Book a Week 2016 - W1: Happy New Year!!!!

[Guest]

... can I just say, your post restored both sense of humor and my faith in humanity after a rather bleak day.  So, on that note, I am turning the computer OFF and retiring to my bed.

 

With a BOOK.

 

Night, all.

 

:grouphug:   ...hoping your tomorrow is full of hope and promise and joy.

 

 

 

And now on to more serious matters: I read Prometheus Bound, by Aeschylus.  The reason I read this play now is that I am preparing for our Frankenstein study, and the subtitle - the modern Prometheus - seemed to beg the comparison.  But I don't get it.  Was Mary Shelley being satirical? Tongue in cheek? Because I don't see the connection.  Surely she isn't implying that Victor somehow did something beneficial for humanity? Or his creation? Which Prometheus did.  Is the connection that Victor defied God in creating life, like Prometheus defied Zeus in gifting humans with knowledge of fire, medicinal plants, augury, and other things?  I still don't see the connection.  Victor was a totally irresponsible creator who failed to give the basic iota of consideration to his creation, whereas Prometheus was a compassionate being who gave gifts to beings - humans - that weren't even his creations/responsibility at all.  The idea that Victor is some kind of modern Prometheus is actually rather offensive. What am I missing? Anyone? Eliana?

 

I haven't revisited Frankenstein in a long time (and it has never been a favorite), but my instinctive interpretation hinges on the "modern".

 

The historic Prometheus (according to some versions of the story) created humans and then defended them against the gods themselves... and suffered enormously for his caring and loyalty.

(and his creation of humans was by divine decree, as I recall, not from a whim.)

 

The "modern" Prometheus created a creature who calls himself Victor's Adam... but. unlike either the Greek or Xtian allusions, Victor doesn't love his creation, doesn't provide him a mate, doesn't fight for his well being.

 

The stealing the fires of heaven piece seems more complicated - and, as I recall, the subtitle is a variant on Kant's reference to Benjamin Franklin & his electricity experiments...

 

When I just muse about all of that, I find myself thinking about the responsibilities of power, of creation, of technology... and do we, as a society or as individuals, really accept that when we choose something we are (as Bujold's Cordelia says) choosing its consequence? 

 

When we choose to develop technologies, we are choosing the responsibility for its impact - economic, social, environmental... and those impacts can be horrific.

 

...and don't we, all too often, run from that realization?  Disown our creations, while clinging to our personal dreams of grandeur?  Leave the suffering to others?

 

I don't see Victor as having Prometheus-like suffering - he flies from those consequences, and over and over other people suffer, and die, for his cowardice.  (I am not a fan.)

 

I see Shelley raising questions that are, imho, still very relevant to our approaches today to technology, to power, to choices.... 

 

How do we use our powers?  The fires of heaven?  When we try to bend nature to our will, what do we create?  What wonders and what horrors? 

 

 

I suppose one could make an argument for Shelley being as critical of the original Prometheus as I am of her modern one.  It isn't how I read it, but I can see how someone could look at it that way.

 

(And now I want to track down the Kant attribution and how that and the Franklin story itself could connect to thoughts about Frankenstein.... if I think about it too much, I'll end up rereading Frankenstein which doesn't mesh with any of my other reading goals right now...)

 

 

 

 

 

Hmmm. I'm going to have to be the dissenting voice on The Gap of Time. I must be missing something that everyone else sees, including all the respectable reviewers who gave it such high praise. Despite my anticipation and my desire to enjoy it, in the end it read like teen fiction to me. (Sorry to all who loved it. I'm assuming the problem was with me.) The strange way in which everything worked out so smoothly (trying to be vague here) was too much for me. Of course the original play is also somewhat unrealistic, but Shakespeare is entertaining in part because of wit and language and I didn't find enough of that in this modernized version to offset the implausible ending.

 

I'm sorry.

:grouphug:

 

I didn't get very far in it.  I tried twice.  ...but I couldn't get past the incompatibility of my reading of Winter's Tale and these characters.   (Lighthousekeeping, on the other hand, I own and mean to come back to... )

[mumto2]

Here is my quilt!!

[Lady Florida.]

Ah, Rose.  I've never read Prometheus and only know the barest bones of the story from D'Aulaires days, so I got nothing...

 

but

 

... can I just say, your post restored both sense of humor and my faith in humanity after a rather bleak day.  So, on that note, I am turning the computer OFF and retiring to my bed.

 

With a BOOK.

 

Night, all.

 

:grouphug: I hope you were able to shut out the day and just read, and that today will be a better day.

 

Here is my quilt!!

 

Beautiful!

 

And now on to more serious matters: I read Prometheus Bound, by Aeschylus.  The reason I read this play now is that I am preparing for our Frankenstein study, and the subtitle - the modern Prometheus - seemed to beg the comparison.  But I don't get it.  Was Mary Shelley being satirical? Tongue in cheek? Because I don't see the connection.  Surely she isn't implying that Victor somehow did something beneficial for humanity? Or his creation? Which Prometheus did.  Is the connection that Victor defied God in creating life, like Prometheus defied Zeus in gifting humans with knowledge of fire, medicinal plants, augury, and other things?  I still don't see the connection.  Victor was a totally irresponsible creator who failed to give the basic iota of consideration to his creation, whereas Prometheus was a compassionate being who gave gifts to beings - humans - that weren't even his creations/responsibility at all.  The idea that Victor is some kind of modern Prometheus is actually rather offensive. What am I missing? Anyone? Eliana?

 

Here's Shmoop's take on it.

 

http://www.shmoop.com/frankenstein/title.html

[Chrysalis Academy]

:grouphug:   ...hoping your tomorrow is full of hope and promise and joy.

 

 

 

 

I haven't revisited Frankenstein in a long time (and it has never been a favorite), but my instinctive interpretation hinges on the "modern".

 

The historic Prometheus (according to some versions of the story) created humans and then defended them against the gods themselves... and suffered enormously for his caring and loyalty.

(and his creation of humans was by divine decree, as I recall, not from a whim.)

 

The "modern" Prometheus created a creature who calls himself Victor's Adam... but. unlike either the Greek or Xtian allusions, Victor doesn't love his creation, doesn't provide him a mate, doesn't fight for his well being.

