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Jun. 20th, 2004 01:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rymenhildMeme from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
greythistle, who did it twice, once for modern texts and one for medieval:
1. Name a book you love no matter what anyone says.
2. Name a book you loathe no matter what anyone says.
3. Name a book you think is undeservedly obscure.
4. Name a book you think is undeservedly famous.
5. Name a book you think you ought to read.
6. Name a book you think I ought to read.
1. I love: Well, the Harry Potter books, for starters. Also, Mercedes Lackey's early Valdemar books (the ones about Talia and Vanyel) and several of the Darkover novels, most specifically the Free Amazon ones. Yes, they're trash. They're so much fun, though.
2. I loathe: Everything ever written by Hemingway or Steinbeck.
3. Too obscure: The Severed Wasp, an adult novel (not fantasy or adventure, either!) by Madeleine L'Engle. Katherine Forrester Vigneras, famous pianist, returns to NYC in her retirement, and becomes involved with the cathedral community of St. John the Divine (the Episcopal cathedral for which L'Engle was writer-in-residence). The book is a sensitive, loving portrait of an imperfect community in an imperfect, beloved city; it has a few flaws, most notably that when L'Engle decides, near the end of the book, to insert a plot, it feels unnecessary and inorganic. It's a beautiful text.nonetheless.
4. Too famous: I got two pages into The Da Vinci Code and decided that the writing style was pure cardboard and I had no desire to get any further. In SFF, the Wheel of Time and Pern books come rather quickly to mind -- why do people read them, again?
5. I should read: Ulysses, but I keep getting lost in the middle of sentences.
6. You should read: The Book of Mercy, a volume of modern hymns by Leonard Cohen (yes, the songwriter). One psalm:
I lost my way, I forgot to call on your name. The raw heart beat against the world, and the tears were for my lost victory. But you are here. You have always been here. The world is all forgetting, and the heart is a rage of directions, but your name unifies the heart, and the world is lifted into its place. Blessed is the one who waits in the traveller's heart for his turning.
The medieval ones:
1. I love: The South English Legendary, a collection of Middle English saints' lives that have been described (by one of their editors) as "coarse and rude to the modern taste" and (by a former advisor of mine, with some tongue in cheek) as "soft-core S&M".
2. I loathe: This one's harder. I'm not extremely fond of the Confessio Amantis, but I don't hate it. My love-hate relationship with Beowulf has enough love in it to keep it well off this list. I guess I can't answer this one.
3. Too obscure: I'll take the bizarre and wonderful Arthurian text The Dream of Rhonabwy fromgreythistle's list.
4. Too famous: Beowulf. It's so different from any other surviving Old English text that it completely obscures the debate about Old English literature.
5. I should read: Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde; also, La3amon's* Brut, a Middle English translation of my old friend Geoffrey of Monmouth.
6. You should read: Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain. (The Lewis Thorpe translation is reliable.)
*That's not a typo. It's a yogh. Pronounce the name LAH.mun, where h. means the sound of the Hebrew letter h.et.
Will finish icons tomorrow.
Confidential toconcordantnexus: sorry for not getting back to you. You can donate to the charity of your choice. :)
greythistle, who did it twice, once for modern texts and one for medieval:1. Name a book you love no matter what anyone says.
2. Name a book you loathe no matter what anyone says.
3. Name a book you think is undeservedly obscure.
4. Name a book you think is undeservedly famous.
5. Name a book you think you ought to read.
6. Name a book you think I ought to read.
1. I love: Well, the Harry Potter books, for starters. Also, Mercedes Lackey's early Valdemar books (the ones about Talia and Vanyel) and several of the Darkover novels, most specifically the Free Amazon ones. Yes, they're trash. They're so much fun, though.
2. I loathe: Everything ever written by Hemingway or Steinbeck.
3. Too obscure: The Severed Wasp, an adult novel (not fantasy or adventure, either!) by Madeleine L'Engle. Katherine Forrester Vigneras, famous pianist, returns to NYC in her retirement, and becomes involved with the cathedral community of St. John the Divine (the Episcopal cathedral for which L'Engle was writer-in-residence). The book is a sensitive, loving portrait of an imperfect community in an imperfect, beloved city; it has a few flaws, most notably that when L'Engle decides, near the end of the book, to insert a plot, it feels unnecessary and inorganic. It's a beautiful text.nonetheless.
4. Too famous: I got two pages into The Da Vinci Code and decided that the writing style was pure cardboard and I had no desire to get any further. In SFF, the Wheel of Time and Pern books come rather quickly to mind -- why do people read them, again?
5. I should read: Ulysses, but I keep getting lost in the middle of sentences.
6. You should read: The Book of Mercy, a volume of modern hymns by Leonard Cohen (yes, the songwriter). One psalm:
I lost my way, I forgot to call on your name. The raw heart beat against the world, and the tears were for my lost victory. But you are here. You have always been here. The world is all forgetting, and the heart is a rage of directions, but your name unifies the heart, and the world is lifted into its place. Blessed is the one who waits in the traveller's heart for his turning.
The medieval ones:
1. I love: The South English Legendary, a collection of Middle English saints' lives that have been described (by one of their editors) as "coarse and rude to the modern taste" and (by a former advisor of mine, with some tongue in cheek) as "soft-core S&M".
2. I loathe: This one's harder. I'm not extremely fond of the Confessio Amantis, but I don't hate it. My love-hate relationship with Beowulf has enough love in it to keep it well off this list. I guess I can't answer this one.
3. Too obscure: I'll take the bizarre and wonderful Arthurian text The Dream of Rhonabwy from
greythistle's list. 4. Too famous: Beowulf. It's so different from any other surviving Old English text that it completely obscures the debate about Old English literature.
5. I should read: Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde; also, La3amon's* Brut, a Middle English translation of my old friend Geoffrey of Monmouth.
6. You should read: Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain. (The Lewis Thorpe translation is reliable.)
*That's not a typo. It's a yogh. Pronounce the name LAH.mun, where h. means the sound of the Hebrew letter h.et.
Will finish icons tomorrow.
Confidential to
concordantnexus: sorry for not getting back to you. You can donate to the charity of your choice. :)
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Date: 2004-06-20 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-20 04:58 pm (UTC)Once upon a time I liked Lackey's Vanyel books and a rough handful of Bradley's Darkover novels, though I'm more fond of Hawkmistress and the Forbidden Tower insanity than of the later Renunciate ones. (Basically, middle Bradley is fine; I think my view of the Renunciates was tarnished by the legitimized fanfic she edited in those X of Darkover collections.)
Early Pern is no worse than late Bradley, IMO, and some of it is more cleanly written.
I appreciate the desc of SEL and totally agree on Bwf's tendency to distort. And you should totally read Troilus :P