Sly Wit 2012

Happy New Year!

As always, I welcome the New Year with open arms and lots of plans and projects.

Barring any 2012 doomsday scenarios coming to fruition, here’s what you can expect to see at Sly Wit this year.

Books:

Clearly you all have opinions on these and I will be posting what I think of your favorites throughout the year as part of the 2012 Readers’ Choice Challenge. Encouragement as I tackle some of the longer ones is always appreciated!

I will also be trying to keep the book salon alive as many members move on to bigger and better things following the near dissolution of my former office by The Man. Appropriately enough, this month’s theme is “Go West, Young Man!” for which I chose to read The Grapes of Wrath.

Performing Arts:

Ballet 101 posts will probably dominate the spring as I enjoy a subscription to the San Francisco Ballet for the first time. Sadly, I don’t foresee the ballet of the Opéra de Paris in my future this year, but you never know what the fates may bring.

Opera won’t be completely absent, as I have tickets to The Lamplighters’ upcoming productions of The Gondoliers and The Pirates of Penzance singalong as well as Nixon in China at the San Francisco Opera in June. I’m also hoping to see Ensemble Parallèle’s The Great Gatsby in February.

Of course, assuming La Maratonista is willing, I’m planning to renew my subscription for the San Francisco Opera’s 2012-2013 season. To combat my opera withdrawal symptoms, I’ve been listening to a number of classic recordings and, before our next subscription starts, I’m hoping to write up some more systematic Opera 101 posts that go through the history of this art form, starting with the Baroque era and continuing to the present day.

Television and Film:

I’m still debating giving up cable, but I have to wait until at least the end of January since there is no way I am missing Season Two of Downtown Abbey on PBS. And, of course, The Voice will be starting up again soon. But there’s not much else I’m excited about going forward besides Season Two of Sherlock, which can’t come soon enough.

Aside from the Oscars, I don’t often talk about film here. (That in and of itself might not seem odd, unless you know that my training is as a historian of French culture with a specialization in the film industry and my doctoral dissertation was on the reception of American films in postwar France.) I’m hoping to rectify that with a new Film 101 series looking at various genres I want to explore again without having to view them through an academic lens. Right now, I’m thinking of three of my favorites: film noir, screwball comedies, and westerns; however, inspired by David Smay’s series at HiLobrow, I may also take on horror, a genre I don’t know at all.

But before I begin that project, I will spend the month of January rewatching my favorite director of all time, a man who incorporated all those genres into his work (okay, maybe not westerns), Alfred Hitchcock. A colleague recently asked for recommendations of his films and, having lately read John Buchan’s The 39 Steps and Josephine Tey’s A Shilling for Candles (which became Young and Innocent), I decided he was due for a serious review.

I hope you join me for these and other random musings!

2011: The Year in Books

This year, I managed to hit my general reading goal of 60+ books. Once again, the book salon warred with the book challenge, and the salon won. I really didn’t do very well on The Great Unread challenge, although I made a valiant attempt in the final hours when a transcontinental Christmas flight with a two-hour fog delay tacked on the end allowed me to read big chunks of Giant and The Grapes of Wrath. Still many of the books were fairly short and I don’t feel the sense of accomplishment I did last year. I also haven’t been as good about immediately writing up reviews on Goodreads and that’s something I definitely want to be better about in 2012.

Top Ten of 2011

The Book of Illusions (Paul Auster)
Brat Farrar (Josephine Tey)

The Daughter of Time (Josephine Tey)

The Invisible Bridge (Julie Orringer)

Possession (A.S. Byatt)

Richard III (William Shakespeare)

Suite Française (Irène Némirovsky)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (John Le Carré)

Unbroken (Laura Hillenbrand)

Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen)

And now the awards!

Best Discovery: Josephine Tey (1896-1952), a Scottish mystery novelist. My love of royals and history would put her Daughter of Time at the top of my personal list, but I’d recommend starting with Brat Farrar. I love her language and the atmosphere she creates as well as how all of her mysteries are distinct from one another. If you like Agatha Christie or are an Anglophile in any way, you will like Tey.

The Book I Feel Everybody Should Read: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. This true story is extraordinary in its depiction of both the barbarism and heroism of war. A gripping tale of one man’s journey from the heights of Olympic glory to the depths of a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Even if you think you don’t want to read more about World War II, you do, you really do. Hillenbrand is an amazing storyteller, deftly melding one man’s story with epic historical events. If you liked how she handled Seabiscuit, try this one out.

