@mana its not too long a read. shorter than homer virgil or ovid's epics and likewise not very demanding in terms of narrative complexity. the drama is nicely segmented in book divisions and each leaves behind some suspense for the next to begin.
I'm reading the norton critical edition which i picked among a collection of editions. i chose this one because its been edited to include as little punctuation as possible. might be more a personal preference but blank verse should be guided by rhythm which in turn is the product of word patterns we become attune to through speech, which generally lacks structural directives aside from tone.
@mana i've gotten from my brief internet musings that milton was some kind of revolutionary in england and around europe. it would follow that the speeches satan gives were fueled by milton's spirit. satan drops some fire shit to the angels when he rejects accepting God's son as king.
I wanna say thing that r 2 argument oriented for the book thread but too vapid for the politics thread and I havnt clicked the random fcking thoughts thread in like 6 months and don't wanna
definitely interested! currently taking a course in religious philosophy & have read a lot of seminal people (plato, augustine, anselm, al ghazali, aquinas, and pascal) - would love to discuss this stuff. spinoza's next & i'm intimidated but excited
so much to revisit. i started rereading the passage where there's a group of drunk med students chillen at a hospital having discourse on the process of embryonic development in primitive language and as they span the stages of pregnancy, the language develops, refines, sheds superstitions, includes histories and new inventions of grammar, new systems of reasoning, objectivity, but periodically degenerates to coarse and vulgar language only to be followed again by higher levels of realism.
also also also the section right before the molly soliloquy is one the most ambitious undertakings i've ever encountered in literature. he employs this analytic method that pulls the world out of every little object leopold perceives while getting ready for bed. and its not psychoanalysis, its literary historical mathematical analysis. another section i must reread.
i urge anyone with a little extra time to try reading this book. it took me 4 months of off and on reading to finish but its been the wildest ride, involving new friendships n romances n moments of just laughing and glowing for very simple reasons.
currently reading the signal and the noise, hillbilly elegy, and infinite jest, the latter two of which i started recently. enjoying them all a lot so far. i'm looking forward to the free month i have coming up and committed to doing a lot more reading.
i get to teach black authors and fantasy fiction this year! (single class split in 2 parts)
I'm requesting to teach in Fantasy Fiction:
"Howl's Moving Castle" by Diana Wynn Jones "The Invention of Morel" by Adolfo Bioy Casares (thank you book club/ @secondplanet - this was your book, right? I really liked it.) "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline
and for Black Authors:
"A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White" by Adrienne Kennedy "Passing" by Nella Larsen "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker
and i really hope they approve the list cuz i love teaching and i'd love to actually teach these books!
@yama it's science fiction. it wouldn't be a bad idea to teach a solid science fiction. "Howl's ... " is fantasy fiction; "The Invention..." is literary fiction; "Ready player...: is science fantasy fiction; ... so adding science fiction to the list could be very expanding. I couldn't teach a hard science fiction, tho; the care for details is lost on me.
agreed- and i think most of the stories (if not most stories) fit into that category
Departure: (Sophie is magically aged to become an old woman and seeks what is left of her life and fortune as a stow away in Howl's Castle;the fugitive escapes and lands on the island to discover "tourists"; Wade Watts - i wonder if it's when he enters the Oasis |.| or when he leaves his aunts trailer and survives by chance?) Initiation: After trial and Error, Sophie becomes her own appreciated force in the Castle; the Fugitive discovers the invention and learns its unfortunate secrets; Wade finds true companionship in Oasis Return: and all of them return to where it began. But for high school - teaching story mapping is dry and i really believe it's where teachers lose students. (one a many pitfalls - and i suppose ti depends on the student if you have the option to focus so directly on a few or 1)
My understanding of High School lit revolves heavily around comprehension - does the student understand the basic motion and intention of the story - then from there, what questions and critical analytical thought can you pull and guide to expand that comprehension? Can we find in book evidence to support their understanding of the intention and motion. A lot of people look at stories, especially well written ones, and have a difficult time understanding that every word was chosen. Lots of people read stories for a surface value and if it's written well - thoughts that there was intention behind word placement and not divine coincidence and immaculate conception of a complete idea, has to be fleshed out repeatedly over various kinds of story. i think i teach better with demonstrations.