 

The stealing the fires of heaven piece seems more complicated - and, as I recall, the subtitle is a variant on Kant's reference to Benjamin Franklin & his electricity experiments...

 

When I just muse about all of that, I find myself thinking about the responsibilities of power, of creation, of technology... and do we, as a society or as individuals, really accept that when we choose something we are (as Bujold's Cordelia says) choosing its consequence? 

 

When we choose to develop technologies, we are choosing the responsibility for its impact - economic, social, environmental... and those impacts can be horrific.

 

...and don't we, all too often, run from that realization?  Disown our creations, while clinging to our personal dreams of grandeur?  Leave the suffering to others?

 

I don't see Victor as having Prometheus-like suffering - he flies from those consequences, and over and over other people suffer, and die, for his cowardice.  (I am not a fan.)

 

I see Shelley raising questions that are, imho, still very relevant to our approaches today to technology, to power, to choices.... 

 

How do we use our powers?  The fires of heaven?  When we try to bend nature to our will, what do we create?  What wonders and what horrors? 

 

 

I suppose one could make an argument for Shelley being as critical of the original Prometheus as I am of her modern one.  It isn't how I read it, but I can see how someone could look at it that way.

 

(And now I want to track down the Kant attribution and how that and the Franklin story itself could connect to thoughts about Frankenstein.... if I think about it too much, I'll end up rereading Frankenstein which doesn't mesh with any of my other reading goals right now...)

 

 

 

Well, selfishly, I hope you do decide to re-read Frankenstein so we can keep talking about it! I am delving into some of the source material, or referenced material - I have Rime of the Ancient Mariner up next - and will be exploring this world for the next couple of months.

 

See, that is interesting that Prometheus was actually the creator of humans. I didn't get that from the Aeschylus play, either I read it badly or I need to check out some other Prometheus sources.  That does make a tighter parallel - perhaps Shelley is contrasting a creator who cares for his creatures, at great personal cost, with one who abjures all responsibility?  The "Modern" version of a creator being a scientist-type who tries to divorce what he can do from what he should do? Tries to argue that science is value-free and that it is up to society to decide how to use the technology created by science?  That is a very modern reading, perhaps too modern for Shelley's day, but it is certainly relevant to the present.

 

I'm also quite critical of Victor, and not a fan, and I love the book because I think it really forces us to grapple with the question of where evil actions come from, a very basic nature vs. nurture debate. The monster is clearly on one side of the argument, but his actions are so horrible it keeps you from just accepting that. Or at least it makes you go on to question where responsibility lies even in the face of very bad nurture.  But my biggest problem with the book is - I'm not sure that Mary Shelley is as critical of Victor as we are.  I get the sense that she sees him as a heroic figure, and someone to be pitied, which I don't.  Stephen King has a cool discussion of Frankenstein in Danse Macabre, and he points out that Victor is a Shakespearean tragic hero, but what is his tragic flaw? Is it hubris? Or is it the failure to take responsibility for his creation? Or both?

 

Pam, I hope you slept will and that today is a better day  :grouphug:

[Chrysalis Academy]

:grouphug: I hope you were able to shut out the day and just read, and that today will be a better day.

 

 

Beautiful!

 

 

Here's Shmoop's take on it.

 

http://www.shmoop.com/frankenstein/title.html

 

 

Right, interesting. So I think that the Aeschylus play was the wrong place for me to go for the Prometheus story. It's focus isn't really on Prometheus's full story, it's way more about tyranny and in particular the tyranny of new leaders, and how unjust they are, and how even they can't escape their fate.  The main new thing about Prometheus and humans is that Zeus apparently intended to destroy humans when he took over, and that Prometheus gave us not just fire, but the knowledge of medicinal plants, and how to farm and press oil and make wine, and the knowledge of how to read the fates via augury.  He was a very responsible creator, who shepherded humans and protected them at great personal cost. But the play's focus is different. 

 

What are other sources for the Prometheus story, I wonder? I have Ovid's Metamorphoses and it doesn't seem to be in there.  Hesiod maybe?

 

ETA: Yep, looks like Theogony

Edited January 7, 2016 by Chrysalis Academy

[Lady Florida.]

 

 

What are other sources for the Prometheus story, I wonder? I have Ovid's Metamorphoses and it doesn't seem to be in there.  Hesiod maybe?

 

ETA: Yep, looks like Theogony

 

It's been a long time, but I thought I it was Hesiod. I see you checked and we're right.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I finished my re-read of Ancillary Sword last night, the 2nd book in the series. I enjoyed it even more this time, and bumped it up a star. I think the middle position of a trilogy is tough - you have to develop the story in a compelling way, but you can't provide resolution. I often read 2nd books with impatience the first time, but find that upon re-reading I like them much better (The Two Towers? The Empire Strikes Back? ;) ) This book really developed the ideas of the effects of colonization, and more generally, the effects of class, and how class distinctions can become self-reinforcing, circular nightmares that it is easy to get trapped in, hard to escape. There are clear parallels between the coffee plantation workers and workers in almost any industry you can name - mining comes to mind, as I'm reading Angle of Repose right now- and parallels between the inhabitants of the Undergarden and the inhabitants of the ghettos of any major city today. I love a story that forces you to confront your assumptions about society without being remotely preachy about it. A fantastic book, and one of my favorite fantasy/sci fi series of all time.

Edited January 7, 2016 by Chrysalis Academy

[TKDmom]

I'll join! Almost a week late... :D

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Kareni]

Some interesting pieces from the Tor.com site ~

 

Dreams, Destinies, and Opposable Thumbs: The Chosen Children of Portal Fantasy by Seanan McGuire

 

Five Books About Fantastical Islands by Simon Sylvester

 

Five Books with an Australian Perspective by Jackie Hatton

 

The comments are usually worth reading for additional suggestions.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[swimmermom3]

Not that I knew what Newman work was being referenced in BNW, but I found it interesting that he was being referenced.  Blame it all on me, VC! (To be fair, please note that I spent a year reading The Golden Legend in small bits.  It was the only way I could manage.)

 

And your brave self challenge may just lead me to read Lucretius.  On the Nature of Things is always lurking on the edge of consciousness.