Longest: The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (602 pages). I really enjoyed this book, despite taking forever to finish it. In fact, the story was so vivid that I could pick it up months later and continue reading where I left off without feeling like I had to go back and reread (which is extremely unusual for me). Obviously, I could totally relate to the main character's student life in Paris, but, more importantly, I also learned a tremendous amount about life in Hungary before and during the war, something I previously knew nothing about. It is a bit long, but totally worth it.

Biggest Accomplishment: Possession by A.S. Byatt. The start of this novel moves very slowly (mostly because the poetry bogs it down) and therefore it took multiple attempts over the years to get through it. However, when the mystery picks up, it becomes really thrilling and I couldn’t wait to see how it was going to be resolved. And, for once, I really liked the ending. I will definitely be keeping this one on the shelf so that I can go back and reread at some point knowing how the mystery unfolds.

Biggest Surprise: One Day by David Nicholls. When I first heard about this book while visiting friends in London, I misunderstood the premise, thinking it was about a couple who meet up on the same day every year (sort of an extended Before Sunrise, a movie that I hated). Instead, the structure of the book, glimpses into an ongoing relationship over time, really worked well. It gets a bit maudlin at the end, and the characters aren’t necessarily very sympathetic; however, that does add to the realism of it. Of course, for me, that also may have been helped by the fact that these characters graduate university about the same time I did.

The Book I Most Regret Reading: Paris, France by Gertrude Stein. Sorry, “there’s no there there.” I absolutely hated the style and attitude of this book. Completely pointless. Glad I got it off my shelves.

Favorite Young Adult Series: Matched by Ally Condie. The first volume, Matched, was a fun read with pretty good world-building, prompting an immediate re-read. As good as The Hunger Games? Not quite, but it has believably written characters and some promising loose ends to tie up as the series continues. I didn’t love the dual narrative of the second volume, Crossed, but agree that it made sense for the story told in that book. Similar to The Giver, but a more complete, realistic set-up with more relatable characters. This is tailor-made for Hollywood, so watch for it to be “coming soon” to a theater near you.

Most Useful Non-Fiction: The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp. This book is fabulous. It is much more than a study about creativity because it focuses on the perspiration part of the process rather than the inspiration part. As Tharp says, “before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box.” While it focuses on the arts (especially dance, musical composition, and writing), much of her discussion of discipline, organization, and habits could apply to the business world as well. There are lots of inspiring anecdotes and self-improvement exercises scattered throughout. Runner-up: Keep the Change: A Clueless Tipper’s Quest to Become the Guru of the Gratuity by Steve Dublanica.

Most Common Theme: World War II. I don’t know whether it was in the air or just on my radar, but a good chunk of my reading involved the war. In rough order of preference: the aforementioned Unbroken and The Invisible Bridge, Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky, Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer, Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian, Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah, Pictures at an Exhibition by Sara Houghteling, The Reader by Bernhard Schlink.

Most Disappointing: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I was looking forward to reading this classic for our “Disturbing Dystopias” book salon, but was barely able to finish it—and it’s short! Given the concept, I should have liked this, but I absolutely hated the writing style and just couldn't get past the fact that half the time I wasn't sure what was going on or what Bradbury’s real message is. It didn’t help that he seems to be a bit of an ass in the epilogue. Runner-up: Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly.

Hardest to Finish: Any Human Heart (William Boyd). So hard that I still haven’t. (Actually I like what I read but it’s just one of those things. I’ll get back to it eventually—right after Wolf Hall.)

Favorite Audiobook: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, read by B.J. Harrison of The Classic Tales podcast. Harrison reads a lot of adventure stories in his free short story podcast, so I bought a few full-length books for our “Classic Boys Adventures” book salon to support his work. He does a really good job with this one. 

Special Mention: Two friends came out with young adult books this year and they deserve special mention for 1) being generally awesome, 2) writing beautifully, and 3) getting me out of my comfort zone. I probably wouldn’t have picked up a book about the supernatural on my own, or one in verse, but I highly recommend both Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey and Audition by Stasia Ward Kehoe for being incredibly relatable stories about the sacrifices and choices we have to make and live with in our teen years (and beyond).

What was your favorite book of the year? And, if you haven’t already voted, what should I read next year?

