Book Notes, Political Notes, and General Griping
Book notes first. I have some new things to add to my to-be-read pile, thanks to Erica, so I thought I'd clear my have-read-many-times-and-meant-to-comment list.
George Macdonald. After recommending GMD on my LiveJournal, I felt the time was ripe for revisiting The Light Princess and At the Back of the North Wind, two of my favorites. A few years ago, I harbored a secret ambition to write a literary biography of GMD; he's a fascinating person -- squeezed out of the pulpit by hardliners, he supported a family of 11 by writing and lecturing and teaching nonstop for most of his adult life. Yet unlike Charles Dickens, he was sustained by a childlike sense of the fantastic and a sort of humble badger-likeness, not to mention a very strong wife. But I picked up a biography of Lewis Carroll a few weeks ago and saw in the endnotes that someone has already done a biography -- an academic one, other than the one written by Michael Phillips. So perhaps that's not in the cards. I'd love to write something about GMD -- that is, more than I've already done -- but his work is difficult to write about: reader-response criticisms, based as they are on doing things to the text, clash with Macdonald's stories, which tend to do things to me. His texts have an agency that literary criticism cannot quite neutralize. I could say something here about humility toward an author's voice, the old danger of heeding books on their own terms, and Chaucer's injunction to "taketh the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stille" -- but I won't. Suffice it to say that Macdonald's stories, as C.S. Lewis describes it, "baptize the imagination", and for that alone I recommend them. For people who would like (post-baptism) to try a little delicate criticism, I offer him as a very tough nut to crack indeed. He's just good all the way around.
Dante. Well, more specifically, the Purgatory, translated by Dorothy Sayers. I read somewhere in a poet's catalogue of translations of Dante that Sayers's rendering is "lamentable", or something like that, but that the introductions and comments are a treasure trove. The commentary is a treasure trove, and I happen to think the translation lovably awkward, like the puppy the family got for Christmas. It brings out a side of Dante that I associate most with Saint Francis of Assisi, earthy and humble. And Sayers herself makes no pretensions to equaling in English the sublimity Dante reaches in the Italian. So there. The Purgatory is my favorite so far of the Comedy; I haven't yet tackled the Paradise. I love the surface quarrelling and the deep, abiding hope and humility of the travelers.
E.L. Konigsburg. Konigsburg has always had my heart ever since I read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, but I recently had my heart stolen all over again by Silent to the Bone when I came across it in Borders the other day. I read the whole thing in the Borders cafe, wiping my eyes discreetly at the end, and promptly bought it. I finished it in the store, and I bought it afterward. I even briefly considered writing a letter to the author, but such letters usually die out in my notebook without ever being sent. (I suppose I should not complain therefore when I don't get as much feedback on my fics as I should like.)
I have plans to read the rest of Lady Julian of Norwich and to tackle John of the Cross for Lent. Virginia is planning something with Donne for Ash Wednesday next week, and it reminds me that it's been a while since I read him. Gotta love Donne.
In the political arena, I've recently posted a quote from C.S. Lewis followed by my own disturbed meditations here.
Physically, been feeling very yuck lately. I spent the weekend pretty much in bed, feeling puny and achy and cranky. My eyes feel as if little faeries have been punching them while I sleep; they feel bruised to the touch.
In fact, I feel rather bruised altogether. It must be winter.
Book notes first. I have some new things to add to my to-be-read pile, thanks to Erica, so I thought I'd clear my have-read-many-times-and-meant-to-comment list.
George Macdonald. After recommending GMD on my LiveJournal, I felt the time was ripe for revisiting The Light Princess and At the Back of the North Wind, two of my favorites. A few years ago, I harbored a secret ambition to write a literary biography of GMD; he's a fascinating person -- squeezed out of the pulpit by hardliners, he supported a family of 11 by writing and lecturing and teaching nonstop for most of his adult life. Yet unlike Charles Dickens, he was sustained by a childlike sense of the fantastic and a sort of humble badger-likeness, not to mention a very strong wife. But I picked up a biography of Lewis Carroll a few weeks ago and saw in the endnotes that someone has already done a biography -- an academic one, other than the one written by Michael Phillips. So perhaps that's not in the cards. I'd love to write something about GMD -- that is, more than I've already done -- but his work is difficult to write about: reader-response criticisms, based as they are on doing things to the text, clash with Macdonald's stories, which tend to do things to me. His texts have an agency that literary criticism cannot quite neutralize. I could say something here about humility toward an author's voice, the old danger of heeding books on their own terms, and Chaucer's injunction to "taketh the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stille" -- but I won't. Suffice it to say that Macdonald's stories, as C.S. Lewis describes it, "baptize the imagination", and for that alone I recommend them. For people who would like (post-baptism) to try a little delicate criticism, I offer him as a very tough nut to crack indeed. He's just good all the way around.
Dante. Well, more specifically, the Purgatory, translated by Dorothy Sayers. I read somewhere in a poet's catalogue of translations of Dante that Sayers's rendering is "lamentable", or something like that, but that the introductions and comments are a treasure trove. The commentary is a treasure trove, and I happen to think the translation lovably awkward, like the puppy the family got for Christmas. It brings out a side of Dante that I associate most with Saint Francis of Assisi, earthy and humble. And Sayers herself makes no pretensions to equaling in English the sublimity Dante reaches in the Italian. So there. The Purgatory is my favorite so far of the Comedy; I haven't yet tackled the Paradise. I love the surface quarrelling and the deep, abiding hope and humility of the travelers.
E.L. Konigsburg. Konigsburg has always had my heart ever since I read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, but I recently had my heart stolen all over again by Silent to the Bone when I came across it in Borders the other day. I read the whole thing in the Borders cafe, wiping my eyes discreetly at the end, and promptly bought it. I finished it in the store, and I bought it afterward. I even briefly considered writing a letter to the author, but such letters usually die out in my notebook without ever being sent. (I suppose I should not complain therefore when I don't get as much feedback on my fics as I should like.)
I have plans to read the rest of Lady Julian of Norwich and to tackle John of the Cross for Lent. Virginia is planning something with Donne for Ash Wednesday next week, and it reminds me that it's been a while since I read him. Gotta love Donne.
In the political arena, I've recently posted a quote from C.S. Lewis followed by my own disturbed meditations here.
Physically, been feeling very yuck lately. I spent the weekend pretty much in bed, feeling puny and achy and cranky. My eyes feel as if little faeries have been punching them while I sleep; they feel bruised to the touch.
In fact, I feel rather bruised altogether. It must be winter.
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