novels, comets, movies
“Anna Karenina” is not a book you can read quickly. It just doesn’t move at a hungry pace. You can read a couple of chapters and feel like you’ve moved into a single character’s soul; and you’ve got more than enough to digest for one night, without thinking of moving out into some other character. … Continue reading Anna Karenina – Parts 3 and 4 (of 8)
A few years after finishing “Anna Karenina,” Tolstoy sank into a spiritual funk or crisis that resulted in his work, “A Confession.” In the latter work, he shares the following recollection from his formative years: The kind aunt with whom I lived, herself the purest of beings, always told me that there was nothing she … Continue reading Anna Karenina – Parts 1 and 2 (of 8)
February 1, 2021 Reading “Koheleth” and Tolstoy's “Confession” back-to-back lifts both works for me. Both works struggle with the fact that death is coming for everyone. Both observe constantly how the good and the wicked have random rewards in this life; both hang on to the idea of knowledge/wisdom while questioning both its extent and … Continue reading Koheleth and Tolstoy
January 31, 2021 I keep running back into "War and Peace", in my re-read of Reinhold Niebuhr's "Moral Man and Immoral Society". This is from chapter 1: The growing intelligence of mankind and the increased responsibility of monarchs to their people have placed a check upon the caprice, but not upon the self-interest, of the … Continue reading Niebuhr and Tolstoy
January 27, 2021 I’ve reread “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” Isaiah Berlin’s essay about Tolstoy’s view of history. I had read it in the mid-90s, but without reading any of Tolstoy apart from the historical essay that ends “War and Peace” (the second half of the epilogue). A description of Berlin’s essay, from kobo.com: "The … Continue reading Hedgehogs and Foxes
December 13, 2020 I’ve read “Emma” now, and it was a bit hard going. I’ve seen virtually all of the movies -- so many that there was almost nothing about the story that I didn’t already now. “Emma” turns out in large part to be a novel of, and about, small talk. Emma herself delights … Continue reading Emma (Woodhouse)
November 16, 2020 I’ve just seen the 2007 version of “Northanger Abbey”, and maybe my expectations were too high, but it was disappointing. Everything is too broad and obvious. We know, for example, who are the bad apples because they are clearly, ominously bad as soon as we see them. All mystery, ambiguity, and uncertainty … Continue reading Northanger Abbey movie (2007)
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