The Great Unread—May

—People change, she said.

—Oh, no they don’t. Look at me. I’ve never changed. It’s like those sticks of rock: bite it all the way down, you’ll still read Brighton. That’s human nature.

As I mentioned in last month’s challenge post, this month I decided to read my copy of Brighton Rock, which is part of the six-volume “Deluxe Edition” Graham Greene centennial series by Penguin that I bought at the MLA some years ago. Being set in the Brighton underworld, the novel also fit conveniently into this month’s book salon topic, Crime and Punishment.

When I pulled this month’s challenge book down from the shelves, I had no idea what Brighton rock was. Knowing the basic outlines of the plot, I figured it was, you know, a rock, or maybe a cliff. But, no, it is actually a candy sold in seaside towns in the U.K.

[Note: The photo above was ganked from Paperback Reader, who provided me with some comfort by asserting that she had made the same assumption about this title, despite knowing of the candy. I wholeheartedly agree with her assessment that the symbolic use of this candy takes the book to a whole other level.]

Reading this at the end of a series of books related to the topic of crime really pointed up the issue of level, which we discussed at last night’s salon. While I enjoyed the other books I read (A Certain Justice, Killing Floor, To Love and Be Wise, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie) and the latter two had me immediately take out The Franchise Affair, Brat Farrar, and The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag from the library, they did not reach the level of the Greene, even if Brighton Rock itself straddles the line between his earlier “entertainments” and his later “Catholic” novels.

Next month’s read for me will also straddle the classic/popular line: Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours. Besides a translation of Paris au XXe siècle, I’ve never read Jules Verne and I’m really looking forward to it. Of course, it’s a bit of a cheat because I just purchased it on my recent trip to France and haven’t been carting it from apartment to apartment for years like most of the Great Unread, but it syncs up nicely with next month’s book salon on Best Picture Adaptations. I’ve never seen Around the World in 80 Days (1956) either, so I’ve added that to my Netflix queue.

I haven’t heard from readers in awhile. Have you given up on this challenge? Not reading these days? Enquiring minds want to know.

The Great Unread—April

Since none of the unread novels in my collection fit well with this month’s book salon topic, Royals and Rulers, I decided to take up a purchase that I had never gotten around to in my teaching days.

Shakespeare: The Tragedies, by Nicholas Marsh, is part of Macmillan’s “Analysing Texts” series on British literature, which also includes three other volumes on Shakespeare. Sadly, this volume, which examines Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello, and therefore one might think would be the most popular and relevant for students, is apparently now out of print.

I bought this and two other volumes in the series at the annual conference of the Modern Language Association, one of the largest academic conferences in the country and where first-round interviews for almost all tenure-track jobs in English and other language departments are held. One of my favorite things about having to attend the MLA was going to the book sale on the last day while publishers were packing up their booths and selling their stock at steep discounts. Really, it’s amazing I don’t have more of a “book problem.”

The MLA is also where I picked up my May challenge book, Brighton Rock, part of Penguin’s six-volume “Deluxe Edition” Graham Greene centennial series, which included, as one might expect, The End of the Affair, The Heart of the Matter, and The Quiet American, but also, inexplicably, Orient Express and Travels with My Aunt. (Really, Penguin, how do you not include The Power and the Glory in that collection? Or, if you are looking to add something comic, Our Man in Havana?)

Anyway, back to Shakespeare. The Tragedies was definitely a “challenge” book, despite its short length. I’m not really sure why I kept it this long, when I have gotten rid of almost everything academic not related to either France or film, but it was probably because, like many people, I always intend to read more Shakespeare. And, after reading The Daughter of Time for my Royals and Rulers book salon, I had thought of reading Richard III for this month’s challenge, but ultimately decided against it. (Since I have the complete works of Shakespeare in a three-volume boxed set—purchased at an English bookstore near my apartment in Paris with the credit from trading in all the paperbacks I had accumulated while living there—almost any play could count as a challenge book for me.)

The Tragedies was an interesting approach to analyzing the texts, doing a close read of very specific extracts rather than discussing the plays as a whole, more in the style of the French “explication de texte” than much of the analysis I’ve read in English. Each chapter looked at one brief extract from each play, focusing on the openings, endings, heroes, heroines, society, humor, and imagery. Even though this meant that only a very small percentage of the text of each play was discussed, the author did manage to tease out larger meanings that helped me understand the works better. One benefit of the close read is that it made sense even for plays that I hadn’t read in a long time, such as King Lear. This leads me to actually want to attempt the other volume I purchased (Shakespeare: The Comedies, natch), even though I haven’t yet read most of the plays.