 

Jane, if you decide to do Lucretius and want company, I'd love to join you.  It's been sitting on the shelf since Sailor Dude was a freshman and we were doing the ancients for literature.  

[swimmermom3]

Here's an enjoyable post ~

11 Delightful Tales Set in Our Favorite Place—Bookstores

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

Thanks so much for sharing the list and the blog. There are definitely a couple of books on there I would love to read.

[MaeFlowers]

This thread moves so fast and it's hard to keep up with all the conversations!

 

I finished A Pilgrim's Progress last night. I was slightly frustrated with this book. Okay, a lot frustrated with this book and, in particular, the main character, Christian. I guess I should state that I come from an Episcopalian family. Actually, a half Episcopalian, half Baptist family. Either way, the fundamentalist/evangelical tone rides roughshod against my personal belief system. Given that Bunyan was an adversary of the CoE, I was expecting this.

 

Anyway, that's actually not why I struggled with the book. I am hoping that someone here has read it, studied it, and can give me more insight into Bunyan's intentions. I struggled with Christian. I struggled with how he dealt with other pilgrims he came across, specifically those who were also Christian. He was quick to point out the ways in which they were "wrong" and had no problem chastising them for their faults. He was not kind, nor gracious and often did nothing more than rebuke them. Oft times, he gossiped about them with the companions he deemed worthy. Then, he would fall into the same sin in which he rebuked them for. He would be woeful of his sin, and be saved by something or someone but he did not seem to learn from it. Instead, he seemed to become only more self-righteous with time. I kept thinking this was intentional by Bunyan. That Christian would meet Humility before he was able to enter into the Celestial City but that time never came. He made it into the city without humility. He made it into the city with that giant log in his eye. So, did Bunyan intend this? I honestly don't think he did. I think he wholeheartedly believed Christian was truly in the right in all that he did.

 

 

 

 

[Jane in NC]

Jane, if you decide to do Lucretius and want company, I'd love to join you.  It's been sitting on the shelf since Sailor Dude was a freshman and we were doing the ancients for literature.  

 

Let's reconsider this in a couple of months. My plate is simply too full at the moment.

 

This thread moves so fast and it's hard to keep up with all the conversations!

 

I finished A Pilgrim's Progress last night. I was slightly frustrated with this book. Okay, a lot frustrated with this book and, in particular, the main character, Christian. I guess I should state that I come from an Episcopalian family. Actually, a half Episcopalian, half Baptist family. Either way, the fundamentalist/evangelical tone rides roughshod against my personal belief system. Given that Bunyan was an adversary of the CoE, I was expecting this.

 

Anyway, that's actually not why I struggled with the book. I am hoping that someone here has read it, studied it, and can give me more insight into Bunyan's intentions. I struggled with Christian. I struggled with how he dealt with other pilgrims he came across, specifically those who were also Christian. He was quick to point out the ways in which they were "wrong" and had no problem chastising them for their faults. He was not kind, nor gracious and often did nothing more than rebuke them. Oft times, he gossiped about them with the companions he deemed worthy. Then, he would fall into the same sin in which he rebuked them for. He would be woeful of his sin, and be saved by something or someone but he did not seem to learn from it. Instead, he seemed to become only more self-righteous with time. I kept thinking this was intentional by Bunyan. That Christian would meet Humility before he was able to enter into the Celestial City but that time never came. He made it into the city without humility. He made it into the city with that giant log in his eye. So, did Bunyan intend this? I honestly don't think he did. I think he wholeheartedly believed Christian was truly in the right in all that he did.

 

Sigh.  Pilgrim's Progress is the most joyless book I have ever read.  No insight from these quarters.

[idnib]

I think the middle position of a trilogy is tough - you have to develop the story in a compelling way, but you can't provide resolution. 

 

Yes! I had this problem with the Souther Reach Trilogy. On top of the usual issue you mentioned, the second book took place in an entirely different location and made what I thought I knew about the first book confusing. I'm glad I stuck with it as the third book brought it together.

 

Anyway, that's actually not why I struggled with the book. I am hoping that someone here has read it, studied it, and can give me more insight into Bunyan's intentions. I struggled with Christian. I struggled with how he dealt with other pilgrims he came across, specifically those who were also Christian. He was quick to point out the ways in which they were "wrong" and had no problem chastising them for their faults. He was not kind, nor gracious and often did nothing more than rebuke them. Oft times, he gossiped about them with the companions he deemed worthy. Then, he would fall into the same sin in which he rebuked them for. He would be woeful of his sin, and be saved by something or someone but he did not seem to learn from it. Instead, he seemed to become only more self-righteous with time. I kept thinking this was intentional by Bunyan. That Christian would meet Humility before he was able to enter into the Celestial City but that time never came. He made it into the city without humility. He made it into the city with that giant log in his eye. So, did Bunyan intend this? I honestly don't think he did. I think he wholeheartedly believed Christian was truly in the right in all that he did.

 

I wouldn't read too much into Bunyan's intentions, IMO. They aren't occluded or hidden to me. I don't think Bunyan was trying to make a statement about getting into the Celestial City with a log in his eye, I think he really thought Christian was behaving correctly and in a Christian fashion. My most generous interpretation is that Bunyan had trouble with nuanced thoughts in such a heavily allegorical tale.

Edited January 7, 2016 by idnib

[Jane in NC]

Lovely!

 

Indeed it is!  What is your next project, Mumto2?

 

[Guest]

...continuing to work backward up the thread to meet myself in the middle (I hope!)

 

I am doing SO much better!  I've really made a lot of progress in healing the last week or so.

 

 

 

 

:hurray:   It has been quite the journey - but you've been so brave and amazing!  I hope you are 100% back to your usual self soon - but that you also get some reading time!  :grouphug:

 

 

This is a torturous thread, torturous, I tell you! It's like pressing your nose up against a bakery window and knowing you somehow have to make a choice...only this is worse. Oh so much worse. And much better too. Carry on.

 

:iagree:   Isn't it glorious?  ...there's the agony of being pulled in so many different, wonderful ways... but it seems to work out so splendidly...

 

 

Hard Road West is a great book!  My copy is much loved as it was gifted to me by our own nmoira.  :crying: It might be time for a reread.

