I read a lot of blogs and other “things” on the internets, but as it turns out most of that reading is not book-related. Lately, because I have so much spare time (right), I’ve been trying to visit more of the litweb, and maybe to be a tiny bit more involved. To that end, [...]
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Mysteries, December 2008–January 2009
Maritime literature, January–March 2009 Melville read-through, part I, Typee—White-Jacket, December 2009–January 2010 Whirlwind tour of Russian literature, February–May 2010 Epistolary literature, July 2009–June 2010
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Two weeks ago, Mrs. Dalloway was a bit of a revelation for me, and To the Lighthouse has deepened my almost-love of Virginia Woolf. There are a million things going on here that I could write about, and I’ll be thinking about them as I continue with Woolf in Winter because they are definitely [...] Via Three Percent comes a disgraceful tale of translation and tenure ($). A sample: Mark Anderson, who is on leave from the Germanic-languages department at Columbia University, has experienced the vicissitudes that beset academic translators. In graduate school, he did a translation of poetry by the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann. Princeton University Press published [...] I’ve read the first chunk of 2666 for the read-along and let’s just say Frances was right: I don’t think I will look back. I can’t yet say much about the narrator; my ideas are only murky and need more than 51 pages to develop. But I can already tell he’s going to be [...] Today is a much-needed day at home after a busy Saturday, though I wish I could say “doing nothing at home.” It’s still pretty busy, but after a big suburban adventure yesterday it feels relaxing to just say in even if I do have tons of writing and organizing and cleaning and who knows [...] Am I really writing a post about challenges? That’s never happened before. I’m not exactly a joiner and don’t really believe in challenges (see here for why), but here I am doing a few all the same. The first round of the 2666 challenge is kicking off on Monday, January 25, with the first [...] As Mardi tackled slavery and Redburn the condition of sailors, slums, and emigrants, White-Jacket also has a social-comment component. The simplest thing to focus on here is corporal punishment in the navy. The descriptions are explicit and upsetting; Melville’s rhetoric is in full force and he thoroughly demolishes flogging as bad for body and [...] “It was not a very white jacket, but white enough, in all conscience, as the sequel will show.” That’s how White-Jacket opens: with the whiteness of the jacket. White enough for what? “[W]hite, yea, white as a shroud”; “in a dark night, gleaming white, as the White Lady of Avenel!” And of course, white [...] Melville is such a satisfying author to read chronologically. Typee is so young and fresh, Omoo a bit more jaded, Mardi a letting go and an exploration. With Redburn the sails are trimmed, but perhaps just a bit too much. And then White-Jacket, which serves as both a culmination and a prelude. White-Jacket has [...] Before I read Virginia Woolf, I knew a fair bit about her and her work, but her chief characteristic in my mind was the “stream-of-consciousness” I’d read about, and she felt very wrapped up in the idea of the internal life. It turns out that was a pretty good idea, but not in the [...] |
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