Wow what a great list. Good luck with the Novel and the Study. Have a great 2013
You make me feel shame!!! I wonderful list. I see you read the Hunger Games, I couldn't finish it! I think maybe this summer. I am currently reading A Tale of Genji now and I really like it. Thanks for sharing.
Qimi your wish is my command! The Mishima books were collectively over 1000 pages, but individually much less. It's called his Sea of Fertility tetralogy. Aside from Spring Snow, it was hard work. Virgil - thanks My son is 12, though soon to be 13. Kids start high school over here at 11, although when I was younger it was generally called secondary school. How things change. Anyway, I would recommend Kristin Lavransdatter if you can spare the time to read it. It is long, but I think it was worth it. It does have very christian overtones, and is also an excellent work of feminist fiction (the good type, not the in-your-face bra burning type). Cosmopolis by DeLillo is a short work, if you did want to delve beyond his short stories. I'd love to hear your thoughts on The Good Soldier. I didn't really enjoy it as a read, but it is a well written book. Comedian - really good to see you around, and I agree the end of year lists are one of the things I always look forward to on Litnet. In fact I am about to read yours! White Noise is excellent, I can completely understand why it's so highly rated. I'd like to read Mao II next year, as that particular work heavily influenced David Mitchell when he was writing Cloud Atlas so I'd like to see the link. You're right that my son's hallucinations could be migraine related. I am hoping that is what it is. Many thanks for stopping by all
These end-of-year reading lists and reflections are some of my favorite blogs of the entire year. And I'm glad to see that you're still readin', writin', parentin', and workin', Fifth. I've wanted to read Delillo for a while too -- one of my friends and colleagues thinks that White Noise is one of the top novels of the 20th century. Hope you find out more about your son -- sounds migraine related (I occasionally get migraines and, when I do, see shapes and whatnot until the migraine passes). Hope you have a great 2013!
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset was on my 2013 possibilities, but I decided I couldn't handle a 1000 pager. Undset is remarkably unknown, and yet she won the nobel prize in literature. I did choose her bio of St. Catherine of Sienna which I'll get to next month. Don't know if you know, but Undset is a Catholic convert; that bio is a sort of Catholic classic. I've been trying to fill in my reading of Catholic works. Your endorsement of Kristin Lavransdatter might make me reconsider. It's on my Amazon wish list. When you'll see my list, you'll see I read The Good Soldier as well this year, and I might have a word to say about it. I can see how you gave it a 4/5. I was tempted to pick up DeLillo myself, but I just picked up his short story collection and read one story. Not sure there was any meat to the story, but I was really impressed with his prose style. I too am impressed in the amount you can read. I had a good year myself, but I don't even think I reached half that. High school for us starts at 14 years old, so second year is 15. Somehow I thought your son was younger. It's not unusual for teens to have problems with authority (I know I did, and still do!) but the hallucinations sound disturbing. I hope they can figure this out for him. He'll be in my thoughts. And yes parenting is a hell of a challenge. Until I became one myself I really underestimated its difficulties. As a friend of mine says, it's the hardest job you'll ever love.
Fifty-two books! A book a week. V-e-r-r-r-y impressive, Fifth. What do you think about highlighting the ones that are over 600 pages? I know The Tale of Genji is one, as are Midnight's Children, The Poisonwood Bible, and Kristin Lavransdatter. I don't know if any of the others are. I might refer to your list when coming up with new author reads, as it is rife with books I have not read. I recognize a few that we read around the same time, and some that you mentioned. It's always fascinating to see your end of year list, Fifth. Thanks for sharing!
If you're open to a bit of variation, Chekov's short stories or plays are a must, and could be a good breather between the bricks.
Thanks Virgil I've read Notes from Underground before. It's an odd little book.
Fifth, we must be on the same wavelength. I was going to put out my summer reading plans. I think you've got the major Russian novels. You might want to add Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky. And for me, Tolstoy is at his best in the short novels, The Death OF Ivan Ilych, Master and Man, others. In fact you reminded me I had planned to read The Cossacks, but I'm not sure I'll get to it this year. @Qimi - We read A Day in the Life as a group read here on Lit Net a few years ago, I think in conjunction with Solzhenitsyn passing. You can read the Lit Net commentary on it if you can find it. It's probably an easy search. I remember thinking it an important work, but rather boring.
Qimi, have you heard the phrase 'your eyes are bigger than your belly' that's kind of how me and books work. Except in this case my eyes are bigger than my brain. Sadly. I hope you like A Day in the Life. You'll have to tell me about that one. Mick - you're right about Russian literature. I haven't read any in a while but when I was studying Soviet Russia in college I read quite a lot. It has a humanistic touch, but like you say how much of that is down to the translation is hard to say.
Thanks, Prendrelemick. That gives me hope.
A Day In The Life, is an easy read and a fantastic one. I Like the "Voice" of Russian Literature it is kind of gentle and sweet. Probably down to way Russian syntax translates.
