READING LOG #3
reading log for 01/12/08 - 14/12/08
01. A Shropshire Lad
by A.E. Housman
A Shropshire Lad is a cycle of poems which are mostly unrelated apart from their Shropshire setting and thematic links. In fact, the eponymous lad doesn't really appear to exist as a specific, singular entity. I have to admit that I found this a little confusing at first but it was fine when I'd worked that out.
The tone of the collection is light despite its unrelenting focus on death. It's mostly about love and youth and war and death. I can't really think of much else to say about it beyond that though.
good bits
- generally an enjoyable read
- very short (this is not always a good thing but y'know...)
- it's actually kind of... cute? It's hard to explain but the poems are often amiably childish.
bad bits
- I find Housman's school of verse a little dull and arbitrary, to be quite honest. It's not precise enough to be beautiful or breath-takingly impressive and occasionally comes out like a child's rhyming couplets. (P.S. the English applicants I spoke to at Oxford thought the Housman text they were given was 'old' because it rhymed and stuff. I laugh at their assumptions.)
- The title is misleading.
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
02. Arcadia
by Tom Stoppard
What more can I say about this play? I think this is the third time I've read it. I love it so much and yet I feel a bit ashamed! Last summer I wrote of it, on my old LJ, "I am sososo lawls at the inclusion of Arcadia as one of the texts in the [AEA] exam. I have a bizarre love of that play but I do not get why it is going to be on the syllabus from next year. Craaaaaaaazy. (Also, I'm seriously surprised that it's got such good reviews. I just googled it & I was so expecting everyone to hate on it as pretentious, esoteric bollocks.)" I think that's actually quite a good summary of my feelings on it.
Simply: Arcadia is a play which takes place in two timelines, one in the present day another in 1809; it is about maths, Byron, sex and the pitfalls and follies of academic research. In reading/watching the play you get to see the present day researchers as they look into events which you're also seeing unfold. (In effect, you get to see them make terrible assumptions whilst watching said assumptions proved to be fallacious.)
good bits
- I love this play. It makes me smile and laugh and is generally good fun.
- I am also a big Byron geek which obviously makes the Byron part extra good.
- I've read it three times, what does this tell you?
bad bits
- Oh, Tom Stoppard, oh how I am conflicted over you. Basically, his plays are the most ridiculously esoteric things you can imagine. I once read to see another of his plays (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead which is about two minor characters in Hamlet) and didn't understand any of it because I had not read Hamlet. Similarly, with Arcadia, if you know nothing about Byron or maths and bits of physics sections of this play will be lost on you. (I don't get some of the maths either.) This is pretty lame, in my opinion, but I find it quite fun sometimes.
- This play is on the new WJEC lit syllabus and it confuses me. I find it completely ridiculous. Do they really think students will like this? I mean, maybe they will. I was shocked by how good the reviews of it were, as I said. I at least thought they'd be seriously mixed because I think it'd be pretty hit and miss as a play.
- As with a lot of plays, it's so much better read in all one sitting or as close to it as you can get because that's how it was designed to be and how the action is supposed to unfold.
CHATER You have insulted my wife.
SEPTIMUS Insulted her? That would deny my nature, my conduct, and the admiration in which I hold Mrs Chater.
CHATER I have heard of your admiration, sir! You insulted my wife in the gazebo yesterday evening!
SEPTIMUS You are mistaken. I made love to your wife in the gazebo. She asked me to meet her there, I have her note somewhere, I dare say I could find it for you, and if someone is putting it about that I did not turn up, by God, sir, it is a slander.
CHATER You damned lecher! ... I am calling you out! ... I demand satisfaction!
SEPTIMUS Mrs Chater demanded satisfaction and now you are demanding satisfaction. I cannot spend my time day and night satisfying the demands of the Chater family.
anything else? I am so amused by how long my 'summary'-type sections are this time around. Haha. tl;dr, indeed.
01. A Shropshire Lad
by A.E. Housman
A Shropshire Lad is a cycle of poems which are mostly unrelated apart from their Shropshire setting and thematic links. In fact, the eponymous lad doesn't really appear to exist as a specific, singular entity. I have to admit that I found this a little confusing at first but it was fine when I'd worked that out.
The tone of the collection is light despite its unrelenting focus on death. It's mostly about love and youth and war and death. I can't really think of much else to say about it beyond that though.
good bits
- generally an enjoyable read
- very short (this is not always a good thing but y'know...)
- it's actually kind of... cute? It's hard to explain but the poems are often amiably childish.
bad bits
- I find Housman's school of verse a little dull and arbitrary, to be quite honest. It's not precise enough to be beautiful or breath-takingly impressive and occasionally comes out like a child's rhyming couplets. (P.S. the English applicants I spoke to at Oxford thought the Housman text they were given was 'old' because it rhymed and stuff. I laugh at their assumptions.)
- The title is misleading.
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
02. Arcadia
by Tom Stoppard
What more can I say about this play? I think this is the third time I've read it. I love it so much and yet I feel a bit ashamed! Last summer I wrote of it, on my old LJ, "I am sososo lawls at the inclusion of Arcadia as one of the texts in the [AEA] exam. I have a bizarre love of that play but I do not get why it is going to be on the syllabus from next year. Craaaaaaaazy. (Also, I'm seriously surprised that it's got such good reviews. I just googled it & I was so expecting everyone to hate on it as pretentious, esoteric bollocks.)" I think that's actually quite a good summary of my feelings on it.
Simply: Arcadia is a play which takes place in two timelines, one in the present day another in 1809; it is about maths, Byron, sex and the pitfalls and follies of academic research. In reading/watching the play you get to see the present day researchers as they look into events which you're also seeing unfold. (In effect, you get to see them make terrible assumptions whilst watching said assumptions proved to be fallacious.)
good bits
- I love this play. It makes me smile and laugh and is generally good fun.
- I am also a big Byron geek which obviously makes the Byron part extra good.
- I've read it three times, what does this tell you?
bad bits
- Oh, Tom Stoppard, oh how I am conflicted over you. Basically, his plays are the most ridiculously esoteric things you can imagine. I once read to see another of his plays (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead which is about two minor characters in Hamlet) and didn't understand any of it because I had not read Hamlet. Similarly, with Arcadia, if you know nothing about Byron or maths and bits of physics sections of this play will be lost on you. (I don't get some of the maths either.) This is pretty lame, in my opinion, but I find it quite fun sometimes.
- This play is on the new WJEC lit syllabus and it confuses me. I find it completely ridiculous. Do they really think students will like this? I mean, maybe they will. I was shocked by how good the reviews of it were, as I said. I at least thought they'd be seriously mixed because I think it'd be pretty hit and miss as a play.
- As with a lot of plays, it's so much better read in all one sitting or as close to it as you can get because that's how it was designed to be and how the action is supposed to unfold.
CHATER You have insulted my wife.
SEPTIMUS Insulted her? That would deny my nature, my conduct, and the admiration in which I hold Mrs Chater.
CHATER I have heard of your admiration, sir! You insulted my wife in the gazebo yesterday evening!
SEPTIMUS You are mistaken. I made love to your wife in the gazebo. She asked me to meet her there, I have her note somewhere, I dare say I could find it for you, and if someone is putting it about that I did not turn up, by God, sir, it is a slander.
CHATER You damned lecher! ... I am calling you out! ... I demand satisfaction!
SEPTIMUS Mrs Chater demanded satisfaction and now you are demanding satisfaction. I cannot spend my time day and night satisfying the demands of the Chater family.
anything else? I am so amused by how long my 'summary'-type sections are this time around. Haha. tl;dr, indeed.