novels, comets, movies
November 13, 2020 Spoilers ahead Finished “Northanger Abbey.” Ok, I’m going to be grossly unfair to Austen here, but I’ve got to call this one “The One With the Brothers and Sisters”: the Morlands (Catherine/James), the Thorpes (Isabella/John), and the Tilneys (Eleanor/Henry/Frederick). “Persuasion” can be “The One With the Widow(er)s.” I guess “Emma” would have … Continue reading Northanger Abbey
October 14, 2020 In the 1885 edition of "Don Quixote" there is this, in the introduction (penned presumably by Ormsby): But it would be idle to deny that the ingredient which, more than its humour, or its wisdom, or the fertility of invention or knowledge of human nature it displays, has insured its success with … Continue reading Cervantes’ pulp fiction
October 2, 2020 I've finished Volume 1. I’m going to miss all the side-characters. Even before they split off from our core group, saying goodbye to our knight, squire, priest and barber, it was clear that their stories were now more-or-less resolved and that the rest of Vol. I would probably just take the core … Continue reading Halfway through Don Quixote
September 24, 2020 “War and Peace” might be having long-term effects on me. Possibly. - I am more forgiving of myself when I am confused by a situation, whether personal or intellectual, or even when I’m just looking out physically and finding the things in front of me confusing. Tolstoy hammered home the point that … Continue reading Digesting Big Books
September 2, 2020 I am struck by some parallels between two battles -- Gaugamela and Austerlitz. I wonder in fact to what degree Napoleon copied Alexander’s tactics. My son and I have enjoyed watching these videos and it's great fun to think about these things, though comments, clarifications and corrections are more than welcome here; … Continue reading Gaugamela and Austerlitz
September 1, 2020 Reading “War and Peace” and watching Epic History TV’s documentaries about Napoleon and Alexander the Great (see below), I’m struck by some parallels between the two men. Alexander’s conquests spread Hellenistic culture and some Greek ideas about democracy. Napoleon’s conquests are said to have exported some of the ideas of the French … Continue reading Napoleon and Alexander the Greats?
August 30, 2020 I’ve finished the novel. One disadvantage of reading out-of-sequence is that when I came to the second half, I had already read most of the truly great stuff in that half. I was then able to skip over those passages as I did my read-through, but that meant that I was only … Continue reading Finishing War and Peace
August 28, 2020 A long time ago I read that "War and Peace" was renowned for its great “crowd scenes.” Possibly this means two-back-to-back crowd scenes in Vol. III, Part 1, Chs. 21-22: Petya getting nearly crushed by the crowd swarming to see Alexander at the Kremlin; and the Council of the Nobility, attended by … Continue reading Tolstoy’s crowd scenes
August 26, 2020 Nearing the end of a two-week vacation, I’ve managed now to reach the midway point of "War and Peace", having started over from the beginning. I reached the end of the novel but there were many chapters I had skipped, and I'm sweeping through now, from the beginning, to read those. Wonderful … Continue reading Reading left to right
August 22, 2020 I saw the BBC's "War and Peace" on a Saturday and a Sunday. I spent the following week getting other books “out of the way,” so to speak. On Monday I did my Zoom reading on a “Moby-Dick” marathon, which finished the next day (in the middle of a tropical storm left … Continue reading My quarantine addiction