The Icon Says It All
So, having finished Spring Work...which was my Spring Break with an added bonus of still spending the entire week teaching 9th graders. However, with Uni out of the way for awhile I actually *gasp!* read for pleasure!
So, here is the run down on what I've gotten through:
Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt:
A great Shakespeare biography that took me forever to get through (reading half a chapters before I went to bed) but was completely worthwhile. I mean, he hypothesizes that "Sonnet 18" ("Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day" for non-bardophiles. Yes. I claim neologism. Shhh) is written for a man and does a great work down of working out Shakespeare's murky relationship with his wife (he only left her his second best bed in his will. Crazy). Great read for lovers of Shakespeare!
And to change it up, the next read was, Doctor Who Short Trips: How the Doctor Changed My Life:
This is the second Short Trips volume I've picked up (the first being Farewells) and while I had been looking forward to this because its an anthology completely populated by fan writing through a contest, I thought the writing on the whole...left something to be desired. Although "Shopping Trolleys of Doom" with evil!shopping carts and the Seventh Doctor is a great story. Also, it makes me sad when the Second Doctor doesn't get many stories...MORE TWO PLEASE! But on the whole a so-so volume of stories that I enjoyed.
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
Something about this reminded me of MacEwan's Atonement with prose that wasn't quite so lavish. But I plowed through this and there were moments where I was like "nooooo" and it was indeed what I had dreaded. In a very simplistic sort of style it really lays out some incredibly complex philosophical and moral issues. It was one of those books that ends and you have a vague feeling that the world (or simply your thinking on the world) has altered in some barely perceptible way that you will never be able to parse. It bothers you merely in a sort of niggling in your brain...it won't rank incredibly highly on my list of awesome books, but it was a very good read.
And finally, Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill
This play eviscerates you in the quietest manner possible. It is so personal and so claustrophobic and so....hopeless that you just need to...I don't know. It is a devastating concoction of literary allusions and people who keep trying to undermine everything until they get to someplace that doesn't exist. It's like a terrific perversion of existentialism wherein you can't even define your existence against meaninglessness because transcendence out of a meaningless state is impossible because no meaning structures can exist. Everyone in the play is a living ghost who haunts no one because they have no business to complete.
Um yes, I'm getting profoundly deep or pedantic...I can't decide which. But, go forth and read it!
Also, House tonight totally ripped off The Diving Bell and the Butterfly...y/y? Even the beach scene with children and everything.
Yes. Now I need to finish my giant exam. I have 3/5 parts almost completed. 46 pages as a whole. Then I can do other writing again besides poetry to share with 9th graders.
So, here is the run down on what I've gotten through:
Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt:
A great Shakespeare biography that took me forever to get through (reading half a chapters before I went to bed) but was completely worthwhile. I mean, he hypothesizes that "Sonnet 18" ("Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day" for non-bardophiles. Yes. I claim neologism. Shhh) is written for a man and does a great work down of working out Shakespeare's murky relationship with his wife (he only left her his second best bed in his will. Crazy). Great read for lovers of Shakespeare!
And to change it up, the next read was, Doctor Who Short Trips: How the Doctor Changed My Life:
This is the second Short Trips volume I've picked up (the first being Farewells) and while I had been looking forward to this because its an anthology completely populated by fan writing through a contest, I thought the writing on the whole...left something to be desired. Although "Shopping Trolleys of Doom" with evil!shopping carts and the Seventh Doctor is a great story. Also, it makes me sad when the Second Doctor doesn't get many stories...MORE TWO PLEASE! But on the whole a so-so volume of stories that I enjoyed.
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
Something about this reminded me of MacEwan's Atonement with prose that wasn't quite so lavish. But I plowed through this and there were moments where I was like "nooooo" and it was indeed what I had dreaded. In a very simplistic sort of style it really lays out some incredibly complex philosophical and moral issues. It was one of those books that ends and you have a vague feeling that the world (or simply your thinking on the world) has altered in some barely perceptible way that you will never be able to parse. It bothers you merely in a sort of niggling in your brain...it won't rank incredibly highly on my list of awesome books, but it was a very good read.
And finally, Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill
This play eviscerates you in the quietest manner possible. It is so personal and so claustrophobic and so....hopeless that you just need to...I don't know. It is a devastating concoction of literary allusions and people who keep trying to undermine everything until they get to someplace that doesn't exist. It's like a terrific perversion of existentialism wherein you can't even define your existence against meaninglessness because transcendence out of a meaningless state is impossible because no meaning structures can exist. Everyone in the play is a living ghost who haunts no one because they have no business to complete.
Um yes, I'm getting profoundly deep or pedantic...I can't decide which. But, go forth and read it!
Also, House tonight totally ripped off The Diving Bell and the Butterfly...y/y? Even the beach scene with children and everything.
Yes. Now I need to finish my giant exam. I have 3/5 parts almost completed. 46 pages as a whole. Then I can do other writing again besides poetry to share with 9th graders.