Virgil
2008 Reads
by , 12-31-2008 at 11:31 AM (3210 Views)
2008 Reads
“The Man Who Loved Islands,” a short story by D.H. Lawrence
“A Shadow in the Rose Garden,” a short story by D.H. Lawrence
“The Blind Man,” a short story by D.H. Lawrence
“The Witch A La Mode,” a short story by D.H. Lawrence
The Aeneid, an epic by Virgil
The Name of the Rose, a novel by Umberto Eco
“Up In Michigan,” a short story by Earnest Hemingway
“Indian Camp,” a short story by Earnest Hemingway
“The Battler,” a short story by Earnest Hemingway
“A Rose for Emily,” a short story by William Faulkner
“A Winter’s Tale,” a play by William Shakespeare
The Road, a novel by Cormac McCarthy
The Sea, a novel by John Banville
“The Christening,” a short story by D.H. Lawrence
A Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich, a novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
“The Oval Portrait,” a short story by Edgar Allen Poe
"The Snows of Kilimanjaro," a short story by Earnest Hemingway
The Good Earth, a novel by Pearl S. Buck
Heart Of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad
“The Princess,” a short story by D.H. Lawrence
The God of Small Things, a novel by Arundhati Roy
“Natasha,” a short story by Vladimir Nabokov
Genesis from the Old Testament, KJV
“The Merry Wives of Windsor” a play by William Shakespeare
“A Jury of Her Peers” a short story by Susan Glaspell
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons,” a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Words for the Wind, a collection of poetry by Theodore Roethke
Cuttlefish Bones, a collection of poetry by Eugenio Montale, Tr. William Arrowsmith
Eudora Welty: A Biography, by Suzanne Marrs
The Many Faces of God: Science’s 400 Year Quest for Images of the Divine, by Jeremy Cambell
I must admit, I do not read as much as others here. A lot of these are short stories, but you know I read short stories very carefully, as if it were a poem. The brevity of a short story allows me to pick it apart sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase that I could not do with a novel, unless of course one never wants to finish it.
My philosophy in reading selection is to vary and sample different eras and different cultures. However, it's not a very regimented approach and ever since I've been on lit net it's more inclined to be impulsive than not. For instance I notice that the list this year contains no 18th or 19th century novels. That is pity. I'm not sure why it was so weighted to the 20th century (Eco, Solzhenitsyn, Conrad, Buck) but it was. I had a good deal of contemporary writers (McCarthy, Banville, Roy) and that's a good thing. A college education has filled me with past writers and a solid background but I do wish to know and appreciate what's out there now. Interesting that one is American, one British, and one from the non Anglo-American world.
One work of the classics is represented, The Aeneid, though I did not quite finish it. And two Shakespeare plays. That's a good balance. And luckily both Shakespeare plays were ones I had never read before, and so now I'm two closer to my goal of reading all of Shakespeare before I go off to that great library in the sky.Of the 38 accepted Shakespeare plays, I've now read 24.
Two works of poetry on the list. I had not read an extended work of poetry by a single author in some time. The Poetry Bookclub got this going and I think it's a fabulous idea. I knew Roethke's main poems before the read, but having to go deep into a list of his poetry really made me appreciate him more. I had never read Montale before and that was a pleasure. I encourage others to join the poetry bookclub discussion. We are currently voting for a another poet here: http://www.online-literature.com/for...937#post651937.
Two works of non-fiction, one a biography and one looking at a cultural trend are on the list. Again I didn't quite finish both. I picked up the Welty on a lark; it was a reduced price book and I had wanted to read a biography. She didn't exactly lead decadent life, so there's not much to sink one's teeth into. And gven that I'm not all that familiar with her work, the bio was hard to hold my interest. But still it is interesting to read how a person became a writer and the discipline she had. I now need to read some of her works and perhaps go back to the bio. The Campell book was interesting, combining science and our understanding of God. It really traces how portrayal of God in art and literature has evolved with evolving understanding of science. It kind of has a historical element to it, and so satisfied my need to read a history, a work of science, and a work on understanding of culture, all in one work.When I would read more I would try to have one work on each.
One thing I started this year was reading the Bible. To my embarressment I have only read the Bible in patches and hardly ever a complete book. No one from a western culture, whether a believer or not, can rightly call themselves well read without having read the Bible. So I will try to read a few books per year and see how long it will take to complete it. I'm not sure if I should go in sequence or bounce around. I started at the beginning with Genesis, and what a marvelous read that was.
there was no real rhyme or reason to the short story selections. There are a number of Lawrence because I belong to the Lawrence short story group here, and of course because he's who I'm a minor expert on. There are a number of Hemingway, because he truely was a great short story writer and because they are realtively fast to read. Oh read "The Battler." I must have re-read that a dozen times, one right after the other, dissecting it to death. I was mesmorized by it. It is a marvelously crafted story, and one that is perfection in every word used and element to the story. And "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" may be Hemingway's best. The Oval Portrait was an interesting selection, actually by Nossa here on lit net. We had a back and forth through emails disecting and analyzing the story. It was a lot of fun, and perhaps when Nossa is not busy we can do it again. And the Fitzgerald "Benjamin Buttons" story I read because it is now movie and I have wanted to read something from Fitzgerald. It was a lot of fun and you can see my comments to Psycheinaboat's thread on it here: http://www.online-literature.com/for...761#post651761.
So that's my list. For next year I will try to add a few 18th and 19th century works to the list, a true work of history, and continue with a balanced reading. Not sure yet on whose biography I will read this year. Perhaps it won't be anyone literary. Oh there are are plans by some who enjoy DH Lawrence here to read his novel The Rainbow this year. I hope some of you can join in. It's my favorite of his novels and some consider it his greatest. I do.
Go to Profile
Mark as Read
