| Reading list: November |
[Dec. 4th, 2009|11:15 am] |
Spretnak, Charlene. Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths (1978).
Bennett, Arnold. How to Live on 24 Hours a Day (1908).
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963).
Wrightman, G.B.H., and Udhari, A.Y.-al, eds. Birds through a Ceiling of Alabaster: Three Abbasid Poets (Ahnaf, Mu'tazz, Ma'arri) (Penguin) (C8-C11 (coll. 1975)).
Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume the First (Penguin) (1776).
Howe, James. Misfits (2001).
Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume the Second (Penguin) (1781).
Alger, Horatio. Bob Burton; or, The Young Ranchman of Missouri (1888). |
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| Reading list: October |
[Nov. 2nd, 2009|04:32 pm] |
Chesterton, G. K. The Innocence of Father Brown (1910-1911).
Harris, Joel Chandler. Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings (1880).
Kipling, Stevenson, Doyle, Weyman, and Hope. Great Adventure Stories (A Watermill Classic) (1878-1902 (coll. 1986)).
Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962).
Shiono, Nanami. The Fall of Constantinople (1972).
Zullo, Allan, and Mara Bovsun. The Dog Who Caught the Crook…and Other Incredible True Dog Tales (2004).
King, Stoddard. Grand Right and Left (1927).
Pynchon, Thomas. Inherent Vice (2009).
West, Nathanael. A Cool Million; or, The Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin (1934).
var. A Book of Modern Verse (Zodiac Books) (coll. 1948).
West, Nathanael. The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931).
Congreve, William. The Way of the World (1700).
Danielewski, Mark Z. House of Leaves (2000). |
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| Reading list: September |
[Oct. 2nd, 2009|10:54 am] |
Lamb, Harold. Alexander of Macedon: The Journey to the World’s End (1946).
Chambers, Robert W. The Maker of Moons (1896).
Harihareswara, Sumana, and Leonard Richardson, eds. Thoughtcrime Experiments: Nine Stories (2009).
Cartwright, Nancy. My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy (2000).
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road (2006).
Orwell, George. My Country Right of Left: The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, vol. 2, 1940–1943 (coll. 1968).
Matcha, Jack. The Brady Bunch in Adventure on the High Seas (1973).
Rabelais, François. Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-1564).
Greene, Thomas M. Rabelais: A Study in Comic Courage (1970).
Sala, Richard. Cat Burglar Black (2009).
Sikoryak, R. Masterpiece Comics (coll. 2009 (1989-2009)).
Stanley, John, and Dan Gormley. Nancy vol. 1 (1957-58 (col. 2009)).
Stanley, John, and Irving Tripp. Little Lulu: The Bawlplayers and Other Stories (94-99 (coll. 2009)).
Pak, Greg, et al. Planet Hulk (2005-8).
Hernandez, Gilbert and Jaime. Love and Rockets: New Stories vol. 1 (2008).
Hernandez, Gilbert and Jaime. Love and Rockets: New Stories vol. 2 (2009).
Schulz, Charles. The Complete Peanuts 1973–1974 (coll. 2009).
Hornschemeier, Paul. All and Sundry: Uncollected Work 2004-2009 (coll. 2009)
Brown, Jeffrey. Sulk vol. 3 (2009).
Endou, Minari. Maria Holic vol. 1 (2007). |
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| Reading list: August |
[Sep. 2nd, 2009|11:02 am] |
Gaunt, Peter. Oliver Cromwell (2004).
Chérif, Mustapha. Islam and the West: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida (2006).
Twenge, Jean M., Ph.D., and W. Keith Campbell, Ph.D. The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (2009).
Hesse, Hermann. Steppenwolf (1927).
Pinkwater, Daniel. The Yggyssey: How Iggy Wondered What Happened to All the Ghosts, Found Out Where They Went, and Went There (2009).
Baring-Gould, Rev. S. Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets and Other Old Testament Characters from Various Sources (1884?).
Goulart, Ron. Good Girl Art (2007).
Calvino, Italo. Why Read the Classics? (1991 (1954-1985)).
King, Stoddard. What the Queen Said and Other Facetious Fragments (1926?).
Alger, Horatio. Slow and Sure; or, From the Street to the Shop (1872).
Gottfired von Strassburg. Tristan (1210?).
Thomas of Britain. Tristran (c. 1160).
