dchaikin part 1 - plans

Plans. I've been working with reading plans since, and this surprised me when I checked, 2013 when I started reading all of Toni Morrison's novels. They have gotten more specific and have been working. So this year I'm pushing. And it can work if (1) I never hit a slump and (2) nothing happens to make me go off track and (3) all this stuff still interests me throughout the year - I mean my mood basically doesn't change that much. All of which means it's really unlikely to work, and yet I'm here all-in. I'll post the details below, but this year the themes are: Boccaccio, Edith Wharton, Shakespeare, Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson, The Booker longlist, Club Read's Victorian theme, plus another attempt to actually hit the TBR (703 books there right now)

Currently Reading   


Currently Listening to

Those plans

Shakespeare theme (group reads on Listy, which I help coordinate. Only the first one is planned right now. The rest are rough guesses.)
Jan - Feb: The Two Gentlemen of Verona - i lead, so I better actually stay on this
March/April?: Coriolanus
May/June?: Henry VIII
July/Aug?: King John (at this point the Listy group will have read all the plays, but I haven't
Sep/Oct/Nov?: sonnets?

Edith Wharton theme (group reads on Litsy, which I help coordinate. The first is planned, and the second one sort of is. The rest are guesses)
Jan: Madame de Treyme - ~90 pages
Feb/Mar: The Fruit of the Tree - ~600 pages - I'll lead this one
April?: Ethan Frome ~100 pages
May/June?: The Reef ~300 pages
July/Aug?: Custom of the Country ~370 pages
Sep/: Summer ~160 pages
Oct?: The Marne ~140 pages
Nov/Dec?: The Age of Innocence ~300 pages

Anniversaries theme (a group read on both LibraryThing and Listy, led by japaul22)
this will be all year, 1700 pages. see here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/337722

Boccaccio
Jan - June: I had planned to read the Decameron, but bought a newish incomplete translation. For now, going with it. I will read a biography and that translation together. My goal is 30 minutes a day, based on reading Petrarch last year.
- Boccaccio by Thomas Goddard Bergin
- The Decameron : A New Translation, Contexts, Criticism (Norton Critical Edition) translated by Wayne A. Rebhorn

Robert Musil
- July-December: The Man Without Qualities - some 2000 pages, but I could add the incomplete volume 3...

The Booker longlist, 2021 - five left, all short
Feb: Bewilderment by Richarcd Powers
Mar: An Island by Karen Jennings
Apr: Second Place by Rachel Cusk
May: China Room by Sanjeev Sahota
Jun: No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

Victorian Theme (A Club Read theme, led by anniemod)
Jan/Feb/Mar - David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Apr/May/Jun - ?
July/Aug/Sep - ?
Oct/Nov/Dec - ?

The TBR
Jan: The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli
Feb/Mar: Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition by Frances A. Yates (but I already started this)
April: Where the Jackals Howl by Amos Oz
May: El Llano Estacado by John Miller Morris
June: The Book of Flights by J. M. G. Le Clezio
July: Empires of the Indus : The Story of a River by Alice Albinia
August: The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
September: A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
October/November: The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence
December: By the sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah

(Side note: Ideally I would like a buy-book-read-book kind of pattern. My 2021 goal was to not add to my TBR pile. I started at 698, and I'm currently at 703. I find that a kind of success. I'll try again this year.)

Past themes:

2012 - old testament
2013 - old testament and Toni Morrison
2014 - old testament
2015 - old testament, Toni Morrison & Cormac McCarthy
2016 - Homer, Greek mythology, Greek drama, & Thomas Pynchon
2017 - Virgil, Ovid & Thomas Pynchon
2018 - Apocrypha, New Testament & Gabriel García Márquez
2019 - Rome to Renaissance, James Baldwin - added: Willa Cather, Shakespeare, the 2019 Booker list
2020 - Dante, Vladimir Nabokov, Willa Cather and Shakespeare, the Booker longlists 2019 & 2020
2021 - Petrarch, Vladimir Nabokov, Willa Cather, Shakespeare, the Booker longlists, 2020 & 2021 - added Edith Wharton

links to all my old threads:

2009 Part 1, 2009 Part 2, 2010 Part 1, 2010 Part 2, 2011 Part 1, 2011 Part 2, 2012 Part 1, 2012 Part 2, 2013 Part 1, 2013 Part 2, 2013 Part 3, 2014 Part 1, 2014 Part 2, 2014 Part 3, 2015 Part 1, 2015 Part 2, 2015 Part 3, 2016 Part 1, 2016 Part 2, 2016 Part 3, 2017 Part 1, 2017 Part 2, 2018 part 1, 2018 part 2, 2019 part 1, 2019 part 2, 2019 part 3, 2020 part 1, 2020 part 2, 2020 part 3, 2021 part 1, 2021 part 2, 2021 part 3

Some stats:

2022
Books read: 14
Pages: 3138 (time reading: 142 hours)
Audio time: 44 hours
Formats: Paperback 7; audiobook 3; ebook 2; Hardcover 1;
Subjects in brief: Novel 6; Classic 5; Nonfiction 4; Religion/Mythology/Philosophy 2; Memoir 2; Graphic 2; On Literature and Books 2; Drama 2; Short Stories 2; History 1; Biography 1;
Nationalities: United States 7; England 3; Mexico 1; Scotland 1; Italy 1; France 1;
Books in translation: 3
Genders, m/f: 7/7
Owner: Books I own: 12; Audible-included 1; Library 1;
Re-reads: 2
Year Published: 2020’s 2; 2010's 2; 1990’s 1; 1980’s 2; 1950’s 1; 1900’s 2; 1600’s 1; 1500’s 1; 1300’s 1; 1100’s 1;
TBR numbers: acquired 11, read from tbr 10, abandoned 1 = net 0

stats, since I started keeping track in December of 1990

Books read: 1196
Formats: Paperback 637; Hardcover 250; Audio 185; ebooks 84; Lit magazines 38
Subjects in brief: Non-fiction 478; Novels 360; Biographies/Memoirs 205; History 184; Classics 175; Religion/Mythology/Philosophy 135; Journalism 94; Poetry 92; Science 82; Ancient 76; Speculative Fiction 66; On Literature and Books 63; Nature 59; Anthologies 45; Drama 46; Essay Collections 45; Graphic 45; Short Story Collections 44; Juvenile/YA 34; Visual Arts 26; Interviews 15; Mystery/Thriller 13
Nationalities: US 679; Other English-language countries: 244; Other: 267
Books in translation: 202
Genders, m/f: 758/342
Owner: Books I owned 835; Library books 284; Books I borrowed 66; Online 10; Audible-included 1;
Re-reads: 27
Year Published: 2020’s 24; 2010's 263; 2000's 279; 1990's 175; 1980's 119; 1970's 58; 1960's 51; 1950's 29; 1900-1949 64; 19th century 16; 16th-18th centuries 34; 13th-15th centuries 9; 0-1199 21; BCE 55
TBR: 694

Books read canvas

audioboooks finished canvas



(a little entertained that my first three titles are all love and death)

Books read in 2022

1. ****½ The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli (Read Jan 6-8, theme: TBR)
2. **** Madame De Treymes by Edith Wharton (read Jan 5 – 15, theme: Wharton)
3. *** Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward (read by the author) (listened Jan 2-15, theme: Booker 2020)
4. **** The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare (read Dec 17, Jan 1 – Feb 6, theme: Shakespeare)
5. **** Memento Mori by Muriel Spark, read by Nadia May (listened Feb 1-10, theme: random audio)
6. ***** Maus I : A Survivors Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman (read Feb 2-10)
7. ***** Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman (read Feb 14-28)
8. *** Boccaccio by Thomas Goddard Bergin (read Dec 25, 2021 – Mar 10, 2022, theme: Boccaccio)
9. **** The Decameron : A New Translation, Contexts, Criticism (Norton Critical Edition) by Giovanni Boccaccio, translated and edited by Wayne A. Rebhorn (read Jan 1 - Mar 10, intro and afterward only, theme: Boccaccio)
10. ****½ The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton (read Feb 6 – Mar 17, theme: Wharton)
11. ***½ The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, read by: Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton, Prentice Onayemi (listened Feb 11 – Mar 23, theme: random audio)
12. ***** The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, translated by G. H. McWilliam (read Jan 4 – Mar 13, theme: Boccaccio)
13. *** Coriolanus by William Shakespeare (read Feb 20 – Mar 28, theme: Shakespeare)
14. **** The Lais of Marie de France translated by Glyn S. Burgess & Keith Busby (Mar 28 – Apr 2, theme: random)

Books read, by date originally published

1170 The Lais of Marie de France
1353 The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
1591 The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare
1608 Coriolanus by William Shakespeare
1906 Madame De Treymes by Edith Wharton
1907 The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton
1959 Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
1981 Boccaccio by Thomas Goddard Bergin
1986 Maus I : A Survivors Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
1991 Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman
2013 The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli
2016 The Decameron : A New Translation, Contexts, Criticism (Norton Critical Edition) translated and edited by Wayne A. Rebhorn
2020 Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward
2021 The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

I never found a use for this space, so here is the book shelf over my computer desk. The lowest row has all the books I read in 2021 and still have physical copies. (I’m about to begin putting them away…um, somehow.)

Welcome, Dan! You are the first Club Reader to set up a thread, and what a high bar you set. I have never read the Decameron, it wasn't part of the Ulysses through the ages course I took, which hit a lot of classics (Homer, Virgil, Apuleius, Dante, Bunyan, Joyce, etc.) so I'll look forward to your commentary on it. Will you finish Shakespeare and Wharton this year?

>10 labfs39: I’m calling Boccaccio part of my Homeric theme. 🙂 Decameron is maybe more from Ovid’s trajectory. ?? Or maybe just an evolution (de-evolution) of mythology into (bawdy) stories. 1001 Nights has a major role there too.

For Shakespeare - The Litsy group should finish this year, but I started 1 or 2 years late, so I missed a bunch. Not sure what i’ll do if they finish and wrap up. Cymbeline really calls - one I missed and haven’t read.

Wharton - my sketch is just iffy above. Not sure how that group will work out. It’s getting smaller. But I feel committed regardless. She’s a good place to hang out. There are nine longer works of fiction after Age of Innocence, plus a manipulated autobiography and tons of nonfiction stuff that I might be interested in.

Oh, Dan, how wonderful. You are the poster child for my first question "for the Avid Reader" :-)

Hi Dan, great to see you are in the starting block for your next year reading marathon. I'm looking forward to reading your reviews and thoughts, as I always enjoy them and learn a lot. I'll be particularly interested in the Decameron: I know very little about it, but it sounds fascinating.

>12 avaland: 😇

>13 raton-liseur: thank you raccoon. I’m looking forward to Decameron.

Hi Dan. I'll be following your thread--lots of interesting plans for the year! How did you pick the works by Wharton? I've liked or loved everything by her that I've read, so I'm thinking she would be a good author to focus on this year.

>15 DieFledermaus: hi. It makes me happy to see you back this year. Hope everything is well.

Wharton - we are simply going in publication order - novels and novellas. Early ones were ok, one was really long and only ok. They were really interesting - smart and surprisingly harsh. But then we read House of Mirth and it’s such a great novel. That was our latest.

Great reading plans for 2022, Dan! I'm happy that someone else has unrealistic lofty reading goals for the year. I'll join you, Jennifer and others in reading Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson, as I bought a copy of it last year.

Now if I could only encourage someone to join me in my five year long Faulknerthon...

Lots of luck with all your plans! I'll look forward to following along. Cheers!

>17 kidzdoc: it might get really unrealistic if I add a Faulknerthon…and yet it’s so tempting. I’ve never read him. Glad you’re joining Anniversaries.

>18 rocketjk: thanks Jerry. Ditto.

>16 dchaikin: - Thanks, it's good to be back. That seems logical for the Wharton read. Would you recommend any of the early novellas? I read The New York Stories of Edith Wharton, and it did seem like some of the early stories were interesting but not too memorable.

>20 DieFledermaus: actually no. :) House of Mirth is a lot better than anything before it. The "early"* fiction is revealing in the themes and her approaches. Her sarcastic hopelessly-resigned feminism comes through, as do other of her themes, such as her intimacy with the major classical and contemporary philosophers.

*She only started writing fiction in her 40's

Dan as I've said before I am always so impressed by your organization and planning of your reading, but even more impressed by your ability to stick to those plans.
I am still committed to the Wharton project. Due to circumstances I don't think I commented on the House of Mirth, but I did read along. I have now posted my (short) review on my 2021 thread. I too felt the earlier Wharton's we read were just ok, but I think she's hit her stride. We have some treats in store!
I am also going to try to participate in the year-long Anniversaries read (which I already started once when Liz was reading it). And, the Decameron has been on my TBR list for 5-6 years, so maybe this will be the year. My art history group has finally reached the Italian Renaissance, so it's relevant there too.

>17 kidzdoc: >19 dchaikin: Faulkner is one of my absolute favorites, and if there is ever a Faulkner group I'd like to be a part of it. I just reread The Sound and the Fury (for the 4th time) in November for the Litsy 20th Century Classics postal book club, and was reminded once again what a genius writer he was. Last year I decided I wanted to read (for the first time) The Snopes Trilogy, but unfortunately I didn't get very far before that project fell by the wayside.

>22 arubabookwoman: (>17 kidzdoc: ) - I saw Darryl has some Faulkner plans for 2022. For me, if I could nudge to 2023, or at least later in 2022 when I know how willing I am to swing away from my plan, I would be very interested in a Faulkner theme. I'm really hoping to read all his novels one year...eventually...assuming I like them...and, maybe, assuming I can "get" them...and it could take more than a year. .... ok, I just checked. He published 19 novels. So, a two-year theme.... (also, it looks like I have seven in the house)

Glad you're joining Anniversaries and sticking with Wharton. I'm well behind on your thread, triple digits, but I'll hunt down your House of Mirth comments.

Happy reading 2022 :-)

Happy New Year! Looking forward to reading your thoughts on your planned reads :-)

wishing you a happy and health New Year Dan, and plenty of good reading, I'll be following.

Happy New Year, Dan. Will be following along with interest as usual.

>24 Ameise1:, >25 Dilara86:, >26 tonikat: & >27 AlisonY: thank you!

>24 Ameise1: Is that Switzerland?

>28 dchaikin: Yup, my hometown Zürich.

Happy New Year, Dan! I’ll be following along to see how your plans are going. I’ve enjoyed all of the Wharton novels I’ve read. I should try to get to a few more this year. I have her complete works on my kindle. Your thread is always interesting to visit.

Dropping a star, and looking forward to reading this year.

>2 dchaikin: If your plans don't derail, and life remains relatively stable, I'd consider joining in your read of The Man Without Qualities.

