Classics Considered

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WHERE did October go??  Two weeks since my last post, can't believe it. Book-wise... I did finish The Art of Loving and need to write up my final post this weekend.  For a short book it was quite a journey, and thought-provoking - I'm grateful Cleo hosted it as a readalong! Also in non-fiction land, I read Permanent Record , Edward Snowden's new autobiographical memoir.  I knew very little about him previously, and it actually blew me away.  It might be because I'm a millennial: I saw bits and pieces of my own life experience in his, and it was kind of surreal reading it in book form.  Of course it focuses on his path from dutiful employee to whistleblower, which was fascinating from a psychological and technological perspective.  Definitely recommended. The one classic I read was Macbeth .  To be honest, I found it massively underwhelming, which is probably just me.  I may try to share some thoughts about it. I am still reading M...

Gage Skidmore [ CC BY-SA 2.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons Previously: The Art of Loving - A Ramble on Chapters 1–2.1 This post will be rather more disjointed than my first one, as these sections left me with more questions than conclusions.  Bear with me! As for the picture - especially in this part, I was having flashbacks to 12 Rules for Life , and anyone who found value in that book should probably read this one (and vice-versa). Chapter 2.2, "Love Between a Parent and a Child" The big theme of this part was Fromm's definition of fatherly and motherly love.  He describes motherly love as unconditional, forgiving, and organic to the mother-child relationship - C. S. Lewis's "Gift-Love," in other words, with no limit.  Motherly love and validation of the child is present whether the child "deserves" it or not.  Fatherly love, by contrast, is rules-based and must be earned in order to be granted: Since [Father's] love is conditioned...

This month, Cleo is hosting a readalong of The Art of Loving (1956) by Erich Fromm and On Friendship by Cicero. It's a sequel to the Four Loves Readalong - which feels recent but was actually back in June(!!).  Fromm and C. S. Lewis were contemporaries (and Lewis's book was published just four years later), so it adds interest to see how their perspectives correspond or differ.  I'm also looking forward to Cicero, as I haven't read many ancient classics. You can find the full schedule on Cleo's post.  I felt the need to break down my check-ins a little more, so this one will cover the first 1 1/3 chapters. Chapter 1, "Is Love an Art?" Fromm opens with his short but pithy thesis - that love is not just a flurry of feelings, but an actual scientific art, like music or medicine, which must be learned and practiced. He posits three interrelated societal problems.  First, culture is overly focused on the state of "being loved," particul...

Though dreadfully behind on Brona's readalong , I am still plugging away at this American tome and really savoring it.  This is my second time reading Moby-Dick, the first time being nearly a decade ago.  The familiar scenes and phrases are coming back to me like old friends. NASA Johnson Space Center - Earth Sciences and Image Analysis (NASA-JSC-ES&IA) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons The first 18 or so chapters cover Ishmael's land journey to his ship the Pequod , anchored at Nantucket, and meeting his unexpected, cannibal friend Queequeg.  Much has been written about the exploration of religion and culture that Melville covers in this introduction, where we see both conflict and communality between different characters, both on a broad scale and on a personal level. What really gets at me this time is the range of emotions and "worlds," if you will, which Melville shows us.  You feel Ishmael's wanderlust in the first chapter, his mix of fe...

First, an apology/disclaimer... there WILL be classic literature reviews coming soon!!  I often watch movies/TV in batches, so this is one of those phases for me.  :) Spellbound (1945) Spellbound is a twisted tale of the romance between an ambitious young doctor (Ingrid Bergman) and her unlikely boss (Gregory Peck).  The two work as psychoanalysts in the same mental health facility, and in spite of the office gossip, Constance finds herself falling in love for the first time.  Anthony, on the other hand, begins to show signs of mental distress, haunted by fears he cannot remember nor explain.  When Anthony becomes implicated in a crime, Constance - terrified of losing him - decides to apply all her knowledge on mental health to try to discern the truth from his scattered memories. Laura (1944) Laura (Gene Tierney), a charismatic young businesswoman, is found dead in her apartment one morning, brutally shot in the face.  Detective Mark McPherso...

