Product of Boredom

A rose bloomed in my window
Outlined in the falling snow.
The world turned white under an old,
Cold, worn blanket that covered
The land and bent it to its own will.
A petal fell from pane to sill
And stained my white world crimson;
Crimson drops seeped across
The white wood of my floor.
I lay down in them and would weep
But the depths of sleep took me instead.
I slept and I dreamt that I saw
That the world was a great white maw
Into which the Creator wept
Tears of crimson from a great red rose
(That was Himself) and as I close
I awake, somehow, with a great thirst slaked.

Complete Works

A while ago in a class about British literature of the Romantic and Victorian eras, my prof (a nationally-known Dickens scholar and one of my favorite teachers of all time) was talking about authors whose complete works he had read. He had done all 14 1/2 of Dickens' novels, all 7 of Austen's, most of Thomas Hardy's, among others. Currently he was (probably still is) working on Anthony Trollope, of whom there are only 47 novels to get through. This digression had the effect of making me think of which authors' complete works I wanted to read through.

Of course, saying one has read an author's "complete works" can be a bit of a tricky thing. Does this mean all novels? Novels and short stories? What if the author also wrote essays, plays, songs, screenplays? What if the author's writing in one of these genres, well, sucked? What about things that went unpublished during an author's lifetime, or manuscripts that have been completely lost?

Being a nerd, I have spent some time pondering these questions. My basic conclusion is that it's plenty impressive to have read an author's published work (meaning published in their lifetime, or generally included in the canon of critically considered work by an author), or sometimes to have read an author's major works (Thomas Hardy, for example, has several novels that are almost universally considered lesser works, and nine or so that are considered his major ones). The caveat to this is that there is the possibility of cheating: one can say "I have read all of William Golding's major works" when what one actually means is "I have read Lord of the Flies."

At any rate, the only author whose every work I intend to read (or as close as possible) is, of course, Mark Twain. I have read all of his at-all-major works except two of his later travel books; I also have a couple volumes of his more obscure newspaper columns and letters. When I have read those two travel books I can say with a clean conscience that I have read every at-all-major work by Mark Twain; after those two more obscure volumes I will have to begin digging to make sure there's nothing even more obscure I have missed.

I have also read the complete works of Laurence Sterne, which is less impressive when you realize they consist of two books: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Spain. However, the first of these is one that English professors slog through in grad school, if they finish it at all, and that I read and loved as a senior in high school.

One of my goals this year is to get through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's major works; this consists of 4 1/2 novels and about an equal amount of short stories, 4 or 5 volumes' worth. Once I finish Tender is the Night I will only have his half-finished final novel and all his short stories left.

I have apparently read through most of Stephen Crane (author of The Red Badge of Courage), but that was mostly by accident and occurred in late middle and early high school.

According to Wikipedia, I have read about half of Ernest Hemingway, but that seems like quite enough. I have covered most or all of his major novels, some of the minor ones, and enough short stories to last me... forever. The only work of his I still consciously intend to read is A Moveable Feast, simply because of its profound influence on so many authors.

By the same reliable source, I have read 10 of 19 of Joseph Conrad's novels, and (debateably) 9 of his 12 or so at-all-major ones. Conrad is someone else I intend to read all or most of. He is another one people in college and grad school slog through; most--pretty much all--of what I have read so far I did in high school.

Other authors I want to read in some sort of full measure, just off the top of my head:

Oscar Wilde (about 1/2 read)
Jane Austen (2/7 read)
P.G. Wodehouse (just for kicks--he has 150 or so novels and story collections)
G.K. Chesterton (have read deplorably little of him so far--maybe 3 volumes)
Lord Dunsany (must research his bibliography a bit more)
Edgar Allen Poe (and I have a convenient 1-volume complete works)
Neil Gaiman (have read all of his prose, except a couple YA type books)
E.R. Eddison (1 volume out of 3 1/2)
Gene Wolfe
James Joyce (2 out of 7 or so--and the real monsters yet to be conquered)
Shakespeare

...and this list will continue to increase. Of course, there are some notable absences: Tolkien, CS Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, Ursula Le Guin, Connie Willis, Ray Bradbury, and Terry Pratchett are examples of authors I adore but whose utterly complete works I for various reasons do not intend to go about reading.

I bought some powdered water, but I don't know what to add to it.

Since it's been literally two years or so, I decided to do an "Update on life in general and random thoughts, you can read and care if you want to" type of post. In my head I also call this an "Anan-style" blog post, though instead of a song lyric I started with a Steven Wright joke.

Can't say I'm sorry school is over. That is, I already miss some people, and will miss some more as the summer progresses, but currently I'm enjoying not having any deadlines hanging over my head, and having only one young person who is likely to burst into my room at any given moment and try to drag me off on some inane-but-fun adventure. Also the food is better here.