Also, perhaps keeping the TBR status quo would be more successful as read-a-book (or two)-buy-a-book? Rewarding yourself after reading off the TBR rather than "punish" yourself for purchasing something new...?

>17 kidzdoc:, >22 arubabookwoman:, >23 dchaikin: I am also a Faulkner fan, but I've only read - I think - 4 of his novels and they all deserve a reread. He's a fascinating (and uncomfortable) author for me. I would join in for reading Faulkner at some point.

Dan, your lists are dangerous things. I love Wharton and would like to read more of her works, really should read more Shakespeare, and Faulkner is high on my list of authors that I would like to seriously explore. Anniversaries is new to me, but I am tempted. I am avoiding planning my reading this year, but I may need to drop in on some of these.

>29 Ameise1: that's so cool. Sorry, none of my hometowns belong near the word picturesque (well, except college in New Orleans)

>30 NanaCC: Happy New Year Colleen. I'm really enjoying Wharton

>31 markon: Thanks. See you on Litsy too.

>32 ELiz_M: oh, that would be wonderful to buddy read Musil. Noting!

And my ideal is to read-a-book-buy-a-book - or more, buy-book-read-book. It's actually how I do audio and it's kind of refreshing.

>33 japaul22: Faulkner is calling. (also >34 Linda92007:) Maybe we should put up a group read... Faulkner in March? Or some other month

>34 Linda92007: we love lists. Wharton has been great to read, and I'm really happy to have so much more time to spend with her. It's nice to see you back in CR. i'll look forward to what you end up reading.

I'm sort of currently reading a Faulkner (The Wild Palms). I started it in the fall and pushed it back and back as my reading overall took a nosedive. I'm back at it though and hoping to finish now that I sort of remember what's going on in it.

Happy New Year, Dan. I'll be following your thread.

Re Faulkner, I think my favorite of those I've read is Absalom, Absalom, and it's been at least 10 years since I've read it so I would be in for a reread. What I'd really like to read is The Snopes Trilogy (The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion). And everyone should read The Sound and the Fury. The only Faulkner I've hated is Sanctuary.

>37 ursula: Are you enjoying it? (The Wild Palms)

>38 Trifolia: Thanks. I'll follow yours as well.

>39 arubabookwoman: Absalom, Absalom is such a terrific evocative title. Reading Samuel way back when, I thought of this title a lot. As for the Snopes trilogy, I think I have them all in the house. All my Faulkners (all unread) come from a one-time neighbor and one-time Texas poet Laureate, Larry D. Thomas, who passed on a couple hundred books to me when he was downsizing for a move.

man, Faulkner as an idea is just resonating around my poor head...

Ok, January plans:

8 hours - Two Gentlemen of Verona acts 1-4
5 hours Madame de Treymes by Edith Wharton
8 hours - Anniversiaries by Uwe Johnson - the first month
15 hours - The Decameron. 1/2 hour a day - mixing some books.
10 hours - David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - first 18 chapters
6 hours - The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli
no time left for - Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition by Frances A. Yates, which I have ongoing
----
52 hours

mini diary of the week - Dec 26- Jan 1
(Since i have so many long books going on, I'm trying to post a little of something each week. It's an experiment)

With a light work week I was able to read 16 hours, covering 364 pages. I finished two books before the end of the year. I also really go into Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition by Yates & the Boccaccio biography. Yates gives a summary of the writings of Hermes Trismegistus, a collection of Egyptian-influence Greek religious texts from the 2nd century. In the 1400's they were translated (famously, by Marsilo Ficino for the Medici's) into Latin and considered nearly the oldest and most sacred texts available. They were seen to predict Christianity, and were also used to develop practical magic. Shortly after translation, Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola merged them into Hebrew Jewish Cabalism creating a religious magic philosophy. Pope Alexander VI, of the Borgia family, blessed this work, making it available openly to scholars throughout the western Christian world and marking the foundation of respectable occult thinking in Europe. The best part of the book so far, however, is Yates close summary of the Hermes Trismegistus text on creation. It's beautiful.

The Boccaccio biography by Bergin is really quirky. A 1981 text, Bergin first gives a really entertaining history of the 1300's, Boccaccio's world, but it's in like a 1960's mindset. Most of the book is a summary of Boccaccio's work, text by text, which sounds dumb except that outside of Decameron, very little of his work is available in significant English translations. So, it fills a gap. (Filocolo, for example, is considered the first modern European novel by some, yet I couldn't find a decent edition on Amazon.)

Ok, but the New Year hit this week and my reading shifts dramatically. I started two books yesterday and one today. I may start another today, and yet another tomorrow. And, when it arrives, I may also start yet another, a second translation of The Decameron. Yates will have to sit tight. I got to a good pausing point. But I will probably re-read this post before I pick it back up again.

THE DETAILS:

finished
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin - audio

on going
Boccaccio by Thomas Goddard Bergin
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition by Frances A. Yates

started
The Decameron : A New Translation, Contexts, Criticism (Norton Critical Edition) by Giovanni Boccaccio, translated and edited by Wayne A. Rebhorn - has 55 of the 100 stories, all abridged
The Two Gentlemen of Verona - Shakespear (i read the intro in December)

starting this week:
David Copperfield by Dickens - started today
Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson - bought today
Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward - audio - picked up yesterday
The Decameron - a complete translation by George Henry McWilliam

>42 dchaikin: Amazing start to your reading year. I like the update, I hope you continue to do them. What have I been doing while you accomplished all this? Read Club Read threads! Gosh there's a lot of them...

>39 arubabookwoman: & >40 dchaikin: I read the Snopes trilogy a couple of years back. It is marvelous and known as the more accessible of Faulkner's novels.

>40 dchaikin: Sometimes? I mean, it just feels written intentionally to make it difficult. And yet I really like parts of it.

A really ambitious reading plan. Although I think anything with Anniversaries and The Decameron would be ambitious.

>42 dchaikin: - Interesting about Boccaccio's other works; I would have imagined that there would be translations of his other writings given his status.

>42 dchaikin: Ooh, I like this mini-diary! Of course, I don't manage to post every week on my thread, so no pressure.

>44 rocketjk: Accessible Faulkner? That may be where I need to start, when I decide to start that is

>47 markon: Yes, I believe the storytelling is more straightforward and the language a bit less challenging than in most of Faulkner's other works, none of which have I read. If anyone's interested, here are links directly to my short reviews of each of the Snopes books, all as found on my 2020 50-Book Challange thread:

The Hamlet
https://www.librarything.com/topic/315064#7068705

The Town
https://www.librarything.com/topic/315064#7089349

The Mansion
https://www.librarything.com/topic/315064#7103316

>43 labfs39: still feels a little awkward. I wish I could make them slimmer and quicker reads, but it takes time to do that. As for CR threads, this is a really fun time to be reading them, and to spend a lot of time at it. Certainly, I've seen you posting everywhere. : )

>44 rocketjk:/>48 rocketjk: thanks!

>45 ursula: cool. It's a title I have never heard of before. (Faukner's The Wild Palms)

>46 DieFledermaus: Anniversaries - I was impulsive joining, but I'm really mentally invested now. As for Boccaccio - yeah, weird how much isn't available in some kind of significant publication. I'm a little spoiled expecting nice translations of about everything ancient. It's the first time I've really had trouble.

>47 markon: thanks. The diary idea still feels awkward. Experimenting.

>49 dchaikin: Blush. I feel like a hostess at a dinner party, wanting to make sure everyone's glass is full and everyone's having a good time. I hope I'm not being too annoying.

>50 labfs39: oh no, I love all your posts.

I like hearing a little about people's lives in and among their reading, whatever form that takes. But yeah, a lot of posts to catch up on this week!

Your thread is so interesting and I enjoyed reading it. I have neither read anything by Edith Wharton nor by William Faulkner (apart from one short story written by the latter), but wish to do so, and even own three Wharton novels.

And I'm fascinated by the fact that you kept track of your stats since 1990!

Happy New Year, Dan.

I am pretty sure that I am going to enjoy myself over here.

I have starred your very interesting thread.

>52 lisapeet: See, i need to rethink this idea.

>53 MissBrangwen:/>54 PaulCranswick: welcome.

>53 MissBrangwen: thank you! I started another Wharton this morning and it's terrific so far (Madame de Treymes, on high society Americans in Paris). She's a great place to spend some time.

>54 PaulCranswick: thank Paul.

>11 dchaikin: I read the Decameron pretty early, and I liked it, but I could tell more maturity might help. I'm sure I read it again in adulthood, but I don't remember any particular thoughts about it.

>36 dchaikin: I could use some prodding to read Faulkner. The little that I have read I did not like. I can sometimes persist my way into liking something if I try enough times. Where should I start?

To finish my first visit of the year, let me wish you a Happy New Year, and drop off my star!

>57 sallypursell: all this Faulkner energy needs to go somewhere. I’m overwhelmed at the moment. But really, maybe a Faulkner March.

>58 sallypursell: thank you

Happy New Year, Dan!

Happy new year and new reading, Dan! I star is dropped! :)

>60 karspeak:, >61 OscarWilde87: thanks! OscarWilde87 - I will visit your new page today.

1. The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli
translation: from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney, 2015
published: 2013
format: 195-page Coffee House Press paperback (only 136 pages have text)
acquired: 2020, read: Jan 6-8, time reading: 4:22, 1.9 mpp
rating: 4+ (4½?)
genre/style: fiction, with philosophical touches theme TBR
locations: Mexico
about the author: A Mexican author who group up in Mexico City, Madison, Wisconsin, Costa Rica, South Korea, and South Africa. Born 1983.

"I am going to recount for you the fascinating stories of these teeth, and I would urge you to buy them, take them to your homes, use them, or simply cherish them for persecula seculorum*. That is, for forever. Otherwise, I continued, slightly overstating the case in a menacing tone, if these relics don‘t find owners by the end of this session, they will be sold abroad. And the last thing we need is for the little we have to carried off by others."

I really enjoyed this book, and enjoy thinking about it. It's not a book for everyone, because it's not a book just to read and be told everything. It's playful, misleading, very Nabokov/Pynchon-like in that way, except I found the play, and the joy in that play, very accessible. And, it's Luiselli. She has a very intimate way of writing. The book is a mixture of these things.

Gustavo Sánchez Sánchez begins telling us about the story of his teeth, which may be his collection of various teeth, or his biological teeth, and he begins to go into story of his life, except he seems more interested in being a storyteller than accurate autobiographer. It's not a factual story. But it involves him becoming an auctioneer, and the ideas behind it, which he gives geometrical names, like parabolic, hyperbolic, but also allegorical. Because his main auctioneering technique is storytelling. Each item being sold is given a story context, often within the fold of the history of philosophy, Gustavo quoting, roughly, various historical philosophers. (I was charmed he included Petrarch.) He is working to make something magical out of his items through the stories around them. Or, as he explains it,

"Quintillian explains that 'there is in all men a natural propensity to magnify or extenuate what comes before them, and no one is contented with the exact truth.' "

One last interesting piece. Luiselli tells us in an afterward that the book is a collaboration. She wrote stories for workers in a factory outside Mexico City, and they would send her back, in New York, some kind of textual response. And the novel, a kind of tribute to the workers, developed out of that sort of epistolary dialogue.

Well the short version is that I liked this a lot and would recommend to anyone who liked Lost Children Archive, and maybe to anyone who wanted to like Thomas Pynchon (even if you found him indecipherable, as I did).

*Google translate:
per secula seculorum = for ever and ever.
persecula seculorum = persecutors of the ages.

>63 dchaikin: Excellent review, Dan. I'm glad your first (completed) book of the year was a good one. I love the bit about the book being developed collaboratively with readers.

>63 dchaikin: Intriguing review of The Story of My Teeth Dan. I am one of the few who did not care for The Lost Children Archive, but I am willing to give her another try.

>64 labfs39: thanks. I have to say, it's a little weird that the first book i finished is roughly the seventh book I started. The collaborative thing - it's really cool and it's somehow so Luiselli. I really like her relationship to the world.

>65 arubabookwoman: Deborah, I'm wondering what you might make of this one if TLCA, a more ambitious work, didn't work for you. Maybe this one will feel lighter to the touch. I find myself hoping you give it a shot. (but then I kind of feel that way about every decent book i read...)

>63 dchaikin: - The name Valeria Luiselli is vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn't name any of her works so I was glad to see this review. It sounds interesting and like something I'd enjoy so I added it to the list.

>65 arubabookwoman: I didn't like it either!

>67 DieFledermaus: Lost Children Archive got some attention. I want to say it’s a special book, but see >65 arubabookwoman: and >68 sallypursell:. So I can only say it’s potentially a special book. It’s probably my favorite _new_ book over the last several years. I initially used an audiobook and might recommend that format if it interests you.

>63 dchaikin: I loved LCA, but did not get on with this one at all.

Dan, The story of my teeth sounds delightful, especially since I loved Lost children archive. (Though see >70 ELiz_M:) My library has it, but I am feeling overwhelmed with reading committments right now. (I want to read ALL the books, but I just can't!)

>70 ELiz_M: No question these two books have different appeals. Teeth is largely humor, although the tone isn’t “funny” (except the names. Those are really funny.) It’s also never serious. Whereas LCA is much more serious than the reader initially realizes. (Part of the magic is maybe tricking the reader into enjoying themselves as she works towards the meaning of her title.) Not sure if that aspect applies to your response though.

>71 markon: You may really like Teeth, if you get there.

crazy week. I got in 16 hours, for 400+ pages last week, but it was spread out between so many books, it was bit much and a little bewildering. I did get into everything I read - I started Boccaccio, and continued to read about Boccaccio. I also started Madame de Treymes by Edith Wharton, Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson, David Copperfield, on audio, Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward, and I started and finished The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli. The only one I really struggled with was David Copperfield, although it was actually fine, only that I felt pressure to keep reading to make my weekly goal - because it's long and I'm a slow reader. But, this week I had the time. Also yesterday, which I'm calling this week, not last, I re-read act 1 of The Two Gentlemen of Verona (and started act 2 today). The best of all this so far...well, the most enjoyable for me so far, has probably been Wharton, because have really enjoyed her prose.

The other thing this week was the ~1500 posts on Club Read, and I read pretty much all of them through yesterday evening. It's a lot. It's fun too, all these titles zooming by.

This week will be more of the same, as in the same too many different books. I should finish Wharton and maybe Ward (on audio) this week, but I don't expect to start anything new.

Hmmm, sounds like I should try both Luiselli books. Looks like they're both available as ebooks from the library (also Tell Me How it Ends and Faces in the Crowd).

>73 dchaikin: - That does sound like a pretty crazy, but also productive, week.

>63 dchaikin: I was planning to read one of Valeria Luiselli's books this year, and after reading your excellent review, I think I will read The Story of My Teeth.

Edith Wharton is also on my list in my effort to read more classics. I hope that will work.