On Saturday, my brother and I went to see Ad Astra starring Brad Pitt.  This is a film that's been compared - by its director James Gray, no less - to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (one of my axes ).  Being in the middle of a Conrad "renaissance" if you will, I felt it was perfect timing.  A couple of my coworkers had seen it already and liked it, so that was another reason I was interested in watching it. Pitt plays Roy McBride, a young astronaut whose impeccable career is overshadowed by memories of his absent father Clifford and the much-nearer loss of Eve, the devoted wife he sidelined for his career and who's recently left him.  After a series of devastating electrical surges sweep across the solar system, Roy is tasked by U.S. Space Command to investigate the situation, which they believe could be linked to his dad's scientific research on Neptune.  Roy sets out to confront Clifford, embarking on a journey through space that is every bit as p...

Time for some more bite-sized movie reviews...two 1953 classics, one costume drama, and one survival drama! Arctic (2019) Plot Mads Mikkelsen plays Overgård, the lone survivor of a plane wreck in the Arctic.  He spends his days in tedium, catching fish (which he eats raw) and sending out hand-cranked radio signals in hopes they'll get picked up. When the rescue team he has been waiting for finally arrives, their helicopter crashes, and he is left suddenly tending to another survivor, a young woman with terrible injuries.  Overgård resolves to set out on foot for the nearest outpost, to try to save both their lives. Thoughts The trailer pulled me in many months ago...later I discovered it on Prime , and I'm glad I finally saw it.  Polar exploration nerds will soak in the stunning cinematography, filmed in Iceland (no CGI snowcapes here!), plus the human drama surrounding Mikkelsen's character.  In spite of the plot's simplicity, there is plenty of suspen...

A couple of you brought it to my attention that the embedded comment form was not working for you...  I have changed it to pop-up format to see if that fixes the  issue.  If you have a moment, drop me a comment to let me know it works for you now, or if it doesn't, please send me a note using the Contact Form in the sidebar on the left. On mobile devices, you can pull up the sidebar by clicking the hamburger icon: Sorry for the inconvenience, by the way!!  I've been debating switching to Wordpress, and this might be the catalyst for that. 

Previously: Part I - The Silver of the Mine Part II - The Isabels The situation has reached a boiling point: General Montero's rebel forces have dismantled the government and are sweeping over Costaguana, while the traitor Sotillo, invading Sulaco by steamship, comes to establish a reign of terror.  The citizens flee to the countryside, seeking protection by the once-feared bandit Hernandez.  Everyone believes Nostromo and Martin to be dead, and Dr Monygham fears for the safety of Emilia Gould, who, half-abandoned by her workaholic husband, still remains in the town.  He realizes he must take action to save her, while the rebels and the elusive silver begin to take a corrupting hold over everybody else. There is much, much more that happens in this third part, but I can't give it away.  It's as well Part III takes up nearly half of the book, because the initially slow plot here picks up with gusto, taking all the world-building from the first two parts and ...

Iris Diensthuber [ CC BY-SA 3.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons Part II of Nostromo introduces a new set of characters: Antonia, the "liberated" yet refined daughter of the statesman Don Jose; Martin Decoud, a young journalist head-over-heels in love with Antonia; Hirsch the German trader; and even the title character himself, so notably absent from Part I, plays a major role in The Isabels . Things have been heating up politically in Costaguana.  The frail presidency of Ribiera, ally of the mine owner Charles Gould, is threatened by the rebel Monterists, who are trying to take over the country and stage a military coup.  Gould can think of only his silver mine and his workers, putting his own and his wife's safety at risk as he prepares to defend it.  Decoud, finding Antonia hard to win, decides to take up the political torch dropped by her aging father. Decoud's determination, however, is to make their province independent, rather than trying to restore the entire...

It feels as if my reading has been slipping by the wayside, but that's not really been the case.  Most of the books I've read this summer just haven't blown me away, so it's been a bit of a disappointment. Reading status update on a few of the better ones: Tesla biography - I do like this book, a beautiful balance of academic and popular science.  It's very Educational, so it's taking me a while to get through it. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Reading this for the 3rd or 4th time.  It is my favorite thing to read when I really want an escape.   Nostromo - Still chugging along, now in part 2.  New characters, new goings on.  I'm surprised actually at there being new characters; not sure where Conrad is taking it. Moby-Dick - Still participating in the read-along, but very much behind schedule. Brave New World - Started strong, then realized I needed a break from dystopian.  Will continue shortly. Psalms - Finished them!  Now re-r...