Now, what would make my mostly-contentment just about perfect would be if I could find a regular job. My dad has a 9-4 job weekdays for an indefinite period of time, which limits my options to getting a job in town or getting evenings, weekends, and/or overnights. I think I'd rather like an overnight job--10 PM to 6 AM seem to be my most natural hours to be awake anyway. Otherwise a job in town would be nice, something I could walk to. I've applied at most of the at-all-likely places in town already this past week, and will hit a few more on Monday. I also plan to make up a poster advertising my willingness to do... pretty much anything that will make me money, in the style of an old broadsheet: "Children cared for WITH THE UTMOST TENDERNESS! Yard work done... WITH ALMOST MAGICAL RESULTS! Subjects tutored by one of the most learned minds OF THE ENTIRE MIDWEST!" Something like this.

Over the past few days I watched the entire long version (only 312 minutes) of Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. Bergman is someone that people like my mom suffer through in film school, and people like me grin and enjoy every minute of. (Usually in film school one watches his The Seventh Seal or Wild Strawberries, neither of which I have seen.) At any rate, this was a momentously incredible movie, of the kind that is not really describable but which leaves one with the general summary impression of: "Wow. Woooooow." One thing I appreciated was that it was about a family of theatre people (granted, set in 1907 Sweden, but theatre people apparently don't change that much). Another thing I appreciated was how bloody bizarre it got. Also, over the course of 312 minutes, the only time I ever got close to being impatient or bored with a scene was right at the end of the whole thing, which is pretty remarkable. (Granted I did not watch the whole thing in one sitting, but it wasn't necessarily meant to be watched that way.)

Thanks to Mr. Gee, I've started listening to Tom Waits, who you really just have to experience to understand.

My reading lately has consisted of Son of the Mob; a book of all the recorded words and dications of Joan of Arc; a book arguing seriously that Atlantis existed (which was greatly entertaining); The Thackery T. Lambshead Book of Eccentric and Discredited Diseases (in which a bunch of fantasy writers play around with disease, also hugely entertaining); and the latest book by R. Scott Bakker, one of the most bizarre modern writers of epic fantasy.

The short summary of my last three paragraphs is that my cultural diet lately has consisted largely of the arcane, outlandish, fantastic, weird, and bizarre. Needless to say, it makes me happy.

Fiction as Remembrance

Often when I go back and read through my stories, it's like reading old journal entries. It's not as though I write autobiographical or even semi-autobiographical fiction, usually (though often mine is partially autobiographical); it's more that whatever I am thinking of or going through at a given time makes it into my stories at a sideways sort of angle, so that reading back through them is like a keyword outline of the thoughts behind it. Like a code only I can understand, and only I know exists.

As a more direct example than usually occurs, in the story "In Which Several Odd Things Happen" from the Ritual cycle, there is a character who contains my grandfather as I remember him from the few years before he died. He was in a nursing home in Mt. Horeb, and we would periodically go see him. He had lost his legs to diabetes, and had a stroke, both when I was fairly young; most of my memories of him are from after this time. In all of my memories he is a gruff, rough-hewn sort of man, and in all of my memories these things provide a thin veneer of causticity over the love and affection he contained for his family, especially his grandchildren. This is him:

Vic opened the door. The room smelled less of chemicals than the hallways did. Several plants lined the windowsill. An old man lay in bed, an old man who stopped just above the knees.

“So, you son of a bitch!” he said jovially. “Actually showed up for once?”

“Shut up,” Vic said. “Where's your damn wheelchair?”

“In the damn closet in a damn mess, like you left it last time,” said the old man.

“Ah,” Vic scoffed as he pulled the wheelchair from the closet. “This is a lot neater than I left it. You've been out since, you guilt-tripping old coot.”

The man shrugged. “Just get me out of this damn room. Who's your friend?”

“Joseph, meet Mr. Wilson. Wilson, this is Joseph.”

The man insisted on shaking Joseph's hand while Vic helped him into the wheelchair.

“You associate with this bastard?” Wilson said.

“Yep,” said Joseph, barely hiding his grin.

“Well, then, you deserve to.”

Or, rather, this is NOT my grandfather. Grandpa didn't swear that much, at least around me, and he was almost never this abrasive. But in the minimal description, in the preparations to go for a walk/ride, in the very speech patterns Wilson uses--in all of these things I find echoes of my grandfather, and I can use them like a rope to find my way back to the real man.

