What are you reading Wednesday

[puddleshark]

On finishing The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith:

*tones of admiration*

Oh, nicely played, Jenkinson! What an amazingly complete scoundrel you are!

Comments

[poliphilo]

I read Scott as a kid- under the impression it would do me good- and came away feeling I had done my duty.

I have tried as an adult- and he keeps defeating me. I can't bear his colourless heroes and heroines- or the way he allows the "comic" characters to rabbit on for page after page.

[puddleshark]

Oh dear, this does not sound promising. Particularly if the "comic" characters carry on in impenetrable dialogue...

[sartorias]

Ivanhoe is probably the most approachable, but they are all pretty dated, in spite of his shaping of the modern novel. Better are his essays at the beginning of his later collected editions, imo.

[puddleshark]

I seem to know the plot of Ivanhoe - by cultural osmosis, presumably, because I've certainly never read it - so maybe that would be a good starting point...

[ylla]

I got halfway through Waverley a couple of years ago - to the end of book 1 - and was quite enjoying it, and then something distracted me and I never went back. Plenty of Highland scenery for you, though.

I think the only one I've read all through is Rob Roy - for university, but it can't have been too bad, because there were plenty of things I didn't get to the end of there!

[ylla]

His most readable work is probably his journal, tbh - huge, but very dippable-into!

[puddleshark]

I quite like the sound of a book with Spectacular Mountainous Scenery... I'm getting a bit bored with the wurzel-fields of Dorset.

[55nika]

I long ago read Ivanhoe " ", " " and Rob Roy " " Quentin Durward. Then tried to watch a movie on this subject.
Now I keep reading of Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov " under the sign of illegitimate "-very tragic and awe-inspiring thing (written by the author in English).
" Camera Obscura " no longer relates to social upheavals, it is quite melodramatichna, and simpler language than in " under the sign ... "

[puddleshark]

I saw the film "The Adventures of Quentin Durward" when I was a child - I remember only the unusual fight scene with hero and villain dangling from bell ropes!

I would be quite surprised if this scene was in the book.

[lnhammer]

Don't worry about James Fitz-James, he gets what he deserves. I like Lady of the Lake the best of his works, prose or poetry, in part because he finally got his descriptions and storylines pulling together.

I've read about a dozen of Scott's novels -- the best was Old Mortality, in part because his female characters aren't as tightly into stereotype as in others. The best, in general, are chronologically that one (when he had his practice books out of the way) through Ivanhoe (after which things got too template-y).

[puddleshark]

Thanks! That's two votes for Old Mortality, which I hadn't heard of before.

Just finished Canto II of Lady of the Lake, and young Malcolm Graeme has impressed me with his swimming skills...

[lnhammer]

BTW, once you finish Lady, if you want more in that vein, my I commend to your attention Mador of the Moor by James Hogg?

[puddleshark]

But scarcely are thy springs known to the sons of men...

Excellent! This shall be next. Thank you!