Da Fonseca, José and Pedro Carolino. English As She Is Spoke (1855 (coll. 1869, 2002).
Kozol, Jonathan. Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation (1995).
"J.," Mr. The World’s Best Dirty Jokes (1976).
Taylor, Aaron D. Alone with a Jihadist: A Biblical Response to Holy War (2009).
Watts, Irene N., and Kathryn E. Shoemaker. Good-bye Marianne (2008).
Baker, Kyle. The Bakers: Babies and Kittens (2007).
Eisner, Will. City People Notebook (1989).
Segar. E. C. Popeye: "Let's You and Him Fight!" (1932-33 (coll. 2008)).
Starlin, Jim. The Death of Captain Marvel (1982).
Willard, Frank H. Moon Mullins, Series 3 (1928 (coll. 1929)).
VIP. New Faces on the Barroom Floor (1943-60 (coll. 1961)).
Thacker, Lee. One for Sorrow Book One: 'Secrets' (2006).
Willard, Frank H. Moon Mullins, Series 5 (1930 (coll. 1931)). |
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| Reading list: August |
[Aug. 3rd, 2009|11:56 am] |
Harsanyi, David. Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning America into a Nation of Children (2007).
Ariosto, Ludovico. Cinque Canti (1519?).
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun (1931? (publ. 2009)).
Baum, L. Frank. The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904).
Rennie, Bryan S. Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion (1996).
Boettiger, Louis A., M.A. Armenian Legends and Festivals (1920).
Welch, Stuart Cary. A King’s Book of Kings: The Shah-Nameh of Shah Tahmasp (1972).
Javitch, Daniel. Proclaiming a Classic: The Canonization of Orlando Furioso (1991).
Woolf, Virginia. Orlando (1928).
Lear, Edward. A Book of Nonsense (1846).
West, Martin L., ed. Greek Epic Fragments (C7-C5 BC? (coll. 2003)).
Ballard, J.G. Hello, America (1981).
Fies, Brian. Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? (2009).
Bagge, Peter. Everybody Is Stupid Except Me and Other Astute Observations (2001-2008 (2009)).
Lewis, Pat. The Claws Come Out (2007).
Beaton, Kate. Never Learn Anything from History (2006-9).
O’Malley, Brian Lee. Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together (2007).
O’Malley, Brian Lee. Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe (2009).
Cammuso. Frank, Knights of the Lunch Table: The Dragon Players (2009).
Barba, Corey. Yam: Bite-Sized Chunks (2003-2008).
Cook, Darwyn. Parker: The Hunter (2009).
Shaw, Dash. The Mother’s Mouth (2006). |
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| Reading list: July |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|01:19 pm] |
Potter, Murray Anthony. Sohrab and Rustem: The Epic Theme of a Combat between Father and Son: A Study of Its Genesis and Use in Literature and Popular Tradition (1899 (publ. 1902)). 6/9
Callahan, Timothy. Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes (2008).
Rich, Claudius James, Esq. Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon and Second Memoir on Babylon: Containing an Inquiry into the Correspondence between the Ancient Descriptions of Babylon and the Remains Still Visible on the Site (1818).
Zimmerman, Keith and Kent, et al. Mythbusters: The Explosive Truth behind 30 of the Most Perplexing Urban Legends of All Time (2005).
Church, Rev. Alfred J. Stories of the Magicians (1887).
anon. The Romaunce of the Sowdone of Babylone and of Ferumbras his Sone who Conquerede Rome (c. 1400).
Ariosto, Ludovico. Orlando Furioso (1532).
Lurie, Rose G. The Great March: Post Biblical Jewish Stories Book 1 (1931).
Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi (1883).
Burgess, Gelett. The Maxims of Methuselah (1903).
Peattie, Elia W. Edda and the Oak (1915). |
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| Reading list: May |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|11:36 am] |
Moncrieff, A. R. Hope. Romance and Legend of Chivalry (1913).
Twenge, Joan M. Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before (2006).
Kluger, Steve. My Most Excellent Year (2008).
Barth, John. The Floating Opera (1956).
Hayden, Naura. Isle of View (Say It Out Loud) (1980).
anon. The Saga of Thidrek of Bern (1230-1250).
Frankel, Charles. The End of the Dinosaurs: Chicxulub Crater and Mass Extinctions (1996).
Ballard, J. G. Terminal Beach (1960-64).
Wild, Doris. Holy Icons in the Religious Art of the Eastern Church (1961).
Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex (2002).
anon. The Saga of the Volsungs (C13).
Ballard, J. G. Crash (1973).
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
Gatto, John Taylor. Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling (2009).
( Ranting ) |
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| Reading list: April |
[May. 1st, 2009|01:21 pm] |
Jenkins, Elijah, esq. (John Mottley). Joe Miller’s Jests or, the Wits Vade-Mecum. Being A Collection of the most Brilliant Jests ; the Politest Repartees ; the most Elegant Bons Mots, and the most pleasant short Stories in the English Language (1739).
Pinkwatwer, Manus. Wingman (1975).
Niven, Larry, and Jerry Pournelle. Escape from Hell (2009).
anon. The Saga of the Jómsvíkings (C12).
Rumi, Mevlana Jelaluddin. Unseen Rain: Quatrains of Rumi (Divan- Shamsi Tabriz) (C13).
Girvan, Ritchie. Beowulf and the Seventh Century (1935).
Sawyer, Robert J. Calculating God (2000).
Beaumont, Francis. The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607).
Earl, James W. Thinking about Beowulf (1982-1994).
Gatto, John Taylor. A Different Kind of Teacher (1990-2001).
Irving, Washington. The Alhambra (1832).
Smith, William. Athelwold (1842).
Isherwood, Christopher. Prater Violet (1945).
Newman, Katherine S., et al. Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings (2004).
Brigg, Peter. J. G. Ballard (1985).
Ballard, J. G. Empire of the Sun (1984).
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley. The School for Scandal (1777).
--
Brunetti, Ivan. Ho (2001-2009).
Shaw, Dash. Bottomless Belly Button (2008).
var. Harvey Comics Classics vol. 5: The Harvey Girls (1952-1962 (coll. 2009)).
Lasko-Gross, Miss. Mess (2009). A Mess of Everything (2009).
Vähämäki, Amanda. The Bun Field (2009). |
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| Reading list: March |
[Apr. 3rd, 2009|12:51 pm] |
OK, I had my April fun, and you caught me fair and square. Although the sad truth is I would probably read any one of those books. I have no shame.
The real list::
Sellar, W. C., and R. J. Yeatman. 1066 and All That (1931).
Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia (1992).
Reger, Rob, and Jessica Gruner. Emily the Strange: The Lost Days (2009).
Blish, James. Giants in the Earth (1952).
Young, G. M. Victorian England: Portrait of an Age (1936).
Chrétien de Troyes. Cligès (Raffel) (1176-7).
Irving, Washington. Mahomet and His Successors Vol. II (1882).
Ovason, David. The Secret Symbols of the Dollar Bill (2004).
Eliade, Mircea. Bengal Nights (1933).
anon. Beowulf (Heaney) (C8?).
Maturin, Charles Robert. Melmoth the Wanderer (1820).
Efrati, Carol. The Road of Danger, Guilt, and Shame: The Lonely Way of A.E. Housman (2002).
Silverberg, Robert. We, the Marauders (1958).
Nonnus of Panopolis. Dionysiaca vol. 2 (C5).
Horspool, David. Why Alfred Burned the Cakes (King Alfred: Burnt Cakes and Other Legends (2006).
Burkert, Nancy Ekholm. Valentine and Orson (1989).
Walker, Mort, and Jerry Dumas. Sam’s Strip (1961-3 (coll. 2009)).
Wolverton, Basil. The Wolverton Bible (1954-74 (coll. 2009)).
Taro, Chiaki. Puri Puri vol. 1 (2005).
Taro, Chiaki. Puri Puri vol. 2 (2005).
Obomsawin, Diane. Kaspar (2009).
Taro, Chiaki. Puri Puri vol. 3 (2005).
Gurewitch, Nicholas. The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack (coll. 2009).
Regnaud, Jean, & Émile Bravo. My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill (2007).
Taro, Chiaki. Puri Puri vol. 4 (2006).
Bell, Gabrielle. Cecil and Jordan in New York Stories (2004-09)
Riley, Andy. D.I.Y. Dentistry and Other alarming Inventions (2009).
Lay, Carol. The Big Skinny: How I Changed My Fattitude (2008).
