10.13
This week turns out to be a pretty productive week. I read two indeed fun books: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and Essays in Love by Alain de Botton, and I began the third book Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo.
I can’t help thinking about Pride and Prejudice when reading Wuthering Heights, though the two had literally scarce in common. I would like to say something about Pride and Prejudice. I read that novel’s English version two years ago, and it didn’t impress me much. Maybe it is because I didn’t possess much literature appreciation ability at that time and because I don’t like family novels. Wuthering Heights beats Pride and Prejudice in terms of story. Wuthering Heights attracts me from the very beginning by its astringent characters and curious multiple point-of-view narration. The story is so heart grabbing and intense that I just can’t stand stopping reading it. Its structure is so tight and clear that after finishing it I felt fulfilled and comfortable. However, in respect to language, I prefer Jane Austen’s bitter satire and smart humor to Emily Bronte’s passion and true emotions. The latter can be achieved by true appreciation of life and active character, but the former is a natural gift and thus is much more precious.
The second book is amazing. I haven’t read such a satisfying book for a long time. The book’s cover makes me wanna buy ten of them. The title (four characters) on the cover isn’t fully printed, telling people that this book has incomplete part waiting for you to imagine for yourself, and those four clear and middle-sized characters order themselves in one corner, leaving the rest of the cover as much blank as possible. The book is a half novel, half philosophical essays collection work. It is about a couple’s romance and each chapter contains different philosophical reasoning about love. Alain de Botton calls people’s strong resonance by depicting such detailed and authentic psychological landscape of human beings. He makes philosophy no longer bitter and hard and thus able to enter into people’s everyday life. I am ready to read another work of his: Comforts of philosophy.
The third book Cosmopolis is very different from the novels I previously read. Of course. Because it is a postmodern realistic novel. Though I haven’t proceed to the second chapter, I am intrigued. I gradually find my attitude toward this book quite strange. I am desperate to read it, but I choose not to, even I have time. Actually, I know why I do this. I love it so much that I always want to leave it unfinished. And also, by forcing myself to read something else before reading it, I can increase my speed of reading other rather unsatisfying books. What a clever means! I wanna record an exceedingly well-written paragraph: “ watched a hundred gulls trail a wobbling scow downriver. They had large strong hearts. He knew this, disproportionate to body-size. He’d been interested once and had mastered the teeming details of bird anatomy. Birds have hollow bones. He mastered the steepest matters in half an afternoon.” This several short sentences contain so much!! I literally hailed in my heart when I encountered them.
Well, so much for today. I feel happy these two weeks for I have much time to read. Hope I can still have much free time in the coming weeks.
I can’t help thinking about Pride and Prejudice when reading Wuthering Heights, though the two had literally scarce in common. I would like to say something about Pride and Prejudice. I read that novel’s English version two years ago, and it didn’t impress me much. Maybe it is because I didn’t possess much literature appreciation ability at that time and because I don’t like family novels. Wuthering Heights beats Pride and Prejudice in terms of story. Wuthering Heights attracts me from the very beginning by its astringent characters and curious multiple point-of-view narration. The story is so heart grabbing and intense that I just can’t stand stopping reading it. Its structure is so tight and clear that after finishing it I felt fulfilled and comfortable. However, in respect to language, I prefer Jane Austen’s bitter satire and smart humor to Emily Bronte’s passion and true emotions. The latter can be achieved by true appreciation of life and active character, but the former is a natural gift and thus is much more precious.
The second book is amazing. I haven’t read such a satisfying book for a long time. The book’s cover makes me wanna buy ten of them. The title (four characters) on the cover isn’t fully printed, telling people that this book has incomplete part waiting for you to imagine for yourself, and those four clear and middle-sized characters order themselves in one corner, leaving the rest of the cover as much blank as possible. The book is a half novel, half philosophical essays collection work. It is about a couple’s romance and each chapter contains different philosophical reasoning about love. Alain de Botton calls people’s strong resonance by depicting such detailed and authentic psychological landscape of human beings. He makes philosophy no longer bitter and hard and thus able to enter into people’s everyday life. I am ready to read another work of his: Comforts of philosophy.
The third book Cosmopolis is very different from the novels I previously read. Of course. Because it is a postmodern realistic novel. Though I haven’t proceed to the second chapter, I am intrigued. I gradually find my attitude toward this book quite strange. I am desperate to read it, but I choose not to, even I have time. Actually, I know why I do this. I love it so much that I always want to leave it unfinished. And also, by forcing myself to read something else before reading it, I can increase my speed of reading other rather unsatisfying books. What a clever means! I wanna record an exceedingly well-written paragraph: “ watched a hundred gulls trail a wobbling scow downriver. They had large strong hearts. He knew this, disproportionate to body-size. He’d been interested once and had mastered the teeming details of bird anatomy. Birds have hollow bones. He mastered the steepest matters in half an afternoon.” This several short sentences contain so much!! I literally hailed in my heart when I encountered them.
Well, so much for today. I feel happy these two weeks for I have much time to read. Hope I can still have much free time in the coming weeks.