alex
2.5 but im feeling generous.....im not a big fan of bill bryson but this was enjoyable and informative for the most part if lacking in affection/spirit/je ne sais quoi. sorry, bill. my favourite part was the section on conspiracies about the real(fake) ‘shakespeares' (fakespeares/wakespeares). just ok but some slack must be cut as he made the lack of information on the subject VERY EVIDENT.....
compelling enough narrative but would not recommend for anyone wanting to read/learn about the holocaust and the second world war, was really terrible in that regard.
ahrghrggr i wasn't expecting to like this as much as i did because while i loved letters to a young poet so much it wasn't quite this good (well some bits were but that is neither here nor there...not all of it at least)......my edition has relatively few poems and it has whet my appetite....i hear the anita barrows + joanna macy translation is good and has more of the poems i will have to get my hands on it.................>:D
This was really cool and overall a super interesting book. Some bits were amazing and really really insightful, and some were very self indulgent in that you could tell that the author really likes this particular letter, so yes he will put in 7 different half-page excerpts of it with little to no commentary..........but even that was just indicative of his passion for the subject so it's ok. Very cool book and there are bits of it I will think about for a while I reckon
fave was ‘Georgie Porgie'
ok I'm not aactively trying to read this yearly it just happened like that....still great
from an academic standpoint obviously most of the sonnets are ‘good', they have been hand picked by an expert in the field (who offers super useful and insightful introduction/notes/footnotes, imo you should read introduction>general notes for the section ur on>intro notes for the particular poet>then go through the sonnets one by one, reading as hale advises and going through the notes for the particular sonnet after you have enjoyed it yourself. or just read it however you like, it doesn't affect me.) from a personal standpoint my favourites were: “That time of year” + “My love is as a fever” (Shakespeare), “Batter my heart” (!!!) (John Donne), ‘On First Looking into Chapman's Homer' (Keats), “School parted us” (George Eliot, maybe my number 1?), and all of Hopkins (particularly ‘God's Grandeur', ‘The Windhover: To Christ our Lord', and ‘That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection'), because they make me smile :)).
Lyrical and fascinating, filled with a strange energy (sexual and v. passionate in parts) while not all of the poems were my vibe, it's easy to recognise how good they are. My favourites were “The Voice of the Ancient Bard”, “Night”, “The Tyger”, “My Pretty Rose Tree”, “To Tirzah”, and The Little Girl/Boy Lost poems in both parts.
oh anne......such a muted and tragic life lifted up by the letter we all want to receive, of course she handles her situation at the beginning well but her proclivity to be persuaded makes her fade away.
can you hear me cry out to you words I thought I'd choke on figure out......I'm really not so with you anymore I'm just a ghost......
desert island book for sure.....I used to memorise chapters of this in primary to read in my head when my book got taken away......diana wynne jones is so excellent, this holds up every time, I need everyone I know to read it, it's deeply ingrained in my personality, love you forever and always.
so beautifully written but i didn't connect with it at all!! I'm so so sad about this....definitely one of those books that has weirdly specific images that just stay with you forever. objectively very good and i really wish i had liked it more. he knows how to write.:(.
so fascinating! a beautifully written portrait of a time/place/self, deeply personal, engaging characters. definitely the dark horse of her books. to be read at a meandering pace.
lovely translation, she captured their different writing styles very well. I particularly enjoyed letters 17, 20, 23, 25, 30, 37 (although his grape opinions....wrong), 39 (<3), and the footnotes for 44. The introduction and the footnotes are extremely well written and make the book very accessible for the general reader, which I appreciated. I can't speak for any expert classicists, but I imagine it could be enjoyed by them also. Really great whether you want to learn about Roman sexuality or just read some letters from a “sentimental friendship”.
the best book everrrrr...........just dazzling and luminous. I loved that the structure of the story reflected the Odonian principles in the book as well as Shevek's theory of simultaneity (i.e., circular, constantly coexisting/crossing over etc.) (and how his society fundamentally forms his major scientific work, the portrayal of him growing up and his experience of life from childhood to adulthood on Anarres was amazing, complemented the part with him on Urras so well). This is just one example of how well thought out every part of this book is, it wasn't as simple as ‘the Urrasti are humans/modern society' (although that parallel does exist) because the human species exists in the novel separately from the Urrasti and Anarresti and both are distinctly ‘alien'. Also how the Pravic language reflects and influences the anarchist society of Anarres that's so cool...love it!
