Ten. Over the remaining ten months of 2007 I plan to read ten books I have had on my shelves for over a year- in addition to my normal reading. The first of which was O Pioneers! Needless to say, I am pretty excited about this. I have more books than I would like to admit that have been collecting dust for sometime now-and this is a fun way to pick up those books I have always wanted to have read but never really felt like reading. As for my reaction to O Pioneers!--well to begin with there is an exclamation mark in the title and that is just awesome. I think of this book as high school reading, and by that I mean, it is often required that highschooler's read it. Which is a damn shame. If I had read it in high school I know I would not have appreciated it at all, instead I am sure I would have found it boring and pointless. As it is, I have been out of high school for quite sometime, and I have to admit: I loved it! The characters, the long crafted speeches about the land, the heartbreak, I felt as though I was allowed in to this part of history that was formerly not open to me...and now I have some sense of how people lived and thought in the early 20th century. I should say, at no point did I feel I could empathize with the characters but Cather's prose really brought the time period alive. And for that, I am thankful. Not to mention, its so short there really isn't anytime to not like it.

As for the remaining 9 in 10, I plan to read:
Heart of the Matter
All the Pretty Horses
My Antonia
Big Rock Candy Mountain
White Noise
The Street Of Crocodiles
The Sea, The Sea
A Handful of Dust
& Cold Mountain

breaking news: Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde, Funny

I've been pouring over Importance of Being Earnest, one of the texts on my comp exam. It is so damn funny. I know we all know that, but man, it's awesome.
For example:

If I am occasionally over-dressed, I make up for it by being immensely over-educated.

Algy: The truth is rarely pure, and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were, and Modern Literature a complete impossibility.
Jack: That wouldn't be at all a bad thing.
Algy: Literary Criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don't try it. You should leave that to people who havne't been at university.

It goes on and on. I just wanted to remind everyone. Take an hour and read it, it's good stuff.

Baudrillard: "Rest in...simulated secondary access to post mortem Peace" ?

Jean Baudrillard has died. Our favorite Hyperrealist was 77. His life was spent detmerining that there was no reality to try to tap in to so you're better off not trying, or something.
During his life he wrote more than 50 books, denied that the first Gulf War took place anywhere outside the media, claimed that the current Iraq was is an attempt by America to "put the rest of the world into simulation, and most importantly, inspired, if you call it that, the Matrix, to which he said that the references to his work "stemmed mostly from misunderstandings." Sorry Larry and Andy. You just don't get it.

Here's a "picture" of what Baudrillard "looked like."

Author Identification:

Last fall when I was seeking employment I happened to apply at this little independent bookstore in my neighborhood that specifically caters itself to Women and Children. After bringing in my application and resume they asked me to sit down for a short test that they require all potential employees to take. When they explained the test to me I was pretty excited but that excitement quickly turned to shock and resignation as I realized I didn't know as much as I thought I had. Well, this weekend, I happened to stop back in the store as for a copy and now I present it to you. Below is a list of female authors and the rules are simple: 1. Name a book written by the following authors. 2. No cheating, you are on the honor system. 3. Add up the number you know and post. And for those of you that are curious, I knew books by all of 12 of these authors, not so hot!

Toni Morrison

Mary Oliver

Sandra Cisneros

Sara Partesky

Octavia Butler

Ana Castillo

bell hooks

Jeanette Winterson

Lillian Faderman

Baraba Kingsolver

Margaret Atwood

Rebecca Walker

Gloria Steinem

Anne Lamott

Sarah Schulman

Leslie Feinberg

Gerda Lerner

Gish Jen

Amy Tan

Penelope Leach

Kathleen Norris

Mary Karr

Ursula LeGuin

Terry Tempest Williams

Audre Lorde

Zadie Smith

Jhumpa Lahiri

Alice Munro

Martha Nussbaum

Jane Hamilton

Annie Proulx

Susan Faludi

Adrienne Rich

What'cha Reading Now?

I am reading Les Miserabls, and I have to admit, most of this book is more boring than any other book I have ever read. But I am only 150 pages in, so I have my fingers crossed.

Woland and Christ's Last Temptation

It was by no means intentional on my part to read The Master and Margarita and The Last Temptation of Christ back to back but fate deemed it to be, and therefore I come to you with some curious similarities.