They wheeled him outside and the air was still both refreshing and damp. They took him down the nursing home's walk past some old-timers sitting on the benches lying about their youths and onto the neighborhood sidewalks where Vic had to steer around icy patches and wet patches and where the naked trees bowed over their paths and middle-aged men and women looked out of windows to see them and reflected, uncomfortably, on their own mortality. Wilson grinned. He looked at the trees and grinned to see them bow and he looked at the air and he grinned to see it wet and he looked at the boys and he grinned to see them young and he looked at the blue of the sky and he grinned to see it old far older than he was.

This IS my grandfather. Even in a wheelchair he had a sense of energy and a projection of personality that made anyone who looked at him realize he was alive, was animated, and I think that sense made them reflect on their own mortality, the fact that they would age and die, and perhaps wonder if they would be that alive when they were that old. And when we took him on walks, Grandpa would grin, seemingly at the whole world and everything in it. There was a sense of the foolishness of life, the pervasiveness of vanity, in that grin.

“Fog's comin' in," Wilson said. "You boys make sure you go out and enjoy it, hear?”

“What now?” said Vic.

“I said go out and enjoy the damn fog! Listen, ain't you ever...? Well, listen. Once I was out in fog that was so thick you couldn't see a damn half inch in front of your damn face. Listen. I saw a girl, prettier'n all hell. She had dark chestnut hair all curled an' bobbed, and red lips like a cupid's bow, and white teeth and a gorgeous smile. She wore a red dress and she cut through that fog better'n a spotlight. And she set me all... Well, I followed her, but she looked back and she laughed and she lost me in the fog. Wasn't hard to do, like I said. Well, they said she was Iris Jensen's visiting cousin but there was no way someone ugly as Iris had a cousin that pretty. I knew. I knew she was a Faerie, and she come out because fog's damn magical.”

This, again, is NOT my grandpa; and I have a fear that it is not Wilson either, but that's a topic for another day. It does have my grandpa's speech patterns again, the trailing off, the digressing, though again it is slightly more profane than he was wont to be. It is my grandfather if he had read Lord Dunsany, perhaps. But somehow it is this monologue as much as any other part of the story that connects me to him. I can hear him saying this, can almost feel his presence when I read it, especially aloud. But that is metaphysics. I understand almost as little of what I do when writing this stuff as anyone else; but somewhere in here there is magic, and somehow I do not think it is mine.

3 Poems

Apathy: A Sonnet

As floodlights flare through foggy dew
Glim'ring yellow and then vanishing,
So do I e'er feel for you,
No matter that you're fair and ravishing.
And when you, darling, descend the stair,
Fair of countenance, lithe of frame,
All I can say is "I don't care,"
Thou all your friends will call me lame.
And at the end of time I'll be,
Perhaps, a sad lonely little man;
But better that than to end up with thee--
At least my own company I can stand.
As long as good fish can dive into the sea,
I'll rest, comfortable, in my apathy.


Maturity: A Love Sonnet

O you are so darling and so dear,
Beautiful in form, academically wise;
Men exotic and men near
Find Faerie flick'ring in your eyes.
And one like me, in lowly place,
Can but stand back and admire
Your clear complexion and your grace,
Your brightly flaring Creator's fire.
And should this grace with which you're gifted
Make you graceful in your turn?
No. You wish your curse was lifted;
And so you all of beauty burn.
I hope for you sake that you do
Grow up and get over you-know-who.


Antipathy: A Sonnet of Romance

Once I had ideals of romance:
Knights and ladies, forms and old conceit.
My ideals never stood a chance
Before your wanton cherubim deceit.
Warmth in your smile lighting up your eyes,
In sympathy you light up lucky lives.
Easy 't were to call it lighted lies,
But real steel lights up real knives.
Out of my benighted scars,
And out of my naive romantic dreams,
You conquered love like the god of Mars
Polluted blue skies and poisoned fragrant streams.
But, love, despite your blackest arts,
You're not an end but merely a new start.



This has been another edition of "Ethan is Amused to an Unwarranted Degree by his Own Work." Tune in next week for our new episode, "Ethan Laughs At His Own Jokes About the Coming Robot Revolution."

Thoughts in the Snow

The other night there was a heat wave and the temperature got up around freezing, prompting me to take a walk. The snow was falling and as the streetlights shone through it the flakes seemed to regiment themselves into glittering, sparkling armies or armadas of alien ships coming to earth. When I looked at the ground it glimmered too and it looked for all the world like an early computer-generated special effect, as from a bad '80s movie.

As I went I thought of a walk I took early in the fall, in the company of one with whom I was foolishly infatuated. We found a park off the main drag that I was sure had never existed before and that I am sure has never existed since. Certainly I have never found it again. In the foolish daylight hours I attribute this merely to my lack of navigational skills.

We lay down on a flat star-shaped slab, a dried-up fountain, and we looked at the stars and the encroaching clouds and found symbolism in the environment all around us. There were stars in our eyes, glimmering and false. After a while we got cold and went home.

