false 20 66 57 true 5718685 read 4 true 2459497 currently-reading 5 true 2459496 to-read 16 false 5178813 classics 12 false 5178906 british-classics 12 false 2461486 my-library 4 false 5178861 classical 3 false 5191406 refer-to-at-least-weekly 2 false 5191503 biography-autobiography 2 false 5178860 reference 2 false 5178941 philosophy 0 false 8328100 wishlist http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/154714-please-introduce-yourself Everyman made a comment in the Classics and the Western Canon group:

It seems a bit silly to say welcome to somebody who's been posting as long as you have, but welcome anyhow! ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/126901-introducing-ourselves Everyman made a comment in the Victorians! group:

Clare wrote: "you've read les miserables?"

We're reading it right now in the Western Canon group (to which many people who post here also post). We're pretty far into the book, but if you've read it, or are a fast reader, you've still got time to join that discussion.

Classics and the Western Canon


]]> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/193829-suggestions-for-the-main-booklist Everyman made a comment in the Classics and the Western Canon group:

I ran across this wonderful quote from Mortimer Adler while I was doing some browsing:

"The difference between great and good books is one of kind, not of degree. Good books are not "almost great" or "less than great" books. Great books are relevant to human problems in every century, not just germane to current twentieth-century problems. A great book requires to be read over and over, and has many meanings; a good book needs to have no more than one meaning, and it need be read no more than once." ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/156025-open-for-business Everyman made a comment in the Classics and the Western Canon group:

Patrice wrote: "The edition I was assigned this time around was the Bantam edited, introduced and translated by Peter G. Beidler. It provides the middle English on the left page and the modern translation on the right so it's easy to compare and for a purist to read the original."

That's a nice approach, but the weakness to this edition is that it is only a selection of the tales, not the complete work (well, as complete as Chaucer made it -- he never finished his full plan, which is probably a good thing because if he had we would have a book nearly five times as long (his original plan was for 120 or more tales, depending on whether the pilgrim teller or Mine Host told any, compared with the 25 we have now in a complete edition.)

But then, even the Norton edition isn't the complete work, which found very disappointing when I got it years ago.

]]> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/191858-planning-for-our-next-major-read Everyman made a comment in the Classics and the Western Canon group:

Stephen wrote: "The Canterbury Tales – I think that a group read of the whole Canterbury Tales is too much and should focus on a single tale instead."

We have done (and I plan to continue to do) short interim reads between our main selections -- usually two or three weeks, and the moderators' prerogative to choose (rank hath it's privileges even here!, though lobbying is also permitted here) -- and I did consider a few of the Canterbury Tales for the an interim read, but the work as a whole seems no more daunting than Don Quixote or Les Miserables. So I think it's fair to offer the group a chance to read the whole work. In future, we could offer a significant selection of the best of the tales (and therein hangs a lengthy debate!) as an alternative option, but let's see how popular the whole work looks with the group -- it (tied with Anna Karenina) was, after all, the second choice to LesMis in our first poll, which is why it made it onto this list.

But as always, I am the servant of the group, so if a groundswell arises for a partial reading of the Tales, it will certainly get considered.

]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76061892 to: The Whole Five Feet: What the Great Books Taught Me About Life, Death, and Pretty Much Everything Else (Hardcover) by Christopher R. Beha
On finding out how important the Harvard Classics Five Foot shelf of books had been to educate his grandmother during the Great Depression, the author decided to take a year to read the entire set through, at roughly one volume per week, and to write about his experience with these great books.

The result could have been a fascinating look at some of the most important works of Western thought. But the actual result is a self-indulgent mish-mash of superficial thoughts about his own life by a not very interesting person.

It would be generous to claim that half the content of the book has anything to do with the actual writing of the authors involved. It’s usually about himself – sort of like a book review on Moby Dick which uses the book as a basis for an essay about a dismal fishing trip one took with one’s uncle as a child where it rained all day and you caught nothing but a really bad cold.

“Reading” the books, for the author, is something different from what it is to most serous readers. He admits at times that his reading consisted of looking at every word on the page without any attempt at understanding or appreciation. When he falls behind in the summer on his book-a-month schedule, he rushes through six volumes in October, including two volumes of philosophy and theology by Machiavelli, More, Luther, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Sure, one can look at all the words in these books in less than a week. But what kind of “reading” is that?