I suppose I found reading theses two books in succession so exciting because they seem to be about complete opposites (Jesus and the Devil, good and evil) but having read them together I realized they are more alike than opposite. Despite the obviously polarity of the main characters these books argue the same thing: it is not the experiences you have in life that matter, but your reaction to them.
Kazantzakis writes in his intro:

"This book is not a biography; it is the confession of every man who struggles. In publishing it I have fulfilled my duty, the duty of a person who struggled much, was much embittered in life and had many hopes. I am certain that every free man who reads this book, so filled as it is with love, will more than ever before, better than ever before, love Christ."

Kazantzakis took a story that is all too familiar to most of us and gave it just enough of a spin to piss off half of us and awaken the other half. And if you are part of the half that felt awoken by the novel you hopefully learned that it is not a particular moment(s) in your life that is most important but all the moments together that create your whole being—that create a final result.
In The Master and Margarita Woland is the true hero and “Yeshua is extraordinary only in his sensitivity and his naive belief in the goodness of man.” Woland, contrary to our usual understanding of the Devil not only believes in the goodness of man (we see this when he tests Margarita’s compassion with the criminals at the ball) but he himself embodies a goodness. He becomes even more powerful in that he also brings with him great strength and knowledge of the evils in the world—unlike naïve Jesus. Woland and Yeshua bring the same message, “compassion is preferable to revenge.” But Woland teaches this by directly involving himself in people’s lives instead of as “a defenseless human being who is beaten and hung on the cross.” The important difference here seems to be that Woland continues fighting with human nature’s lesser side, testing them through provocations, to make people compassionate instead of just expecting them to follow his lead, like Yeshua did on the cross.

In Last Temptation of Christ, Jesus is the hero that Woland is in The Master and Margarita. Kazantzakis writes his novel with an emphasis on a life of Jesus that is human and therefore relatable. Thus forcing the reader to see that his particular experiences aren’t the key issues but the ultimate decision it leads up to. Kazantzakis challenges our understanding of Jesus in the bible, without (I think) actually blaspheming: Judas is a hero, who turned in Jesus because he was asked, not as an act of betrayal; Jesus struggles with a burning desire to be with Mary Magdalene. Jesus doesn’t hear God’s voice clearly or at all most of the time which makes his ultimate decision not naiveté, divine direction or a simple belief in goodness, but as painstaking a decision as there ever was—to claim he is the Son of God and to die on the cross. Jesus leads by provocation—because he is as human as the rest of us.
Both Woland and Christ were created in these novels to make people live a life of goodness and compassion despite our more natural inclinations. And both do it by breaking the mold we have kept them in over the ages. They scream to us to do the right thing, to be the best person possible when it comes time to make a decision, no matter what life hands you.

And as a final note, if you couldn’t tell already, I sincerely loved both of these books.

Ann Patchett and Bernardo Bertolucci

I know there are some fans of Ann Patchett and Bel Canto floating around out there. So I thought this would be a story of interest. It looks like Bernardo Bertolucci, one of the great living directors, who gave us Dreamers, Stealing Beauty, the Last Emporer, and Last Tango in Paris, is going to direct Bel Canto. The book must be sexy. Bertolucci doesn't mind doing sexy.

A poem while you wait...

Parodos

Long ago, I was wounded.
I learned
to exist, in reaction,
out of touch
with the world: I'll tell you
what I meant to be-
a device that listened.
Not inert: still.
A piece of wood. A stone.

Why should I tire myself, debating, arguing?
Those people breathing in the other beds
could hardly follow, being
uncontrollable
like any dream-
Through the blinds, I watched
the moon in the night sky, shrinking and swelling-

I was born to a vocation:
to bear witness
to the great mysteries.
Now that I've seen both
birth and death, I know
to the dark nature these
are proofs, not
mysteries-


by Louise Gluck

YES!!

For those of you that don't read Pandas and love books: WHB recently introduced me to a little site called LibraryThing. And as a book lover, let me tell you, IT IS AMAZING! I haven't gotten any work done for the past two days because I keep going back to the site and adding adding adding more books! It's so fun. And it gives you the opportunity to see what books your friends have.

cbhillstom and I (zumskifinke) have 70 books in common. I think that's a record!

Check it out.