I hope everyone is making good progress on this challenge. I’d love to hear about what you’ve been reading. As stated above, my challenge read for May will be Brighton Rock by Graham Greene, one of my favorite authors. A new adaptation, with Helen Mirren, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September, and will hopefully be released soon in the U.S., although I’ve seen no sign of it.

Royals and Rulers

“Money and titles may be hereditary,” she would say, “but brains are not…”

—The Scarlet Pimpernel

This month’s book salon topic was novels dealing with royalty. Attendance was sparse. Royal wedding fatigue? If so, C. would probably recommend Mark Helprin’s Freddy and Fredericka, a parody of the British royal family.

Otherwise, the Wars of the Roses seemed to guide much of the reading, with The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt, and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel as selections. Much was made of the two Thomases (More and Cromwell), their portrayal through time, and how history is written by the winners.

“Beneath every history, another history.”—Wolf Hall

On the lighter side, yet still somehow involving people being beheaded, I also listened to the Classic Tales Podcast audio of The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. Part spy novel, part romance, it’s a fun, quick read for all ages.

The complete list of suggested books can be found here.

Martini Count: 0 (Instead I tried the horribly named but absolutely delicious Strawberry D’Amour—Grey Goose vodka, strawberry purée, simple syrup, lime juice, with muddled fresh basil and a black pepper rim.)

The Great Unread—March

Due to my recent travels, this March book challenge post was a bit delayed—much like the reading of my own challenge book, Suite Française, by Irène Némirovsky. Suite Française caught my eye in the window of BookShop West Portal when I first moved to San Francisco. At the time, I didn’t know the story of its publication (had I realized, it might have made it off my shelf a bit quicker).

Némirovsky, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, was a successful author in interwar France. When World War II broke out, she began a planned five-part epic depicting the stages of the war. Unfortunately, she had only completed two sections of the draft manuscript when she was arrested, deported, and sent to Auschwitz in 1942, where she died one month later. Thankfully, even though her husband soon suffered the same terrible fate, their two children were able to go into hiding and survived, carrying the manuscript with them. Only years later would they realize that the notebook scribblings, which they thought were a private journal, were complete enough to be published.

The work is an incredible fictional depiction of the June exodus and later German occupation of France. I can’t imagine how good this epic might have been had the author lived to finish the novel. It was one of the works that served as inspiration for Chris Bohjalian’s Skeletons at the Feast, which I read for my “War, What Is It Good For?” book salon last month, and makes a great companion piece to that novel. You can read my reviews of both at Goodreads.

I hope everyone is making good progress on this challenge. I’d love to hear about what you’ve been reading. As for April, I am still considering my selection. Either way, it is likely to be one of two books related to last year’s challenge: Shakespeare: The Tragedies (since, now that I’ve read Macbeth, I can finally appreciate this study analyzing his four major tragedies) or Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, which I began too late last year to finish before the challenge ended.

The Great Unread—February

Confession time: I have not finished this month’s challenge book, which for me was Possession by A. S. Byatt. I blame the fact that February only has 28 days. Yeah, that’s it. While it may be enough time to get sober or for a virus to spread across the globe, it was not enough time for me.

Actually, I got distracted by reading three books for my latest book salon (Books and the Bookish) and the end of the month did sneak up on me. Yes, Possession also fit into that category, but I put off starting it until too late. However, I’ve read more than a quarter of it in the last few days, so I hope to finish it soon. I’m pretty sure this one will end up staying on the shelf because, besides being a pretty hardcover, its very structure and subject lend themselves to repeated readings.

The “books” book salon was one of our most spirited discussions yet. (“Spirited” in many senses as my martini count reached the exalted heights of four, which is why I did not post about it the next day as per usual.) Books discussed included The Book Thief, The Historian, On Beauty, The Secret History, The Shadow of the Wind, The Thirteenth Tale, and Under the Net, all of which I had either already read, or now want to. It was the perfect example of the quotation that stood out to me in one of my selections, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: “None of us had any experience with literary societies, so we made our own rules: we took turns speaking about the books we’d read. At the start, we tried to be calm and objective, but that soon fell away, and the purpose of the speakers was to goad the listeners into wanting to read the book themselves. Once two members had read the same book, they could argue, which was our great delight. We read books, talked books, argued over books, and became dearer and dearer to one another.”