Thomas, W. Morgan, et al. Golden Age Sheena: The Best of the Queen of the Jungle (1941-50 (coll. 2009)). |
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| Making fun of Piers Anthony, followed by other comments on books I read last month |
[Oct. 2nd, 2008|12:29 pm] |
Piers Anthony's But What of Earth? is an astonishing book, a novel he had originally written in the '70s and which was subsequently rewritten at the publisher's insistence but apparently without Anthony's permission. This got Anthony's dander up, and now, 13 years later, he has his revenge. In this book he lashes out at not only his publisher and his unwitting co-writer, but also, and most especially, at the bevy or copy editors who scrawled on his manuscript. Somehow he got his hands on their marks, and he quotes them at length, in order to hold them up to for ridicule, in the lengthy endnotes that make up a good third of the book. I am not making this up. Here he calls them "conniving bitches" (p230); suggests that one missed a nuance because "she was in the Lady's Room at the moment" (p235); hypothesizes that one of them is "surely unmarried" (p257); exclaims to one, "May God preserve the man who tries to hold your hand" (p268); and objects when they call his text sexist (passim). His comments on their notes set a new high water mark for creepy and bitter. Addressing one of the copyeditors, who had wondered how a character missed the obvious, he says, "The obvious can be the hardest thing to recognize -- which is why women disrobe in lighted apartments with uncurtained windows, providing the men of the neighborhood with nightly entertainment. Ever do that yourself?" (p237). Is...is that a threat?
In any event, it's vintage Piers Anthony. At one point, after a character calls another one a bastard, he appends a helpful note patiently explaining: "Actually, 'bastard' is not the ideal word; technically it means a person born when his parents weren't married..." etc. (p249). At another, again addressing a copy editor, he whines straightfaced, "Don't you have better uses for your time than this?" (p235).
The whole endeavor is similarly unintentionally hilarious. "Forgive me if I'm getting paranoid, but somehow I perceive something other than helpful literary criticism operating here," Anthony writes about the copyediting (p237). And he is correct, if these were copy editors who had marked up his text, they would be overstepping their bounds. But it is pretty clear that the publisher deemed Anthony's submitted manuscript unpublishable, and passed it around in a desperate attempt to get some advice from several hands, before having the whole thing rewritten. Perhaps to preserve what was left of Anthony's dignity, he passed the substantive editing off as copyediting, and Anthony bought it. But how many copy editors does he think his work merits? Why would a science fiction novel have five copy editors, all poring over the same copy? Why were all five making suggestions for a rewrite they clearly knew was coming? Bear in mind that Anthony regards all copyediting "as make-work so there won't be too many unemployed girls tramping the streets of Parnassus" (p209).
Is it even necessary to mention that Anthony sought to prove objectively that his version of this book (published here for the first time!) is superior to the co-written/rewritten version by having a neutral third party judge them both. No. No, of course he would do that.
The novel itself is an interesting idea executed in a pedestrian fashion but with splashes of typical Anthony ridiculousness. The notes, however, are a laugh riot, and I cannot recommend them highly enough to anyone interested in seeing the depths to which we can sink.
You'll note that whoever copyedited the current text was too cowed to change Ladie's Room to ladies' room.
( Briefer comments on other books. ) |
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| Reading list: September |
[Oct. 2nd, 2008|12:22 pm] |
Appleton, Victor. Tom Swift & His Airship; or, The Stirring Cruise of the Red Cloud (1910).
Wood, James. How Fiction Works (2008).
Burnstein, Stanley M., ed. The Hellenistic Age from the Battle of Ipsos to the Death of Kleopatra VII (300-30 BC (coll. 1985)).
Dionysius of Halicarnassus. On Thucydides (C1 BC).
Stone, Michael E., & Theodore A. Bergren, eds. Biblical Figures Outside the Bible (1998).
Green, Peter. The Hellenistic Age: A Short History (2007).
Alexander, Lloyd. The Illyrian Adventure (1986).
anon. The Book of Enoch (C2 BC?).
Duin, Steve, & Mike Richardson. Comics Between the Panels (1998).
Mellon, H. Keith, & Craig Piligan, with Duane Swierczynski. The Spy's Guide: Office Espionage (2003).
McGovern, Ann, ed. Summer Daze (1961).
Anthony, Piers. But What of Earth? (1976,1989).
Bowerstock. G.W. Roman Arabia (1983).
Philostratos. Life of Apollonius of Tyana (c. 220).
Irving, Washington. Life of Mahomet (1849).
Stipcevic, Aleksandar. The Art of the Illyrians (1963).