North and South, and Iulius Caeser

In between working on my thesis (very interesting) and studying for my comps (some less interesting & some quite interesting) I am currently reading North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Yes, I am still taking Victorian Industrial Novel. I know little about Gaskell, other than she was friends with Dickens, occasionally found him to be an obnoxious editor of North and South as it was published in Household Words, but recognized (as every one did) how brilliant he was and usually took his advice. As for Gaskell, well, Dickens liked her too. But so far she is a very striking writer. And I've learned that living in the North of England during the Industrial Revolution would have been less than preferable.

The other project I have recently attached myself too, which ended yesterday, actually, was translating the Ides Martiae from Latin to English for my Latin midterm. I learned that Caesar did not actually say 'Et tu, Brute?' as Shakespeare seems to have famoused. (Gaius Iulius Caesar non dicit 'et tu brute', sed 'et tu filii meus' inquit) Rather he said, 'You too, my son?' in Greek, something to the effect of 'Kai su teknon.'
Unrelated Update:
breaking news from cnn. Apparently they found the bodies of romeo and juliet (the 5-6000 year old version.

"The Boy with the Incredible Brain" Part 1

"The Boy with the Incredible Brain" Part 2

Holy Crap...

Passing away a lazy Sunday evening watching TV, CZF and I came across and episode of 60 minutes and heard an incredible story about a English Man not much older than us by the name of Daniel Tammet. Tammet is a Savant--one of only about 50 known living in the world today-- but he differs in that he is also able to manage social interaction, something that has never been seen in before in a Savant. Some are describing him as the Rosetta Stone of brain's. Well, maybe you aren't impressed yet, but give me a second here to tell you some unbelievable facts about him that just might make your mouth drop: He used his incredible memory to learn the first 22,514 decimal places of pi. He recited the numbers at Oxford (on Pi day of course) it took him over five hours, and he didn't make a single mistake. He is also fluent in English, German, French, Spanish, Finnish, Lithuanian, Estonian, Icelandic, and Esperanto. There was a documentary made about him, called Brain Man (U.S.) or The Boy with the Incredible Brain (U.K), in which he took on the task of learning Icelandic (known for being one of the most difficult languages to learn) in 7 days, and then went on a national Icelandic television show to be interview in the language, and is said to have spoken rather eloquently, although I can't confirm that with my Icelandic being so limited and all. If that weren't enough he has created three new languages called Mänti, Uusisuom, and Lapsi. And for the enjoyment of us all a memoir he wrote was released here in the states on January 7th, called Born on a Blue Day. You can buy an autographed copy of it on his webpage if you feel so inclined. As if I didn't already have enough books on my "to read" list...

Part III of III: Some books I plan to read...

What's the point in talking about books if you don't list off all those books you are wanting to read. To begin with, here are the recommendations I got from you bloggers back in December:

Books & their Recommenders
Moby Dick by Herman Mellville; czfinke
Little, Big by John Crowley; DieDan
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell; annb
The Crow Road by Iain Banks; Scarlet Zapata
Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West; Bryant
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison; whb
Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton; Cat C.
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco; jc
Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen; JDM

And some other books on my list...

Les Miserables, Victor Hugo: DePaul Reads Together, has chosen this beast of a book as the next book club option...I've always wanted to have read (past-tense) Les Mis but have never really want to read (present-tense) Les Mis. For some reason I group him with Tolstoy (why I'm not sure, maybe because they both wrote massive massive books) whom I'm not particularly fond of. We'll see, this one might not happen.

The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch: I've heard nothing but amazing things about Murdoch's writing, but haven't read a page of her work yet. If I'm not mistaken, I don't think I know anyone who has read her, but when she comes up in a book or a review or wherever writers come up she is always highly praised. I choose The Sea, The Sea because it's one of her more popular and well know novels & happened to win the Booker in 1978. Seems reliable. The story: Narrator, Charles Arrowby, is a tyrannical director-playwright who, after 40 years, again makes contact with his worn-out childhood sweetheart, bullies her without being able to change, and then starts an affair with an equally monstrous 18-year-old girl.

The Name of The Rose, Umberto Eco: Yes, I know its up on the list of recommended books, but I had to mention it again because I'm so damned excited about it.

Our Enduring Values, Michael Gorman: Yes, yes...it looks boring I know. But really its rather intriguing. It is about libraries after all.

The Interior Castle, St. Teresa of Avila: I have been highly intrigued by the lives of the saints lately, particularly female saints. Which makes me pretty pumped about reading this book.

Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading, Maureen Corrigan: Maureen Corrigan is the Fresh Air Book Critic and recently wrote about book about her life as a reader. I feel kinda cheesy wanting to read about about reading books, but then I heard Terry Gross interview her, and it really sounds awesome. And apparently she has a fixation with the Live of the Saints as well, so that will go good with the last book I talked about on this list.

Well, I suppose this could go on forever, and I should probably just go and read instead of talking about it...

That Revolutionary Spirit, pt. deux

"We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity." Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil.

Awesome. It excites one to read something and get that charge that used cause sparks of fire in your stomach. Salinger and Kerouac and Merton, they all provided that little stir in the soul that originally made you want to read a book in the first place. I didn't think former prime minister victorian conservative Disraeli would draw from that same pool.
(Interesting sidenote-Disraeli was Jewish, which was pretty unwelcomed in England, to put it mildly--Jews were not given civil rights until the 1850s, about 25 years after Catholics were given civil rights. Anyway. Disraeli was the first, and so far, only Jewish Prime Minister of England.)
Here is a pitcture of Benjamin Disraeli, the latest to stir the waters of my soul.

That Revolutionary Spirit

Well. I have a few minutes and thought I would comment a moment on what I'm reading, which is Sybil, by Benjamin Disraeli. My Victorian prof informed us that the first 80 pages or so were pretty dry. She's right.
But it picks up and I am very much enjoying the rallying feeling of the spirit of Disraeli. Standing up for the poor, leaving behind the landed gentry and joining the plight of the prols! "Home is isolation, there for anti-social. What we want is COMMUNITY."The PEOPLE, he likes to write in capitals.
There are The great ass characters, like Lord Marney, the landowner and one-who-keeps-down-the-millions (that's my homage to Heidegger). "I say that a family can live well on eight shillings a week!"
Also, there is some great religious stuff going on. It's pretty good, after the slough of despond that is the first eighty pages.
Here's a passage I much enjoy: "The Church of Rome is to be respected ast he only Hebrao-Christian church extant; all other churches established by the Hebrew apostles have disappeared, but Rome remains, and we must never permit the exaggerated position which it assumed in the middle centuries to makes us forget its early and apostolic character, when it was fresh from Palestine, and as it were fragrant from Paradise." Not bad from the mouth of an Anglican Vicar.
I know many find Victorian literature boring and dull (which about fifty percent of this book is) but I thought I would let you all in on the good parts.

What more is there to say?

Paris Hilton has a book out: Confessions of an Heiress. Maybe I'm behind the times but I hadn't heard of it until this morning when Scarlet Zapta informed me of it. And according to at least one source she is reported to have said, "If I read, I would totally read this book." I guess that means we should read it too....

Part II of III: Some Books I'm Reading:

Another important subject that I have not covered in a while, the currently reading list:

Stereotypically I never read more than one book at a time unless I am in school, I usually find that I get caught up in one and disregard the others, but lately this problem hasn't been bothering me so much. That or I've become a much better multi-reading-tasker. And I also find that I read more books outside of the literature genre if I read several books at a time, which is very nice. So as of right now...

Library: An Unquiet History; Matthew Battles: Yet another book that I discovered when looking through Mrs. Osborn's shelf. You can all guess why I decided to read it, I'm sure. Right now I am about half way through it and have found that I should probably be reading "The Idiot's Guide to World History" along side it, but alas you will not find that on my list. It is fun to be learning so much though. I'm also highly surprised at how well Battles, who works for the Widener Library at Harvard, pretty much convinces you that the Library is basically the center of everything. Here I was thinking I was the center of everything....

The Last Temptation of Christ; Nikos Kazantzakis: I know this one was posted on quite some time ago, and some of you have even picked it up and read the whole thing since then, but good news: I too have finally started it. Honestly, I wasn't the least bit excited to read it. I've heard the gospel stories, I've even read them (that's right, Bethel!). BUT much to my surprise, I'm really loving it. Now, I'm only 70 pages or so into it but I like that Christ has such a hard time with God and doesn't want anything to do with him. I know its fiction but it's changed my stagnant view of Christ a bit, and makes him much more relateable.




***In addition, I've decided to add a new feature to the blog. That is putting up pictures of the books I am currently reading in a side bar, so you can stay updated and I don't have to bore you with talking about them before I have ever finished reading them.***