How do you manage to read 1500 messages, respond and still read so much? Very impressed.

>63 dchaikin: I liked A Story of My Teeth too—it was a very thinky book, but never heavy-handed. I remember a lot of commenters saying they wished they had read the afterword first, but I liked being surprised about the book's process.

Interesting comments on The Story of My Teeth. I didn't love it when I first read it, but after having loved The Lost Children Archive and Tell Me How It Ends, I'm wondering if I'd like it more now.

Regarding Faulkner; I really should read something by him at some point. I'll keep an eye out and read along if you and Darryl end up diving in.

>74 DieFledermaus: >75 Trifolia: My advice is forget teeth and go read Lost Children Archive. : )

>74 DieFledermaus: but I'm interested in Faces in the Crowd. And yeah, a little too crazy...that "entertainment" part of my week.

>75 Trifolia: for Wharton - I'd nudge you to House of Mirth. Even if you don't like it, and I hope you would like it, you will never forget Lily Bart. And, I have no idea how I read 1500 messages...

>76 lisapeet: you know, with Teeth, I was wondering if the afterward weakened it. In my perspective, it's her I'm-not-pynchon-or-borges moment. Which is ok. But he gets unmasked. Highway would definitely have not approved.

>77 RidgewayGirl: Teeth requires the right mindset. I think its main draw is the (sad?) humor, but the text isn't really funny. So, maybe if you hit it with the right mood. Not sure. Maybe try another book by Luiselli. (I should do that too.) And, Faulkner. I'm letting the idea cook a bit. But Falkner in March is still an idea that might work here.

>73 dchaikin: Congrats on a crazy busy week! My head was spinning at all the different books you have going. I would not be able to handle it. I'm a one or two books at a time plodder. CR has been insanely busy. So many good books being read, and so little time to read them. My wish list is groaning!

>80 labfs39: hey Lisa. Well, this week will be different. Work has become more demanding of my time. But, yeah, wishlists are expanding.

I enjoyed your review of The Story of My Teeth - I like that collaboration aspect you've explained, sounds very open. Random thoughts I had was of argonauts having to fight skeletons and that made me think of Tommy Traddles . . . this could become a day dream.

Hi Dan and happy new year! I see you are still as ambitious as ever in your plans, I look forward to following your journey again.

>63 dchaikin: I read that one a couple of years ago, Dan, and liked it too. Quirky certainly but makes you want to read something else by her too.

>82 tonikat: oh, poor Traddles. (I just finished Chapter 7) So, in line with Luiselli's book, if you could just find one of those teeth from those skeletons.

>84 PaulCranswick: yes. I need to choose another book.

Options:
- Papeles falsos (Sexto Piso, 2010). Translated by Christina MacSweeney as Sidewalks (2014)
- Los ingrávidos (Sexto Piso, 2010). Translated by Christina MacSweeney as Faces in the Crowd (2011)
- "Swings of Harlem", published in Where You Are: A Collection of Maps That Will Leave You Feeling Completely Lost (2013)

>83 FlorenceArt: hi Florence - what a nice surprise visit.

>85 dchaikin: I'm scared of the teeth and will not be sowing them anywhere, but the book is a maybe sometime.

The Story of My Teeth? I am not familiar with Luiselli and I think I may be better off starting with Lost Children Archive, as you suggest.

>87 tonikat: well, sowing them is another story... I'm trying to remember whole role this plays in Jason's adventures with the golden fleece. There were dragon teeth.

>88 Linda92007: I think, re Lost Children Archive. I really hope you enjoy somewhat as much as I did if you get there.

>89 dchaikin: of course dragon teeth, I was day dreaming, dragon teeth make all the difference. Tommy T can rest easy.

>90 tonikat: I worry about Tommy.

Jason at work :

(any chance Luiselli has this in mind? This or Cadmus, who does the same thing in Thebes.)


(or this?)

I think I've floated off thinking I work in a factory in Mexico City.

>92 tonikat: : )

2. Madame De Treymes by Edith Wharton
published: 1906
format: Kindle ebook (calling it 87 pages)
acquired: November, read: Jan 5-15, time reading: 2:14, 1.5 mpp, rating: 3
genre/style: Henry James style semi-classic, locations: Paris, theme: Wharton
about the author: 1862-1937. Born Edith Newbold Jones on West 23rd Street, New York City. Relocated permanently to France after 1911.

Our latest in the Litsy Wharton theme, published in 1906. This was her 3rd novella, and 5th longer work for fiction, all since 1900.

A cultural clash in Paris between American New York City elite and French nobility and some intermarriage. The novel is marked by gorgeous prose and terrific characterization. Wharton does a good job of making this a nice read with a lot going on under the surface. But it is limited by an only ok plot, and mainly of really wealthy people being really wealthy. The cultural tension is American faux-purity and cluelessness mixing with French sophistication. Also, there is subtle of a lack of sincere emotion. But, unlike in House of Mirth, the tension is not on the wealth itself. Still, I really enjoyed this.

>94 dchaikin: I'm so glad you are enjoying Wharton. If I remember correctly you weren't sure you were going to after the first book. This is one of the ones I haven't read yet.

I like Wharton, but I haven't read this one! I'll see if I can find it - I'm curious about the culture clash.

3. Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward
reader: Sophie Ward
published: 2020 (released in the US in 2021)
format: 7:44 audible audiobook (272 pages in hardcover)
acquired: January 1, listened: Jan 2-15, rating: 3
genre/style: contemporary fiction, philosophical, locations: England and Houston, TX, theme Booker 2020
about the author: An English actress born in Hammersmith, London, 1964.

This finally completes the Booker 2020 longlist for me. (Its American release was only last September, 2021). The novel opens really nicely and checks off some good boxes. Healthy same-sex relationships and parenting. And interesting ideas mixed into some decent story context. It's good, but in an ok-good sort of way. Philosophical in that sterile doctor-office-clean prose way. It has an interesting ending and I probably should think more about it, but I likely won't. I was legitimately charmed that the end spends so much time in Houston, and in a way I could recognize.

(I sense that I tend to be gentler to newer novels than I maybe really feel about them. If I enjoy reading a book, I want to share that. But then I read a really good book, and then wonder why I was so nice to that newer novel a while ago, one that doesn't match up and that I don't even think about anymore, at least not in a positive way. Anyway, I'm trying to capture that sense. I did enjoy this novel, but it's not going to stick much. There isn't enough there.)

>95 labfs39: at this point I'm looking forward to every minute I spend with Wharton. But I do wonder how I will feel after her next book, a 600-page novel no one talks about called The Fruit of the Tree.

>96 Dilara86: I would love to get a French perspective on this particular Wharton.

I'm such a downer. Ward has only 3 reviews before mine, and they are all 5-star reviews. (well, one says 4 1/2, but still gave it 5)

Enjoyed catching up. The Story of my Teeth sounds particularly interesting.

>98 dchaikin: Having never heard of The Fruit of the Tree I wanted to know what is was about so I checked Amazon. For what it's worth at least one of the Amazon reviewers thinks it's her masterpiece.

>100 AlisonY: hi. The Story of My Teeth was fun

>101 arubabookwoman: I never know what to make of one reviewer, or what perspective they are coming from, but that is encouraging. And overlooked masterpiece, if they are right.

>99 dchaikin: I appreciate an honest review and diversity of opinion. Sometimes I think reviewers take into account other reviewers opinions too much, which can then either falsely inflate or deflate a book. Good but forgettable doesn't necessarily put me off a book, and I like going in with appropriate expectations.

>98 dchaikin: I have two doorstops from the library that I want to finish before they're late. A Wharton novella will be the perfect palate cleanser after that!

>99 dchaikin: It's a fair assessment. It's funny how dated old opinions can become in light of what comes after. It is hard I think to be both fair and honest about a book in the moment. Things change with some distance.

>98 dchaikin: Will be interested to see what your response to The fruit of the tree is. It sounds a bit melodramatic to me, but perhaps Whartons writing will make it palatable.

>103 labfs39: thanks. I agree, I have trouble reviewing after reading other opinions. I start try to correct (as if I know any better) instead of review, and I lose track of initial thoughts, permanently.

>104 Dilara86: I'm going to be looking for your thoughts. :)

>105 stretch: So true. And I dwell on this silly stuff, review misses, both directions. Why was I so kind to Great Circle when I really didn't like it at all? And how could I have added into my post on Frankissstein that two years later I still think about it, and that it still makes me smile? Of course, the moment is sometimes nice to preserve.

>106 markon: oh, I'm so curious about The Fruit of the Tree. A couple more weeks and I'll start.

so last week was not like previous 3. I read ten hours and about 200 pages, which seems so low, even though it's really my normal reading pace. But also it was a work-stress week and not good stress. And that just broke all the reading vibes and my various book threads got scattered, and I spent the weekend trying to tie them back up again...and what I discovered is I've read nothing. Of the seven books I'm reading I'm halfway through none, and, except Shakespear, have between 13 and 90 (!) hours of reading left. Serious, reading time left is 21, 46, 90, 38, 33, and 13 hours left.

And, audio adventures. I finished my audiobook and got to choose another. Trying to catch the right mood, I sampled four. First nonfiction-science - The Dawn of Everything, which sounded terrific. To counter that, I tried The Storyteller by David Grohl (Nirvana and Foo Fighters), which did not sound like great writing, but still promised to be wonderful. Ok, so then I tried a novel, How it All Began by Penelope Lively, and got lost within the sample. That was an audio-no. To round it off, I tried the Will Smith memoir, Will - the sample was not that great. huh. So, anyway, I went with The Dawn of Everything and I think I might regret it. The sample was all, "the science says important stuff and we're going to pick that out and put it together". Great. But an hour in I'm feeling manipulated. The first 20 minutes were wonderful, Hobbs and Rousseau and early ideas of the foundation of civilization and whether it was a bad (Rousseau) or good (Hobbs) thing. To try to paraphrase, they say Hobbs in the 1600's wrote that we are a dangerous animal with destructive urges, and society is in place to control our worst urges and instincts, to civilize us. And they say Rousseau, in the 1700's, wrote how primitive humans (he would have said man or mankind, in French) lived in small Utopian egalitarian societies. But then things got complicated, and people started controlling each other, or something like that. Anyway, they go on say, things are more complicated...but then they don't give any details!! Actually, over the next 40 minutes they present lots of other people's idea and mock how bad they are, without giving any decent alternative. And, for a lot of these I'm thinking to myself, "but that idea sounds ok even after your criticism." Then, when it's time to present their own ideas, they delay and delay and...it's not very good.

I did like this quote:

"But if you want to create a society of true equality today, you’re going to have to figure out a way to go back to becoming tiny bands of foragers again with no significant personal property. Since foragers require a pretty extensive territory to forage in, this would mean having to reduce the world’s population by something like 99.9 percent."

>108 dchaikin: Thanks for the update, Dan. I'm sorry it wasn't a better reading week and that your audiobook is a dud. Will you abandon it? Interesting that their one solution is get rid of all the people. I guess that's one way to cure civilization's ills.

>109 labfs39: i haven’t decided yet. Sometimes venting helps. I may abandon it.

>109 labfs39: Interesting that their one solution is get rid of all the people. I guess that's one way to cure civilization's ills.


I'm reading Louise Penny's latest, The madness of crowds, and a character is actually suggesting (and persuading people) that since there aren't enough resources to go around, society should mercifully end the lives of those who are close to the end of life or take up too many resources.

>111 markon: a character is suggesting... society should mercifully end the lives of those who are close to the end of life or take up too many resources

Ironically, the ones with the power to make those decisions (i.e. the wealthy) also tend to take up the most resources. I can't see them offering to off themselves.

Soylent Green anyone?

>108 dchaikin: I've grown weary of "new histories". There are some good ones out there but more often than not, these are vehicles for promoting one's ideas which may not be as palpable for most people if shown as their ideas but somehow become "the thing" when they incorporate them into a history.

>109 labfs39: "Interesting that their one solution is get rid of all the people"

Paraphrasing Stalin while calling themselves anarchists (Graeber is anyway) always makes me chuckle... ;)

>108 dchaikin: "But also it was a work-stress week and not good stress. And that just broke all the reading vibes and my various book threads got scattered, and I spent the weekend trying to tie them back up again...and what I discovered is I've read nothing."
Aaargh, I hate when that happens. I'm trying to fight it off this week - being swallowed by my work. I hope you can get your reading mojo back!

>112 labfs39: indeed.

there is also a sci fi called Beggars in Spain that looks at the same thing, tho there is much more to the story (one of my fav sci fi authors Nancy Kress) And as always who makes that choice for someone?

>111 markon: well, there's an answer for global warming.

>112 labfs39: i have never seen Soylent Green, but money-based systems are selfish and so (see, the book is affecting me. I'm still listening)

>113 AnnieMod: you nailed it. It's an idea book, a kind of light anthropology-driven anarchist nudge (that word has not been used yet, but it's on the tip of the tongue) pamphlet in history book wrapping paper. Very backdoor agenda-y

>114 MissBrangwen: thanks. Trying to find the balance, but mid-week is going to rough for a bit.

>115 cindydavid4: I haven't seen Beggars in Spain either.

For consideration for your Edith Wharton journey..when we were reading books for the WWI centennial, I read Fighting France, from Dunkerque to Belfort. It’s only about 100 pages, but chronicles her journey to the front lines. I have her complete works on my kindle. This was part of that collection.

I like reading your reviews and comments on the works of Edith Wharton. Last month, I just read two of her books. I am not so keen on e-readers so, but your reviews are tempting,

Great review of The Story of My Teeth, Dan. I loved Lost Children Archive, along with Tell Me How It Ends, the nonfiction book which this novel was based on.

BTW, did you see this?

Joseph Fox Bookshop, beloved Philadelphia literary haven, will close

The last time I visited the bookshop was when you, I and your son met in Center City in 2018 or 2019. I would love to pay it one last visit next week, but I doubt that I'll be able to do so. Joseph Fox, which first opened in 1951, was my favorite bookstore in Philadelphia, so I'll now have to find another quality bookshop in the city to take its place.

>119 kidzdoc: I’m going go into a corner and cry a moment. I fly in Jan 28, I won’t be able to revisit Joseph Fox unless they are actually open Jan 29 - which is announced as their closing date.

>117 NanaCC: I’m glad to get your comment on her (Wharton’s) WWI experiences, Fighting France. I’m curious and might try to add it.

>118 edwinbcn: Thanks. Which two wharton’s did you read in December? I’m leading a group read on Litsy for The Fruit of the Tree in February/March. And yes, I’ll use an ebook. I did buy a several secondhand paper copies of her novels on December, but didn’t find that one.