While it was great to have such an animated discussion, I think that perhaps our next topic (War, What Is It Good For?) will, and should, be more sobering. Again, in many senses of the word. It’s coming up quite quickly, so I really do need to finish Possession so that I can move on to Suite Française.

How about you? Did you make the most out of the shortest month of the year? Have you pulled down your next book from the shelves?

Because Atheism Has No Holidays

“But, my dear Sebastian, you can't seriously believe it all.”

“Can't I?”

“I mean about Christmas and the star and the three kings and the ox and the ass.”

“Oh yes, I believe that. It's a lovely idea.”

“But you can't believe things because they're a lovely idea.”

“But I do. That's how I believe.”

—Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited

This month’s book salon topic was novels with religious characters or settings. Salonista selections were quite varied and ran the gamut from anti-religious to reverential: Cain (José Saramago), Death Comes for the Archbishop (Willa Cather), The End of the Affair (Graham Greene), In This House of Brede (Rumer Godden), The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco).

Martini Count: 2

Preparing the discussion questions took me back to the fabulous “Theology and Literature” class I took in college, where I first read Graham Greene, Gilgamesh, and Shusaku Endo’s Silence. This theme provides so many avenues for discussion (and there are so many novels on its list that I want to read) that I think we could totally do it again in the near future. Following the meeting, I am most intrigued by Cain, read in Spanish by La Maratonista Minimalista. Sadly, a quick search of Amazon, Goodreads, and the San Francisco Public Library leads me to believe it might not be available in English yet. If you believe otherwise, let me know.

Unfortunately, before our meeting, I had only read about 300 pages of my selection, The Name of the Rose; however, I don’t feel too guilty, because one conclusion I came to while reading it is that it is probably a better fit for next month’s topic, Books and the Bookish. For, although the novel takes place in a fourteenth-century monastery, it is really more about language, learning, and books, than about religion. But I do need to finish it by the end of the month since it’s my challenge book for January. And, even though the book salon concept means that it’s not really crucial to finish a text before meeting, I much prefer it, and therefore I need to get started on Possession soon, which, from what I recall, should be an interesting follow-up to the Eco.

Speaking of challenges, how is everyone doing on The Great Unread? Please post below, whether you’ve only just picked your January book, read a fair amount, or finished your selection. Depending on your outlook, you have only have half a month left, or you have half a month left.

2011: The Great Unread

After the relative success of my self-imposed book challenge in 2010, I’ve set myself a new goal for 2011.

Each month, I’m going to do something radical and read a novel or play from my own shelves. Despite moving every few years, and shedding books along the way, I still have a number of works that I insist on keeping for my (limited) fiction shelves, but that I haven’t actually read. Some, such as A.S. Byatt’s Possession, I’ve started and liked, but never finished, others, such as Paul Auster’s The Book of Illusions, are gifts I always intended to read, but never made time for, and some are recent additions, like my fancy clothbound editions of Dickens (designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith). Luckily, many of these coordinate with upcoming book salon topics.

First up will be The Name of the Rose, which I will read for our holiday season book salon in mid-January. The theme is “Because Atheism Has No Holidays” and features books with religious characters or settings. I’d also love to read either Gilead by Marilynne Robinson or A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving for this salon, but I don’t want to get overly ambitious as I tended to do last year.

If you’d like to join me in this challenge, please post a comment, and check in monthly to report your progress. I’d love to have others involved in this effort!

Water, Water, Everywhere

“There is a witchery in the sea, its songs and stories, and in the mere sight of a ship, and the sailor's dress, especially to a young mind, which has done more to man navies, and fill merchantmen, than all the pressgangs of Europe."—Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast: A Sailor's Life at Sea

This month’s book salon topic was water, which was the theme of the summer reading programs this year at the San Francisco Public Library: An Ocean of Summer Reading.

I had intended to use this theme to celebrate my own personal Bay to Breakers (the Chesapeake Bay, that is) by reading two classic works of nonfiction, Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay by William Warner, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1977, and Two Years before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, which recounts Dana’s shipboard adventures in the 1830s. I’ve been meaning to read Beautiful Swimmers since an ex-boyfriend recommended it to me when I moved to the Eastern Shore back in 2005, but, like with my ex, Fate had other plans and the book remains one of the great unread on my shelf. 