Good grief, isn't that enough? OK, you may proceed with being the most awesome reader, ever. I've got "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch" on my shelf, and I'm just hoping I can read that. Sigh.
I think it was two or three years ago where we had several planets brightly visible with the naked eye in our area at one time. I have a little telescope and I was able to see several. I have a friend at work who teaches astronomy at night at a local university and he's sent me several pictures from whatever superduper telescope they use at the college. Yikes that would hurt if Matthew one day said something like that to me. I kind of imagine him growing up to love everything I do. I know that's a silly notion. (See Fifth, I use the word silly against myself too!)
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement Thanks all Virgil - interesting thoughts. I'd be very interested in the longer version if you ever get chance to put them fully into words. But yes, I think you're on to something. Thanks for your enlightening comments I had started a series of blogs where I had tagged them Writing. I had intended to put out all my various notions of what good writing is. I think I only got to two blogs and then I quit. It was a lot of effort. Here are a couple of quotes from Joseph Conrad on how he mixes twos and threes and comes up with his own distinct rhythm. It's very noteworthy and instructive. “You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies - which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world - what I want to forget.” Notice the threes at the front of that first sentence. The the three phrases of the second sentence: "a taint of death," "a flavor of mortality," and "want to forget" with the two in the middle "hate and detest." Here's one where he employs all twos, but look how balanced a sentence that turns out to be: “Joy and sorrow in this world pass into each other, mingling their forms and their murmurs in the twilight of life as mysterious as an overshadowed ocean, while the dazzling brightness of supreme hopes lies far off, fascinating and still, on the distant edge of the horizon” Notice the threes in the first sentence and the twos in the second: “It’s extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it’s just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome.” That last sentence there is magnificent. The threes propel it forward at the beginning while the twos make it come to a soft conclusion. And finally here. You can see just how good this is. And by the way, the word repetitions create another set of duple rhythm. “It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams...No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream-alone...” It's amazing to me how Conrad, for whom English was his third language, is among the very top of English prose stylists of the modern era. Let me just say to conclude that I'm a notoriously slow reader, and the reason is that I evaluate almost every sentence as I read for rhythm and sound. It's second nature to me. A great prose stylist like Conrad, or F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Virginia Woolf, or DH Lawrence overwhelm me. Oh, and let me not forget Ford Maddox Ford since I just recently re-read The Good Soldier and was awed by his prose. I love reading the poetry of prose.
Originally Posted by The Comedian @ Virgil -- by the author's numerology, are you referring to sentence structure (numbers of phrases, clauses, syntactic elements) or themes, characters, and ideas? This has got me thinkin'. <-- (notice all my trios) :-) No, when I said numerology I was referring to the idea that numbers have some mystical/magical significance. The problem with that is that every number seems to have some significance to it.
I've been Jupiter and Venus gazing for a few weeks now, they really are amazing, so bright and so close together. I'm going round the lambing fields at night at the moment so I have my binocculars ready. It is amazing to see a planet hanging there in the void with nothing between you and it. I can remember when I was little, the stars were so much brighter and you could see thousands of them. The night sky was really gorgeous then, My kids have never seen it though.
I took the dog out into the garden yesterday...or was it the day before? It was a clear night and while she wandered around I looked at the stars (I do that a lot. I've always liked stars). While I did this I noticed something odd. There was something that looked a bit like a star only somehow a little bigger and a little yellowish in colour. I wondered if it could be a planet. Could you see one with the naked eye? I guess it depends on the situation. Sigh. Light pollution is the reason I can't see the stars so much, and that fact that houses get in the way. I know there's a big difference with and without lights because when I occasionally go with my mother on the night time walks to the park I stop and stare at the sky. There's an open space with few lights and the sky seems so vast it seems like it'll swallow me up. When I walk the dog in the evenings I stop at the corners where there's a break in the houses and look at the sky. It's always been soothing to me, even though I can never pick out any constellations. It would be easier if they were joined by lines like in the pictures but then it wouldn't be as pretty. There wasn't really a point to this. I just wanted to say it.
That's always a little disheartening when you want to share something you find special with your kids, only to find their not terribly interested. "It's only a planet"-ouch! Does your husband share this interest at all? I wouldn't mind looking at the stars a bit. I kind of wish I had a small telescope of some kind. My son's father gave them one once, and naturally it sat in a closet and naturally every time I saw it I feel guilty. I've seen Venus sitting at the tip of a crescent moon-what a lovely sight that is! And a lovely memory-lying on the lawn with other neighborhood kids as twilight descended watching for the first star, at which point we would chant the following: starlight, starbright first star I see tonight wish I may, wish I might have the wish I wish tonight Aw, the simple joys of childhood. I am going to make a conscious effort to incorporate a few of them into my life again. Maybe stars will be one of them. Thank you for sharing, Fifth.
Thanks all Virgil - interesting thoughts. I'd be very interested in the longer version if you ever get chance to put them fully into words. But yes, I think you're on to something. Thanks for your enlightening comments
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