VENTURA [ CC BY 3.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons As with Lord Jim , I feel compelled to write something about Nostromo at about the 1/3 mark.  Conrad very handily divided the novel into three sections: The Silver of the Mine , The Isabels , and The Lighthouse .  I must get my (spoiler-free) thoughts down on the first part before continuing, otherwise I'm bound to forget them. This "must" is, in part, due to the rambling style of the book.  I can't remember the last time I read a narrative that was so clear in its purpose yet so murky in its direction.  This first part is all about world-building and character painting, but Conrad doesn't go about it in a conventional, orderly fashion.  In one moment you are in the past, in another you're in the present - in one paragraph, you're standing next to one character, then in the next, you're following another.  Back and forth, all over the place!  I had to check where I was a few times. It's jumb...

Nineteen Eight-Four marks the third famous classic to disappoint me in recent years.  Along with The Odyssey and The Divine Comedy , it would have been left unfinished early on, except for its mammoth legacy and the feeling that I ought to read it.  It's possible I lack the maturity or life experience to appreciate these books - I leave that open as an explanation.  But for the time being, I'll express my unpopular opinion, which isn't without basis.  (For my personal dystopian literature criteria, see part 1 .) England, Except Not England Winston Smith, our very Britishly named protagonist, resides in England of the 1980s.  Now called "Airstrip One," England is a mere drop in the empire that is Oceania, and its once-vivid culture has likewise been largely eaten up by the propaganda of the ruling one-party state.  All citizens are expected to revere Big Brother, the vague yet menacing figurehead of the Party, and in so doing are closely monitored ...

There was no intention on my part to read two dystopian novels at the same time.  I was already in motion to read 1984 - an embarrassingly long-overdue attempt - when I heard a novelization of Pan's Labyrinth was to be released in July.  I got in the library line quickly (these things go like hot cakes), and soon, with del Toro/Funke's fantasy horror in one hand and Orwell's bleak dystopia in the other, made the abrupt leap from "light summer fluff" to "not-sure-if-I'll-sleep-tonight bedtime stories." So... What Were You Thinking!? 1984 requires little introduction.  In Western culture, at least, terms such as Big Brother and doublethink flavor our vocabulary as glib reminders that a British author back in 1948 foretold the existence of increasingly powerful, monolithic, and tech-savvy governments.  We see signs of it everywhere today, from more innocuous instruments such as traffic cameras to the disturbing birth of China's Social C...

Excited to be tagged by Hamlette from The Edge of the Precipice!  This tag is all about classics and originally from a blog called Rebellious Writing . It's So Classic Tag Rules: 1. Link your post to Rebellious Writing (www.rebelliouswriting.com) 2. Answer the questions 3. Tag at least 5 bloggers. 1. What is one classic that hasn’t been made into a movie yet, but really needs to? This was a recent Top Ten Tuesday... I stand by all my answers but will add one more:  Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev .  I rated this book very highly and feel it would appeal to anyone who enjoys costumes dramas, while offering a new perspective.  (We need more Russian literature adaptations in general.  Just sayin'!) 2. What draws you to classics? It is hard to put a scientific answer to this, because I got into classics at a young age and they became a core part of my life.  If anything, I love them most of all for sentimental reasons.  Apart from ...

August is RACING by.  (I guess I say that every month.)  I've finished a couple of books over the weekend, but I don't know when I'll get to writing proper reviews.  Till then, here's a quick post for Top Ten Tuesday! Characters I'd like to be best friends with, classics and otherwise: Much from BBC's Robin Hood.  This guy gets a lot of flak from the other members of Robin's gang (and Robin himself), but it's not fair... he does pretty much all the cooking and worrying for everyone.  If we're friends, I'll help with the cooking (even though I don't like it) and back him up when they start picking on him.  Being my friend, he will be loyal to a fault, but also give me constructive criticism when I need it. Miss Marple.   Poor Miss Marple... I just want to protect her from all the creepers and psychos she encounters (not that I am capable, heh).  She really needs a friend. Lucian Gregory from The Man Who Was Thursday .  Ok, mayb...

No, that is not the title of a challenge...but it may as well be.  I'm up to my ears in books and it's wonderful. Sweet peas and ocean breezes    ♥ I spent most of my July weekends working on a large volunteer project for a non-profit.  It was a beneficial experience, but more of a commitment than I realized.  Now that that's pretty much wrapped up, I can turn back to books. Here's a quick list of what I'll be reading this month, at different levels of undivided attention and in no particular order: 1984 - George Orwell Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brian Drawn from Memory - Ernest Shepard (illustrator of the original Winnie the Pooh) Psalms (almost finished) Tesla biography (yes, still) Smart People Should Build Things and The War on Normal People - Andrew Yang Nostromo - Joseph Conrad Moby-Dick - Herman Melville Other??  There's sure to be more. I probably mentioned bef...