 

I have been meaning to read that... someone here read it the other year... (does anyone remember who?  Kareni, so you remember?)

 

 

 

 

Note to Eliana, perhaps Pam and others:  a play by Wole Soyinka, the Nobel prize winning writer from Nigeria, is now available for listening on BBC Radio 3.  Death and the King's Horseman was challenging for me.  The BBC description reads:

 

 

Challenging, yes.  I read it the other year & am not quite ready to revisit it.  I've been hoping that once I've expanded my background more that I would struggle less with it...  not that it is likely to be a comfortable text to encounter, no matter how much background I acquire.

 

 

Thanks for the link!  I will be spending much of tomorrow doing arts-and-crafts, getting my daughter's bat mitzvah invitation printed and assembled, and having something to listen to will be perfect.  

 

Her Hebrew name, Shalviya, more or less means "tranquility," so she incorporated Zentangle into the design.  Remember Zentangles?  Everything flows from BAW, as it turns out.  :laugh:

 

Mazel Tov!!  When is it?  (and would you be willing to share the finished cover with us?)

 

What a lovely name.

 

...and, yes, I am amazed at how much of my life keep intersecting with BaW themes or ideas....

 

 

 

And your brave self challenge may just lead me to read Lucretius.  On the Nature of Things is always lurking on the edge of consciousness.

 

I am rereading it now.  I think I was 17 when I read it before and SWB's Story of Science has inspired a reread.   I am hoping I will pull Swerve off the shelf and do more than dip into it, but there are so many pulls for my reading attention right now, I'm not sure if it will happen.

[Onceuponatime]

I finished The Man in the High Castle. It dragged a little and at first I wondered what was the point. The story sped up toward the end and finished on a semi- philosophical note. Still I was left wondering what I had just read. My questions were kind of answered when I read the Wikipedia articles on Philip K. Dick and The Man in the High Castle. It helps to know something about the author's personal life and the background behind the writing of the book. One word: drugs. Anyway, in the final analysis, it is a kind of literary "inception" with layers of reality that extend beyond the book.

 

I'm now reading Tisha, the story of a teacher in the Alaskan wilderness, circa 1927. It is an old fashioned story, based on a real person, about a young woman who was ahead of her time, especially regarding the treatment of all people with the same human kindness, regardless of ethnicity. It is dismaying to read about the rampant prejudice against native Americans at the time.

[Lady Florida.]

I'm now reading Tisha, the story of a teacher in the Alaskan wilderness, circa 1927. It is an old fashioned story, based on a real person, about a young woman who was ahead of her time, especially regarding the treatment of all people with the same human kindness, regardless of ethnicity. It is dismaying to read about the rampant prejudice against native Americans at the time.

 

I read that a few years ago for book club. The person who chose it grew up spending summers in Alaska, and had been to the Tisha schoolhouse many times as a kid. It was such a good book but yes, frustrating too due to the prejudice.

[Guest]

I'll join! Almost a week late... :D

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

Welcome!

 

...and no one is ever late here!  It's an open house party, so whenever you drop in you are right on time!

 

I finished my re-read of Ancillary Sword last night, the 2nd book in the series. I enjoyed it even more this time, and bumped it up a star. I think the middle position of a trilogy is tough - you have to develop the story in a compelling way, but you can't provide resolution. I often read 2nd books with impatience the first time, but find that upon re-reading I like them much better (The Two Towers? The Empire Strikes Back? ;) ) This book really developed the ideas of the effects of colonization, and more generally, the effects of class, and how class distinctions can become self-reinforcing, circular nightmares that it is easy to get trapped in, hard to escape. There are clear parallels between the coffee plantation workers and workers in almost any industry you can name - mining comes to mind, as I'm reading Angle of Repose right now- and parallels between the inhabitants of the Undergarden and the inhabitants of the ghettos of any major city today. I love a story that forces you to confront your assumptions about society without being remotely preachy about it. A fantastic book, and one of my favorite fantasy/sci fi series of all time.

 

I am planning to reread the series, but not just yet.  I need to give it a little longer.  I expect that I'll appreciate Sword more the next time through too.  Knowing where it is going, what it building toward will ease some of the niggling dissatisfactions of my first read through.  (I enjoyed it and was very fond of it, but I fretted over where we were going, how big a tapestry were we going to be working on... and were we building, or were we drifting... )

 

 

Right, interesting. So I think that the Aeschylus play was the wrong place for me to go for the Prometheus story. It's focus isn't really on Prometheus's full story, it's way more about tyranny and in particular the tyranny of new leaders, and how unjust they are, and how even they can't escape their fate.  The main new thing about Prometheus and humans is that Zeus apparently intended to destroy humans when he took over, and that Prometheus gave us not just fire, but the knowledge of medicinal plants, and how to farm and press oil and make wine, and the knowledge of how to read the fates via augury.  He was a very responsible creator, who shepherded humans and protected them at great personal cost. But the play's focus is different. 

 

What are other sources for the Prometheus story, I wonder? I have Ovid's Metamorphoses and it doesn't seem to be in there.  Hesiod maybe?

 

ETA: Yep, looks like Theogony

 

Yes.  Aeschylus is very much focused on one aspect/application/exploration of Prometheus.

 

One of the tricky things about tracking down the roots of Greek influences is that so many of these stories don't have a single, authoritative source... they are accretions... a little like King Arthur, if that makes any sense.  We can track down early Arthur stories, but when we read things rooted in The Matter of Britain, they aren't necessarily riffing off the earliest sources... they're generally coming off the accumulated weight of the stories that accrued over many generations...

 

Prometheus comes up in at least one Platonic dialogue, in Ovid, tangentially as I recall from reading it recently, in the Argonautica,

 

..and isn't there an Aesop's Fable with Prometheus?

 

Moving further on in time Plotinus references Prometheus,I believe, as does Boccaccio... Goethe has a poem about him... and then there's the Kant...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, selfishly, I hope you do decide to re-read Frankenstein so we can keep talking about it! I am delving into some of the source material, or referenced material - I have Rime of the Ancient Mariner up next - and will be exploring this world for the next couple of months.