I guess it worked out well that I chose Two Years before the Mast since some of my Thanksgiving vacation was spent in Monterey and along the coast, which Dana describes so vividly. This book is a fascinating tale of life at sea and pre-Gold Rush California—it’s a shame more people haven’t read it. Although, not for nothing, but I bet if the cover still looked liked this, it would have far more readers.

Other books read by the salonistas include Billy Budd by Herman Melville, Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates, The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor by Gabriel García Márquez, and Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. One person attempted multiple books, but apparently had the same reaction that I did to Wide Sargasso Sea. There may have been another selection that I’m forgetting, but I had had three martinis by the end of the evening, so I really have no idea what the sixth person read.

Which brings up the most important question of all, how did people function on three-martini lunches?

Lost in Translation

Since our Russian Roulette book salon, I’ve been thinking a lot about the art of translation. More than one person said they loved to read Russian authors because of the language. But whose language? Having taken on a few freelance translating jobs in my time, I know that it is an extremely difficult task even in its most basic form. And, when it comes to literature, there can be vast differences in language between different translators.

I had done some investigating into translation when I read Don Quixote earlier this year, settling on Edith Grossman’s version primarily because of library availability. It had an introduction by Harold Bloom, so it had to be decent right?

“Translating from one language to another, unless it is from Greek and Latin, the queens of all languages, is like looking at Flemish tapestries from the wrong side, for although the figures are visible, they are covered by threads that obscure them, and cannot be seen with the smoothness and color of the right side.”—Don Quixote (Cervantes, trans. Grossman)

When I decided to tackle War and Peace, I had a few more options. Although I had to wait for it, and despite the controversy surrounded their methods (apparently they break the cardinal rule of translation, which is to translate into your native language), I selected the Pevear/Volokhonsky version. Normally, based on what I had read about it, I wouldn’t have, but their edition is the only one I found that left the French portions intact—most English editions leave only a few French phrases strewn about, like an English mystery novel, when in fact there are large chunks of discourse in French as well as entire letters. Since I had to wait a bit for the actual book, I decided to experiment with another translation, the classic version that most people have read, by the Victorian-era translator Constance Garnett, which the library had on audio. Admittedly, I also thought listening to it first would make the reading go more quickly, which it did. It also highlighted how different two versions can be. If you don’t care about the French issue, I’d recommend Garnett.

If you are wondering just how different translations can be, consider what I read earlier this week while attending a performance of Carmina Burana. The San Francisco symphony thoughtfully provided the Latin text and English translation in their program. Not knowing if they would do this, and wanting to follow along, I had brought the booklet from my CD, which used both English and French.

Here is an example from the “Swaz hie gat umbe” chorus at the end of the “Spring” section.

San Francisco Symphony translation:

They who here go dancing round

Are young maidens all

Who will go without a man

This whole summer long.

Mehta English translation:

Those who go round and round,

are all maidens

they want to do without a man

all summer long.

Mehta French translation (translation mine):

Those who go round and round there

are young maidens

They think they can go the whole summer

without a lover.

Call me crazy, but there’s a whole world of difference between going without a man, wanting to do without a man, and thinking you can go without a man for an extended period of time. But maybe that’s just me.

By the way, I love Carmina Burana in all its cheesy, overused glory and this was a very fun performance, particularly the “roasted swan” song, which was sung with more passion and personality than I have ever heard before.

I’ve got a little list…*

“Lists of books we reread and books we can't finish tell more about us than about the relative worth of the books themselves.”—Russell Banks

I’ve spent a good deal of time recently coming up with new themes and lists of suggested books for my book salon. Since the salon is grounded in the classics, I figured that a good way to get ideas would be to peruse some “top” lists. After all, everyone seems to have one. Newsweek even came up with a meta-list compiled from the selections on other major lists, notably those of the New York Public Library and The Modern Library.