Overall, we acted foolishly and later we would suffer the consequences.

And as I walked the other night I thought that if the Faerie Park reappeared I would go back to that star, that dry fountain, alone, and think about all I had lost. But I can never seem to sustain such cynicism these days. What did I actually lose? I thought. A foolish, flaring feeling, as much akin to sickness as to joy; a thing comparable to real love only as the wailing of the wind is comparable to human song.

Recently a dear friend told me that during that time she felt as though I were being taken away from her. I don't know how much hyperbole was in this statement (she is given, a bit, to hyperbole), but no matter how hyperbolic it was it still left me feeling tearful, a bit, and wanting to tell her that there was no way, ever, I would be taken away; at least not like that. But I couldn't. For how am I to know the future? How can I say what will end up happening? All I could honestly have said was that I never want that to happen; and that seemed like cold comfort.

But in a way, I suppose, I could have said that it would never happen. For the heart is not rational, and it is not a moralistic thing; neither is it physical or limited by distance. If it were any of those, beauty could never exist and love could never occur. Perhaps if I marry my heart will all be kept in one place; but for now it is fragmented. It is with my family, it is with those friends who have become like family. And oh, how it hurts sometimes; and oh, how I would have it no other way.

Reading Goals

Because yes, on top of being a college student I need to set other goals for myself for things like casual reading, something for which everyone knows college students NEVER EVER HAVE TIME.

I'm not doing the 100-book challenge again, because as I have alluded to before while it was great fun it did push me toward reading shorter books. But Mr. Gee gave me a different almost-challenge which I have decided to accept: to read no books this year under 500 pages long. Except there are a few exceptions to my acceptance.

1. School books, of course. Many of my classes this semester have disappointingly small textbooks.

2. I do intend to read through Scott Fitzgerald's major works this year. That seems like a fine goal in and of itself.

3. I reserve the right to read short works when I feel like it. One needs a short book after a certain number of large tomes.

4. Also, there are a few series that I want to read/finish, not all of which contain 500-page volumes. However, they all have a combined length of 500 pages, so I will read them together and count them as one.

The end.

Computer Science and College

Computer Science

A Certain College

I saw the second article first, and thought that MSU's decision to cut computer science was extremely ridiculous before even reading the first article. Could there be a correlation here? Ie, are more colleges cutting computer science programs? Or is MSU just coincidentally stupid?

A Year of Books

This is the part of the blog where Ethan comes out and makes comments about all of the books he read last year. If you are feeling very nerdy, bored, or masochistic you may want to read all of his comments. If you want to skip that crap and get to the point you may go to the end where Ethan will list his "must-reads" and "must-avoids."


1. The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
2. Salome, by Oscar Wilde
3. The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde
4. De Profundis, by Oscar Wilde

Being a Wilde-lover, I can hardly be expected to make objective unbiased comments on his works. However, it is my opinion that every literary person should read these four. Picture, of course, is a classic; and a better and more tragic rendering of original sin I have never encountered.
De Profundis was written while Wilde was in prison, and we see a much humbler and in many ways much more profound Wilde than previously. He says some of the most beautiful, profound things about Christ I have seen in a while.
Importance is, of course, the classic of stage wit; Salome contains some wonderful prose poetry (also a play, I don't know how speakable it is, but it's a great read).

5. Poems, Poems in Prose, and a Fairy Tale, by Oscar Wilde
6. Anecdotes and Sayings of Oscar Wilde, by Oscar Wilde et al.
7. The Critic as Artist, by Oscar Wilde
Also brilliant stuff, of course, though less essential. Critic is esoteric almost, though not quite, to the point of unintelligebility. I loved it.


8. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
Massive, surreal, brilliant novel from one of the world's best living authors.

9. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart
The type of book I read for a somewhat guilty pleasure, about rich kids at a private school. Suprprisingly intelligent for its genre.

10. This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The second out of a projected many times I read this. The novel that proved to me that college students haven't changed in 90 years.

11. The Roots of African-American Drama
For American lit class. It covered the early period, back before African-American writing was filled with self-important pretentious whining.

12. The Adventures of Hucklberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Also for class. Approximately the seventy-nine millionth reading for me. Still wonderful.

13. Reading Like a Writer, by Francine Prose [Reading for Class]
Was only assigned the first few chapters; I've been meaning to go back and read the rest. Very interesting book which shows one how to do exactly what the title implies.

14. The Writer's Book of Days, by Judy Reeves
15. Creating The Accomplished Image [Partly read, for class]
16. The People's Bible Commentary: Romans
17. Wheelock's Latin
18. God's No and God's Yes, by CFW Walther [half-read, for
class]
More books for various classes. All hold some merit in their specific field; nothing incredibly remarkable.