And why was it necessary for a reading of a volume on scientific and medical papers to lead into a lengthy discursion on his visit to the Empire State Building to make a donation at a sperm bank? Sorry, Mr. Beha, but that’s just TMI.

What kind of reading is it to read three volumes of English poetry in two weeks? As he admits, he really wanted to take the time to read this poetry properly, but “as it was, I couldn’t take my time if I wanted to finish on schedule. So I pressed on, turning the pages like those of a novel or a biography, knowing all the while that poetry – especially the short lyric poetry that dominates the English tradition – isn’t meant to be read in this way.”

This admission is the self-condemnation of the whole project. The goal was simply to turn these thousands of pages over one by one during the course of one year. No matter that this is writing intended to be thought about, to be lingered over, to be understood. For Beha, it is simply pages to be turned.

It is the literary equivalent of a one week “if this is Tuesday, it must be Belgium” tour of fifteen countries of Europe. “Okay, folks,” says the guide as the bus pulls up to an imposing building, “this is the Louvre. We have a half-hour stop here.” The museum guide race-walks the group through several long corridors, pointing on the fly “that’s the Mona Lisa. If you glance through that door on your left, you can see our collection of Monet’s waterlily paintings. Over across the rotunda there you can see where our Egyptian antiquities are housed. Here’s the gift shop where you can spend the last fifteen minutes of your tour.” But at least when you get home, you can impress your friends by talking about “oh yes, we’ve seen Europe. Oh yes, the Louvre – magnificent, I especially loved the Mona Lisa, and Monet, and their wonderful Egyptian collections.”

If you have any curiosity about what is really in the Harvard Classics, the history of ideas they represent, their value to the human spirit, don’t waste time on The Whole Five Feet. You won’t get any of that. But if “doing” the Louvre or British Museum or MOMA in thirty minutes while listening to the babble of an immature, self-centered “guide” who has glanced at but never seen the art in question is your cup of tea, this book will be perfect for you. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22715301 to: The Sister (Hardcover) by Poppy Adams
The thesis of this book is marginally interesting. The protagonist, now in her 60s, is a recluse with significant mental problems who has lived alone in the crumbling family mansion for several decades. Her sister, whom she has not seen for thirty years, has decided to move "home" for her retirement. The action takes place over a long weekend, but there are extensive flashbacks to fill in the background.

The family are leipdopterists, and the book is filled with far too much moth lore for my taste. The characters seem to me flat and not particularly interesting. And finally, the author has, as she discussed in a conversation I participated in, deliberately left many important elements of the story unresolved; the reader is free to decide what the "truth" about events is.

If I had not been reading the book for participation in a discussion with the author, I would have quit the book after the first fifty pages or so. As it is, I finished it, but I don't feel that my reading time was well used. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/58587834 to: Silas Marner (Enriched Classics Series) by George Eliot
bookshelves: british-classics, classics, my-library
I hated this when I was forced to read it in school. For some reason, went back to it about ten years later and loved it. Have read it several times since then, and each time I find it richer and more satisfying. It's a beautiful little tale with some morals right out in the open and others hidden. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22683259 to: The Republic of Plato (Paperback) by Plato
bookshelves: my-library
All the criticisms of Plato are valid. He raises straw arguments. He manipulates discussions unfairly. He doesn't offer realistic solutions. And so no.

But he is still, and for very good reason, the most influential philosopher in Western civilization. He makes people think. Most authors we read today are trying to persuade us to agree with their point of view. Plato, not so. He wants you to disagree with him. He wants you to argue with him. He wants you to identify the fallacies in his arguments (and some are deliberately fallacious). In short, he wants you to do the most difficult intellectual exercise there is. He wants you to think, and to think deeply.

The other thing to realize about Plato is that he is an exquisite poet and craftsman. There is nothing accidental about what he writes; there is nothing superfluous. Even the most minute seeming points are there for good reason. Part of the joy of reading Plato for the third, fourth, fifth time is to see each time a bit more about what he is doing and why he is doing it, to come closer to appreciating his extraordinary genius and encountering ever more deeply this incredible mind. ]]>