>116 dchaikin: beggars in spain In the near future, a parent has decided to make his daughter 'sleepless' with the new DNA research. The results are amazing, she learns faster and does more because she does not need to sleep. More parents decide to do this, with mixed results: many cant handle a toddler who is up all day and night, some are kicked out or killed. As the children grow older they begin to form a community, setting off a war between sleepless/and sleepers. Very much about identity, prejudice, society norms. Things get to a head when one child is born sleeping, and they want to kill it because its not like them........Another child is injured, and is killed because he cant take care of himself. Well written; the sequel is as well.

>121 dchaikin:

I read The Age of Innocence and Old New York last December. The first a novel, published in 1920, the latter a collection of four novellas, published four years later in 1924, these two book deal with the same theme.

Personally, I preferred the novellas, because they were more diverse, and dealt with the theme from different, interesting angles. The novel is just a liitle bit too long, and undeterminate in the middle part.

>94 dchaikin: - That sounds interesting, even with your reservations--I'll probably read that for my next Wharton. Looking forward to your comments on The Fruit of the Tree, especially as, like you said, no one ever talks about it.

>119 kidzdoc:, >120 dchaikin: - It's always sad to hear about a good bookstore closing.

Dan, Before I forget again: I am planning to start reading the Decameron on Monday, 1 tale per day (well, thereabouts). I know you are ahead of me but I’ll catch up sooner or later I suspect. Not sure when/where I will be posting while reading but if you want, we can start a topic for that (or just talk here or in my thread or whatever). :)

>125 AnnieMod: that would terrific. I think a separate thread here in CR is a good idea, but I don’t have any special plan for it. If i find time in the right state of mind, I can start one. I’m on day 2 and i’ve read through the 8th story. So you’re only 18 behind, out of 100. I will take breaks to read about Boccaccio…and maybe to keep up with all my reading plans.

>78 dchaikin: - Right, teeth only got 4,5 stars from you :-) So I started Lost Children Archive yesterday and I must admit it's captivating so far.
I liked Summer by Edith Wharton, so it's likely I'll like her other books as well. Thanks for nudging. House of Mirth.

>108 dchaikin: - That is very recognizable. My sympathies. I hope it gets better / calmer soon.

>127 Trifolia: I'm behind here, but I saw your post on LCA in the What Are You Reading thread and I restrained myself posting my version of woot! I adored that book, and hope it has some enjoyment for you.

>122 cindydavid4: thanks Cindy!

>123 edwinbcn: which four novellas? Age of Innocence is her number one classic, so your irreverent critical appreciation is nice to have.

>124 DieFledermaus: Madame De Treymes is only a 2-hour commitment and a public domain work. :) And that sucks about Fox, the bookstore. I didn't even make it to Philly. I got sick and had to postpone (but not covid or flu - per pcr testing)

>125 AnnieMod: I just finished Day 2 yesterday. I might have time today to start a thread.

So, a two-week update. I've been hammered at work in different ways, and I've been home with a mystery cold (I tested negative for covid and flu), working from home, and late into the night, sometimes all night, and it's all taking a toll. But I have been reading. A sick day helped. I picked up 34 hours of reading over two weeks, for 576 pages. That's only 3.5 min/pg. But still I've found ways to find some rhythms again and I've picked up Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition* again. I'm entertained by the timeline aspects of all my reading.

- pre-history - the subject of The Dawn of Everything (although arguably the subject is 20th-century anthropology.)
- 1300's - Giovanni Boccaccio and The Decameron
- 1400's & early 1500's - The Hermetic tradition in Europe
- Late 1500's - the subject of Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition* & Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
- 1800's - David Copperfield
- 1930's/1960's - Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson.

*Hopefully, see next post.

Giordano Bruno - some extended notes (I hope no one feels compelled to read this):

He was most active in the 1580's and 1590's, until his execution in 1600. And he traveled from Naples, to Geneva, to Paris, to Oxford and London and then back to Paris and to Frankfurt, Padua, Venice and then Rome and the stake (with his mouth muffled).

In the midst of an English anti-Catholic pamphlet is a little insight into Bruno's awkward visit to Oxford. It describes this overly confident Italian outcast Dominican giving a lecture to a group on Oxford scholars on the reasons and lessons for Copernicus. He was probably speaking Italian to them. As he was working into his ideas of magic, and expanded divinity and spiritual universalism, 'unifying multiplicity...relating the All to One" - his very unchristian version of the Hermetic ideas - the scholars were struggling to follow. The pamphlet describes how one scholar felt this was all familiar information and ran to his library and picked up his copy of Ficino's translation of Hermes Trismegistus (in Latin), and then came back and confronted Bruno as just restating these ideas. Needless to say it didn't go well. Bruno wrote a book on this meeting, where he trashed the Oxford scholars as close-minded pedants, concerned with grammar and not with expanding their thinking.

Bruno was not a normal reformation scholar. He was not anti-catholic, but he certainly was not catholic. Not really Christian in his ideas. He read Ficino, and never cited him. Ficino was the first translator of the Greek collection Hermetic texts, which are referred to as the work of Hermes Trismegistus. There were written in Egypt around the 2nd century CE and re-translate ancient Egyptian mythology and religion into Neoplatonic gnostic spiritualism. They are pretty special. Ficino and everyone else thought they were thousands of years older than they were, and pre-Christian and he puts a Christian color on them, making them European palatable. It worked. Bruno discarded Ficino's Christianity ties, completely. Without having any pointers there, he picked out Neoplatonic ideas and the Egyptian magic...and then ran with it with his own ideas. He never mentions Ficino, who he must had serious issues with. But he takes the emotional and spiritual enthusiasm in Ficino. He does the same with Cabala (which is actively blasts), atheist Lucretius, and other weird ideas on the hierarchy of angels. That is he discards the fundament purposes of these works, and embraces the elements that he likes. He then combined it all together into his own very spiritual religion - one that was definitely not Christian.

Bruno is famous for his idea of the infinite universe. That is that in the 1580's he embraced Copernicus, accepted the earth was moving around the sun, and promoted the idea the universe is infinite, which infinite worlds everywhere. It sounds very scientific and his execution has come to be symbolic of religious repression of scientific thought. He was not thinking scientifically. He took the ideas of the Lucretius, a Roman Epicurean philosopher whose 1st-century work De rerum natura miraculously survives, and combined it with the Hermetic ideas. Lucretius was atheist and promoted the ideas of atoms and an infinite universe and other oddly philosophical ideas that we more or less now accept as scientific fact. Bruno saw God as infinite. And because of this, the universe, which is god, must also be infinite and infinitely divine and spiritual and magical.

Bruno actually thought he could embrace all this in his mind. He came up with a system based Hermetic ideas where every aspect of the divine universe could be classified into an elaborately expanded kind of zodiac, with hundreds of elements. He solution was to memorize them - and his system of memory is a key aspect of his thinking. His idea is that if he memorizes all this, then he has all the key elements in his mind at once, and then he can spiritually take in the whole. Bruno wrote, "Unless you make yourself equal to God, you cannot understand God....if you embrace in your thought all things at once, times, places, substances, qualities, quantities, you may understand God." Yates writes: "The possessor of this system thus rose above time and reflected the whole universe of nature and of man in his mind."

In Bruno's mind, as he wrote it, "...God considered absolutely, has nothing to do with us, but only as He communicates Himself by the effects of nature, to which he is more allied than nature itself; so that if He is not nature itself, certainly He is the nature of nature, and the soul of the soul of the world, if He is not the very soul itself."

>125 AnnieMod: >126 dchaikin: Ok, a thread is up :)

>130 dchaikin: One author-S. J. Parris- has written a number of mystery novels featuring Bruno. Apparently ( true or not true- I don't know) Bruno was in England and may have worked as a spy for Sir Francis Walsingham- Queen Elizabeth's spy master and secretary. There are a number of these novels- they are quite good. I just don't know how long the author will be able to continue the series as we all know what happened to Giordano Bruno.

>129 dchaikin: timeline aspects
That's quite a range to keep track of, especially while sick.

>130 dchaikin: I read your text on Giordano Bruno, despite all the stuff about Hermes Trismegistus, which doesn't interest me that much.

>132 torontoc: I’m aware of this series, and it seems to get nice CR comments. If I were a mystery reader I would have to check them out.

>133 qebo: I admit i have to keep reminding myself Dante-Petrarch-Boccaccio never knew about Ficino. (Yates notes that Dante had a lot of influence over the Hermetic thinking. I find that strange, but see the consistencies.)

>134 baswood: : ) I think Bruno’s Oxford visit would have been great fun to attend.

>130 dchaikin: >132 torontoc: Interesting notes on Bruno, Dan. The Parris series also looks appealing.

>130 dchaikin: fascinating stuff about Bruno!

>63 dchaikin: Great review of the Valeria Luiselli novel. I've read some of her work. So many authors, so little time, eh?!

>97 dchaikin: I like your thoughts about being more gentle with new books when maybe you shouldn't.

You have become a very ambitious reader over the years!

>130 dchaikin: Great post about Bruno! I didn't know anything about him other than his name, but now I'm interested.

his system of memory is a key aspect of his thinking
Did he go into that in detail at all? I'm fascinated by memory techniques—memory palaces, etc.—and am curious to know if he expounded on that.

>139 lisapeet: there is a flawed book on these ancient memory systems that is easy to read and explains the method - the same one used throughout medieval and ancient times, and that Bruno used. Also Yates wrote a companion book to this on Bruno and memory. She discussed the concept of that book in the one I’m reading. Just need to find titles…

Actually Yates other book is not only on Bruno. It’s The Art of Memory. I haven’t read it.

The flawed book, but yet one that really left an impression and so was successful in good ways is Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer (subtitle: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything)

>139 lisapeet: >140 dchaikin: Matteo Ricci was an Italian Jesuit missionary in China and a contemporary of Bruno. Ricci wrote a Treatise on Mnemonic Arts on memory using visual representation. His technique is described in Jonathan Spence's The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. His memory techniques are very different from the way most people remember now. An archived essay on the book in the NYT contrasting the two periods says

...we have an entirely different conception of memory. We seek to remember things not in terms of visual and spatial representations but according to their logical - or, in some cases, psychological - connections. Where both Ricci and his Chinese colleagues set great store by their ability to remember things ''backwards and forwards,'' we find such flexibility pointless, indeed, frivolous. Today, for example, one looks in vain (outside of the movies) for a teacher who tells her students that they should concentrate on memorizing dates and facts. Instead, students are urged to ''learn how to think'' or to ''identify underlying patterns.''

It is thus symptomatic that the modern reader will absorb Ricci's mnemonic images in exactly the opposite fashion from the way they were intended. Our visual sense, as John Ruskin noted over a century ago, has become impoverished, and our attention to the inner world of the mind and the feelings correspondingly elaborate. Hence we have no trouble remembering the abstractions that are the subject of Ricci's images - war, belief, profit, goodness - but the images themselves quickly lose their specificity. To the extent that we retain them at all, it is because we have managed to associate them with their respective abstractions. Naturally, we pride ourselves on this shift from a mechanical to an organic conception of memory, but one of the benefits of Mr. Spence's book is to suggest that something has been lost in the process. Matteo Ricci's memory, as it is brought to life in these pages, boasts a sumptuousness and grandeur whose disappearance we have reason to regret. We may have too glibly abandoned his richly appointed and lavishly detailed palace for the sleek, efficient, but ultimately sterile world of conceptual condominiums.

full article here: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/spence-ricci...

>141 SassyLassy: well that’s a fascinating perspective.

interesting, Ive heard of him and always thought he was the one Cromwell was searching for in Wolf Hall but no they were a few generations apart. Fascinating stuff.. The parts where Mantel talks about memory palaceswere so interesting

>143 cindydavid4: goodness, I have no memory of that in Mantel! 🤦🏻‍♂️ (No memory of memory)

>143 cindydavid4: >144 dchaikin: I do, I do! (it's not often I remember something that someone else doesn't, hence the crowing). Here's an article about it.

At first when I posted I thought 'am i right?' good to know I am this time. Thanks for the article I agree that skill was where his power laid. (I have several books I am reading for Feb, why am I now wanting to read Wolf Hall now?)

>140 dchaikin: I have the Foer book, but haven't read it yet. I should bump that up a bit... as I get older, memory techniques become a more compelling subject.

>141 SassyLassy: Cool, thanks for that!

>143 cindydavid4: I love that passage in Wolf Hall.

4. The Two Gentlemen of Verona (The Oxford Shakespeare) by William Shakespeare
editor: Roger Warren
published: 1591? (introduction 2008)
format: 183-page Oxford World Classic paperback
acquired: September read: Dec 17, 2021, Jan 1 – Feb, 6, 2022 time reading: 12:41, 4.2 mpp
rating: 4?
genre/style: Classic Drama theme Shakespeare
locations: A Verona and Milan connected by sea travel??
about the author: April 23, 1564 – April 23, 1616

In her program note for The Two Gentlemen of Verona at Stratford-upon-Avon in I970, Hilary Spurling described the play's world as one of:

"knights errant, distracted lovers, and as preposterous a band of brigands as ever strode a stage. This is an Italy of true romance, where Milan is reached from Verona by sea. Proteus abandons Julia, betrays Valentine, abducts Silvia, and when his career of complicated treachery is finally unmasked, apologizes as casually as though he had just sneezed. Whereupon our hero, Valentine, is so overcome that he promptly offers to hand over his beloved to the man who, not three minutes before, had meant to rape her."

Acts 1-4 were really entertaining, delightfully so. Funny, clever, disturbing, there's even a dog. It‘s terrific fun Shakespeare. A pre-Juliet-like Julia tears up a lover's a letter, and then when alone secretly tries to put them back together again. Silvia is wooed by three men, in open and discrete competition, involving musicians and great spiteful spurning on her part. Valentine has a servant cleverer than he, if less charismatic, and Proteus's servant has the dog and the two chat in a way mocking those they serve. But what to make of act 5? Up-till-then Valentine is likable. But he not only forgives Proteus for attempting to rape his lover Silvia, but then offers her to him. And this is presented as a happy ending. It really seems to spoil this play. (and maybe that‘s why parts were recycled into Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Loves Labour Lost, and several other plays.)

Because of the ending, mainly only recommended to completists. But I wouldn't suggest at all hesitating to see a performance.

I must admit that I did not read through your notes about Giordano Bruno, but I might at a later date. I teach Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht nearly every year, and Giordano Bruno is mentioned several times, as a warning example to Galilei to stop his work.

>148 dchaikin: I think I quite liked this, but I have no real memory - I have to reread it at one point! I did not realize that it was recycled into other plays.

>149 MissBrangwen: Brecht on Galileo sounds terrific. ultimately I think Giordano was a little crazy, and extremely arrogant and self confident. He was not actually scientific at all, more a creative philosopher. His unwillingness to retract was both brave and foolish. And also suicidal. Galileo - I don’t know his life story well, but I’m guessing he was both a little more scientific and a little more reasonable, and had a little more of a self-preservation instinct.