19. The Urth of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
The one-volume sequel to the four-volume Book of the New Sun, it's utterly brilliant, though you have to read the first four books first.

20. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken
I heard this described somewhere as "whimsical without being sentimental." Somewhat along the lines of "A Series of Unfortunate Events," but better.

21. The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis
One of those books where Lewis takes 100 pages and changes your entire life.

22. Manalive, by G.K. Chesterton
See 21, with Chesterton's name instead of Lewis's. Brilliant little novel.

23. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
Lost some of its punch for having seen most of this done in novels like 1984. Some brilliant passages, and Burgess is a very good and interesting writer.

24. Magic For Beginners, by Kelly Link
One of my favorite collections of short stories ever. Magic realism with a vengeance. The title story alone is worth the price of admission.

25. The Charwoman's Shadow, by Lord Dunsany
Replaced "The King of Elfland's Daughter" as my favorite Dunsany. If you like lyrical prose and faerie-tale-esque fantasy, read this book. (If you can find it.)

26. One More For The Road, by Ray Bradbury
A not particularly impressive collection of Bradbury shorts, though it has a few gems of brilliance.

27. Sailing to Byzantium, by Robert Silverberg
Another old favorite. Silverberg is at his best writing novellas, and these five are some of his best novellas.

28. The Halfling and Other Stories, by Leigh Brackett
An interesting, often superbly done, collection of short stories by the writer of "The Empire Strikes Back."

29. Our Town, by Thornton Wilder
I rather liked this play, against all expectation.

30. Figures of Earth, by James Branch Cabell
Wonderful satire of Arthurian type heroism, by another master of prose.

31. The Man Who Came to Dinner, by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman
32. The Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller
Of these two plays, the first one is rather funny and I was proud of myself for catching most of the 30s cultural references, and the second one, while powerful, was rather a failure.

33. The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch
Somewhat like a cross between "Ocean's 11" and a standard urban adventure fantasy, but freshly written and with good characters and story. A literary Big Mac with fries.

34. Coffee at Luke's, edited by Jennifer Cruisie
People writing intellectually about the series "Gilmore Girls," which, yes, I watch. The writing on that show is brilliant. Shut up.

35. Nine Stories, by J.D. Salinger
I hated it for the first half, then fell more and more in love through the second. When I reread it I expect to love the whole thing.

36. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller
Better than Salesman.

37. The Fabulous Tom Mix, by Olive Stokes Mix [half-read, research purposes]
An excellent book for information on the very beginning of the silent film era, and one of the first ever movie stars.

38. Nightside the Long Sun, by Gene Wolfe
50. Lake of the Long Sun, by Gene Wolfe
51. Calde of the Long Sun, by Gene Wolfe
52. Exodus From the Long Sun, by Gene Wolfe
The Book of the Long Sun is not quite as satisfying as New Sun books, but being Gene Wolfe is still fairly brilliant.

39. Who is Mark Twain? by Mark Twain
A new collection of unfinished and unpublished Twain. There's some pretty funny stuff here.

40. The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
Fairly typical Gaiman, but there are a lot of cool and subtle things to it that one might miss if one was not careful. It grows on one after one has read it, too.

41. Raise High The Roof Beams, Carpenters and Seymour, An Introduction, by J.D. Salinger
Brilliant. Became my favorite Salinger until I read "Franny and Zooey."

42. Dutchman, Amiri Baraka
That whiny pretentious boring African-American drama I was talking about? A pretty good example of such.


43. Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller
A wonderful collection of essays on Christianity in the postmodern world. Miller isn't Lutheran, but he has some excellent thoughts.

44. Smoke, by Ivan Turgenev
45. Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev
46. First Love, by Ivan Turgenev
If anything, I liked "Smoke" much more than "Fathers and Sons," though the latter is a much more famous novel. Didn't really like Turgenev in general, though.

47. The Name Above the Title, by Frank Capra
Capra, who made (often wrote or co-wrote and directed) films like "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Lost Horizon," and "It's a Wonderful Life," writes a brilliant biography. It's worth reading for anyone interested in movies or writing, or just looking for a big, entertaining book.

48. The Story of Film, by Mark Cousins
For nerds only, but for nerds it's heaven. All of the film history you'll need in one place.

49. A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne
Not as utterly brilliant as Tristram Shandy, but worth reading--and at 150 pages, about 1/8th of the length of TS.

53. Heroes of the Valley, by Jonathan Stroud
54. The Last Siege, by Jonathan Stroud
The first book is invented-world fantasy, the second a real-world story about British school kids with no particular fantasy element (though set in an old castle). Both were well-written and solid stories; I was impressed with Stroud by the time I was done.

