Dear Jane,
It is with deep sadness and regret that I am writing to inform you that I must ask you to release me from our understanding. I've tried, I really have, but I just can not see a future for us.
Everyone tells me how great you are...how smart, how witty, how subtle and while I am sure this is true, I am afraid that I am unable to appreciate your many talents. Whilst undoubtedly well constructed, your repartee makes me yawn. Your endless matchmaking machinations would make Machiavelli burst with pride, but leave me uninspired. Perhaps, if your carefully observed vignettes on social convention and etiquette, did not feature endless twittering or scheming matrons, clueless buffoons and simpering, passionless virgins, we might make a go of it. Maybe, if rather than attempting to ridicule the Gothic novel, you had embraced the genre, I wonder if we could have achieved such heights of understanding.
I know that many people love you, but I, alas, do not. So, my dear Jane, it is surely a far better thing that we reconcile ourselves to a parting of ways now to save any further heartache. I'm afraid that I will never find your books interesting no matter how many people sing your praises.
Yours Sincerely,
A Modern Woman, who really doesn't get the whole pursuit of a husband thing.
The Tsundoku Way
or, Great Books I Haven't Read Yet.
Tuesday, 1 May 2018
Monday, 15 June 2015
One Down
I have a raft of ebooks in my library. Some, I have grabbed as freebies when they've been on promotion, some I've got for the offspring to read so they reside in my virtual Tsundoku pile destined never to be read by me, and some I actually pay for.
One of my latest acquisitions was "Harry's Pub", which flitted past on my FB newsfeed one day and caught my eye. For two quid I thought it sounded interesting enough to buy and I wasn't disappointed. I read the whole book, putting it down reluctantly when I had to, and thoroughly enjoyed it. For two quid, it's well worth straying off the path of the Tsundoku Way. Trust me :D
Still on the Tsundoku Path, I have an ever increasing virtual pile to be read, including the Poldark series. I'm slightly in two minds about whether to read those, having barely managed the first few pages of book one, and given how much I enjoyed the TV series, I don't really want to go down the route of comparing one to the other. Perhaps those are destined to remain unread for the time being.
I feel slightly guilty about my copy of "The History of English Food", which is looking accusingly at me from the arm of the sofa where it has languished for a couple of months. I read the first few chapters an enjoyed them immensely, but somehow I just don't seem to have found the time to continue with the rest of the book. This one is definitely on my "Must Finish" list and it will remain on the arm of the sofa to remind me of its presence until I do.
So many books, so little time! What's on your Tsundoku pile?
One of my latest acquisitions was "Harry's Pub", which flitted past on my FB newsfeed one day and caught my eye. For two quid I thought it sounded interesting enough to buy and I wasn't disappointed. I read the whole book, putting it down reluctantly when I had to, and thoroughly enjoyed it. For two quid, it's well worth straying off the path of the Tsundoku Way. Trust me :D
Still on the Tsundoku Path, I have an ever increasing virtual pile to be read, including the Poldark series. I'm slightly in two minds about whether to read those, having barely managed the first few pages of book one, and given how much I enjoyed the TV series, I don't really want to go down the route of comparing one to the other. Perhaps those are destined to remain unread for the time being.
I feel slightly guilty about my copy of "The History of English Food", which is looking accusingly at me from the arm of the sofa where it has languished for a couple of months. I read the first few chapters an enjoyed them immensely, but somehow I just don't seem to have found the time to continue with the rest of the book. This one is definitely on my "Must Finish" list and it will remain on the arm of the sofa to remind me of its presence until I do.
So many books, so little time! What's on your Tsundoku pile?
Thursday, 21 May 2015
'Astrology in the Renaissance' reader resistance
Many thanks to Ania for inviting me to be a guest author in this new blog. Look upon the latest addition to my abandoned book pile and weep, oh reader!
Astrology in The
Renaissance
The Zodiac of Life
Eugenio Garin
I returned home from my
two-week holiday in Italy raring to learn about astrology and its
place in Italian Renaissance society.
Back in the early 1500s, there
was not yet a complete split between Astrology and Astronomy and I had been
mesmerised by the astrological meridian in the Basilica of San
Petronio in beautiful Bologna. That there was something of such extraordinary esoteric beauty in the middle of a Basilica piqued my interest and I wanted to learn MORE.
Back home, I quickly ordered up
Astrology in the Renaissance from the Gods of Amazon and when it arrived, a scant 3 days later, I settled down in a corner of the sofa with my reading glasses and a
mug of coffee.
But, things did not begin terribly well...
When a book's opening
sentence is a ghastly 58 words long, I knew that I was in for a
bumpy, boring ride.
Am I being unfair? You
decide:
“It is almost a
commonplace of recent historiography that one could, in the
Renaissance, make a precise distinction in astrology between two
aspects which had previously, in antiquity and he Middle Ages, been
inextricably linked and were indeed frequently confused under the one
category 'astrology': the first being the religious and superstitious aspect and the second analytical and scientific.”
** shakes the reader
awake **
Maybe
I was just not in the right frame of mind, but the convoluted
sentences failed to engage me. I realised that I was reading and
re-reading the same paragraphs over and over again, trying to make
sense of them.
And
on and on it went in similar vein. Quotes were provided first in
their original Latin, and then followed in English. Some of the
quotes were quite long, so as my eyes increasingly danced across the
verbose pages, there were instances when I thought I had lost the
power to understand English at all.
I
abandoned Chapter 1 and headed straight into the Chapter on
Neoplatonism and hermeticism, but I was still baffled and – the
worst sin of all in a book – bored.
Number
of pages read before abandoning: nine pages of introduction and a
paltry six pages of Chapter 1.
To be
fair, there isn't a universe where something like 'neoplatonism and
hermeticism in astrology' is going to be easy to understand, but I
think that I might have had more fun trying to read the book in its
original Italian.
And
right there is, I feel, the reason that the book fails.
The
translation is, I'm sure, absolutely perfect grammatically – but it
has resulted in a work that is as difficult to digest as a bowl of
unripe bananas. Not only is it a translation, but it seems to have
been translated by a team of people – Carolyn Jackson, June Allen
and Clare Robertson.
Anything
done by committee consensus is usually troublesome :)
Still,
I'm not selling it. You never know – maybe one day I'll be smart
enough to read it and understand it :)
Wednesday, 20 May 2015
The Tsundoku Way
We all do it...well, those of us who love books, anyway. We see a book that we just have to have and then it is condemned to languish on the floor, bedside table, the arm of the sofa or stuck in a spare corner of the bookcase that hasn't quite been jammed to the rafters. These days it may even be consigned to gather virtual dust in an unvisited folder on our computer, tablet or e-reader. Life is just too busy and too short to read all the books, and there are so many worth reading...or sometimes just owning.
If you recognise yourself in this, then you too have trodden the dusty path of the Tsundoku Way. Pull up a cushion, adopt a semi-comfortable pose and let us tell you about the books that we haven't read yet. If you like, you can even contribute to the blog - just drop us a note to post all about the books you haven't read yet.
If you recognise yourself in this, then you too have trodden the dusty path of the Tsundoku Way. Pull up a cushion, adopt a semi-comfortable pose and let us tell you about the books that we haven't read yet. If you like, you can even contribute to the blog - just drop us a note to post all about the books you haven't read yet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)