Milton in May: Comus and Lycidas by John Milton

John Milton is much smarter than I am. Reading Paradise Lost, I haven’t felt that lost because I’m familiar with the general religious traditions he’s talking about. There are “pagan” traditions mentioned too, but I haven’t felt lost, and footnotes help. Reading Milton’s early writings is a different story. I feel like he’s purposely trying to add in every ancient tradition he has ever heard of before, even if it’s just name-dropping. Comus was pretty blatantly calling on other traditions, and “Lycidas” was a bit more subtle as it echoed antiquity but apparently Milton did and I missed it. I much preferred the second, even if in reading commentary, I find I’ve “missed” a lot of the political, contemporary, and traditional references.

Note: If you are looking for the Golden Age of Detective Fiction post, I should get to it by tonight. My next Paradise Lost post will come tomorrow sometime!

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The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkein

As I think everyone knows, The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkein continues where The Fellowship of the Ring left off. The Two Towers is split in two halves, with the first part focusing on the remaining members of the broken fellowship and the second half focusing on Frodo and Sam’s journey. While I had found some delightful things in Fellowship, this book was dark, and it just kept getting darker. I am delaying starting the final book of the trilogy. Continue reading »

1000 Books: Jez Alborough

In honor of Children’s Book Week, I thought I’d mention a favorite author my son and I have discovered through our project of reading 1000 picture books together: Jez Alborough. Alborough has fun, quality picture books. Some rhyme. Some have a precious little gorilla that reminds me of my own little monkey boy. Most are ridiculous and imaginative. Continue reading »

Blogging the Bookshelves + Some Finds

I thought about doing a vlog of my bookshelves. But I don’t have a good way to do so. Plus, I’m feeling kind of in a rush to finish some books, so time is at a premium. Among others, I still need to finish my book club book (The Painted Veil) for next week, as well as one of my Classics Circuit books (Strong Poison) for Monday’s post, not to mention Milton, who is getting the shaft this week.

All that to say I am not sharing a vlog of my bookshelves. But surely a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

We got a surprising amount back with our tax return, so I convinced my husband to put a new bookshelf on the “what to do with it” list. I have not had a new bookshelf (for myself) since the year 2000 or so, when I bought two cardboard-backed fake-wood Target bookshelves for about $25 each to store my college collection of books . (We did buy a small bookshelf for our front room when we bought our house last year. It stores our pretty coffee table books in it.) I hope it’s needless to say that my books (of which I’ve been acquiring rapidly over the years) do not fit on those two four-shelf Target things. I had books crammed in them and even then I had some of my books in a box.

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I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly and JM Ken Nimura

When I first read about I Kill Giants at Nymeth’s and Amanda’s blogs, I thought it was a fantasy. Actually, fifth-grader Barbara Thorson is the only one living in a fantasy world. Barbara wears animal-ear headbands so she looks like a rabbit or a mouse in the illustrations. Playing Dungeons and Dragons is a escape from life for her, and when she says “I kill giants,” she means it, for in her imagination, her giants are fantastic wild creatures that must be overcome.

Her role as giant killer is quite apropos, given her surname. Thor was the god of thunder, wielding a giant hammer in his fight against giants. Barbara’s giants exist in real life, but they are genuine problems, and ones we can all relate to.

I love this blend of fantasy and realism. Barbara’s story of learning to fight her giants is both entertaining and emotionally draining. We cheer for this sarcastic yet zesty young girl because we can relate to both her imaginary world and her realistic world. Continue reading »

Milton in May: Paradise Lost, Books 4-6

Welcome to week two of the Paradise Lost read-a-long and Milton in May, a month-long celebration of John Milton’s writings. Below, I have some possible discussion questions if you aren’t quite sure what to write for this week’s post or if you want to “discuss” the book with the rest of us.

Contrary to what I wrote in last week’s post, I’ve decided to just keep this read-along to one Linky. That will remain on the first post of the project. I have a link in the upper right hand column of my site (underneath the Milton in May button) so you can find it again easily as the month progresses.

Discussion questions and my thoughts after the jump.

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Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

I love the sweeping grandeur of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. The characters built on each other, and I felt I was living through the experiences with them. Steinbeck’s purpose to the novel is found in the subtle and not so subtle conversations and actions of the fleshed-out characters, and in my two reads of the novel, I’ve been amazed by Steinbeck’s command of the language.

Of Mice and Men is a sixth the size and, unfortunately, I thought had a comparatively lesser portion of the grandeur and subtly. It is  unfair to compare the two: one is a novella, the other a sweeping generational epic. Yet, my read of Of Mice and Men was colored by my comparisons to East of Eden. Reading Steinbeck’s novella reminded me of reading Wharton’s novella Ethan Frome recently: it just didn’t equal the longer, better work by the author, although it was still well-written and emotionally charged, and addressed an intriguing subject: innocence and guilt.

I still loved the characters (who felt real), the setting (a community near Salinas), and the story. But Of Mice and Men was so short, I found it lacking simply for what it was not. I wanted more: I wanted to be swept away.

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God’s Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane

In 1948, hundreds of Segenalese railway workers along the main rail line left work in a strike against the French colonist’s repression of the native’s way of life and status as employees of the railway. In God’s Bits of Wood, Sembene Ousmane tells their story.

Ousmane’s writing was impressive. Although I’ve never been to Senegal, I could picture the setting. He also did a wonderful job of capturing the people in action. It was not a comfortable read given the subject matter, and it was not a novel to be rushed. It was, ultimately, rewarding.

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Milton in May: Thoughts on Some Early Milton Poems

I picked up a short biography of Milton because as I mentioned the other day, as I began Paradise Lost, I was so struck by how opposite Milton’s writing was to Shakespeare’s. I listened to a biography of Shakespeare last year (Will in the World), and I want to know a little more about Milton’s life and times.

John Milton: A Biography by Neil Forsyth is really good so far. In the introduction, he explains that his task was

“to write a biography of Milton that would excite readers who might be merely curious, and who would like to know why Milton is so widely loved and admired, and even, sometimes detested.”

That’s exactly my purpose in picking it up. It’s about 240 pages, which is a great length, so I won’t have any trouble reading it this month along with my Milton reads. From the introduction, I already have an interesting perspective on Milton’s treatment of women, and since I remember rolling my eyes on my first read of Paradise Lost, I imagine this reread will be similar. More on that issue another time, as I read more of the biography.

As I read Forsyth’s commentary on some of Milton’s collegiate poems, I thought I’d consult my Milton’s Complete Poetry and Major Prose (edited by Hughes) and read some of it too. Continue reading »

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson

This first week of May is Persephone Reading Week, which means bloggers around the blogosphere are reading books by the British publisher Persephone. I do not typically search out books based on publisher. Yet, Claire and Verity have such an (I think it’s fair to say) obsession with this publisher that it certainly caught my attention. Persephone Books republishes less well-known classics and brings them back in to print. From the descriptions I’ve read, it seems many are written by women about women, and I love the emphasis on women finding themselves, especially given the era (1920s to 1950s) in which these classics were written.

All that to say: I decided to give a Persephone book a try this week, and I’m glad I did! Although it wasn’t a favorite book, Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day by Winifred Watson was certainly entertaining. It’s been summarized as a Cinderella story, but I thought it was more comedy than romance. It’s better than any fairy tale. Miss Guinevere Pettigrew is a middle-aged, inadequate governess that can’t keep a job. When she appears at Miss LaFosse’s door one morning, she is determined to be persistent in getting a job. Continue reading »