55. To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis
Wonderfully funny time-travel novel. The action takes place largely in the Victorian era. If those two categories sound at all attractive, it is recommended.

56. Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book, by Walker Percy
A book about why, when we know so much about things like atoms and what stars are made of and everything else there is to know, humans know so very little about ourselves.

57. Grace Upon Grace: Spirituality for Today, by John Kleinig [Partly read; book klub]
A decently readable book of Lutheran theology for the layman.

58. Storeys from the Old Hotel, by Gene Wolfe
59. The Wolfe Archipelago, by Gene Wolfe
I don't think Wolfe is as comfortable in the short form as he is writing multi-volume novels, but there is good stuff here, especially in the Archipelago.

60. Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer
What happens when an atheist sci-fi writer attempts to posit God. Besides a couple of utterly ridiculously drawn Southern Baptist wacko characters, Sawyer makes an even-handed attempt, but he ultimately fails at writing either good theoretical theology or an entertaining novel.

61. Rude Mechanicals, by Kage Baker
62. Black Projects, White Knights, by Kage Baker
63. Gods and Pawns, by Kage Baker
64. Dark Mondays, by Kage Baker
Of these three story collections, the first two are worth reading if you've read the rest of Bakers Company novels; the final one is non-Company, and has some pretty good stuff.

65. Questions of Truth, by John Polkinghorne and Nicholas Beale
Two Anglican scientists argue that the theory of evolution is in no way incompatible with religion. After reading, I am inclined to agree on this broad point, even if I disagree on a lot of their sub-points.

66. Lake Wobegon Summer 1956, by Garrison Keillor
Good, fun book, if dirty in places.

67. Carry On Jeeves, by PG Wodehouse
It's Jeeves. What more can I say?

68. Either You're In Or You're In The Way, by Noah and Logan Miller
Utterly cool non-fiction book about two brothers who started with literally no money and no experience, and made an award-winning movie.

69. A City in Winter, by Mark Helprin
70. The Veil of Snows, by Mark Helprin
71. Swan Lake, by Mark Helprin
This trilogy of dreamlike fantasy has unexpected teeth. Its elegance provides a welcome break from the hectic nature of real life.

72. Believer Beware, edited by Jeff Sharlet et. al.
A collection of essays "from the edge of religion." Worth reading for anyone interested in the postmodern religious scene.

73. The Merchant of Venice, by Shakespeare
75. Richard III, by Shakespeare
76. Othello, by Shakespeare
80. The Tempest, by Shakespeare
82. King Lear, by Shakespeare
84. Sonnets, by William Shakespeare
90. The Taming of the Shrew, by Shakespeare
95. Much Ado About Nothing, by Shakespeare
The stuff we read for Shakespeare class. For wonderful examples of how to run a play and how to write in English and insights into human nature, I recommend any of them. For good entertainment, I reccomend Merchant, RIII, Tempest, Lear, Sonnets, Taming, and the scenes in Much Ado with Benedick and Beatrice.


74. Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan
Being forced to read the whole thing for class, I discovered that after the first 50 pages (as far as I'd gotten on previous attempts) it gets much better.

77. Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
Eh.

78. The Laramie Project, by Moises Kaufman et al
79. Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles
81. Proof, by David Auburn
83. Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett
The four plays we read for Playwriting class, except Oedipus was for Lit Crit. Godot was amazing, if you like surrealism. Laramie Project, about the brutal murder of a gay man in Wyoming, I found interesting stylistically and very moving emotionally.

85. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, the Restoration through 1800
Eh.

86. Winter's Tales, by Isak Dinesen
Dinesen, the author of the short story "Babbette's Feast," is wonderful. That's all I will be able to say without going on for pages.

87. Franny and Zooey, by JD Salinger
This became my favorite Salinger. Everything else he wrote is now officially better than "Catcher in the Rye."

88. The Controversy Between the Puritans and the Stage, by Elbert Thompson
Very interesting book, read for research-paper purposes.

89. Lost Worlds, by Clark Ashton Smith
A 30s pulp writer along the lines of RE Howard (Conan), Smith's quality wildly varies. He's worth reading just for the bizzare stuff he comes up with.

91. The Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism, various authors
Oh my head hurts.

92. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
A fictional correspondence between a London author and inhabitants of the only English territory occupied during World War II, taking place just after the war, the characters are so honest, charming, and witty that it made me want to be there or at least be English.

93. Peace, by Gene Wolfe
Again, it's Wolfe, and again his utter brilliance shines through. Many people think this is his best novel.

94. Great Joy, by Kate DiCamillo
Okay, so it's a picture book. But the illustrations are beautiful and because it's DiCamillo writing the text said text is touching and beautiful in its own right.

