The Catholic Message Board

Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones

The autumnal solstice occurred this weekend. Here on the Gulf Coast, this is meant as sarcasm. Who knew God was such a madcap!

During long stretches of idleness I like to take on reading challenges: Moby Dick, Bleak House, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Les Misérables, and so on and interminably on. This summer I dove into Middlemarch by George Eliot. You may remember her from Silas Marner if you survived high-school mandatory reading. This thing is over 800 pages. Two inches thick. It weighs 1-½ pounds, if you believe my bathroom scale. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a ponderous novel, but it’s a paltry one-third. If it were a hamburger, you’d need at least two to-go boxes.

Why do I do this to myself? With most epics, there are entire sections that could be ignored without sacrificing the essential story. A section about sewers? Page after page of cetacean history? Did earlier families stock these in the outhouse?

But it occurred to me I was asking the wrong question. Instead, I should be asking, “Why did these writers do this to us?” Clearly, they expected a literate audience, and one with plenty of time on its hands with family members reading books aloud or to oneself by the fireside. How better to pass the time between milking cows and shooting Lee’s Miserables during the Civil War? So writers of the age from the invention of the movable press to television indulged themselves and readers with print. The more, the better, judging from 19th-century literature.

From now on, I won’t call them epics. I’ll call them page-turners. And so many pages to turn!

Les Miserables is a masterpiece, it is well worth the effort to finish it. There are lots of long divergences, including an entire chapter detailing the history of the Paris sewer system (of all things!) but I've read enough Victor Hugo that I have come to regard those divergences as the primary appeal of the book.

Another great Victor Hugo book if you haven't read it is The Hunchback of Notre Dame (why this is the English title is a mystery to me, the French title is simply "Notre Dame of Paris"), a book that was so popular and influential when it was first published that it led to the entire cathedral being renovated after it was nearly destroyed during the French Revolution.

Never read George Elliot or for that matter Victor Hugo or some of the other "classic" writers, though I've long been a fan of Dostoevsky and Dickens, who are both known for large page counts. Bleak House is not my favorite Dickens, but to me it never felt long, and indeed it ended too soon. Who wants a story like that to end?

Now, Dickens isn't always so successful. I just read Our Mutual Friend for the 1st time. Well, actually, I just finished it for the 1st time. I believe it was my 3rd time attempting it. It's not a very good book, and its main action turns on a completely unbelievable twist. Dickens is often knocked for the wild coincidences in his stories, but his wild coincidences never bother me at all. They're lovely. The twist in OMF is just a psychological impossibility--several psychological impossibilities, in fact--and it completely spoils the story, which I think could have been a good one. I also read Barnaby Rudge for the 1st time probably two or three years ago, and while it wasn't a poor story, it wasn't great. I was kind of relieved when I got to the end of that one, though I didn't dislike it. But those crazy stories like Pickwick and David Copperfield where character is piled on character and coincidence on coincidence for hundreds upon hundreds of pages--they are just too darn short. Even Great Expectations, which is too "serious" for my tastes, ends too soon.

We can't pick on long books when we consider the length of LOTR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I'm re-reading Brideshead Revisited at the moment.

norwegianblue wrote: ↑Sun Oct 08, 2023 6:11 pm I'm re-reading Brideshead Revisited at the moment.

A yearly ritual, I assume. I get to read it again in a month or two.

Apart from work stuff, I am reading Archbishop Sheen's Life of Christ and Gilson's John Duns Scotus. I am not enjoying the Scotus book. In fact, I must admit that at this point I am for the most part skimming it rather than really slogging through it.

Life of Christ is very good. As it happens, I'm currently reading St. Thomas's Commentary on the Gospel of St. John sort of for work and sort of as a "devotional" reading or whatever. (It's not exactly lectio divina, since I'm going through it intellectually rather than meditatively.) It's nice to have both kinds of approaches to the Gospel.

I don't have anything lined up for when I finish these two, and that makes me kind of excited. I'm eager to see what I wind up with next.

I suggest this.

gherkin wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 11:08 am

norwegianblue wrote: ↑Sun Oct 08, 2023 6:11 pm I'm re-reading Brideshead Revisited at the moment.

A yearly ritual, I assume. I get to read it again in a month or two.

Not as such. It's only my second time reading it. But it probably won't be my last.

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 11:16 am I suggest this.

norwegianblue wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 3:12 pm

gherkin wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 11:08 am

norwegianblue wrote: ↑Sun Oct 08, 2023 6:11 pm I'm re-reading Brideshead Revisited at the moment.

A yearly ritual, I assume. I get to read it again in a month or two.

Not as such. It's only my second time reading it. But it probably won't be my last.

The part with the iceberg is the best.

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 11:16 am I suggest this.

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 3:32 pm

norwegianblue wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 3:12 pm

gherkin wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 11:08 am



A yearly ritual, I assume. I get to read it again in a month or two.

Not as such. It's only my second time reading it. But it probably won't be my last.

The part with the iceberg is the best.

Last night, I started reading Last Bus to Woodstock, the first of Colin Dexter’s “Morse” novels. I’m thoroughly enjoying it!

Is that anything like last train to clarksville?

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Mrs. Timmy wrote: ↑Wed Oct 11, 2023 12:45 pm Last night, I started reading Last Bus to Woodstock, the first of Colin Dexter’s “Morse” novels.

If there's a Last Bus from Woostock, I hope it doesn't come with pictures.

Riverboat wrote: ↑Mon Oct 16, 2023 9:30 pm

Mrs. Timmy wrote: ↑Wed Oct 11, 2023 12:45 pm Last night, I started reading Last Bus to Woodstock, the first of Colin Dexter’s “Morse” novels.

If there's a Last Bus from Woostock, I hope it doesn't come with pictures.

I take it you were not overly impressed with the movie

it saddens me that having been an avid and prolific reader the majority of my life, that I can't even recall the last bok I read.... though if I were to wager, I would guess it was some faith based book like "crossing the tiber" by our original host