We went with Kidzdoc to see Life of Galileo at the Young Vic in London a few years ago. It was a great production.

>150 dchaikin: I am not an expert on the historical Galilei myself, but "but I’m guessing he was both a little more scientific and a little more reasonable, and had a little more of a self-preservation instinct." sounds about right! And the self-preservation is one of the major topics in the play.

>151 SandDune: Wow! I've never seen an actual production of it, which is a pity. It must have been great to see it at the Young Vic!

>151 SandDune: >152 MissBrangwen: these posts leave Galileo calling. Rhian, what a great experience to see this, and with Darryl.

Dan I bought my husband a book today for Valentine's Day called Notes from Deep Time: A Journey Through our Past and Future Worlds. Just in case you've not heard of it it's a book focused on a history through geology - might be one you'd enjoy.

>154 AlisonY: ooh. After you posted I looked up a bit on Notes from Deep Time and I'm very interested. Thank you for highlighting the title for me!

5. Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
reader: Nadia May
published: 1959
format: 6:32 audible audiobook loan (228 pages in Paperback)
listened: Feb 1-10
rating: 4
genre/style: 20th-century British fiction theme random audio
locations: 1950’s London
about the author: 1918-2006. Scottish novelist born in Edinburgh.

I'm reading too many books at once, and my focus is all over the place. It's a weird thing where I can skip through a terrific book like this and hardly notice. My comments here are in that state of mind.

When I first read and posted on Spark last year (I read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), I got several responses here and on Litsy mentioning this title. It's a free on Audible right now if you're a member, meaning it's an "Included" book (but only through Feb 22). I stumbled across that info without even knowing what Included meant, otherwise I would not choose a 6.5-hour book on audible. I need longer audiobooks or I go through them too fast. Anyway, finding a free book I really wanted to read while searching for an audiobook was nice.

No clue what I was expecting, but I was confused when all the main characters I was meeting were in their 80's and fading. Why that would seem to bother me, or what that says about me isn't clear. But as a kind of unconscious reflex, I adjusted for something less somehow. A forgettable story.

The novel really is all elderly characters, mostly in their 80‘s. They are terrifically difficult and entertaining as they deal with their pasts, personality flaws, waning physical and mental health, and their finances. They study the obituaries, checking on acquaintances, and are consumed with inheritances. We learn one character has 22 different versions of their will. One character, a well-regarded aging author, has dementia. In a recent interview in a paper, the interviewer compliments her for being “abundantly alive”. It's a novel of that kind of humor. It's funny, but also there's a great deal going on.

Memento Mori, a reminder of death. The book opens with a crank call, where the caller says simply, "Remember you must die.", and hangs up. It enough to send the community into a tizzy, contacting the police, and, failing to get any results (with 1950's telephone technology), then contacting a retired investigator. But what makes this novel is how the characters respond to this, and how we watch their different levels of offense, denial, embracement, and amusement. It's a connection we all have with them, as we all are forced to remember this, but it's also a way inside a deeper part of character, in this case, of ones very set in their ways. It helps set what is essentially a plotless character novel.

It's a really a great short novel. I found the characters entertaining and I enjoyed spending time with them.

6. Maus I : A Survivors Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
published: 1986
format: 160-page graphic novel
acquired: 1999 read: Feb 2-10 time reading: 2:51, 1.1 mpp
rating: 5
genre/style: graphic novel Holocaust memoir/biography theme LT group read
locations: Poland and Queens, New York
about the author: An American cartoonist. The son of Jewish Holocaust survivors, he was born in Sweden in 1948, immigrated to the US in 1951 and settled in Rego Park, Queens, New York.

I reread this with the group on LibraryThing in response to the recent school district banning. I‘ve read this a three times now, in 1999, in 2014 with a synagogue book group and this year. It's a classic, and for me it stands as _the_ classic graphic novel. It's not only a look at the holocaust, an attempt by a child of a survivor to understand what his parents went through, but also it's the book that first enlightened me to what this format can offer. A revisit, but I had forgotten so much, and I was surprised, yet again, how powerful this is. Yet again, I closed this, only volume 1 here, thinking "wow".

And yet again I missed tons of artistic details like the swastika Poland landscape here after Vladek and Anja‘s escape the ghetto and then have no where to hide.


A book everyone should read.

ya know I just thought of something; do these people who are banning a book understand what a graphic novel is ? the definition is a novel that tells a complete story via illustrations. When people use 'graphic' it usually means realistic images or language such as bad language, violence, drugs or sexx rated type of thing. Can this all be a total lack of understanding what the term means here? (along with a complete lack of understanding in general) Not excusing them, just trying to figure out what this whole thing is really about.

I read Maus thanks to you. I don’t think I will reread, but it was memorable.

>156 dchaikin: A favorite of mine. I’ve read it at least twice.

>158 cindydavid4: I saw part of a Speigelman interview and he mentions the possibilities either of ignorance or malice. I think he’s too kind.

>159 FlorenceArt: aw, you’ve made me feel good. Maus is special.

>160 dianeham: you too? This novel, Memento Mori, generates a lot of affection. I’m intrigued how different it is from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

I agree

>161 dchaikin: Spiegelman said a couple of times that he read the entire board minutes trying to understand what they were thinking. I would be curious to read them as well.

>161 dchaikin: Hanlon's razor?

>158 cindydavid4: They know exactly what they're talking about. Libraries are filled with works labeled as graphic novels—this is very much targeted.

>164 Dilara86: 🙂 unfortunately it’s not the case here. I mean, I don’t know, but see >165 lisapeet: It’s a pretty surgical precise action.

>166 dchaikin: I'm not sure if you saw the part of Spiegelman's talk where he says that he thinks the school board's decision came from a desire to "protect the kids", as an authoritarian is wont to do: restrict what they have access to. Some of the things the school board complained about was a "nude woman" and calling his mother a bitch for killing herself (not honoring mother and father). At first the school board wanted to redact the offending frames, but were afraid they would get in trouble, copyright or something. So they decided to find different Holocaust material. Spiegelman blasts them saying 1) it's not a nude woman but a naked corpse and 2) the frame in question depicts his emotion at the time: in it is written "menopausal depression", "Hitler did it!", "mommy!", "bitch." Certainly there was a lot going on there, and all justifiable. Was the school board cherry-picking excuses in order to express anti-Semitism? Spiegelman seemed to think that it had more to do with wanting to present a sugar-coated version of the world to their kids than overt anti-Semitism, but didn't rule it out as a subconscious factor. This particular case didn't seem to be part of the attempts elsewhere to ban diversity, but they picked a lousy time to go after a Holocaust book. I was very glad to see such a robust response in defense of Maus. Maybe we have a chance at redemption yet.

>167 labfs39: "Was the school board cherry-picking excuses in order to express anti-Semitism? Spiegelman seemed to think that it had more to do with wanting to present a sugar-coated version of the world to their kids than overt anti-Semitism, but didn't rule it out as a subconscious factor."

Another way to say this would be that they weren't cherry-picking excuses to express anti-Semitism. They were cherry-picking excuses because they're anti-Semitic.

>164 Dilara86: >165 lisapeet: never heard of Hanlons razor, like that very much. And yeah Lisa I know; just remembering my first reaction to the term. But you are right of course.

I bought Maus as soon as I heard about the book banning. The book had jumped to the top of the books sold on Amazon. My grandchildren all have copies already. It has been required reading in their schools. But I have never read it. It arrived yesterday, so I will get to it soon. It will be my first graphic novel.

My son read Maus as a senior in high school in Massachusetts in either 2001 or 2002. I don't remember any problems of any kind (we bought a copy after and both read it then). The girls, who graduated in the years preceding in NH did not have the same opportunity (at least not in school).

Hello, Dan. I just scrolled through your thread. If you do a group read of some Faulkner, I'm interested in joining in. I've read a lot of his books, a few multiple times. There's always a new insight.

>167 labfs39:, >168 rocketjk: - I like your posts, but I'm restraining my response. (or I'll go into some rant on the symbiotic relationship of fear and hate)

>170 NanaCC: I'm excited at the idea of you reading Maus for the first time!

>171 avaland: of course, there are no problems with Maus. It's a special work, and as good for high schoolers as for anyone else.

>172 weird_O: Faulkner. I'm glad he's still here on low simmer. Still thinking how I can get to him myself. Thanks for stopped by.

My last update was Jan 29. Over the 3 weeks ago since then I've read 38 hours, and 918 pages. That excludes audio. I finished 3 books, one an audio. I also think I abandoned an audiobook - The Dawn of Everything*.

So, I'm reading too many books at once. I'm getting frustrated with that and need to make some decisions. I'm committed to Boccaccio, Wharton (currently The Fruit of Tree, an A+ book 1/3 of the way through) and Shakespeare (I'll start Coriolanus tomorrow). My commitment to Anniversaries is weaker, but I'm enjoying it, a lot. To David Copperfield weaker still, but I'm also enjoying it a lot. But then I'm also working through the Yates book on Bruno, and I picked up Maus II, and I have plans for Bewilderment. So now eight books, ten if you count the supplementary reading I'm mixing in with Boccaccio. So, thinking what to put aside and what to put more focus on.

Audiobook note. I picked up The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers. It was fine for a while, on audio, until it went first person and the reader changed and, quite frankly, she stinks. She reads the first person in affected little kid speak (even though the kid is now 15 or 16), and all the adults in overly affected old person voices that drag out the dialogue and make very normal dialogue sound like cartoon speak. It's driving me nuts. The text is fine - but it's not amazing so far. I'll give it more time. (it's a 30-hour audio and I'm 4 hours in.)

Ok, some January stats

planned-actual
8 hours - 9:31 Two Gentlemen of Verona acts 1-4 - finished
5 hours- 2:14 Madame de Treymes by Edith Wharton - finished
8 hours - 5:25 Anniversiaries by Uwe Johnson ~100 pages
5 hours - 4:53 Boccaccio by Thomas G. Bergin
5 hours - 6:45 The Decameron (Norton) by Boccaccio - Rebhorn translation - I'm only reading the supplementary stuff
5 hours - 10:08 The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio - McWilliam translation
6 hours - 4:22 The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli - finished
0 hours - 8:54 Giordano Bruno by Frances A. Yates
10 hours - 13:26 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens ~300 pages
---
52 hours - 65:38 !

*(because I got tired of reprocessing everything said. It's a really manipulative, hypocritical book attacking western-biased history, which is ok, as if most readers and scholars were oblivious to the western-bias of history, which is misinformation...and distracting to read through. Whatever the bias today, we all know it's there, even those perpetuating the bias. If you're going to attack it, you need to be a litter more sophisticated than, with gleeful self-confident arrogance, arguing it's there. We know. We've all known for a long time. /rant)

>174 dchaikin: I'm reading too many books at once. I'm getting frustrated with that and need to make some decisions.

I hear you. Tried to do that myself recently. And then picked up another book. Sigh. There is just so much I want to read!

Yeah and this site isn't helping any! :)

It's different for everyone, but I've found that 3 books is my absolute limit and I really prefer two (one nonfiction and one fiction). Because I'm doing the year long read of Anniversaries, I technically have 3 going most of the time, but I tend to not read Anniversaries at all when I'm reading another fiction book and then I get to Anniversaries between finishing/starting shorter fiction.

You seem to like having a lot of books on the go, maybe it will sort itself out as the year progresses by seeing what you actually look forward to picking up.

>175 markon: yes. That’s the source of the problem

>176 cindydavid4: so true! Lol

>177 japaul22: that aspect of “sorting itself out” is spot on where my post is coming from. As I’m letting that happen I realize I’m enjoying everything I’m reading (excluding audio?). But I’m frustrated by the practical need to switch books, losing flow, and the forgetting! Oye! I forget key details the text is working on.

It took awhile, but Boccaccio is my biggest draw. I’m finding a pleasant world remove as I hang out with his crew of ten and listen to their imperfect stories. It’s become a really nice place to be.

Catching up here. Wondering if a print version of the du Bois, which you could read out loud would help.

I read multiple books at once, and it works for me, except then I tend to finish them all within a short time span, and am daunted by the prospect of posting on them, so that kind of defeats me here in CR!

I know what you mean about the Boccaccio. It is a wonderful escape, as I'm reading along - not as far along as you though.

>179 SassyLassy: I certainly would prefer the print version of Jeffers novel, but can't do that now. : ) Audio is my way of getting to it. And I think I'm generally happy with multiple books at once, but I'm learning my limits.

I am able to read several books at once, but only if they are sufficiently different, for example: One main read (a novel), one poetry book, one nonfiction, one short story collection or similar,...
I could never read two Victorian novels, or two crime novels, etc. - or maybe even two novels at all. Something like Anniversaries may be the exception because it is so daunting that otherwise I would not start reading it at all.
But as long as the genre/type and the reasons I read something are different, I like this mode of reading, because if I don't feel like one thing, I can easily choose something else and prevent falling into a reading slump just because I don't feel like reading my current book.

>181 MissBrangwen: I might having rage-against-the-plan issues. I got annoyed getting really into David Copperfield and then having to put it down, and then picking up the difficult Yates in the wrong state of mind and making so progress or connection, whereas I was really into it last time I put it down. And so on. (I’ve decided both books can wait till I get through Decameron)

I posted a little review for The Dawn of Everything:

Abandoned 1/4 way in on audio. It's manipulative and I don't want to spend my audiobook time dealing with that. If you like authors who poke holes in obviously unsupported arguments that no one still maintains, and then fill those holes in with their own unsupported ideas, and expressed with self-confidant gusto, this is your book.

The boring stuff: It's been 10 days since my last update, on Feb 19. Since then I've put in 22 hours of reading, covering 531 pages and I finished one book, last night: Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman. I'm reading a lot but not finishing anything. For perspective, I started January having put 19 hours into three still unfinished books. February started with 78 hours put into 7 unfinished books. I started today having put 117 hours into 8 books (plus my audiobook). To try to make myself happier with all this I've changed my plans, set David Copperfield and Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition aside, and I'm holding off on two other planned books (Bewilderment and An Island by Karen Jennings). That's a little better, anyway. But as I decided this late in February, it made a mess of those February plans. My big plan for March is to finish Decameron and then, afterward, pick up David Copperfield again.

February stats

planned - actual
½ hour - 0:19 - Two Gentlemen of Verona by Shakespeare act 5 - finished
16 hours - 8:14 - The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton - 1st half
3 hours - 2:19 - Coriolanus by Shakespeare, Acts 1-2
5 hours - 5:14 - Boccaccio by Thomas G. Bergin
5 hours - 7:43 - The Decameron (Norton) by Boccaccio, Giovanni - Rebhorn - I'm only reading the supplementary stuff
5 hours - 12:47 - The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio - McWilliam
6 hours - 4:23 - Anniversiaries by Uwe Johnson - weeks 5-9
15 hours - 10:17 - David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
13 hours - 0:27 - Giordano Bruno by Frances A. Yates
7 hours - 0:00 - Bewilderment by Richard Powers
0 hours - 5:31 - Maus 1 & 2 by Art Spiegelman
---
75.5 hours* - 57:15 (*what the hell was I thinking?)