96. Waverely, by Sir Walter Scott
Ugh. Scott stretches two hundred pages' worth of story, prose skill, and cleverness over about six hundred pages.

97. Reading the OED, by Ammon Shea
Awesome book about a guy who read the entire Oxford English Dictionary over the course of a year. He pulls out the best forgotten words. "Onmotomania" is my favorite.

98. Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld
Fun YA alternate history steampunk.

99. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, by Philip Jose Farmer
100. The Fabulous Riverboat, by Philip Jose Farmer
The first half of the SF classic Riverworld series. Good fun, especially if you like history.

101. How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff
Sort of post-apocalyptic YA novel. I liked it.

102. Nova Swing, by M. John Harrison
The follow-up to Harrison's "Light," which I read last year, could have been shorter but its surreal glory is not lessened for that.

103. Anecdotes of Destiny, by Isak Dinesen
This collection contains "Babette's Feast," and while none of the other stories match it, they are all very good as well.

104. The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis
See "Abolition of Man."

105. The Owl Service, by Alan Garner
Interesting forgotten YA fantasy. The writing style is nearly perfect, very subtle, and the Celtic roots are used brilliantly.

106. Wizardry and Wild Romance, by Michael Moorcock
Probably the hundred and sixth or so time I've read this one. Moorcock still continues to anger and intrigue me in equal amounts.

So. Now for categories.

Books Everyone Should Read to be Human:
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
Salome, by Oscar Wilde
The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde
De Profundis, by Oscar Wilde
The Urth of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe (After reading the first 4 New Sun books)
The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis
Manalive, by G.K. Chesterton
The Charwoman's Shadow, by Lord Dunsany
Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book, by Walker Percy
Anecdotes of Destiny, by Isak Dinesen (even if it's only "Babette's Feast.")
The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis

Books Everyone should Read Who Wants to be Literate:
The Critic as Artist, by Oscar Wilde
The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Adventures of Hucklberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Magic For Beginners, by Kelly Link
Nine Stories, by J.D. Salinger
Raise High The Roof Beams, Carpenters and Seymour, An Introduction, by J.D. Salinger
Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan
All the Shakespeare, of course
Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett
Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles
Franny and Zooey, by JD Salinger
Peace, by Gene Wolfe
Wizardry and Wild Romance, by Michael Moorcock

Books Not Part of the Previous Two Categories but Still Worth Reading:
Sailing to Byzantium, by Robert Silverberg
The Halfling and Other Stories, by Leigh Brackett
Our Town, by Thornton Wilder
Figures of Earth, by James Branch Cabell
The Man Who Came to Dinner, by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman
Nightside the Long Sun, by Gene Wolfe
Lake of the Long Sun, by Gene Wolfe
Calde of the Long Sun, by Gene Wolfe
Exodus From the Long Sun, by Gene Wolfe
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
The Name Above the Title, by Frank Capra
A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne
To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis
A City in Winter, by Mark Helprin
The Veil of Snows, by Mark Helprin
Swan Lake, by Mark Helprin
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, by Philip Jose Farmer
The Fabulous Riverboat, by Philip Jose Farmer
The Owl Service, by Alan Garner

Books to Avoid:
Dutchman, Amiri Baraka
Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer


And yet... I feel like I've barely put a dent in my "To Be Read" list.

Book list 2010

I read 101 full books last year, thereby fulfilling the challenge upon which I embarked. I won't be trying it again this year, because while it was fun, I found it nudged me toward a proclivity to reading short books, in order to make sure I could have higher numbers. So this year I'm just going to keep track of the books I read without a specific goal in mind. This is especially helpful because most of the books that are getting to the top of my miles-long "to be read" list are long-ish.

