An internal history, in cut
Oct. 1st, 2007 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnSorry this took so long. Also, contrary to what I said in the last post, order is not chronological in order of first reading; it's chronological in order of "when this work became important to me."
1.(grade school) "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye... You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."
The Little Prince was my favorite book all through grade and high school... I don't even remember when I first read it. We read it in French class as well (I think perhaps every French class ever does this book, because the French is easy but the book is Really Good). My sister gave me a copy as a high school graduation present.
2. (9th grade, through college) As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn't much else for us to learn, except possibly algebra.
To Kill a Mockingbird was the first experience I ever had with realizing that just because you don't fall in love with a book the first time doesn't mean that something is wrong with the book; it may just as well be that there is something wrong with you, or, more kindly, that you are not mature enough the first time through to appreciate it. We did this in ninth grade for school, and I was all, enh, whatever. (My ninth grade English teacher was not, let's just say, one of my favorites.) Now it is one of my Favorite Books Ever.
3. (11-12th grade) "And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content."
From The Farthest Shore (LeGuin), Ged speaking to Arren (although I think he may have said something similar to Tenar in Tombs of Atuan) and was totally my high school philosophy. I still think it's a pretty good one, actually, though I've gotten other facets since then.
4.(College) In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country...
C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory," my favorite bit of Lewis's writing ever. This particular paragraph hit me particularly hard, though (if you're into Lewis's theology) the whole thing is great and the ending is even better.
5. (College)
Thou indeed art just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavor end?
(based on Jeremiah 22)
The beginning of a sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins, whom I have loved since reading "Pied Beauty" in seventh grade. K gave me his complete poetry as a birthday present in college after she saw me lusting after it every time we were in the bookstore. I love lots of his poems, but this one... for some reason has a special place in my heart, possibly because I once tried (unsuccessfully) to set it to music. It's a bit more restrained than some of his others, and yet it is totally evident that the style is his.
6. (College) ...and everywhere your glory frames.
Charles Williams, Taliessin through Logres, "Bors to Elayne: The Fish of Broceliande." He was friends with C.S. Lewis and Tolkien and Sayers and Those People, though unaccountably is much, much less well known than his fellow Inklings.
Oh, Charles Williams. I knew dimly that he existed from the epigraph to The Dragon Waiting, but knew absolutely nothing else about him until I was in a bookstore with K and she, rooting around the used poetry section, found a book of his Arthurian poetry cycle, annotated by C.S. Lewis, and knew it was Meant For Me, as I am a blazing idiotic fangirl of Arthur and of Lewis both. And it WAS Meant For Me. That edition in particular, because Williams' poetry can be quite layered and deep, and Lewis laid out a lot of it so that even a callow college kid could get the general idea. It is the one book in my library that I feel is irreplacable, mostly because I don't think that edition is in print anymore, and I'm attached to that particular used copy because it was the one I first read and loved. (Normally I like my books new, I'm just weird that way, but I make exceptions in some cases when the particular copy has special meaning-- I also have much-loved used copies of LOTR, To Kill a Mockingbird, and some others.)
Williams is not for everyone, and indeed probably not for most. He's unabashedly, joyously, passionately theological in his poetry, and poetic in his theology. I totally love everything he has ever written, from the strange supernatural novels to the History of the Church to the festival plays. But the Arthurian cycle is my favorite.
7. (College) And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
Mark 9:24 KJV.
8. (Post-college-year)
Tri lloneit prytwen yd aetham ni idi.
nam seith ny dyrreith o gaer sidi.
From "Preideu Annwn" (The Spoils of Annwn) my favorite Welsh poem even before I studied Welsh (and one I studied the heck out of when I was in England, so's I could enter in the ASNaC poetry recitation competition, which of course I didn't win because my prononciation of English, much less foreign languages, is terrible, but I had a lot of fun).
9. (Post-college-year/work)
"...libero, dritto e sano e tuo arbitrio,
e fallo fora non fare a suo senno:
per ch'io te sovra te corono e mitrio."
This is Virgil's last big speech in the Purgatorio, after they climb the Mountain.
In a bookstore in Covent Garden, of all random places, I found the first five cantos of Dorothy Sayers' translation of Dante's Divine Comedy for a pound, and bought it. And fell shatteringly in love. (And yes, I'm probably the only person in the world who knew her as a Dante translator before I knew about her detective stories!) And now I have an insane number of copies of Dante in Italian and in translation. And now I am learning Italian.
...Not that you asked me for my advice, but I shall give it anyway: Go read Ciardi's translation, which is hands down THE BEST. Although to be fair Sayers is quite good (she retains the terza rima, which is impressive, but sometimes makes it flow not quite as well) and probably has the best notes/introductions. Do not read Mandelbaum's yucky iambic pentameter translation, which may be the best translation of the words but sucks all the poetry out of it, and turned my sister off Dante forever. The only reason to get that one is that it has facing Italian, which is nice if you're learning Italian.
Charles Williams also wrote a book about Dante. I'm just sayin'.
10. (Grad school) "The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart."
Memory, Bujold (Miles to Gregor). I think... Bujold was the only author I fell shatteringly in love with in graduate school. Because she has so much to say about life, and she says it with such grace and wit and compassion. And she has rockin' crackerjack plots, and is a consummate craftsman.