 

See, that is interesting that Prometheus was actually the creator of humans. I didn't get that from the Aeschylus play, either I read it badly or I need to check out some other Prometheus sources.  That does make a tighter parallel - perhaps Shelley is contrasting a creator who cares for his creatures, at great personal cost, with one who abjures all responsibility?  The "Modern" version of a creator being a scientist-type who tries to divorce what he can do from what he should do? Tries to argue that science is value-free and that it is up to society to decide how to use the technology created by science?  That is a very modern reading, perhaps too modern for Shelley's day, but it is certainly relevant to the present.

 

I'm also quite critical of Victor, and not a fan, and I love the book because I think it really forces us to grapple with the question of where evil actions come from, a very basic nature vs. nurture debate. The monster is clearly on one side of the argument, but his actions are so horrible it keeps you from just accepting that. Or at least it makes you go on to question where responsibility lies even in the face of very bad nurture.  But my biggest problem with the book is - I'm not sure that Mary Shelley is as critical of Victor as we are.  I get the sense that she sees him as a heroic figure, and someone to be pitied, which I don't.  Stephen King has a cool discussion of Frankenstein in Danse Macabre, and he points out that Victor is a Shakespearean tragic hero, but what is his tragic flaw? Is it hubris? Or is it the failure to take responsibility for his creation? Or both?

 

Pam, I hope you slept will and that today is a better day  :grouphug:

 

I don't see Victor as any kind of a hero - certainly not a Shakespearean one... he lacks the... oh, for lack of a better phrasing, greatness of soul.  He is so small-souled, so petty and limited... he is an everyman not a hero...

 

 

Gaah.  I am so out of time... I am going to be late to class.

 

:grouphug:

 

...but what a bright point in my hectic day to be musing about this...

[Nan in Mass]

I am reading The Bell at Sealey Head, a Patricia McKillip. Not for the first time. Or second. Or probably third.

 

"The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more. Judd knew that about himself: just the sight of Ridley Dow's books unpacked and stacked in corners, on the desk and dresser, made him discontent and greedy. Here he was; there they were. Why were he and they not together somewhere private, they falling gently open under his fingers, he exploring their mysteries, they luring him, enthralling him, captivating him with every turn of phrase, every revealing page?" (McKillip)

 

Nan

[Robin M]

Good afternoon.  SWB posted a link on Facebook to an interesting article in The Atlantic Why the British Tell Better Stories.  Great article and I have to agree. I prefer fantasy over moralistic tales.  

 

check out the Daily Observer on Contemporary Liberian literature

 

Sending out some linky love and Happy birthday to Zora Neale Hurston - She is author flavor in september so now is a good time to peruse her books.

 

[mumto2]

Indeed it is!  What is your next project, Mumto2?

 

 

Actually that is just the assembled top. I still need to quilt it. My aim is to be done in August and ready for a local quilt show. Dh posted it and when I tried to edit to fix the explanation the picture wasn't there so I left it alone. No coding for picture just the one sentence is all that showed in the exit area. I was afraid I would lose the picture and figured a short explanation would do.

 

 

 

I finished The Man in the High Castle. It dragged a little and at first I wondered what was the point. The story sped up toward the end and finished on a semi- philosophical note. Still I was left wondering what I had just read. My questions were kind of answered when I read the Wikipedia articles on Philip K. Dick and The Man in the High Castle. It helps to know something about the author's personal life and the background behind the writing of the book. One word: drugs. Anyway, in the final analysis, it is a kind of literary "inception" with layers of reality that extend beyond the book.

I'm now reading Tisha, the story of a teacher in the Alaskan wilderness, circa 1927. It is an old fashioned story, based on a real person, about a young woman who was ahead of her time, especially regarding the treatment of all people with the same human kindness, regardless of ethnicity. It is dismaying to read about the rampant prejudice against native Americans at the time.

Have you watched any of the Man in High Castle TV series? Dh watched it and I have seen parts so am wondering how closely it follows the book. Drugs explains some of it......

 

 

I hope Jenn and Robin are safe in their unexpected torrential rain.

[Stacia]

In the book The Sound of Things Falling, one of the characters receives a book as a gift; the book is One Hundred Years of Solitude. The character receiving the gift is a Peace Corps volunteer in Columbia & is being given the book by the father of the family she stayed with as she's leaving town to head to a different assignment. Thought some of you who have read One Hundred Years of Solitude might like the description...

 

The father, for his part, had waited until they arrived at the platform before presenting his gift, and now, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of people and cries of the shoe-shine boys and the importuning of beggars, he explained that it was a book by a journalist that had come out a couple of years ago but was still selling, that the guy was uncouth but the book, from what he'd heard, wasn't bad. Elaine tore off the wrapping paper, saw a design of nine blue frames with trimmed corners, and inside the frames saw bells, suns, Phrygian caps, floral sketches, moons with women's faces, skulls and crossbones and dancing demons, and it all seemed a bit absurd and gratuitous, and the title, Cien años de soledad, exaggerated and melodramatic. Don Julio put a long fingernail over the e of the last word, which was backward. "I didn't notice till I'd already bought it," he apologized. "If you want we can try to exchange it." Elaine said it didn't matter, that she wasn't going to get on the train with nothing to read because of a silly typo. And days later, in a letter to her grandparents, she wrote: "Send me something to read, please, I get bored at night. The only thing I have here is a book the señor gave me as a going-away present, and I've tried to read it, I swear I've tried, but the Spanish is very difficult and everybody has the same name. It's the most tedious thing I've read in a long time, and there's even a typo on the front cover. It's incredible, it's in its 14th printing and they haven't corrected it. When I think of you reading the latest Graham Greene, it doesn't seem fair."

 

Lol.

 

I looked up early printings of the book & I guess this is the version being described...

 

Edited January 7, 2016 by Stacia

[swimmermom3]

Here is my quilt!!

 

That is so beautiful. It reminds me of a quilt of my mom's that my grandmother made. Here's to a lovely project well-done.

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

Welcome!

 

...and no one is ever late here!  It's an open house party, so whenever you drop in you are right on time!

