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Mar. 27th, 2005 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
proximoceptionThe 451 thing and a Half Price Books trip have put me in booklisting mode again. These are books I started but didn't finish, how far I got in, why I stopped.
Homer's Iliad, 200 pages, several attempts; glorious, especially in Pope's translation, but so monotonous, especially in Pope's translation.
Plato's Republic, 200, a couple attempts; exhaustion from thinking.
Virgil's Aeneid, 50, several attempts; too imitative of Homer.
Ovid's Metamorphoses, 50; ran out of Dryden and the other translators didn't do it for me.
Cervantes' Don Quixote, 200, three attempts; good, but meandering and somewhat silly.
Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, 50; lightly amusing, going nowhere.
Boccaccio's Decameron, 150; light, going nowhere, less fun than LaFontaine.
Petrarch's Canzoniere, 50; pure, intense, not enough variety, exhausting.
Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, 300; fun, felt like a pop imitation of Spenser.
Tasso's Jerusalem Unbound, 100; Ariosto meets Virgil, enjoyable, Fairfax translation is quite vivid and ornate. Again, no Spenser.
Jonson's Every Man in His Humor, 70; suddenly realized I dislike Jonson.
Congreve's The Old Bachelor, 50; burnt out on Congreve here, though it's almost as good as the three perfect comedies that followed it.
Richardson's Clarissa, 50, two attempts; a real experience, but c. 2500 pages at 10-15/hr = a year I can't spare right now.
Scott's Old Mortality, 70; can't remember, was surprisingly good.
Dickens' Pickwick Papers, 200, three attempts; highly amusing. I guess 200 pages is my limit for high amusement.
Joyce's Ulysses, 200, at least six attempts; love the beginning and the funeral but the same dull stretch always gets me, the one right before the Shakespeare section.
Swinburne's Tristram of Lyonesse, 70, a few attempts; Swinburne's as good at what he does as anyone's ever been at what they do, but what he does can be draining.
Swinburne's Bothwell, 50; ditto.
Eliot's Adam Bede, 100, two attempts; absolutely wonderful. Her richness drags at the narrative some. Put another way, it's hard for a reader to stay at her level.
Eliot's Mill on the Floss, 100; even better, even sillier of me to abandon it.
Woolf's The Waves, 80, several attempts; I can't get even halfway through and yet what I've read makes it my favorite Woolf book. It's beautiful. It's not exactly a narrative, is the thing.
Browning's Sordello, 70, couple attempts; excellent, Browning.
Gogol's Dead Souls, 100; fun at first, ultimately pointless. Just my impression.
Dostoevsky's The Idiot, 150; very fun and crazy, I was distracted by something.
Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, 30, two or three; the first section is a monologue you find yourself arguing with. Can't imagine the narrative portion could be half as interesting.
Goncharov's Oblomov, 50. Fun character but you get the point at once.
Melville's Confidence Man, 50; Melville's great but this looked to be merely variations on one scene.
Forster's A Room with a View, 70; close enough to the movie that there seemed no point finishing.
Beckett's Watt, 50; absurdly well-written but inimical to life.
Beckett's Murphy, 50, several attempts; really fun, really Beckett.
Hesse's Siddhartha, 50; dry, predictable.
Rilke's Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, 50; beautiful, flakey, not a narrative.
Conrad's Under Western Eyes, 100, two attempts; amazing book, perhaps his best and certainly his most forceful, based on that first part. No clue why I keep dropping it.
Mann's Joseph and His Brothers, 30; the great prologue thing. The book's quite long and a new translation is on its way so I halted.
Mann's Buddenbrooks, 70, two attempts; Mann's tops but slow motion family decline can be oppressive.
Carpentier's Explosion in a Cathedral, 50; great, no idea.
Neruda's Residence on Earth, halfway; the first two sections are surrealist, the third communist. He's one of the few poets I can stand, surreal, but it's still wearing. You keep thinking he means something amazing and then he mentions "urine nipples" or whatever and you realize there was no such meaning.
Lorca's Poet in New York, halfway; I've read and loved all the rest of Lorca in translation, but here I just can't make headway. Is there something wrong with me that I require some semblance of sense from poetry?
Saramago's All the Names, 50; very good, picked it up right before finals week in a hard term, is all.
Tolstoy's Resurrection, 100, two attempts; Tolstoy. I'll finish it soon. I think I've been saving it, it's his only piece of fiction I haven't read, which saddens me. No more Tolstoy ever.
Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, 100; I love Lawrence but what happened here? He somehow makes sex boring.
Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, 50; seemed to marry whimsy and cruelty. Not for me.
Roth's American Pastoral, 50; this is considered one of his very best. I just happened to burn out on Roth here, after reading several thousand pages over the summer.
Homer's Iliad, 200 pages, several attempts; glorious, especially in Pope's translation, but so monotonous, especially in Pope's translation.
Plato's Republic, 200, a couple attempts; exhaustion from thinking.
Virgil's Aeneid, 50, several attempts; too imitative of Homer.
Ovid's Metamorphoses, 50; ran out of Dryden and the other translators didn't do it for me.
Cervantes' Don Quixote, 200, three attempts; good, but meandering and somewhat silly.
Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, 50; lightly amusing, going nowhere.
Boccaccio's Decameron, 150; light, going nowhere, less fun than LaFontaine.
Petrarch's Canzoniere, 50; pure, intense, not enough variety, exhausting.
Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, 300; fun, felt like a pop imitation of Spenser.
Tasso's Jerusalem Unbound, 100; Ariosto meets Virgil, enjoyable, Fairfax translation is quite vivid and ornate. Again, no Spenser.