1.(grade school) "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye... You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."
The Little Prince was my favorite book all through grade and high school... I don't even remember when I first read it. We read it in French class as well (I think perhaps every French class ever does this book, because the French is easy but the book is Really Good). My sister gave me a copy as a high school graduation present.
2. (9th grade, through college) As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn't much else for us to learn, except possibly algebra.
To Kill a Mockingbird was the first experience I ever had with realizing that just because you don't fall in love with a book the first time doesn't mean that something is wrong with the book; it may just as well be that there is something wrong with you, or, more kindly, that you are not mature enough the first time through to appreciate it. We did this in ninth grade for school, and I was all, enh, whatever. (My ninth grade English teacher was not, let's just say, one of my favorites.) Now it is one of my Favorite Books Ever.
3. (11-12th grade) "And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content."
From The Farthest Shore (LeGuin), Ged speaking to Arren (although I think he may have said something similar to Tenar in Tombs of Atuan) and was totally my high school philosophy. I still think it's a pretty good one, actually, though I've gotten other facets since then.
4.(College) In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country...
C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory," my favorite bit of Lewis's writing ever. This particular paragraph hit me particularly hard, though (if you're into Lewis's theology) the whole thing is great and the ending is even better.
5. (College)
Thou indeed art just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavor end?
(based on Jeremiah 22)
The beginning of a sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins, whom I have loved since reading "Pied Beauty" in seventh grade. K gave me his complete poetry as a birthday present in college after she saw me lusting after it every time we were in the bookstore. I love lots of his poems, but this one... for some reason has a special place in my heart, possibly because I once tried (unsuccessfully) to set it to music. It's a bit more restrained than some of his others, and yet it is totally evident that the style is his.
6. (College) ...and everywhere your glory frames.
Charles Williams, Taliessin through Logres, "Bors to Elayne: The Fish of Broceliande." He was friends with C.S. Lewis and Tolkien and Sayers and Those People, though unaccountably is much, much less well known than his fellow Inklings.
Oh, Charles Williams. I knew dimly that he existed from the epigraph to The Dragon Waiting, but knew absolutely nothing else about him until I was in a bookstore with K and she, rooting around the used poetry section, found a book of his Arthurian poetry cycle, annotated by C.S. Lewis, and knew it was Meant For Me, as I am a blazing idiotic fangirl of Arthur and of Lewis both. And it WAS Meant For Me. That edition in particular, because Williams' poetry can be quite layered and deep, and Lewis laid out a lot of it so that even a callow college kid could get the general idea. It is the one book in my library that I feel is irreplacable, mostly because I don't think that edition is in print anymore, and I'm attached to that particular used copy because it was the one I first read and loved. (Normally I like my books new, I'm just weird that way, but I make exceptions in some cases when the particular copy has special meaning-- I also have much-loved used copies of LOTR, To Kill a Mockingbird, and some others.)
Williams is not for everyone, and indeed probably not for most. He's unabashedly, joyously, passionately theological in his poetry, and poetic in his theology. I totally love everything he has ever written, from the strange supernatural novels to the History of the Church to the festival plays. But the Arthurian cycle is my favorite.
7. (College) And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
Mark 9:24 KJV.
8. (Post-college-year)
Tri lloneit prytwen yd aetham ni idi.
nam seith ny dyrreith o gaer sidi.
From "Preideu Annwn" (The Spoils of Annwn) my favorite Welsh poem even before I studied Welsh (and one I studied the heck out of when I was in England, so's I could enter in the ASNaC poetry recitation competition, which of course I didn't win because my prononciation of English, much less foreign languages, is terrible, but I had a lot of fun).
9. (Post-college-year/work)
"...libero, dritto e sano e tuo arbitrio,
e fallo fora non fare a suo senno:
per ch'io te sovra te corono e mitrio."
This is Virgil's last big speech in the Purgatorio, after they climb the Mountain.
In a bookstore in Covent Garden, of all random places, I found the first five cantos of Dorothy Sayers' translation of Dante's Divine Comedy for a pound, and bought it. And fell shatteringly in love. (And yes, I'm probably the only person in the world who knew her as a Dante translator before I knew about her detective stories!) And now I have an insane number of copies of Dante in Italian and in translation. And now I am learning Italian.
...Not that you asked me for my advice, but I shall give it anyway: Go read Ciardi's translation, which is hands down THE BEST. Although to be fair Sayers is quite good (she retains the terza rima, which is impressive, but sometimes makes it flow not quite as well) and probably has the best notes/introductions. Do not read Mandelbaum's yucky iambic pentameter translation, which may be the best translation of the words but sucks all the poetry out of it, and turned my sister off Dante forever. The only reason to get that one is that it has facing Italian, which is nice if you're learning Italian.
Charles Williams also wrote a book about Dante. I'm just sayin'.
10. (Grad school) "The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart."
Memory, Bujold (Miles to Gregor). I think... Bujold was the only author I fell shatteringly in love with in graduate school. Because she has so much to say about life, and she says it with such grace and wit and compassion. And she has rockin' crackerjack plots, and is a consummate craftsman.
