Jan 31– Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, translated by Thomas Shelton

 I like when there's music named after the piece.

Reading

Jan 31– Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, translated by Thomas Shelton

Summary: Don Quixote fights windmills. Sancho Panza is a great straight man. DQ gets into a fight and there's a cliffhanger.

Commentary: After several days of complaining about which sections of books we read, I was super excited to read the chapter title as: "VIII. Of the Good Success Don Quixote Had, in the Dreadful and Never-Imagined Adventure of the Windmills, with Other Accidents Worthy to Be Recorded."

This is one of those books that's been on my list seemingly forever, that I'm glad T5FSOB gives me an excuse to read. It's a textbook example of committing to the bit. Don Quixote is even more over the top than we expect him to be from hearing about him in culture, the narration (I understand Shelton makes it a bit more over the top than the original) plays it totally straight (which makes it even funnier/sadder), and the frame story even gets in on it, by commenting on the end of chapter cliffhanger. But, as I discussed with The Odyssey the other day, it never veers into unbelievability. He fights a windmill and gets knocked on his ass, fine, but he doesn't burn down all the windmills and get away with it or something as a lesser comedy might. Definitely added to the read more list!

Jan 30– Antigone by Sophocles, translated by F. Storr

 One of the songs is called Antigone

Reading

Jan 30– Antigone by Sophocles, translated by F. Storr

Summary: I'm going to steal the body of independence.

Commentary: Wasn't able to get a decently formatted copy of the "right" translation. This one is actually from 1912, so a few years too new to be included in T5FSOB. 

It's pronounced, "Ann-Tig-Oh-Knee" not "Anti-Gone" in case you were wondering.

I think I read Oedipus Rex (probably an adaptation) in high school, but not Antigone. I remember liking it well enough. I was really impressed by Antigone though. (At least in this translation) the rhythm, dialogue, etc. really sparks. The iambic pentameter gives it a nice Shakespearean vibe. I don't think I actually read any of the histories, and now I kind of want to. Shakespeare doing ancient Rome, vs ancient Greece sort of doing Shakespeare. I'll have to read the whole Oedipus trilogy now I guess.

Like some of the other Greek dramas, it's impressive how many tropes are already starting to come into form, and how self aware they are. The guard running for it before he gets executed by the villain is great. I also just love the whole setup. "I'm going to go steal my brother's body so he can get a proper burial," is an awesome story concept, and I can't really think of ever reading anything else like it.

Jan 29– From The Voyage of The Beagle by Charles Darwin (1839)

Does this actually work?

Readings

Jan 29– From The Voyage of The Beagle by Charles Darwin (1839)

Summary: The Beagle visits Terra de Fuego. Darwin tells us about how goofy he thinks the natives are, and describes the land.

Commentary: I just wrote about how I wonder if Eliot could've stuck a little closer with theming/organization. Origin of Species and The Voyage of The Beagle are both in T5FSOB. They're 18 volumes apart. I thought maybe they were grouped somehow, like OoS in science and TVoTB in travel or something, but no.

I was pretty excited when I drew this one for today. I have a few friends who would, if they were 19th century aristocrats, love to be "naturalists," so I'm hoping this gives us something interesting to talk about next time we grab a beer. Second, I don't I've read more than a paragraph of Darwin. I feel like he's sufficiently important that I should've. I've read Marx, Einstein, Rosseau, any number of other famous science and/or philosophy guys.

This exists, if you're looking for more daily reading fun.

    Darwin's pretty euro-supremacist. For the sake of illustration, "Viewing such men, one can hardly make one’s self believe that they are fellow-creatures, and inhabitants of the same world." I think I look on my cat with more humanity than Darwin looks at the Fuegians. That's probably the second worst part, next to the captain kidnapping people to try to civilize them.

     He does have a certain eye for detail and knack for storytelling though. "Tierra del Fuego may be described as a mountainous land, partly submerged in the sea, so that deep inlets and bays occupy the place where valleys should exist." Awesome way to describe a mountainous island. He does a great job of peppering little anecdotes without getting sidetracked. The fact that he treats the environment as so totally alien, while gross in describing the people, does give us some cool fantasy-worldbuilding-type details about things like piles of mossy seashells that mark migration sites.

