Mike’s Comments (group member since Oct 28, 2021)

Mike’s comments from the Never too Late to Read Classics group.

I've read through the introduction and reference sections to try and equip myself as best I can. Minor spoilers are contained in the introduction but I think I'll forget them by the time I get to the sagas in question. I have started the first saga, Egil's Saga, although I don't have a drinking horn to join in with.

I read Calvino's The Queen's Necklace before realising that it was first published in 1993. It's still my first experience of Calvino and I enjoyed the writing style. The first story I found fragmentary and incomplete but the second was more amusing.

Julietta wrote: "Just when I was thinking that the lack of concrete action and paragraph sentences of Proust would cause me to stop (in this case listening) reading this book, I hit the madelaine scene and I am hoo..."

I read that scene last night and agree, it was something else. I was already pretty captivated by the book but now I'm yearning for more scenes like that one.

I was marvelling last night how little had happened in 50 pages yet I don't feel that it's been a chore or a bore.

A warm welcome to all the new members!

Evelyn wrote: "Has anyone read any of H.G Wells’ novels? I just recently bought a book with 4 of his most popular stories inside and can’t wait to read them!"

The Time Machine is one of my favourite books, I've read it a few times. It is also the only book of Wells' that I have read but I do have The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds and The Sleeper Awakes on my shelf patiently waiting to be read.

John wrote: "I enjoy the long sentences too - and they force you to take your time and focus on what you are reading."

I often read when I'm cooking but it's not possible with Proust. You're right, you're forced to bathe in the words as the wash over you.

At last I am underway! Quite the dreamy beginning and it oddly describes how my nights go.

"... where the moonlight leaning against the half-open shutters casts its enchanted ladder to the foot of the bed ..."

This brought back memories of the bedroom I had in the last house I live in in Canada where I had shutters on my window. I remember a many such moonlit evenings as I drifted off to sleep.

I enjoy the lengthy sentences having experienced some of them before in Pleasures and Days.

Greek Fiction: Callirhoe, Daphnis and Chloe, Letters of Chion by Chariton, Longus


352 pages - Review

Total to date: 7,172

I've been busy ordering my planned reads and they turned up today. The Sagas of Icelanders is easily the most impressive. It has rough cut edges, thick pages and is a long book. It's a meaty tome for reading such legends.

I also received The Complete Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge which I intend to read throughout the year. I love The Rime of the Ancient Mariner but have read little else of Coleridge.

I've been working on collecting The Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library greedily getting two volumes, Japanese Tales and Norwegian Folktales. These are fun to dip into when I have a spare few and to share with the children.

Cosmic wrote: "I am planning on buying a notebook and playing around with this idea."

I've never attempted to journal anything I read. I occassionally capture a thought by using the "read to page number" comment. I have been toying with keeping track of characters in In Search of Lost Time as I do worry I'll lose track of people and I'm terrible with names.

Cosmic wrote: "The book used the word "folly" and it reminded me of a book I had bought that was mentioned in The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization called In Praise of Folly."

I read The Cave and the Light and my TBR exploded following the interesting references in that book! I certainly follow the threads in my non-fiction reading but I've never done it with fiction. Odd considering that I do follow threads with music, finding out who inspired the artists, looking up session musicians and their other recordings an so on.

I have spent this evening drawing up a reading plan, the first time I have done such a thing. In the past I have just followed my nose through books, and of course I have been working my way through my ever growing AND list. Between the four short story collections, In Search of Lost Time and a couple of heftys I thought it a good idea to create a spreadsheet and plan the year. It also allows me to cater for life events that will deplete my reading time. I wonder what steps others take to plan their reads?

I live in a village near Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Shakespeare's birthplace is a mere 8 miles away and Kenilworth, the setting of the same named Walter Scott novel, is a 40 minute drive and a beautiful ruin.

Happy New Year and here's to many good reads!

I think I should be able to do at least 8 of these this year.

1. Color in the Title
✅ 2. Forest Green Cover
3. Shelf 7: Austrian, Belgian, Dutch, German, Swiss Classics
4. YA/Children

5. Shelf 3: American Classics
6. Short Story
7. Female Protagonist
8. Author Last Name "N"

9. Free Space
10. Non-Fiction
11. 300 Pages
12. Shelf 4: Portuguese and Spanish Classics, Countries of Central and South America Classics

13. Mystery Classic
✅ 14. Shelf 1: French Classics
15. FWC
16. Shelf B1: Canadian Classics

Rosemarie wrote: "Calvino also edited a collection of Italian folk tales, for those who like fairy tales."

Thanks Rosemarie, I love a good folk story. I've ordered Italian Folktales but at 795 pages I'll only be dipping into a sample over the next two months.

I am reading Callirhoe from the collection Greek Fiction: Callirhoe, Daphnis and Chloe, Letters of Chion. Written sometime between 100BC-150AD, it is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, surviving Greek novels. It's certainly not a novel as we'd consider it today, and there are clear stylings borrowed from Homer, but it is a linearly progressive narrative. It is also an example of the star-crossed lovers trope.

52 Stories arrived this morning. I've only read a few of Chekhov's stories but have read A Life in Letters. In some of his letters to Suvorin (an editor/publisher and later close friend) he complains about rushing to meet deadlines and chopping stories to pieces to fit word limits. It'll be intersting to see if I get a sense of any of this in these stories or if it's more a case of an author never satisified with his work despite it's excellency.

I picked up The Queen's Necklace by Italo Calvino a long time ago but haven't got around to reading it so this gives the impetus.

I too will be joining! I ordered my copy yesterday and it should arrive next week. I enjoy epic tales but have only read The Prose Edda and The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue to date having focused more on Greek and Summerian epics so far.

The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue


53 pages - Review

Total to date: 714,549

I'm looking forward to this, I intend on joining for all four. I have Dostoevsky's short stories spread across a few volumes in Penguin Classics so will read the same stories but in different books.