 

 

I am planning to reread the series, but not just yet.  I need to give it a little longer.  I expect that I'll appreciate Sword more the next time through too.  Knowing where it is going, what it building toward will ease some of the niggling dissatisfactions of my first read through.  (I enjoyed it and was very fond of it, but I fretted over where we were going, how big a tapestry were we going to be working on... and were we building, or were we drifting... )

 

Agreed.  When I read Sword the first time, it wasn't clear where we are going - now that I know, I was able to appreciate it much more. The same themes of liberty, autonomy, and selfhood that are explored with respect to the AIs in Mercy is relevant to the lower-caste inhabitants of the station and the planet in Sword.

 

Yes.  Aeschylus is very much focused on one aspect/application/exploration of Prometheus.

 

One of the tricky things about tracking down the roots of Greek influences is that so many of these stories don't have a single, authoritative source... they are accretions... a little like King Arthur, if that makes any sense.  We can track down early Arthur stories, but when we read things rooted in The Matter of Britain, they aren't necessarily riffing off the earliest sources... they're generally coming off the accumulated weight of the stories that accrued over many generations...

 

Prometheus comes up in at least one Platonic dialogue, in Ovid, tangentially as I recall from reading it recently, in the Argonautica,

 

..and isn't there an Aesop's Fable with Prometheus?

 

Moving further on in time Plotinus references Prometheus,I believe, as does Boccaccio... Goethe has a poem about him... and then there's the Kant...

 

 

Yes, it's interesting - when they were younger, my kids would be frustrated about different versions of favorite myths - they wanted there to be one, "true" version.  They are just now coming to accept that this just isn't the case. And the different versions of the stories reflect the needs and values of the tellers as much as they show the original intent.

 

 

 

I don't see Victor as any kind of a hero - certainly not a Shakespearean one... he lacks the... oh, for lack of a better phrasing, greatness of soul.  He is so small-souled, so petty and limited... he is an everyman not a hero...

 

Agreed. It's hard to think of a less likable, admirable or heroic figure than Victor.  Yet I get the sense that Mary Shelley means us to like him.  Walton certainly raves about him, but then Walton shares at least one aspect of his tragic flaw - hubris - doesn't he? Although Walton does accept responsibility for those under his command in giving up his quest.

 

Gaah.  I am so out of time... I am going to be late to class.

 

:grouphug:

 

...but what a bright point in my hectic day to be musing about this...

 

One thing to remember if you are new to this thread and feeling a little overwhelmed - this is a long "week" and we are all motivated and full of thoughts about our reading year. Most weeks the thread doesn't get this huge or move this fast!  So hang in there.

[Lady Florida.]

Okay, Star Wars fans I need some help. Dh is interested in reading some of the Star Wars books. We both tried to look them up and were overwhelmed. Anyone know where he should start? I thought I'd ask here first, and if there aren't enough SW geeks on BaW I'll post on the wider Chat board.

[Onceuponatime]

My 16yo Star Wars novel fan says he recommends starting with the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn.

[Violet Crown]

Using "the Modern [x]" in a title or subtitle around the turn of the nineteenth century usually meant a (negative) contrast with, rather than a parallel to, the original. "Modern Marriage," "the Modern Woman," "the Modern Quintillian Brothers," "the Modern Janus," "the Modern Oedipus," whatever, you know going in that "modern" isn't meant as a compliment. A reader in shelley's time would have taken the subtitle as something like "not at all like the noble Prometheus."

[Jane in NC]

Okay, Star Wars fans I need some help. Dh is interested in reading some of the Star Wars books. We both tried to look them up and were overwhelmed. Anyone know where he should start? I thought I'd ask here first, and if there aren't enough SW geeks on BaW I'll post on the wider Chat board.

 

I have consulted with my son. The Dear Lad says anything by Timothy Zahn but in particular The Heir of the Emperor, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command.

 

Also the Han Solo Trilogy (don't know the author off the top).

 

He says that the expanded Star Wars universe that Disney nuked is overwhelming so find a time period or character that you like--follow that. 

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

Using "the Modern [x]" in a title or subtitle around the turn of the nineteenth century usually meant a (negative) contrast with, rather than a parallel to, the original. "Modern Marriage," "the Modern Woman," "the Modern Quintillian Brothers," "the Modern Janus," "the Modern Oedipus," whatever, you know going in that "modern" isn't meant as a compliment. A reader in shelley's time would have taken the subtitle as something like "not at all like the noble Prometheus."

 

Thanks, VC, that actually makes perfect sense in this context.  Victor, the Modern Prometheus, not at all like the noble Prometheus.  Yep, that fits.

[Jane in NC]

My 16yo Star Wars novel fan says he recommends starting with the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn.

 

These are also the books my son suggested.

[Kareni]

Regarding Hard Road West:

 

I have been meaning to read that... someone here read it the other year... (does anyone remember who?  Kareni, so you remember?)

 

My searching (and memory) have found nothing.

 

 

I am reading The Bell at Sealey Head, a Patricia McKillip. Not for the first time. Or second. Or probably third.

 

Nan, I thought of you when I saw this list posted on the Fantasy Cafe site as there are a couple of McKillip titles ~

 

16 Most Anticipated Books of 2016

 

 

SWB posted a link on Facebook to an interesting article in The Atlantic Why the British Tell Better Stories.  Great article and I have to agree. I prefer fantasy over moralistic tales.  

 

That was an enjoyable article; thanks for posting it, Robin. 

 

Harry Potter is a fairly new British fantasy.  I have to admit to wondering how many new-ish (1990s and more current) American children's fantasies exist and whether they are also moralistic.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Lady Florida.]

Thanks. He's going to put Heir to the Empire on hold. Our library has the trilogy in ebook format.

 

Speaking of libraries and ebooks, I've said before that I read almost exclusively on my Kindle. Well, I couldn't get A Suitable Boy in any ebook format so I had to put the physical book on hold at the library. When I went to pick it up the librarian commented that she hasn't seen me in a long time. :) That place used to be my second home. I told her I still use the library, but for Kindle books. Also, with ds being a senior and taking dual enrollment classes, I no longer check out books for homeschooling. I don't think I could have homeschooled successfully if it hadn't been for my library system.

[Kareni]

I finished a couple of books yesterday both of which were enjoyable.

 

November 9: A Novel by Colleen Hoover was an intriguing read that had a somewhat unexpected twist.  It would probably be characterized as a new adult read since the main characters are in their late teens to early twenties during the course of the book.