Reflection on Week 4 (Jan 22-28)

 Link to this week's readings

I feel like this was not a strong week. Let's see how the review looks.

Quick review on this week's readings:

22nd Polyeucte by Cornielle: 3/5 There wasn't a lot here to judge. It seemed decent, but it's not really enough to give full thoughts on. Will read more later.

23rd "The Art of Persuasion" by Pascal: 2/5 A passable guide on how to persuade/instruct someone, but it's a two or three page article stretched to around double that.

24th The Odyssey by Homer: 4/5 I quibbled a bit about the particular section selected here, but The Odyssey is both well written and significant. I look forward to reading the other excerpts later.

25th "An Account of Egypt" by Herodotus: 3/5 Again, there's nothing actually wrong here. It's just a passable little travelogue with some anecdotes Herodotus picked up along the way. The "other's view of others" effect was a little interesting to thing about.

26th Assorted Robert Burns Poems: 1/5 Mediocre poems written in an awkward dialect. 

27th Purgatorio by Dante: 4/5 I feel similarly here to how I did about The Odyssey. Not the excerpt I would've picked, but a little more thought provoking. We'll see it back again later.

28th The Imitation of Christ  by Thomas Kempis: 2/5 God says, "you suck!" repeat for five pages. I'm giving this two points for showing that Christian advice hasn't advanced at all in half a millennium, and that feels generous.

Weekly Average: 2.71/5  My leanings towards fiction are on full display with both The Odyssey and Purgatorio outscoring the rest of the week. This is a week that definitely benefited from my being willing to give a selection a point or two for making me think, even if I didn't actually like it.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

    This week was light on theme, and that made me think a little about the overall process of assembling the entries, reading guide, etc. I wrote a little about how I question including Burns at all. Given his stature in the poetry world (semi-official national poet of Scotland, has a pseudo holiday) I think it's fair to put him in the collection. I do, however, disagree with giving him an entire volume. From a skim of the list, I'm not seeing a ton of Celtic material in general. I'd have gladly taken a volume of Celtic folklore, poems, short stories, essays, etc. Throw "Address to Haggis" in there, that one's suitably goofy, and one of his most read. Likewise, I don't know that we needed an entire day of him. I'm very much trying not to shut out anything that isn't "standard English" or whatever out. Obviously, a ton of the works are translations, and the scope in time and style is part of what makes reading these interersting and worthwhile. I guess awkward written dialects is just where I draw the line.

    I do wonder if a less scattershot approach might be more useful in general. There are some other reading guides in one of the later volumes that're more course-like. But these are more, "if you want to learn about philosophy, read all of these," than the bite sized, curated nightly list. I wonder if the nightly list could've been themed week to week, month to month, etc. In a few weeks, it has seemed like that, but this week was pretty meandering.

Jan 28- From The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis translated by William Benham (~1820)

 Music

Reading

Jan 28- From The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis translated by William Benham (~1820)

Summary: You're a bad person, and you feel bad about it. If you were a good person, you'd feel good. But don't try to feel good or you'll be worse! And don't worry about other people, only yourself!

Commentary: Quick note, this is Chapter 4 of Book 2. Book 1 (from my skim) looked a little more concrete. How to relate to people, approach problems, meditate, etc. Book 2 is moving more into broad outlook on life type topics. 

Content-wise, we're very much in the traditional Christian advice vein. The only thing that matters is that you're good. It's actually impossible to be good. Bad people will be miserable and punished. You're a bad person. Good people will be happy. It's impossible to be good. Hate yourself. This one has the exciting bonus advice of "don't worry about other people, just take care of yourself, you shouldn't have any care for other people." I remember that part of the Beatitudes. "Blessed are they who take care of themselves and ignore all others..." It repeats this in circles for five pages or so. I skimmed some of the rest, and it looked a little better, but all and all, it's sticking with the core Old Testament misanthropy.

I've talked a fair amount (and have notes for dedicated entry) about Eliot, and his views on religion. This one skews more towards a traditional/conservative Christian viewpoint, compared to the more progressive Deism I've speculated on in other places.