A slightly more interesting tidbit: I like my audiobook now. I put in another 10 hours into The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois and got into it. And the bad narrator either got better or I adapted. A big thing for me was that she went to college and the descriptions of her college life were fun, but also came across to me like a collection of experiences, or stories. And that echoes Decameron - creating atmosphere and remove through many little stories. (Also, like Decameron, there's a lot of naughty but entertaining stuff.) It doesn't hurt that the narrator is my age and attended college my same years, even if her experiences are a very different from mine. Also, as she matures, it seems to me the book's themes mature in the other story lines through time (there are several). These other stories were very fairly-tale like when she was young, and they have become meatier and messier and more interesting. Anyway, lately I'm disappointed when I arrive wherever I'm driving to.

>183 dchaikin: It's such a highly rated book here on LT, good to know to stay clear. Although from some of the long reviews it does sound like the authors have a particular viewpoint that may lacking in nuance as the one they're tearing down.

>184 dchaikin: It's interesting, I feel like some number of people on LT have described spreading themselves too thin in February in similar ways. I wonder what's going around! Seems more widespread/more extreme than just the beginning of the year enthusiasm.

>156 dchaikin:, >157 dchaikin: - Enjoyed your reviews of Memento Mori and Maus. I'm also a fan of Memento Mori--lots of dark humor and memorable old and very old characters.

>184 dchaikin: - A lot of reading! Hope you finish some soon.

>186 ursula: - I've had that for February--it seemed like the most appealing book was one that I wasn't reading and I had some personal distractions (also doomscrolling in the last week or so).

>186 ursula: I know for me, the lists of books in the various themes and challenges are getting to be too much. Was able to manage some of what I read at the expense of not reading for my real life books. I already have some of the books I will read for March, but I chose a fesw that I have read before. Not complaining, I love this embarrassment of riches here. but I am trying to make decisions for me that make sense. (still keeping my list of tbr books, which is growing by the moment, but it not affecting what I read at the present timeP\)

ETA heh it could all be that Feb has 28 days.

>183 dchaikin: The sort of book I might read, so that's a helpful warning.

173> Coriolanus is a dreadful play. Don't waste your time. We saw a production at the Globe, and I was bored out of my mind.
In 8th grade, dumb Dora ruined David Copperfield for me.
Oh dear, I am showing my cynicism.😉

>185 stretch: >189 qebo: I’m frustrated with The Dawn of Everything because the actual dawn of humanity is interesting. And there are good ideas in the book. And they ask some interesting questions. (The introduction is terrific.) But constantly trying to get underneath their words to find (and reconstruct) some substance is very tiring and shouldn’t be necessary. And the constant manipulation is so frustratingly. You have to constantly fight against the authors to follow them. But, having said that, many reviews are positive.

Kevin - they don’t lack nuance. That wasn’t an issue for me, anyway.

>186 ursula: >187 DieFledermaus: >188 cindydavid4: well, CR sometimes makes us want to read everything at once. So sometimes in a weak moment, if you start saying yes to all those ideas… and then. CR over-enthusiasm can be contagious 🙂

For myself, my planning has gotten better and I pressed it on many directions at once and thought I could just plan through. That was, well, a poor plan. I think I just thought I could read everything by switching books every few pages.

>187 DieFledermaus: another Memento Mori fan!

>190 janeajones: ha! Coriolanus seems a little infamous. So much chest-beating. At this point i’ve met Dora but haven’t found anything wrong with…or anything right with her. But I was really into David Copperfield. It’s frustrating to set it aside, but I’m doing in hope i won’t have to set it aside a again. It’s such a disarming novel.

>184 dchaikin: Your comments on The love songs of W. E. B. DuBois are tantalizing. But I can't be take on a chunkster like that right now. Maybe in the summer.

Got a bunch of stuff in email today about Edith Wharton.

https://link.lithub.com/view/602ea7d8180f243d65337170g1xs7.puj/3f380d8e

>196 dianeham: thanks for sharing! I’m really interested.

Wow, I sure missed some progress here, Dan. I've just been away for far too long again. Work always gets in the way of catching up here and posting. I see that you read Maus. There was this big discussion about it not being allowed in the curriculum, right? I read about that and found the quite arguments quite sad, actually.

>198 OscarWilde87: hi. Yes, regarding Maus, a school district banned it, making headlines and spiking sales. There was group read on LT in response ( https://www.librarything.com/topic/339164 ) I enjoyed rereading it. Work...it gets the way of my reading and posting too. Wish you well.

7. Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman
published: 1991
format: 129-page graphic novel
acquired: 1999 read: Feb 14-28 time reading: 2:41, 1.3 mpp
rating: 5
genre/style: graphic novel Holocaust memoir/biography theme LT group read
locations: Poland and Queens, New York
about the author: An American cartoonist. The son of Jewish Holocaust survivors, he was born in Sweden in 1948, immigrated to the US in 1951 and settled in Rego Park, Queens, New York.

I read this in 1999, 2014 and then again last month after that backward school district banned it. In brief, it‘s brilliant, surprisingly powerful yet again, and one of those books you can‘t help wishing everyone would read. What caught my attention this time is how secondary the actual story is, the Auschwitz story, and how much is about his relationship with his father, and his art.

8. Boccaccio by Thomas Goddard Bergin
published: 1981
format: 381-page hardcover
acquired: November
read: Dec 25, 2021 – Mar 10, 2022
time reading: 20:32, 3.2 mpp (3.6 mpp before adding endnote pages)
rating: 3
locations: Florence, Naples, 14th century Europe, etc.
about the author: Thomas G. Bergin was an American scholar of Italian literature, 1904-1987

This book is a weird thing, but the scholars like it a lot. It's not really a biography. There is a chapter on the European world of Boccaccio (which is great fun). One single chapter on his life. Then a chapter on each of his works, most of which don‘t have decent English translations. He summarizes the work, then provides commentary. These chapters are just barely readable, but also really helpful to get a sense each of these works, and of his entire oeuvre. Boccaccio had a lot of output, including lengthy really ambitious creative and encyclopedic stuff. Lengthy, and original but not all is very good.

Boccaccio was the illegitimate son of a Florentine banker working for a famous Bardi bank. Born in 1314 in Certaldo, he grew up in Florence. As a teenager he moved with his father to Naples, in 1327, then under the stable rule of King Robert I. Boccaccio flourished in Naples. If his mythical Fiammetta was real, a real lover who left him and became his sort of muse, it was here they met and he had his heart broken. Something happened in 1341, and he and his father, financially broken, returned to Florence. Boccaccio would travel a lot for various temporary positions, often diplomatic, for the rest of his life, until he retired to Certaldo. He never married. He had five illegitimate children, and they all pre-deceased him, without having children of their own. Famously, he met Petrarch in 1350, and developed an intimate friendship and that would greatly influence him until his death in 1375, a year after Petrarch's.

There is, in a way, a before and after Petrarch version of Boccaccio. Before this friendship, Boccaccio's output was very creative and original, included extensive poetry, was often irreverent and racy. Many of these works are important, but not otherwise highly regarded. After the friendship, Boccaccio got more serious. He wrote several lengthy encyclopedic works on mythology, famous women, and on the history of the names of natural features and other topics. These were in Latin. He famously burned his Italian poetry (much of which was already in circulation and still exists, but without any standard order or form.) For about 200 years the later Latin works were in heavy circulation around the European intelligencia , until they became outdated. But when Boccaccio and Petrarch met, he was working on his collection of stories, his Decameron. He probably wrote it mainly between 1348 and 1352 (although he kept editing all his works unti his death). It was not his last creative work, but it was arguably his last playful work. And it is, of course, his best work, and has what made him famous, a keystone work of the early Rennaissance. I will try to talk about it in more detail, constructively, in a later review.

The book is recommended for anyone looking deeply into Boccaccio (unless something better comes around)

Addendum to Boccaccio by Thomas Goddard Bergin - my notes on each chapter. I took a lot of notes as I read this, and I'm including a lot here for my own reference. They're hopefully useful to anyone curious.

Diana’s Hunt - ~1333 - his earliest narrative work (if he's the author).

Filocolo - ~1336-8 - arguably the earliest prose novel of modern Europe. It's his first work dedicated to Maria d'Aquino, his Fiametta. The story is of two lovers, Florio and Biancifiore, separated by unapproving parents and bad fortune. The lenghthy work includes a gathering of storytelling, a Decameron predecessor. Some of these stories (3?) would be recycled into the Decameron. Filocolo presents “a theme that Boccaccio was to treat with predilection and consummate art in later works such as the Ninfale fiesolano and several tales of the Decameron: the natural or instinctive love that attracts two young people of the opposite sex and the persistence of their love against the obstacle erected by an unsympathetic law or by class-conscious relatives concerned with preserving the distinction created by social and economic position.” (quoting Nicolas James Parella)

Filostrato - ~1340 - An epic poem, the main source of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. I read and reviewed this last year. It has uncomfortably long stretches, but also delightful ones. My review is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/333774#7635901

The Teseida of the Nuptials of Emilia - ~1339-1340. The title refers to Theseus, mythical king of Athens, slayer of the Minotuar. But the story, a very long epic poem, is about the Palemone and Arcita, two men who fall in love with Emilia and eventually fight over her. It derives from Thebiad by Statius, and is a key inspiration of Ariosto, Tasso and Chaucer (The Knight's Tale).

The Comedy of the Florentine Nymphs - also called Ameto - ~1341-2, in Florence. This is a mixture of poetry and prose (like Dante's La Vita Nuova). Ameto stumbles across a group of nymphs in some Tuscan woods. He disguises himself as a woman, and joins them. They sit around telling stories, Ameto essentially playing voyeur to their careless actions, awing at their beauty until he finally comes clean.

L’Amorosa Visione - ~1342 - a long encyclopedic epic poem with a lengthy acrostic that forms a sonnet itself! The work forms a parody of Dante's Comedia, including a lady guide in place of Dante's Virgil, and a strange place a lot like Dante's Limbo in Inferno. The narrator doesn't always adhere to his lady guide, wandering off on his own and finding a garden with allegorical figures representing different kinds of love (much different than what Dante found).

The elegy of Lady Fiammetta - ~1343-44 - "the first modern psychological-realistic novel”. The work has a clean simple prose, like the Decameron. The narrator, the married Fiammetta, tells the story of her lover who leaves town permanently, and the realistic mental strife she goes through, having been truly in love and not knowing if he will return to her.

Ninfale fiesolano (The Nymph Song of Fiesole) - ~1346 (attributed to Boccaccio) - An epic poem of a shepherd, Africo, who falls in love with a real nymph. This is the only one of these works Bergin convinced me to pursue. I acquired a 1960 prose translation, a library discard, now waiting for me.

The Decameron - ~1349-1351 - I'm listing this in chorological order. But this is Bergin's last and longest chapter. Just posting some straight notes:
⁃ “Between the ambitious poems of his youth and the learned works of his mature years Boccaccio grants himself a moment of relaxation and child-like mischief.”
⁃ Subtitled Prince Galeotto - references Gallehault, Lancelot’s go-between for Guinevere
⁃ 1/3 of the characters are women. 32 of the 100 stories have women as a central character and in 42 others women are significant.
⁃ Faith, courage and liberality are ignored. War is limited
⁃ 67 stories involve sex
⁃ The storytellers - 7 women and 3 men:
---“We may well suspect that it was Boccaccio’s intention (quite different from that of Chaucer) to avoid making too sharp definitions of the storytellers… storytelling is his purpose“
--- Of the women, Pampinea speaks most, Fiametta second
---The three men are each an aspect of Boccaccio, and are all named after love: Panfilo, Filostrato and Dioneo (from Dione, the mother of Venus)
--- Lauretta's name is derived from Petrarch's Laura; Elissa's name references Dido from Aenied, and so references Virgil; Neifile's name references the dolce stil nuovo - Dante's style, hence references Dante.
---Storytelling styles, arguably: "Filomena and Filostrato for the predominantly lyric narrative; Elissa and Emilia for the renewal of the epic; Neifile and Lauretta for that of the lyric; Pampinea and Dioneo for the foundation of the pastoral narrative, Fiammetta and Panfilo for the invention of the novel and the purely psychological novel." - quoting Vittore Branca

The Corbaccio - ~1355 - Boccaccio's last creative work. A bitter misogynistic dream vision by man spurned by a widow. He meets her deceased husband and is told how evil and unvirtuous she is.

The Rhymes - burned in 1364. Arguably there are 119, the first 69 dedicated to Fiammetta and dating to his time in Naples.

The Life of Dante and the Lectures on the Comedy - Boccaccio gave lectures on the Commedia through Canto 17 in 1351-5, and was grateful to stop, but continued to edit them.

The Genealogies of the Pagan Gods - ~1350-1375, includes Boccaccio's famous defense of poetry. In Latin

Il De montibus, silvis, fontibus, lacubus, fluminibus, stagnis seu paludibus et de nominibus maris liber - Latin. The title translates roughly to "On the names of mountains, forests, fountains, lakes, rivers, ponds or marshes and seas" and ties into pagan mythology

Concerning Famous Women - ~1361-1375 - Latin. Covers Eve and 103 other pagan women. Not a feminist work. "…demonstrates what women can do—in spite of being women”

The Buccilicum Carmen (Pastoral Songs) - ~1350-69 - Lain. There are 16, with a cover letter on the history and nature of eclogues.

The Fates of Illustrious Men - ~1355-60 - Latin. The downfall of famous men, from Adam to King John of France.

9. The Decameron : A New Translation, Contexts, Criticism (Norton Critical Edition) by Giovanni Boccaccio translated and edited by Wayne A. Rebhorn
written: ~1353, translation 2013, Norton edition 2016
format: 527-page paperback (with 55 abridged stories, out of 100) – I only read the introduction and afterward “contexts” and “criticisms”, 220 pages
acquired: November
read: Jan 1-Mar 10
time reading: 17:00, 4.6 mpp
rating: 4
locations: Florence, Naples, 14th century Europe, etc.
about the author: Wayne Reborn is a critic and translator of European Renaissance literature, professor emeritus at the University of Texas. Born 1943 in Philadelphia.

So, a little lesson on internet shopping. I did some research on Boccaccio translations at some point last year. Found Wayne Rebhorn had a respected recent translation and found both his books, the complete one and the Norton. The other translations generally recommended are two done in the 1970's, one by McWilliam and one by Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa. I wrote all this down. Then in November I went to buy books, knowing Rebhorn. Did I consult my notes? No. I went on amazon and clicked - found Reborn, was excited to discover (again) he had a Norton edition, and clicked, buy. And that's how I ended up with this abridged edition I didn't intend to get.