Books Read, 2010
1. Public Enemies, by Bryan Burrough [Half-read on break, will hopefully finish later]
2. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
3. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by Mark Twain
4. A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
5. Gorgias, by Plato
6. Phaedrus, by Plato
7. Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles
8. Bartimaeus: The Amulet of Samarkand, by Jonathan Stroud
9. The Beautiful and Damned, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
10. Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Prabhavananda and Isherwood
11. MacBeth, by Shakespeare
12. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
13. The Good Woman of Setzuan, by Bertolt Brecht
14. Fences, by August Wilson
15. The Atlantis Enigma, by Herbie Brennan
16. Joan of Arc: In her Own Words, edited by Willard Trask
17. Son of the Mob, by Gordon Korman
18. The Judging Eye, by R. Scott Bakker
19. The Knight, by Gene Wolfe
20. Alan Mendelssohn, the Boy From Mars, by Daniel Pinkwater
21. Slaves of Spiegel, by Daniel Pinkwater
22. Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Red Seas Under Red Skies, by Scott Lynch
24. How to be Alone: Essays, by Jonathan Franzen
25. Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake
26. Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake
27. Titus Alone, by Mervyn Peake
28. First Encounters: A Book of Memorable Meetings, by Edward Sorel and Nancy Caldwell Sorel
29. Love That Dog, by Sharon Creech
30. Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat, by Lynne Jonell
31. Victory, by Susan Cooper
32. The End of the Beginning, by Avi
33. A Beginning, a Muddle and an End, by Avi
34. The Tiger Rising, by Kate DiCamillo
35. Because of Winn-Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo
36. Me and Orson Welles, by Robert Kaplow
37. Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, by Neil Gaiman
38. Sandman: The Doll's House, by Neil Gaiman
39. Sandman: Dream Country, by Neil Gaiman
40. Sandman: Season of Mists, by Neil Gaiman
41. Sandman: A Game of You, by Neil Gaiman
42. Sandman: Fables and Reflections, by Neil Gaiman
43. Sandman: Brief Lives, by Neil Gaiman
44. Sandman: World's End, by Neil Gaiman
45. Sandman: The Kindly Ones, by Neil Gaiman
46. Sandman: The Wake, by Neil Gaiman
47. Sandman: The Dream Hunters, by Neil Gaiman
48. Sandman: Endless Nights, by Neil Gaiman
49. The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories, by Bruce McAllister
50. Theater/Theory/Theater, ed. Robert Gerould
51. Ironheart, by Victoria Tecken
52. Miss Julie, by August Strindberg
53. Two Rooms, by Lee Blessing
54. Noir: A Collection of Crime Comics, Various Authors
55. The Magician's Elephant, by Kate DiCamillo
56. The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart
57. Broadway Bound, by Neil Simon
58. Dramatic Theory and Criticism, ed. Bernard F. Dukore
59. Holding Onto Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millenium, by Albert Borgman
60. How to Conduct Organizational Surveys, by Jack Edwards et al.
61. Selections from "Against Verres," by Cicero
62. Following the Equator, Vol. 1, by Mark Twain
63. Showdown, by Ted Dekker
64. Panzer Commander, by Hans von Luck
65. Campaigns of Curiosity, by Elizabeth L. Banks
66. Post-Scarcity Anarchism, by Murray Bookchin
67. The Mabinogion, by Anonymous Welsh Poet(s), translated by Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones
68. Ink on Their Fingers, by Victoria Kasten and Benjamin Tecken

Year-Ending Blurp

I have at least three topics on which to blog, potentially, though I find myself periodically forgetting either what they were or what in particular I had to say about them. I will likely either not mention them again or do several posts in one day to make up for months of silence.

The Owl Service became the 100th full book I read this year. After New Year's I will post a full review of my book list, for all the people who will be soooo interested (read: no one). In the meantime, I have mapped a play that I'm not sure I like, and have read an average of about 3/4s of a book per day since semester ended. Three cheers for vacation.

Party in the USA

The young man walked into his wing’s bathroom, toothbrush inserted into his mouth, scrubbing vigorously. The radio on the sink counter—a dilapidated thing older than many of the inhabitants of this wing of the dorm—was blaring the vehement inanity that was the pop station. Four songs a day, repeated ad nauseam. Currently playing for the umpteen millionth time was Miley Cyrus and her “Party in the U.S.A.” It was a song the indignity of which the young man had been bearing repeatedly for well over three months now; it was a song he had taken an immediate dislike to, for its synthetic trickery, its obvious lack of authenticity, its complete disregard of good taste and of musical complexity and tradition.

But, standing above the sink scrubbing his teeth and too lazy to expend the effort needed to reach out and turn the dial to a bearable station, the young man found himself for the first time ever listening to the lyrics. And, despite himself, he found that he was sympathetic. Maybe it really was just a song about a girl coming to a new place, lost and lonely and scared, for whom the musical tradition of her childhood provided a link to her past and her tradition…

The young man stopped and stared at himself in the mirror, frozen mid scrub. His eyes widened and he looked at himself as though he were an alien, a sub human, someone who had escaped from the circus. Miley Cyrus? A lost little girl? Jay-Z and Britney Spears her musical forebears, a legitimate part of her tradition? What was pop music doing to him?

He spat in disgust into the sink, rinsed his mouth, rinsed his toothbrush and stomped out of the bathroom with a thunder cloud above his head. A few minutes later he returned bearing a small screw driver. He turned the dial on the clock radio to another station, then bent down and did some close work with the screw driver. The plate on the side of the radio came off, and a few sparks leapt from the old man’s interior. The young man walked away, a smile on his face, followed by his own personal ray of sunlight.

The radio, meanwhile, was wafting classical music. Its dial appeared to have been removed, so that never again could it be changed to Pop Nausea. The young man slept well that night.