The controversial Modern Library list (of the top 100 English-language novels of the century) gained much notoriety over ten years ago for being too white, too male, and too middlebrow. There was such an uproar over the list, that they introduced a companion “Reader’s List,” but, with four books by Ayn Rand and three by L. Ron Hubbard in the top ten, I think it’s safe to say that it’s not worth bothering with. I find the Modern Library list a tad boring, filled with books that one reads only because one is forced to in high school or college. My biggest quibble with it is that James Joyce hogs both the #1 and #3 spot. Seriously? But maybe I’m just bitter that I’ve only read 20 novels on the list. Ouch. (I do a bit better on the rival Radcliffe List, where I’ve read 34, but still.)

If you are looking for something a bit more current, try TIME’s 100 List, which further narrows the pool to English-language books published in or after 1923, the year of the magazine’s founding. And, let’s all pause for a moment and thank our lucky stars that that restriction means no Ulysses (published in 1922). Of course, I don’t do much better on this list, with about 25 under my belt. Some other lists include the 100 Favorite Novels of Librarians (40!) and The Guardian’s 100 Greatest Novels of All Time (34!). One of my favorite lists is The Daily Telegraph’s “110 Best Books: The Perfect Library,” if only for the fact they couldn’t limit themselves to 100. Even then, they cheat quite a bit since a number of their entries are actually multi-volume series (Trollope’s Barchester chronicles, Updike’s Rabbit, Run books, etc.). Finally, if you’re really ambitious, you can try to tackle the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, for which there are intricate spreadsheets you can download to track your progress.

People who know me know that I love nothing better than organizing and making lists. However, the problem with looking at all these lists and coming up with these themes is that they inevitably bring back the refrain that haunted me in graduate school: so many books, so little time. I want to read many of the books on these lists, but is it really important that I do so? After all, it’s lists like these that led me to read Wide Sargasso Sea this year, and that’s time I can never get back.

Do these lists make you feel guilty? energized? indifferent? Do you have books you feel you should read? Do you actually plan to read them? I'd love to hear from people on this.

*What can I say? When I’m not making lists, I’m rewatching the entire Gilbert & Sullivan oeuvre via Netflix.

The Hundred Years War (and Peace)

As October winds down, I’m beginning to seriously worry about getting through this year’s book challenge. Russian Roulette came and went as a book salon topic and I still couldn’t get through War and Peace. Before getting distracted by The Passage (another damn trilogy!), I had read over 400 pages, but, even though I liked it, it wasn’t grabbing me.

Maybe I should have used email?

I think at this point I need to admit (at least temporary) defeat and try to get through the remaining four titles: Catch-22, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, The Education of Henry Adams, and The Handmaid’s Tale. Of course, given that my book salon has chosen “Water, Water, Everywhere” as our next topic, I’m already thinking of changing out The Education of Henry Adams for Two Years Before the Mast, which had been on my original should-read short list (along with One Hundred Years of Solitude, which is about what I need to get through all these).

"Madame Bovary, C’est Moi!" Or, a Book Salon for the Twenty-First Century

As I mentioned in my inaugural post, one of my projects for the year was reading twelve classics that I had never gotten around to before. While the year started out strong, my newfound interest in reading led me to discover so many great contemporary books (such as Await Your Reply, City of Thieves, and 13 Reasons Why) that I had a bit of trouble keeping up with my should-reads. As you might guess, I soon found myself with half the year gone and Don Quixote and War and Peace still unread.

What to do? In an effort to conquer the remaining books on my list, I started a book salon with a few like-minded work colleagues. The concept is simple: instead of reading and dissecting one book, as in a book club, everyone selects whatever book they want that fits the theme of that month. The initial topics that I proposed revolved around my remaining should-reads: classic boys adventure, dystopian novels, quests, and Russian authors.

After a fabulous first discussion on quests (Moby-Dick, Don Quixote, The Road), this month’s salon was “Cherchez la femme!” and everyone chose books with eponymous heroines. Selections included Jane Eyre, Lolita, and Madame Bovary. I read two short works, both twists on classic tales: Mary Reilly is a retelling of the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde from the viewpoint of a maid in Jekyll’s household and The Penelopiad tells the story of Homer’s Odyssey through the eyes of Penelope and the twelve hanged maids. Both provide an interesting take on narrative viewpoint and the female perspective. You can see my reviews of both of these works at http://www.goodreads.com/sylview.

So far, both these themes have proved to be excellent jumping-off points for literary discussions and I eagerly await our next salon: Russian Roulette.

Please feel free to post your thoughts and questions on the book salon concept. What do you think would make a good theme for a book salon session?