Anyway, I bought an unabridged edition - the McWilliam translation. Since I had this book, I read the introduction, which is very good, and the sources, which are curious, and the commentary, which is painfully dull, but helpful. And I'm counting this as a book read.

No review post here, but just notes - for myself. I doubt anyone will find this very readable.

Introduction notes
The plague: Boccaccio's plague descriptions, vivid as they are, are not original. He pulled them from a History of the Lombards by Paulus Diaconus, written in the 700s.

Sources of the Decameron:
-- Hexameron by Saint Ambrose - 4th century - is a work on the six days of creation. Boccaccio's title plays off this title.
-- Novellino - An anonymous story collection written ~1280-1300 (not the 15th-century one by Masuccio)
-- French fabliaux - anonymous comic French tales popular ~1150-1400
-- exempla - medieval morally edifying stories
-- Disciplina clericalis - Peter Alfonsi - a 12th-century collection of 33 fables from the early 1300’s with Middle Eastern and Asian sources
-- Ovid, especially Metamorphoses, but other stuff too.
-- The Golden Ass by Apuleius
-- The Panchatantra - The Five Heads - A collection in Sanskrit of ancient Indian stories. First collected in the 3rd century. But there are different versions in different languages. It is first known to have circulated Europe in the 12th-century
-- (Rebhorn says Boccaccio probably did not know 1001 Nights)

Decameron themes by day:
-- Rebhorn sees four main themes: intelligence, fortune, desire (or appetite), and magnanimity
-- Day 1 - use intelligence to reprove vices
-- Days 2 & 3 - confront fortune
-- Days 4 & 5 - love in tragic, then comedic ways (day 4 - intolerance)
-- Days 6-9 - intelligence
-- further, Days 7-9 - harsher stories on social exclusion and the illusion of social benevolence. These stories undermine the solving force of intelligence
-- Day10 magnanimity and self-discipline

Names of the storytellers
-- Pampinea - “blooming one”
-- Fiammetta - “little flame”
-- Filomena - “beloved” or “lover of song” (also Philomena of Ovid)
-- Emilia - “alluring one”
-- Lauretta - Petrarch Laura
-- Neifile - “newly beloved”
-- Elissa - Dido
-- Panfilo - “loves all” or “made of love”
-- Filostrato - “loves war” - “overcome by love”
-- Dioneo - “lustful” - from Dione, mother if Venus

Contexts
-- Filippo Villani – from The Life of Giovanni Boccaccio, ~1405 (translated by Rebhorn, 2016)
-- Ludovico Dolce – from Life of Giovanni Boccaccio, 1522 (translated by Rebhorn, 2016)
-- Francesco Petrarca – from a letter: “The Story of Griselda: To Boccaccio”, written in 1373 (translated by James Harvey Robinson and Henry Winchester Rolfe, 1909)
-- Andreas Capellanus – from On Love, a treatise written ~1186-1190 (translated by Rebhorn, 2016) -- where we are advised that all true love happens outside marriage. We are also told that servants are fair game for sexual conquests.
-- Giovanni Boccaccio – from On Poetry, from The Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, written 1360-1375 (translated by Rebhorn, 2016)

Criticism
Giuseppe Mazzotta – from The Decameron: The Marginality of Literature, 1972
-- on the deception of lanuage. He discusses stories 1:1 (Cepperello), 6:10 (Frate Cipolla with the coal), and, oddly, 10:4 (Catalina left in a tomb)

Guido Almansi – from Literature and Falsehood, in The Writer as a Liar: Narrative Technique in the Decameron, 1975
- on stories 1:1 (Cepperello) and falsehoods, and also 6:1 (the knight is a bad storyteller) and story form
-- He writes that in Decameron religion is “neither present nor absent", that “there is merely a serene indifference to anything connected with religious practices”

Millicent Marcus – from Seduction by Silence: A Gloss on the Tales of Masetto (Decameron III, 1) and Alatiel (Decameron II, 7), 1979
-- on story 2:7 - Alatiel, a bride who shipwrecks, ends up in nine sexual relationships, mostly characterized by a language barrier, before getting to her wedding. Most of these nine men die, and so the essay considers Alatiel as a kind of plague.
-- and on story 3:1 - Masetto, a gardener in a nunnery, pretends to be mute and sleeps with all the nuns.

Victoria Kirkham– from Painters at Play on Judgment Day (Decameron VIII, 9), from The Sign of Reason in Boccaccio’s Fiction, 1993
-- on story 8:9 - professional painters Bruno and Buffalmacco toss Master Simone of Bologna in a latrine ditch

Teodolinda Barolini – from The Wheel of the Decameron 1983, revised in 2006 for Dante and the Origins of Italian Literary Culture
-- Goes through the structure of the Decameron both in physical location and in themes. This was the most helpful essay for me, and I quoted it extensively on the Decameron thread

Albert Russell Ascoli – from Pyrrhus’ Rules: Playing with Power {in Boccaccio’s Decameron}, 1999
-- on story 7:9 - where Lydia has sex with Pyrrhus in front of her husband and convinces him a pear tree caused his eyes to deceive him. Ascoli discusses emasculation and the idea of Pyrrhic victories.

Susanne L. Wofford – from The Social Aesthetics of Rape: Closural Violence in Boccaccio, 1992
-- on story 5:8 - an awful story where a woman is punished in the afterlife for turning down a suitor by repeatedly being hunted down naked by him and getting torn apart by his dogs. The living can see the reenactment and it leads a living woman to not turn down her suitor.

Marilyn Migiel – from Men, Women, and Figurative Language in the Decameron, from Rhetoric of the Decameron, 2003
-- How the language of Decameron subtly empowers men. Boccaccio is a backhanded sexist but he's subtle enough in Decameron that ultimately it’s up to the reader in how they respond to his language.

Michelangelo Picone – from The Decameron as Macrotext: The Problem of the Frame, 2004, (translated by Rebhorn with Elizabeth Florea, 2016)
-- discusses framing and how stories are used to pass the time on a journey. He compares Decameron to several potential sources and works of the same era. He also discusses the day 4 introduction - the story of the sheltered boy seeing pretty ladies for the first time.
-- Including
-- Panchatantra
-- Thousand and One Nights
-- Calila and Dimna (or Kalilah wa-Dimnah) - A collection of 8th century Persian tales based on Patchantra and translated in 1251 to Old Castilian as Calila e Dimna
-- the 1200’s collections of legendae, exempla, lais, fabliaux, vidas and razos
-- Tales of Count Lucanor by Don Juan Manuel, 1335
-- Libro de Buen Amor by Juan Ruiz, 1330
-- The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer (1387-1400)
-- Golden Legend - lives of saints by Jacobus de Voragine, 1259-66
-- the Book of Sinbad or of the Seven Sages (now part of 1001 Nights)
-- Satyricon by Petronius, a satirical novel from the early Roman Empire
-- Sefer Shahashshuim (or Sefer Sha'ashu'im) or Book of Delights by Yosef ibn Zabara (in LT at Joseph ben Meir Ibn Zabara) - a 12th-century Jewish doctor of Barcelona. It's a collection of fables modeled on Kalilah wa-Dimnah.

Luciano Rossi – from The Mask of Loving Magnificence: The Tenth Day, 2004, (translated by Rebhorn with Beatrice Mabrey, 2016)
-- He notes that the good deeds on the tenth day are sort of involuntary or by chance or done by someone who is doing or does bad things. That is they gently mock and undermine their morally uplifting purpose.

Richard Kuhns – from Reflections on the Metaphoric Power of Metamorphosis, from Decameron and the Philosophy of Storytelling: Author as Midwife and Pimp, 2005
-- discusses the variations of metamorphosis in Decameron, including ones that are not really true ones (like where a wife is supposed to be turned into a horse)

So much great information here, Dan. I feel as though I will never need to read the Decameron nor feel as though I have missed out. Did you enjoy it?

>204 labfs39: I really enjoyed the Decameron. I’ll review it eventually. I sort of finished everything at once, so now I’m working my way down my list. 🙂

I posted this on The Decameron on Listy the day after I finished (~4 daya ago):

Love, or the natural drive of lust, cleverness and fortune…and storytelling. One of my big projects for 2022 was to read the Decameron and I finally finished yesterday. Individually the 100 stories range from mildly amusing, to erotic, to just mean and hurtful, but they have a sum affect, one after another, within the plague story frame, that in a sense lifted me up and floated me off to another plane of existence. An experience.

>205 dchaikin: 101 stories technically - even without the framing one - Day 4 really has 11 stories (I don't care if B. calls it an incomplete story - it is as complete at some of the other 100) :)

I had been thinking on how/what I want to review...

>206 AnnieMod: it might be the most interesting story in the collection - the day 4 intro story. I recently listened to A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam no Sri Lanka, and he summarizes one of the Indian language versions from the Panchatantra. It was the most memorable parts of that book - although he's more interested in how the sheltered boy had never seen things like old age, sickness and death, and how that impacts his religious perspective.

>207 dchaikin: It is one of the stories we are less likely to have heard of from other authors and in other versions (Euro-centric (aka Greece -> Rome -> Europe) civilization and all that). Most of the stories which came from non-French, Greek or Latin sources seemed more interesting to some extent... not because they were exotic but because they were not mapping to something known. Admittedly, "always new and original" is a modern concept but still... And I know it was popular in the Middle ages but... it is still not a story you had read 10 times over.

That can turn into a long discussion but... I suspect the same is valid in the other direction. We all grow up with specific cultural references and those are a given for us - when we read and write. For an author from a different culture? What seems interesting to us is mundane for them - or something they had seen so many times that it feels like Excalibur for us (you may not know the legends completely but... it is a byword which brings a lot of luggage). Same with biblical references. Although that seems to be changing a bit - kids grow up with more cultural references (although on the other hand, there are a lot less left from the previous ones as well - but... something needs to give). Just rambling...

>208 AnnieMod: it is pretty amazing how these stories travel and how many can be traced back to the Panchatantra, which I had never heard of before reading about the Decameron. And it leaves me wondering what he, Boccaccio, had access to. Was he flush with stories and sources and was he desperately trying to search them out. I know he references the librarian in Naples, which was probably a premier library in Europe at that time.

It reminds me of David Copperfield. Here he is, this early source of the contemporary novel, talking about his own childhood sources. Seems there is always a lot more available than I expect.

>209 dchaikin: At this point in history? It came to Europe via Arabic (Spain is next door after all and so is North Africa). Wikipedia has some of the most likely paths into Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchatantra#Spread_to_the_rest_of_Europe And Arabic had translations from... a lot of place - partially because of where they were on the map and partially because they were literate societies.

I think that we tend to think of all kinds of Arabian tales and sources as exotic for Western Europe but before the Moors were kicked out from Spain in the 15th century, these were possibly closer to the Middle Age people of Europe than some of the other European tales... Church histories may ignore the influence (because they are not Christians after all) but... History is... weird :)

When I was reading the introduction of the Lais of Marie of France earlier this year, one of the thing it was stressing was that originality was not expected and rarely happened - most authors rewrote and adapted known tales. B. works a century and a half later of course but... not that far away all things considered and the cycle continues through him. There are original tales but... most are changed/adapted/expanded ones.

Plus - North Africa, Europe and Asia are well connected, especially the closer parts of it. The Silk Road had been active for more than a millennium at that point. Between the Greek, the Huns and other Asian peoples and the Silk Road plus the Arab/Muslim conquests, the Old World was not such a big place after all - people were moving which meant that books and stories were moving. Especially stories. Which always surprises me when I remember - the Dark Ages definition kinda got my ideas out of whack for a long time...

In short - I agree with you... :)

You make me want to read the Decameron. In thought I had read it as an adolescent or young adult, but it must have been a shortened version, I don't remember 100 stories. In fact I don't remember anything at all, so I could re-read it anyway. Not sure how to find a good French translation, I may have to try the local libraries to see what they have. I don't really trust Amazon or Kobo to give me a decent selection for this kind of book that has many old translations in the public domain and a gazillion cheap electronic versions.

>211 FlorenceArt: how fun if you are able to get to it. I agree, don't trust amazon. For the English translations I searched around the web a lot. But it turns out Wikipedia gives a pretty good guide. It helps that there only seven complete English translations.

>210 AnnieMod: i got a copy of the Lais (a prose translation) from the library and I'm reading the introduction. I noticed the translators point out that this world was full of literature in France and England in the 1100's. The originality aspect doesn't surprise me as those educated enough, with time enough, to enjoy literature were probably a pretty small population. And making copies was very expensive. These aren't the kind of aspects that lead to an outpouring of creativity.

>211 FlorenceArt: Justing thinking that the Lais by Marie of France are written in Old French (1100's Norman French). I wonder if you could read the original.

10. The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton
published: 1907
format: Kindle Public Domain ebook, I'm calling it 400 pages
acquired: November, read: Feb 6 – Mar 17, time reading: 15:13, 2.3 mpp
rating: 4½
genre/style: novel theme Wharton
locations: New York City and a fictional factory town in Massachusetts
about the author: about the author: 1862-1937. Born Edith Newbold Jones on West 23rd Street, New York City. Relocated permanently to France after 1911.

Ah, Justine.

On Litsy we were comparing Wharton to Willa Cather, because the same group read Cather previously. They are such different writers. Wharton was born into the New York City leisure class, whereas Willa Cather grew up in Nebraska, was educated in Lincoln before coming to New York City to write. They both overlapped as New York City writers in the early 1900's, before Wharton left for France permanently around 1911, and both were deeply influenced by Henry James (Wharton was a personal friend of his.). Of course, Wharton wrote of her own class, critically, making her a very jaded writer, even if sharp and elegant. Cather began by writing about this leisure class too, before exploring her own roots, and even turning spiritual in her own way. I told the group I see Wharton as insistent, needing to convince (us, the reader, and also the world). Whereas I see Cather accepting that you, reader, are probably never going to change and see it her way.

Justine. Justine is the most Wharton-like character I've come across in her books. She was born in the leisure class, but she works for a living. She's a nurse, self-sufficient, and not married, and not in any rush to get married although she's looking around. She's practical, sharp, well read, philosophical, and an independent thinker in every way. The odd structure of this book puts her in the opening seen, caring for a patient, and then leaves her mostly alone, a secondary character, for a long time, before putting her out in front again, in all her wit and flaws.

Our nurse is taking care of a mangled factory worker and the novel begins with a look at the abuse of factory labor for profit, almost an exposé. But it turns to the owners of these factories, the leisure class. And Wharton studies them, putting a widow in an accidental ownership role she's completely unsuited to, letting things play out. She studies all her characters, but especially looks into these different women and their contradictory expectations. Our widow, Bessy: "Isn't she one of the most harrowing victims of the plan of bringing up our girls in the double bondage of expediency and unreality, corrupting their bodies with luxury and their brains with sentiment, and leaving them to reconcile the two as best they can, or lose their souls in the attempt."

