Chris Via > Recent Status Updates

NEW VIDEO: Homer’s ODYSSEY! ‪https://youtu.be/cppQTaDZj8M‬

NEW VIDEO! Thoughts on THE GREAT GATSBY. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMPtrQ...

I've been waiting 5 years to savor this world masterpiece again. Here we go!

"Gatsby and its author are too ubiquitous to be intellectually sexy" (274).

NEW VIDEO: The Collected Stories of Diane Williams http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyHscD...

Gaddis's AgapE, Agape; Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground; Camus's The Fall; Aicher's A Confession; but with an utterly unique voice and ranting, historical synthesis reminiscent of Miller's Black Spring. In short: a real treat!

Now here's something fresh, idiosyncratic, and compelling!

OK! The passages at the end of chapter VI are striking, if a tad florid.

Some arguments from Corrigan:
(1) "powerhouse poetic style"
(2) "nails who we want to be as Americans"
(3) "say[s] something big about America and...[is] beautifully written"
(4) "every line, every page of the work...is just about perfect"
(5) "foregrounds class instead of race"
(6) "Fitzgerald always wants to want"

Corrigan particularly emphasizes the greatness of the writing.

Still not seeing it, but this second pass is much better than the first. I definitely give it a third read.

Corrigan links the spike in paperback sales to the most recent Gatsby movie, but there's no guarantee these purchases (1) resulting in actual reading, or (2) resulted in positive reading experience. Most Game of Thrones fans I've spoken with love the HBO series and own the books, but they're always meaning to get around to reading them.
Still--I press on.

Mrs. Corsican asserts Gatsby as the greatest American novel, even in the face of Moby-Dick. O_O
Yet—I shall read on.

Haven’t read this in over seven years. Didn’t get much out of it back then. Let’s see what happens this time.

What keen wit and rhetorical chops!
Why have I waiting so long to experience Berlin?

NEW VIDEO: Murakami Chronicles 03: HARDBOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4oiFO...

Michel Dirda--one of the few writers through whose books I live vicariously.

Continuing my Murakami series.

BX90 Progress: 2 Kings complete. More Baal-worshipping kings of Israel, with some returns to the Lord (e.g. Josiah); Elijah as precursor to John the Baptist; transition from Assyrian exile to Babylonian exile under Nebuchadnezzar; and more promise of further historical elaboration in Chronicles--to which I now turn.

NEW VIDEO: Homer's ILIAD (Western Core Series) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvv2W1...

Continuing my read-through of the Murakami’s œuvre.

I had been wavering on whether this was a mere period piece or not for a while in the middle there, but Ellmann have elevated this significantly in the last couple hundred pages.

Four attempts at escape with miraculous immunity.

NEW VIDEO: AMERICAN SONNETS FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN by Terrance Hayes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5xzyy...)

Affluent family driven downhill by a lusty grandfather; a fortunate, if brief, Jesuit education for the young Miguel; exiled from Spain under threat of having his right hand severed; joined the army in Italy; maimed in war (lost use of left arm); taken captive by pirates; imprisoned in Algiers; and the story continues.

Prep work for upcoming re-read of the great QUIXOTE!

NEW VIDEO: 10 Short Books I Love! ‪https://youtu.be/bW6CnYFu5Ek