 

"Fallon meets Ben, an aspiring novelist, the day before her scheduled cross-country move. Their untimely attraction leads them to spend Fallon’s last day in L.A. together, and her eventful life becomes the creative inspiration Ben has always sought for his novel. Over time and amidst the various relationships and tribulations of their own separate lives, they continue to meet on the same date every year. Until one day Fallon becomes unsure if Ben has been telling her the truth or fabricating a perfect reality for the sake of the ultimate plot twist.

Can Ben’s relationship with Fallon—and simultaneously his novel—be considered a love story if it ends in heartbreak?"

 

I've mentioned this before ~ the author's novel Hopeless and her Finding Cinderella: A Novella are both currently free to Kindle readers.

 

**

 

The second book was Rebound Remedy by Christine d'Abo which is a romance featuring two men.  (Adult content) 

 

"The last thing Cole expects to get for the holidays is dumped. But there he is, in the airport on his way to Banff for a romantic getaway, helplessly watching as his boyfriend’s ex declares undying love, proposes—and is accepted. With a few weeks to go until Christmas, Cole’s mood dives from jolly to jaded. But instead of sitting at home alone and feeling sorry for himself, he goes to his favorite bar, McGregor’s, for a pint and some company.

 

The moment Owen McGregor sets eyes on Cole, he knows there’s something wrong. So he takes it upon himself to ensure that Cole has a happy holiday: twelve outings for the twelve days before Christmas. Even if he can’t quite think up twelve activities that don’t involve getting the forlorn hunk into his bed.

 

With each outing they take together, Cole realizes that the love he thought he’d shared with his ex was less than perfect. And that Owen might prove to be more than just his rebound remedy."

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

 

 

[prairiewindmomma]

I can't keep up with the thread this week.  Sorry!

 

I am cleaning up my kindle and reading all kinds of escape literature this week....all junk food books.

 

3. Shift Omnibus by Hugh Howey

 

4. Dust Omnibus by Hugh Howey---I enjoyed Wool immensely.  Shift was good. Dust fell apart and felt rushed. Certain storylines fell apart or weren't fully developed.

 

5. Surviving When Modern Medicine Fails by Scott Johnson.  Scott thinks the answer to the unavailability of prescription meds in a disaster situation is in essential oils. In many ways, his book seemed to be a lift off of the gold standard essential oils book--Tisserand's Essential Oil Safety.  Another freebie off of kindle unlimited. I'm glad I didn't pay money for it.

 

I need to get through Wharton before Tuesday and I have some Diana Gabaldon on my nightstand.  Her Lord John spinoffs were on the shelf at my library this afternoon.

[Jane in NC]

I finished two slim books today.  Having encountered a written reminder to read more poetry (something I failed to do in '15), I borrowed Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty by Tony Hoagland from the library.  Hoagland's poems are often commentary on modern life.  It is not the best of the lot, but the poem Wild seems to encapsulate his wit and style:

 

 

In late August when the streams dry up
and the high meadows turn parched and blond,

bears are squeezed out of the mountains
down into the valley of condos and housing developments.

All residents are therefore prohibited
from putting their garbage out early.

The penalty for disobedience will be
bears: large black furry fellows

drinking from your sprinkler system,
rolling your trashcans down your lawn,

bashing through the screen door of the back porch to get their
first real taste of a spaghetti dinner,

while the family hides in the garage
and the wife dials 1-800-BEARS on her cell phone,

a number she just made up
in a burst of creative hysteria.

Isn't that the way it goes?
Wildness enters your life and asks

that you invent a way to meet it,
and you run in the opposite direction

as the bears saunter down Main Street
sending station wagons crashing into fire hydrants,

getting the police department to phone
for tranquilizer guns,

the dart going by accident into the
neck of the unpopular police chief,

who is carried into early retirement
in an ambulance crowned with flashing red lights,

as the bears inherit the earth,
full of water and humans and garbage,

which looks to them like paradise.

 

Or, if you prefer, you can listen to the poet read it to you:

 

 

Come, Tell Me How you Live is Agatha Christie's love song to Syria  where her husband did archaeological work.  One of the best lines in the book, in fact, is Max Mallowan's comment on the mounds known as "Tells" and expressed in true Wallace and Gromit-like fashion. He notes that the imposing mounds are "Whacking great Tells".

 

The last line of the book is a heart breaker though.  Christie has turned her notes from the Syrian digs of the 1930s into this memoir during the war years.  In the spring of '44 she notes:

 

 

Inshallah, I shall go there again, and the things that I love shall not have perished from this earth...

 

Current reading includes Between the World and Me--taking my time to digest this one.  Others in the stack include the much discussed Roadside Picnic which my husband and son devoured, Arnaldur Indridason's mystery Jar City (author recommended by Jenn), and a book of essays called Loitering that idnib sent my way. 

 

[Violet Crown]

Jane, my eye was caught by the title of one of Hoagland's poems in your link. Barton Springs! Brrrrrr. The poem reminded me of a friend I had, Sr. Mary William, now retired to her motherhouse in St. Louis, who swam every day she could in Barton Springs into her eighties. A real polar bear.

[idnib]

I have been meaning to read that... someone here read it the other year... (does anyone remember who?  Kareni, so you remember?)

 

It was me. I read Hard Road West in January of last year.

[Nan in Mass]

Oooo! Thank you, Kareni!

[MaeFlowers]

Yes! I had this problem with the Souther Reach Trilogy. On top of the usual issue you mentioned, the second book took place in an entirely different location and made what I thought I knew about the first book confusing. I'm glad I stuck with it as the third book brought it together.

 

 

I wouldn't read too much into Bunyan's intentions, IMO. They aren't occluded or hidden to me. I don't think Bunyan was trying to make a statement about getting into the Celestial City with a log in his eye, I think he really thought Christian was behaving correctly and in a Christian fashion. My most generous interpretation is that Bunyan had trouble with nuanced thoughts in such a heavily allegorical tale.

Okay. Good to know it wasn't just me.