The novel never solves the paternalistic perspectives on the factory workers, ever viewed as "these dim creatures of the underworld," but it does work on marriage, ethics, and the conflicts of idealism and practical reality. Her study of marriage is quite magnificent, capturing that bewildering unintended failure to communicate. The novel is all over in several interesting places. As I put it in Litsy, it‘s not just how many different unexpected turns this novel‘s focus takes, but how thought provoking each is. It led to a lot of discussion.

It's a difficult book to review. A plot summary is really difficult as the plot is just complicated, and it's nearly impossible to avoid spoilers. But there is a lot of good stuff in this rather obscure book. It's a bit long (although the 600-pages editions are really misleading. It's not _that_ long. I read this in less time than I read The House of Mirth), so recommended to the curious and committed.

>213 dchaikin: The Penguin edition? That's the one I read.

And yes - once I started looking at the period (my Arthurian project) , books seemed to be everywhere... surprisingly. :)

>215 AnnieMod: yes, I have a Penguin edition translated by Burgess and Busby, with a 1986 copyright. It’s a library book.

>214 dchaikin: Seems like you are becoming a true Wharton fan. This is one I had not heard of before, but your review makes me eager to find it.

>217 labfs39: not becoming. I'm definitely there. She's a really comfortable place to hang out because I enjoy her prose and I know she going to say or do something interesting. The Fruit of the Tree is a bit obscure (160 or so LT entries). I haven't seen a paper copy of it before.

11. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
readers: Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton & Prentice Onayemi
published: 2021
format: 29:49 audible audiobook (816 pages in hardcover)
acquired: February 11, listened: Feb 11 – Mar 23
rating: 3½
genre/style: Novel, theme random audio
locations: Georgia
about the author: American poet and novelist, and a professor of English at the University of Oklahoma. Born in 1967 in Kokomo, Indiana, and raised in Durham, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia.

My decision to be more honest with new books this year means I'm about to take some shots at the likely next Pulitzer Prize winner. So, first the good. It's an enjoyable novel, and also doing some really nice stuff. It an ambitious work, an ode to the 250 or so years of black history in Georgia. Jeffers will take us from a first encounter of native Americans with an escaped African-born slave through to the white settlement and southern slave world of a Georgia farm. And then it flips to the life and family of a descendent, Ailey Pearl Garfield, born in 1973 (coincidentally my age). Then, Jeffers will backfill in the whole family saga, in various ways, covering all of Georgia's black history. She will spend some time thinking about W.E.B Du Bois, criticizing Booker T Washington (respectfully) and talking about Alice Walker's The Color Purple. This means a lot of history, a lot of different eras, and many different stories. And, care of Ailey, a fun touch of the 1980's and 1990's. Boccaccio's Decameron was decent co-read because this is a novel of something like 100 stories even if it doesn't present itself that way. But really this is a child of One Hundred Years of Solitude, with dim forgotten history, the gentlest touches of magic, a lot of isolation, and deranged procreations full of twins

My favorite part was when Ailey goes to college, an all-black, 90% women (fictional) college, and she meets all these different characters and has all these college experiences and they all come out at once. This was, of course, my college years. And even if my experience was quite different (and my female/male ratio must less advantageous), I still related closest to this section and felt some atmosphere.

It's a good novel, good enough to keep me listening through the full 30 hours, but not a great one. It's more like ok good. Another novel where the author is transparently doing a lot of basic stuff, putting in a lot of work and trying to make it sound more sophisticated than it really is. Jeffers writes with such confidence; she skates right over all the problems, but a lot of things bothered me - the lack of originality, my lack of engagement, the flat characters, simplistic extra-villain-ish villains, and the weird implied ethics of family and of sex. Cheating is the norm for everyone, and stealing men from other women builds confidence and makes a suitable revenge. Maybe it's all satire.

Of course, recommended to those who really like new books talked about in literary circles. But skip the audio because the reader of Ailey is not very good and that's most of the audio (but not in the audible sample). But mainly this recommends to me that I should go with older stuff. (I did next. I'm following this up with Clarice Lispector, born in 1920.)

Nice review of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, Dan. I bought a copy of it last week, and I'll likely read it this summer.

Happy birthday to you!

Happy Birthday?!

>220 kidzdoc: thanks! I would like your take. (Only 800 pages)

>221 labfs39: ☺️

Happy birthday! :)

Happy birthday! hope you get lots of books!

>223 AnnieMod:, >224 cindydavid4: thanks! I did get a giftcard but did not buy any books, yet.

12. The Decameron (Penguin Classics) by Giovanni Boccaccio
translated by G. H. McWilliam
written: ~1353, translation 1972, revised 1995
format: 909-page paperback
acquired: January 3
read: Jan 4 – Mar 23
time reading: 46:25, 2.8 mpp
rating: 5
locations: Florence, and lots of specific places around Italy, and some beyond.
about the author: Boccaccio: 1313-1375, Florentine author, diplomat. G. H. McWilliam was a former Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and Professor Emeritus of Italian in the University of Leicester. He passed away in 2001

That I put three months into this and took pages and pages of notes on these hundred stories is a little more overwhelming rather than helpful in trying to write up a little response.

In brief, I liked it. The frame story is entertaining - a group of ten young single ladies and men escape plague-overwhelmed Florence, and, in a pleasant, isolated setting, with servants, leisure and comforts, begin to tell stories. They spend ten days, each member telling one story every day. (They also take breaks on Fridays and Saturdays for religious observation and washing. So, it's a 14-day retreat.) The 100 stories begin with a long story that I found trying because I was worried about 100 stories like this. But that would be my only complaint about length until the near the end (stories 97, 98, and 99 tried me. I was ready to be done. Story 100 is terrific). Story two was quick, a little entertaining, surprisingly respectful of a non-Christian character. Story three equates the three Mediterranean religions. But, anyway, religion aside, I was mildly entertained, and then again and again. As we get into day 2, the stories start to get racy, and in entertaining ways. It clearly makes the stories better. These are bawdy tales full of comedy, cleverness, lust and sex, but they mostly stay very light. Individually mildly entertaining, but read one after another, they relax the reader's natural intensity of trying to grasp what they read; and natural worry about what's coming next. They lie easy on the reader, and I started to see them as they were maybe partially intended, as an escape. I would hang-out with Boccaccio and the rest of my day, usually ahead as I read in the morning, could be set aside. I was never enraptured, but I was in this storytelling place. It was notably non-threatening, non-tiring and non-demanding. If good writing comes across as effortless to the reader, then this gets full marks.

A lot of ideas have been put forth for the themes and trends within Boccaccio's story arch. I think, to his credit, they are at best loose fitting. Yes, ingenuity, love (or really just lust), and arbitrary Fortune (capital 'F') make the main themes. The hypocrisy of the Christian clergy and the wantonness of the women are there, repetitively, including in many rants. Values and savviness of 14th century Italian mercantile bourgeoisie - check. Code of conduct of old feudal aristocracy - check. Supremacy of natural laws over this and all codes of conduct - check. Contrasts of reality and appearances - check. And storytelling itself - a defense (partially in satire) and critique - also check. But the collection of stories has an apparent randomness to it, such that all these theories, when you think about them, undermine the fun. You're not supposed to be thinking about theory, or what Boccaccio was thinking about when he was constructing, or whatever he does with his prose, or what his morality is (since he cuts through all moralities sometimes). You're supposed to just enjoy it. I found the sexism contrast and occasional cruelty (days 7-9) a little tough to overlook. The sexism is annoying because it's framed as a book for ladies and has many indicators of feminism. They're all false leads. It's as sexist as anything I've read. And cruelty just isn't entertaining to us in this time and place. Mostly Boccaccio provoked without getting any readers upset. Of course, each reader will have their own responses, their own levels of comfort and discomfort, and the less the latter the more they will enjoy these.

In the literary trend, very briefly, Boccaccio had a lot of sources of stories to pull from, does so freely. And he has had an immense influence on literature going forward, notably on Chaucer and Shakespeare. And, like Apuleius's Golden Ass, he lays his influence in a fun way. He's an enjoyable source. In my own head, I associate him with Ovid's Metamorphoses, and Spencer's Faerie Queene in the sense of how easily he takes the reader, well some readers, into a removed mental storytelling wordy space.

So, with a hundred stories, what stands out? Well, to a large extent this is dependent on the other reading I did about the Decameron. Ultimately i read so much about story 1, that long one, that I've come to see its value in a variety of lights and it's become important to me. The others are Alatiel and her nine lovers (story 2:7), Masetto, who plays dumb in a nunnery and sleeps with all the nuns (story 3:1), the story that introduces day 4, on a child isolated by his father in a cave for moral purity, who, seeing pretty ladies for the first time (he calls them gosslings), is struck my natural lust, the story of the parents finding their daughter with a lover on a balcony, holding his "nightingale" (and noticing the touches Shakespeare picked up for his Romeo and Juliet love scene)(story 5:4), the story where the priest, father Gianni, pretends to turn his friends wife into a horse, while he watches (story 9:10), and, a pleasant surprise, the famous last story of Griselda, the common girl tormented by her deranged noble husband, who withstands it all. After all I had read about Griselda before this story, and how awful it sounds, I was surprised how charmed I was.

Only recommended to everyone.

Belated Happy Birthday, Dan! :)

I see you've finished some big projects with Boccaccio and The Decameron. Congrats! I'm just wowed right now. :)

>227 OscarWilde87: Thanks Oscar. And yeah, it feels like I finished a lot at once. Suddenly lots to write about.

13. Coriolanus by William Shakespeare
first performed: 1608
format: 384-page Signet Classic, 1966, revised 1988, newly revised 2002
acquired: November read: Feb 20 – Mar 28 time reading: 11:58, 2.4 mpp
rating: 3
genre/style: Classic Drama theme Shakespeare
locations: Early Roman Republic
about the author: April 23, 1564 – April 23, 1616

Editors
Reuben Brower – 1966, 1988, 2002
Sylvan Barnet – series editor
Source
Sir Thomas North’s 1579 translation of Plutarch’s Life of Caius Martius Coriolanus, from The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (c. 120)
Criticism
A. C. Bradley - Coriolanus : British Academy Shakespeare Lecture, 1912 (printed in A Miscellany, 1929)
Wyndham Lewis – from The Lion and the Fox, 1955
D. A. Traversi – from An Approach to Shakespeare, 1938
Joyce Van Dyke - Making a Scene: Language and Gesture in Coriolanus – from Shakespeare Survey 30, 1977
Bruce R. Smith - Sexual Politics in Coriolanus, 1988
S.Schoenbaum – Coriolanus on Stage and Screen, 2002

A few quotes from the Signet Classic edition:

- A. C. Bradley (1912):

“perhaps no reader ever called it his favorite play.”

- D. A. Traversi (1938):

“Coriolanus has rarely satisfied the critics. Most of them have found it frigid and have even suggested that Shakespeare’s interest flagged in the writing of it”

- Wyndam Lewis (1955):

“But Coriolanus, as a figure, is of course the super-snob. Of all Shakespeare’s heroes he is the coldest, and the one that Shakespeare himself seems to have felt most coldly towards.”

- Joyce Van Dyke (1988):

“Coriolanus does not have much of a sense of play.”

This was our latest Shakespeare in my Listy group read through is his plays. We're getting to the end, his less popular plays. And the feeling was pretty universal on this one; no one liked it. I found myself rushing through the script to try to finish. But it's not actually a bad play, or one where Shakespeare "flagged". These same Signet-cited critics spend some time breaking down how it's a very carefully written, carefully thought-out script.

The source of this play is 2nd century writer biographer Plutarch. Plutarch's Caius Marcus Coriolanus was a great mythical warrior of the early Roman Republic that was so coarse in personality that no one could stand him in person. He upset his own city so much that he was banished. And he planned his revenge by leading a foreign army to Rome's walls, on the brink of ransacking the city. Rome is saved by his mom, who makes a personal appeal to Coriolanus for mercy, and the unbendable warrior bends, becoming traitor to his own army.

In Shakespeare's hands his story becomes a dry ironic comedy. Coriolanus is a boy warrior, the warrior who never grew up, never learned to feel and empathize, so self-absorbed that he never realized there was anyone else around who was human other than mom. It is, in a way, a psychological study, filled with careful character observation. It's as sophisticated, in this sense, as some of his best plays. It just doesn't seem to really work as a drama. The warriors and their haughty praise of each other are tiring, a bunch of men fawning over stiff imagined narrow greatness. Even the playful homosexual elements can't lighten this one up.

Recommend to resilient completists who really want to check this one off.

My last update was March 2. Since then I finished Decameron and my reading energy vaporized. I had a point where I had finished the Decameron text and also Coriolanus Act 5 and found myself staring at about 12 hours of extra stuff to read for those books - introductions, sources, commentary. I felt like I should forget it this one time, since I don't really enjoy it that much. But I couldn't convince myself to let it go (and, of course, I found it had lots of good info). Anyway, I read all, and then after I fried out, and my reading dropped a lot and I suddenly had lots of reviews to write. So stumbling into April.

My march round up:

planned - actual
9 hours - 6:59 The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton - 2nd half, finished (15:13 overall)
9 hours - 9:39 Coriolanus acts 3-5 & afterward, finished
7 hours - 4:48 Boccaccio by Thomas G. Bergin, finished (20:30 overall)
6 hours - 2:32 The Decameron, Norton edition afterward, finished (17:00 overall)
18 hours - 23:30 The Decameron, finished (46:25 overall)
5 hours - 2:38 Anniversiaries by Uwe Johnson (I'm behind)
8 hours - 0:00 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
0 hours - 4:05 The Lais of Marie de France (I finished April 2)
----
64 hours planned. I read 54:11 (which really is ok for me)

April plans are to get back into David Copperfield and read the second half; and get back into Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition and finish. And then read some 2021 Booker longlist books that I haven't been able to get to (specifically Bewilderment and An Island)

My new thread is open: https://www.librarything.com/topic/341027

That's a big reading plan in terms of hours (never mind the type of books) for someone who's working. Do you listen to some of them on your commute? I really struggle to find room for that amount of reading with work and family so I'm always curious how others manage.

>233 AlisonY: yes, it’s aggressive for me. I read mostly about 40 hours a month in 2020 (my goal was 90 minutes a day, or about 45 hours). In 2021 I pushed with a plan and got to about 50 hours a month. So this year I’m trying for 2 hours a day. It just works on a normal day, if I get up early, read 20 minutes over my uncertain lunch break and am awake enough to read at night before bed. But it’s not sustainable and so I’m dependent on finding catchup time on weekends. I’m about 4 hours behind for April. I can’t recommend this plan to anyone. 🙂