But I would like to teach a class in which I taught "The Hero of A Thousand Faces" but I'd partner it with "Basic Elements of a Narrative" and "Once Upon A Time: On the Narrative of Fairy Tales" and in between we'd read short stories and mythologies from various regions of the world, including reglious texts, i think.
but that's the nature of the monomyth, right @yama. which works best with genre fiction. (because of the elements of fantasy and mythos) that's all i was saying, really.
oh my god, ender's game (the whole series, really) is so special to me. OSC is of course awful but ender's game was a really important part of my childhood.
Comments
I'm reading the norton critical edition which i picked among a collection of editions. i chose this one because its been edited to include as little punctuation as possible. might be more a personal preference but blank verse should be guided by rhythm which in turn is the product of word patterns we become attune to through speech, which generally lacks structural directives aside from tone.
so much to revisit. i started rereading the passage where there's a group of drunk med students chillen at a hospital having discourse on the process of embryonic development in primitive language and as they span the stages of pregnancy, the language develops, refines, sheds superstitions, includes histories and new inventions of grammar, new systems of reasoning, objectivity, but periodically degenerates to coarse and vulgar language only to be followed again by higher levels of realism.
i urge anyone with a little extra time to try reading this book. it took me 4 months of off and on reading to finish but its been the wildest ride, involving new friendships n romances n moments of just laughing and glowing for very simple reasons.
I'm requesting to teach in Fantasy Fiction:
"Howl's Moving Castle" by Diana Wynn Jones
"The Invention of Morel" by Adolfo Bioy Casares (thank you book club/ @secondplanet - this was your book, right? I really liked it.)
"Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline
and for Black Authors:
"A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White" by Adrienne Kennedy
"Passing" by Nella Larsen
"The Color Purple" by Alice Walker
and i really hope they approve the list cuz i love teaching and i'd love to actually teach these books!
has anyone read James Baldwin's collection of essays? Native Son?
i need one more fantasy fiction book to suggest. any ideas? doesn't matter if i haven't read it yet - i'll read it before class.
Departure: (Sophie is magically aged to become an old woman and seeks what is left of her life and fortune as a stow away in Howl's Castle;the fugitive escapes and lands on the island to discover "tourists"; Wade Watts - i wonder if it's when he enters the Oasis |.| or when he leaves his aunts trailer and survives by chance?)
Initiation: After trial and Error, Sophie becomes her own appreciated force in the Castle; the Fugitive discovers the invention and learns its unfortunate secrets; Wade finds true companionship in Oasis
Return: and all of them return to where it began.
But for high school - teaching story mapping is dry and i really believe it's where teachers lose students. (one a many pitfalls - and i suppose ti depends on the student if you have the option to focus so directly on a few or 1)
My understanding of High School lit revolves heavily around comprehension - does the student understand the basic motion and intention of the story - then from there, what questions and critical analytical thought can you pull and guide to expand that comprehension? Can we find in book evidence to support their understanding of the intention and motion.
A lot of people look at stories, especially well written ones, and have a difficult time understanding that every word was chosen. Lots of people read stories for a surface value and if it's written well - thoughts that there was intention behind word placement and not divine coincidence and immaculate conception of a complete idea, has to be fleshed out repeatedly over various kinds of story. i think i teach better with demonstrations.
But I would like to teach a class in which I taught "The Hero of A Thousand Faces" but I'd partner it with "Basic Elements of a Narrative" and "Once Upon A Time: On the Narrative of Fairy Tales" and in between we'd read short stories and mythologies from various regions of the world, including reglious texts, i think.
I might revisit them at some point