Buchan, John. Prester John (1910).
Carver, Raymond. A New Path to the Waterfall (1968-1988 (coll. 1989)).
McEvedy, Colin. The Penguin Atlas of African History (1980).
Winders, Gertrude Hecker. Ethan Allen: Green Mountain Boy (1954).
Rushby, Kevin. Children of Kali: Through India in Search of Bandits, the Thug Cult, and the British Raj (2002). |
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| Notes on August reading list |
[Sep. 2nd, 2008|10:30 am] |
The big disappointment this month was Paul Fussell's Class. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) prettyoctopussy recommended this book to me after I read Brooks's Bobos in Paradise, and it took me three years to obtain a copy, so I was pretty amped up, but:
Well, there are problems throughout. The book is a disorganized mess, has very little analysis of class but a whole lot of jokes about the various classes. The classes are barely recognizable, in part perhaps because Fussell's writing in 1983, but largely because his descriptions are all parodies; you can learn more about the middle class by reading a Horatio Alger novel than by reading this book, because too much of Fussell's impression of the middle class is filtered through other nineteenth-century writers, like Flaubert & Stendhal. A similar problem obtains for he other social classes (to be fair, he's mean to all of them). I would have liked to see a book like this that took itself seriously. Nevertheless, the arch tone is kind of funny, and there are astute observations, so I was enjoying myself until I got to the last chapter, after which I threw up.
The last chapter is about “category X.” Those irrepressible individuals in category X “opt out” of the class system and do their own thing. They are noble, adventurous, dynamic, unique, blah blah. I kept looking for a slip in tone that would indicate that this part of the book, too, was a joke, but I could not find one.
The problem is that no one has ever read this book and not decided he was category X. This guy certainly concluded he was category X. I think I am category X. If we surveyed America we would find there were hardly any people in any proper social class at all. We'd all be category X, every last one of us! This chapter is cowardly, not to mention annoying.
( more books ) |
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| Reading list: August |
[Sep. 1st, 2008|01:17 pm] |
Sun Tzu. The Art of War (C5 BC).
Bellow, Saul. The Adventures of Augie March (1953).
Swift, Jonathan. A Tale of a Tub. Written for the Universal Improvement of Mankind. To which is added, An Account of a Battel Between the Antient and Modern Books in St. James’s Library. And, A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit (1697 (publ. 1704)).
Harwood, Jeremy. The Freemasons (2007).
Dozois, Gardner, Ed. The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-fifth Annual Collection (2008 (2007)).
Bach, Richard. Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970).
Whelchel, Lisa. The Facts of Life and Other Lessons My Father Taught Me (2001).
Fussell, Paul. Class: A Guide through the American Status System (1983).
Meyers, Walter Dean. 145th Street: Short Stories (2000).
Matthews, Ike. Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-Catcher, after 25 Years’ Experience (1898).
Stewart, Rory. The Places in Between (2004).
Schwarz, Dr. Fred. You Can Trust the Communists (to be Communists) (1960).
Marlowe, Christopher. Dido, Queen of Carthage (c. 1586?). |
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| Reading list: July |
[Aug. 1st, 2008|11:53 am] |
Ho, Thiênna. Unlocking the Mystery of Skin Color: The Strictly Natural Way to Dramatically Lighten Your Skin Color Through Diet and Lifestyle (2007).
Willebrandt, Mabel Walker. The Inside of Prohibition (1929).
Freed, Rita E. Ramesses the Great: The Pharaoh and His Time (1987).
Amis, Martin. The Second Plane: September 11: Terror and Boredom (2001-2007 (coll. 2008)).
Dick, Philip K. A Scanner Darkly (1977).
Schwam, Stephanie, ed. The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1948-2000 (coll. 2000)).
Sedaris, David. When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008).
Blount, Roy, Jr. I Am the Cat, Don’t Forget That: Feline Expressions (2004).
Xenophon. Anabasis (c. 370 BC).
Sittenfeld, Curtis. Prep (2005).
DeConick, April D. The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says (2007).
Robbins, Alexandra. Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities (2004).
Land, Brad. Goat: A Memoir (2004).
Pinkwater, Daniel. The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization (2007).