Jonson's Every Man in His Humor, 70; suddenly realized I dislike Jonson.
Congreve's The Old Bachelor, 50; burnt out on Congreve here, though it's almost as good as the three perfect comedies that followed it.
Richardson's Clarissa, 50, two attempts; a real experience, but c. 2500 pages at 10-15/hr = a year I can't spare right now.
Scott's Old Mortality, 70; can't remember, was surprisingly good.
Dickens' Pickwick Papers, 200, three attempts; highly amusing. I guess 200 pages is my limit for high amusement.
Joyce's Ulysses, 200, at least six attempts; love the beginning and the funeral but the same dull stretch always gets me, the one right before the Shakespeare section.
Swinburne's Tristram of Lyonesse, 70, a few attempts; Swinburne's as good at what he does as anyone's ever been at what they do, but what he does can be draining.
Swinburne's Bothwell, 50; ditto.
Eliot's Adam Bede, 100, two attempts; absolutely wonderful. Her richness drags at the narrative some. Put another way, it's hard for a reader to stay at her level.
Eliot's Mill on the Floss, 100; even better, even sillier of me to abandon it.
Woolf's The Waves, 80, several attempts; I can't get even halfway through and yet what I've read makes it my favorite Woolf book. It's beautiful. It's not exactly a narrative, is the thing.
Browning's Sordello, 70, couple attempts; excellent, Browning.
Gogol's Dead Souls, 100; fun at first, ultimately pointless. Just my impression.
Dostoevsky's The Idiot, 150; very fun and crazy, I was distracted by something.
Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, 30, two or three; the first section is a monologue you find yourself arguing with. Can't imagine the narrative portion could be half as interesting.
Goncharov's Oblomov, 50. Fun character but you get the point at once.
Melville's Confidence Man, 50; Melville's great but this looked to be merely variations on one scene.
Forster's A Room with a View, 70; close enough to the movie that there seemed no point finishing.
Beckett's Watt, 50; absurdly well-written but inimical to life.
Beckett's Murphy, 50, several attempts; really fun, really Beckett.
Hesse's Siddhartha, 50; dry, predictable.
Rilke's Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, 50; beautiful, flakey, not a narrative.
Conrad's Under Western Eyes, 100, two attempts; amazing book, perhaps his best and certainly his most forceful, based on that first part. No clue why I keep dropping it.
Mann's Joseph and His Brothers, 30; the great prologue thing. The book's quite long and a new translation is on its way so I halted.
Mann's Buddenbrooks, 70, two attempts; Mann's tops but slow motion family decline can be oppressive.
Carpentier's Explosion in a Cathedral, 50; great, no idea.
Neruda's Residence on Earth, halfway; the first two sections are surrealist, the third communist. He's one of the few poets I can stand, surreal, but it's still wearing. You keep thinking he means something amazing and then he mentions "urine nipples" or whatever and you realize there was no such meaning.
Lorca's Poet in New York, halfway; I've read and loved all the rest of Lorca in translation, but here I just can't make headway. Is there something wrong with me that I require some semblance of sense from poetry?
Saramago's All the Names, 50; very good, picked it up right before finals week in a hard term, is all.
Tolstoy's Resurrection, 100, two attempts; Tolstoy. I'll finish it soon. I think I've been saving it, it's his only piece of fiction I haven't read, which saddens me. No more Tolstoy ever.
Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, 100; I love Lawrence but what happened here? He somehow makes sex boring.
Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, 50; seemed to marry whimsy and cruelty. Not for me.
Roth's American Pastoral, 50; this is considered one of his very best. I just happened to burn out on Roth here, after reading several thousand pages over the summer.
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Date: 2005-03-28 01:53 pm (UTC)I totally agree with you on Lady Chatterley; I don't understand how some people consider it Lawrence's masterpiece (his prose is too affected in some passages for my taste). It cannot be compared to Women in Love.
Classical Suggestions
Date: 2005-03-29 02:10 am (UTC)- Dr. Samuel Johnson on Pope's Iliad.
Beautiful moments aside, is there anything more wearisome than the idea of Homer in rhyming couplets? I would recommend Richmond Lattimore for the most literal modern translation, and Robert Fagles for the most energetic. And don't forget good old Chapman, so dear to Keats. The Iliad, my personal poem-of-poems, should never be monotonous, and I've always found it frustrating and unfortunate that most English translations fail to enchant the reader. Of course, I'm the type who delights in the endless Catalogue of Ships. Matthew Arnold's essay On Translating Homer is something I always implore my friends to read before attempting a (re)reading of the great epic.
As for Ovid's Metamorphoses, you might enjoy Arthur Golding's translation, the one book that Shakespeare would certainly have chosen for his own desert island list. The Bard makes more echoes/references/allusions to Golding's Ovid than anything else (even Plutarch and Holinshed). I think it's truly one of the most beautiful books in the English language - and knowing your fondness for Spenser, I doubt you would find his archaic style daunting. Ovid has probably fertilized the imaginations of more essential writers than nearly anyone else . . . and Golding's translation is well worth seeking out.
Re: Classical Suggestions
Date: 2005-03-29 08:45 am (UTC)I read Golding's Book 1 (and his moralizing preface) long ago, on your man's recommendation. It was quaint and vivid, but I greatly preferred Dryden's of the same material, one of his handful of masterpieces. Mere handful, I should say. I'm praising Augustans an awful lot for a Romantic partisan.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 02:27 am (UTC)Also, Buddenbrooks I thought was pretty well paced for a family chronicle.