All that being said, there's some small value here in looking at this as a cultural/historical document. The Imitation of Christ is held up as one of the most important,  most read, reprinted, translated, etc. Christian books of all time, and it shows. You could update the language a bit, plop this in the Christian section at Barnes and Noble, and hop on your Fox News interview today. It'd be fascinating to look at the cause and effect here. Did this one guy's crappy book about hating yourself for Jesus warp the entire religion because it was so popular? Or has Christianity just been like this for that long, and nothing has changed?

Jan 27– From Purgatorio from The Divine Comedy by Dante (1308) translated by Henry F. Clay

Doom Music (The third and final episode of the original Doom is Inferno, and references Dante.)

Reading

Jan 27– From Purgatorio from The Divine Comedy by Dante (1308) translated by Henry F. Clay

Summary: Dante finished up with Virgil in Purgatory, then gets chastised by his crush on the way to Heaven.

Commentary: I'm teaching The Great Gatsby right now. The Divine Comedy is clearly the better story about being obsessed with a woman.  Also, I like the 1993 Doom music (and game in general) better than the newer ones. I'm just full of pointless comparisons tonight.

From a modern perspective, Dante's relationship is pretty unhealthy. There's putting a woman on a pedestal, and then there's elevating her to near sainthood. Doubly so for a woman who doesn't even particularly care for you. Compared to other quests through (usually metaphorical) hells to save the princess, Dante also has no other objective. Mario goes to rescue Peach, but he's also trying to protect the Mushroom Kingdom from Bowser. Luke Skywalker is partially motivated by that sexy Princess Leia hologram, but he also hates the Empire and wants to train to be a Jedi. Dante is just chasing Beatrice. While she taunts him about not loving her properly.

I'm a little curious about why this section was chosen. There's certainly nothing wrong with it (and the transition from Purgatorio to Paradiso is significant), but if you're only going to read 10 pages of Dante, I'm surprised you wouldn't choose Inferno as the most known. Maybe that was less true 100 years ago than today. The first few cantos have "abandon all hope, ye who enter here," which seems like someone getting the "core" cultural experience would want. You could start around there, and still get the virtuous pagans, which would tie into the other readings. Alternatively, doing the last few cantos would get you some of Dante's historical/political commentary, and glacier Satan, which is both one cool (pun intended) and not what people usually expect, which makes it more interesting.

Overall, this was an enjoyable enough selection, and does provide some interesting critical fodder for the presentation of relationships in fiction.

Jan 25– “To A Mouse” and other poems by Robert Burns (1770-1794)

 No music tonight

Doc

Jan 25– “To A Mouse” and other poems by Robert Burns (1770-1794)

Got a little messed up with the order last night. Here's what should've been the 25th.

Summary: I. Hate. Phonetic. Accents.

Commentary: Seriously, half of these are unreadable. I think I'd have better luck reading Spanish poetry. Apparently yesterday is "Burns Day" when he's celebrated. I assume if I was Scottish it would be better. As it is, writing in both a dialect and a phonetic accent (neither of which are consistent) feels like a weird gimmick that might be tolerable for a minor character in one chapter of a larger work. As a major part of someone's body of work, it's baffling. I wouldn't write an entire collection of poetry using Pennsylvania slang and spelling it "wudder." Subject-wise, they're fairly generic. People have filled entire books with poems about respecting nature, the dignity of man, etc. All of them are readable, and thus better than Burns. I was going to write nonsense there, but then I remembered I actually enjoy nonsense poems, since they're still more readable (and cleverer). I think they'd be better set to music. I know many of his poems were, but I think we were specifically got a set that wasn't. Sort of makes sense (doesn't require you to know/find the song in the pre internet days) but maybe I'd have enjoyed them more. I'm doing these rather late, and am kind of tired, so maybe give it another shot later.

Edit: I did. They were worse. While I'm complaining about Burns here, I feel like I should be less upset with him than with Eliot. It's fine for a Scottish poet to write with a Scottish dialect/accent. Including them in T5FSOB feels like including the Engrish translation of Zero Wing in an anthology today. But not just including one as an example of a meme or whatever (which would be cool, and culturally relevant), but devoting an entire book of your anthology set to Engrish.