Earll, Tony. Mu Revealed (1970). |
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| Comments on June's list |
[Jul. 3rd, 2008|12:22 am] |
Anathem, I should state from the get-go, is exactly what Stephenson fans would want to read from him, and exactly what Stephenson haters do not want to read. ( Very mild spoilage )
The book that I would like the most to discuss, except for the fact that no one I know has read it, is Herman & Weiner's The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-Three Years. The book is not a bunch of pie-in-the-sky pronouncements, but a sober attempt to make plausible predictions and draw up likely scenarios for the future. I compared their population projections with a 2001 almanac, and they did pretty well there. The two biggest mistakes they make are 1. overestimating the perdurance of communism and 2. believing that the economy in 2000 will be super-awesome, with everyone working four days a week or fewer, and consequent expanded leisure time. (Obviously they could not predict AIDS, but they do mention pandemics as the kind of thing that could throw all their calculations off.) The also underestimate the importance of Islam and (although they constantly stress that they are underestimating the importance of computers) the importance of computers, or at least they fail to see what computers will be used for in the year 2000 (pornography).
Basically, I want someone who knows something about the world (which I do not) to read this book and tell me what they got wrong.
Briefly, I should mention the Two Spanish Picaresque Novels (listed separately but published together by Penguin), because they are hilarious, and involve amoral rogues pulling tricks and cutting capers--which I guess I knew is what a picaresque is going to be about anyway, but I was not prepared for the extent of the amorality or the scatological excesses of some of the tricks. Anyone who plays a rogue should probably read these books for ideas.
And Tom Brown's Schooldays is an interesting (once it gets rolling, which takes like 75 very dry pages) depiction of an utterly alien educational experience. On the one hand, believing that rugby games for the honor of the "house" are an opportunity for "manly" "heroics" (as Hughes clearly does) is obviously a joke, and any system in which the exploitation of smaller boys by larger is in fact officially institutionalized as well as tacitly condoned sounds horrific. On the other hand, a school that offers some degree of autonomy and privacy to the students, that takes education seriously, that teaches "to the young boy, for the first time, the meaning of his life--that it was no fool's or sluggard's paradise into which he had wandered by chance, but a battlefield ordained from of old, where there are no spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are life and death"--well, I did say it was utterly alien.
Also, I've never see the word "fag" appear so often in any other book I've ever read, and this is at times hilarious (as are certain other words Hughes employs in all innocence. "Constant intercourse with Arthur has done much for both of them..."). |
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| Reading list: June |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|11:44 pm] |
anon. Lazarillo De Tormes (1554?).
Michaelis, David. Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography (2007).
anon. The Exeter Book Riddles (C10?).
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Maxims and Reflections (1809-1832 (coll. 1907)).
Stephenson, Neal. Anathem (2008).
anon. Andreas: The Legend of Saint Andrew (C8?).
Pullman, Philip. Northern Lights (The Golden Compass) (1995).
Marie de France. Fables (Spiegel) (c. 1160-1190?).
Smith, Christine, ed. Before and After the End of Time: Architecture and the Year 1000 (2000).
Quevedo y Villegas, Francisco Gómez de. La Vida del Buscón [The Swindler] (1608 (publ. 1626).
Kahn, Herman, and Anthony J. Weiner. The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-Three Years (1967).
Hughes, Thomas. Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857). |
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| Reading list: May |
[Jun. 2nd, 2008|11:57 am] |
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I. A Pictorial Autobiography (1974).
Dickins, Bruce, ed. Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic Peoples (C8?+ (coll. 1915)).
Plato. Symposium (c.370 BC).
Ficino, Marsilio. De Amore (1469).
Sandbach, F.E. The Heroic Saga-Cycle of Dietrich of Bern (1906).
Hinton. S.E. The Outsiders (1967).
Arendt, Hannah. Love and Saint Augustine (1929, 1963).
Sawyer, Ruth, and Emmy Mollès. Dietrich of Berne and the Dwarf King Laurin: Hero Tales of the Austrian Tirol (1963).
Bernall, Misty. She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall (1999).
Simons, Gerald. Barbarian Europe (1968).
Lakhnavim, Ghalib, and Abdullah Bilgrami. The Adventures of Amir Hamza, Lord of the Auspicious Planetary Conjunction (1855-71).
Ferling, John. Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 (2004).
Amis, Martin. Money: A Suicide Note (1984).
Reston, James, Jr. The Last Apocalypse: Europe at the Year 1000 A.D. (1998).
Pagels, Elaine, and Karen L. King. Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity (2007).
Erichsen, Eivind. Norway in a Nutshell (1966). |
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