[Rosie_0801]

I just finished reading Terry Pratchett's 'Equal Rites' to my mother. It took so long because she usually falls asleep after a couple of pages, lol. She enjoyed it very much, while acknowledging she would never have got into in on her own. She even confessed that she'd been tempted a few times to read it while I wasn't there!

[mumto2]

Late last night I finished reading Dying In the Wool by Frances Brody (Kate Shackleton #1). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6940151-dying-in-the-woolIt was a great post WWI cozy mystery. Good (and pretty accurate) setting and a fairly pretty good whodunit. The murderer was certainly on my radar but I was positive until the end. Better yet the wrap up all made sense with plenty of clues along the way. I hate cozies where 3 pages from the end the reader learns that Mr. X mentioned once on page 79 did it.

 

Because it is a post WWI setting it was melancholy but it has to be. As dd puts it ... being a young woman in England was sad at that time, your boyfriend/husband dead, your brothers dead, your male friends and relatives dead. No real hope of a normal future. Our village war memorial is horrifying to look at for the size of the village at that time, truly a generation gone.

 

The main character's husband, a surgeon, was declared missing four years before and her family desperately want her to move on with her life. Because she has had some success solving war related missing persons cases a friend from her nursing days approaches her to find her father who has been missing for several years, who she believes is alive. The friend is marrying a much younger man in a few weeks and dreams of her dad walking her down the aisle. This sets the stage for a mystery set in a Yorkshire mill town.

 

I will definitely be reading more of this series. I am giving 5 stars on Goodreads partly because it is the best of this particular genre I have read and partly so I remember to request the rest in a few months.

[Chris in VA]

Oh. That Hoagland poem--"wildness enters your life and asks you to meet it"

 

I just love that. I am now wondering what wildness has entered my life, and how could I have met it instead of running from it, and did I, after all, meet it in the end, and what did it teach me, and what did I miss that could have been necessary to the filling of my life...

 

Gosh, I am loving reading this thread!

 

I am going thru 1000 Gifts and enjoying it.

It will not be finished this week, however.

 

Dd has to read Of Mice and Men at school,  so I picked it up, not realizing what a slim little volume it is, and have almost finished it. I have the Very Bad Habit of Literary Impatience, so I did skip ahead to read the ending; not a terrible thing because I already knew what happened, but I need to retrain myself to patiently allow authors to reveal, in the their own time, what I "need to know." Does anyone else struggle with that? I need to read the middle more carefully. So embarrassing, but there it is.

 

I am starting Wild next week--it just came in at the library. Should be fun.

[Bluegoat]

Finished my second book for 2016! This is a cracking pace, for me; but then the first was started in the old year, and the second was very light reading: Don Camillo's Dilemma. Dh checked out several of Guareschi's books from Big State U.'s library for me, so I have some easy reading for a while. However it's time for Hamlet, again, as it's time to teach it to the next child.

 

And then, thanks to ... Jane? Someone else? I don't remember who first brought it up--I've pulled out my dusty 1721-page Parochial and Plain Sermons of (Bl.) John Henry Newman, which is quoted from in Brave New World, though somehow I didn't notice when I read that book myself. Jane's yeomanlike reading of Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda Aurea straight through has convinced me to copy her feat and go straight through P&P. We'll see how long I last. Despite the admittedly dull implications of the title, these sermons--written while an Anglican, and better thought of almost as essays--contain some of Newman's finest thought.

 

Bluegoat, I dangle a challenge here....

 

I will take you up on your challenge.  I am having a hard time getting started on any book at the moment.  I've got an extra child at home starting this week, a one year old, and I think somehow my brain is a little fried.  I can't seem to settle on anything.  So - a challenge is a good thing.

 

I'll have to find the book - I suspect I can probably borrow it from my parish library, otherwise it may be an ILL.  (Or, I can bite the bullet and spring for a university library card.)

[Bluegoat]

dp

 

 

Edited January 8, 2016 by Bluegoat

[Bluegoat]

I tried the first chapter of Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools last night. I thought it would make a good nautical novel. I don't think I can.

 

Any suggestions for nautical novels for someone who really would never read a nautical novel if left to her own devices ? 

 

You might try Latitudes of Melt.  It's not an all at sea novel, but lots of important things happen on the sea, and it is largely set in a coastal comunity in Newfoundland.  I read it because it was written by the girl who lived next door to my mom growing up, and I wasn't sure, but I really enjoyed it overall.  It's a fairly easy read.

[Bluegoat]

This thread moves so fast and it's hard to keep up with all the conversations!

 

I finished A Pilgrim's Progress last night. I was slightly frustrated with this book. Okay, a lot frustrated with this book and, in particular, the main character, Christian. I guess I should state that I come from an Episcopalian family. Actually, a half Episcopalian, half Baptist family. Either way, the fundamentalist/evangelical tone rides roughshod against my personal belief system. Given that Bunyan was an adversary of the CoE, I was expecting this.

 

Anyway, that's actually not why I struggled with the book. I am hoping that someone here has read it, studied it, and can give me more insight into Bunyan's intentions. I struggled with Christian. I struggled with how he dealt with other pilgrims he came across, specifically those who were also Christian. He was quick to point out the ways in which they were "wrong" and had no problem chastising them for their faults. He was not kind, nor gracious and often did nothing more than rebuke them. Oft times, he gossiped about them with the companions he deemed worthy. Then, he would fall into the same sin in which he rebuked them for. He would be woeful of his sin, and be saved by something or someone but he did not seem to learn from it. Instead, he seemed to become only more self-righteous with time. I kept thinking this was intentional by Bunyan. That Christian would meet Humility before he was able to enter into the Celestial City but that time never came. He made it into the city without humility. He made it into the city with that giant log in his eye. So, did Bunyan intend this? I honestly don't think he did. I think he wholeheartedly believed Christian was truly in the right in all that he did.

 

I think one of the difficulties with the story is because its quite early, you don't get the more modern ways of conveying thoughts like inner diologue, or even just letting the reader figure things out based on teh action.  Everything that the author wants the reader to see is spoken aloud.  CHristian is as much a literary device as a real person.

[Jane in NC]

It's Rosie's birthday!  Sending best wishes for a good year ahead.

 

How did you celebrate?

[mumto2]

Rosie, Happy Birthday!!!!!

[idnib]

Happy birthday Rosie!!!