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Wednesday Reading Meme
Jan. 9th, 2019 08:39 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which is quite brilliant. Why did I wait so long to read it?
No, actually I know exactly why I waited so long to read it: I’ve been avoiding it because Angelous was raped when she was eight and that’s a pivotal event in the book. But it’s not drawn out or graphic, although the after-effects linger, and there are so many other things going on in the book that it never feels like misery born. There’s a chapter where the entire black community where Angelou grew up gathers round her grandmother’s radio to hear Joe Louis fight which is particularly lyrical, and evokes the sense of community and the horrors of the Jim Crow south. The listeners go wild when he wins - but Angelou notes that everyone who walked into the countryside to listen to the match made arrangements to stay in town that night, because it would be dangerous to walk home at night with whites angry about Louis’s victory.
On a lighter note, I also finished Enid Blyton’s Third Term at Malory Towers. How has Gwendoline held out so long against the boarding school spirit? You’d think she’d break down and have some character growth eventually, but so far she’s immune.
What I’m Reading Now
Still listening to Dan Stevens’ read The Odyssey, which I’m enjoying a lot. Odysseus has finally left captivity on Calypso’s island (...someone’s written the fic about Odysseus the sex slave, right?) and made his way to the island of the Phaeacians. If I recall correctly from ninth-grade English, he’s going to tell the Phaeacians his whole sad story before he sets out for Ithaca, but we’ll see.
In high school I got kind of annoyed because Penelope spent so much time crying, but reading the book a second time round, I’ve noticed the parallel between Penelope’s situation and Odysseus’s. Penelope is beset by unwanted suitors; Odysseus is beset by Calypso. Penelope cries in her room; Odysseus has an actual crying chair where he sits and weeps as he looks at the sea every day. If anything, Penelope is more proactive than Odysseus: she promised to wed once she finished weaving a particular shroud, so each night she secretly unweaves what she wove that day. Odysseus just cries.
Of course Odysseus is up against a goddess, so there’s probably not much he can do.
I’ve also begun Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Nothing much to say about it so far, but will keep you posted on developments.
What I Plan to Read Next
In years past, I’ve always done one challenge per month for my yearly Reading Challenge, but I’m thinking this year I might barrel on through (at least for a while; I may lose steam and space the challenges out more by and by). Unnatural Death isn’t going to read itself, you know.
The Newbery awards for 2018 will be coming out this month! Probably not till the end of the month, but still, something to look forward to.
Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which is quite brilliant. Why did I wait so long to read it?
No, actually I know exactly why I waited so long to read it: I’ve been avoiding it because Angelous was raped when she was eight and that’s a pivotal event in the book. But it’s not drawn out or graphic, although the after-effects linger, and there are so many other things going on in the book that it never feels like misery born. There’s a chapter where the entire black community where Angelou grew up gathers round her grandmother’s radio to hear Joe Louis fight which is particularly lyrical, and evokes the sense of community and the horrors of the Jim Crow south. The listeners go wild when he wins - but Angelou notes that everyone who walked into the countryside to listen to the match made arrangements to stay in town that night, because it would be dangerous to walk home at night with whites angry about Louis’s victory.
On a lighter note, I also finished Enid Blyton’s Third Term at Malory Towers. How has Gwendoline held out so long against the boarding school spirit? You’d think she’d break down and have some character growth eventually, but so far she’s immune.
What I’m Reading Now
Still listening to Dan Stevens’ read The Odyssey, which I’m enjoying a lot. Odysseus has finally left captivity on Calypso’s island (...someone’s written the fic about Odysseus the sex slave, right?) and made his way to the island of the Phaeacians. If I recall correctly from ninth-grade English, he’s going to tell the Phaeacians his whole sad story before he sets out for Ithaca, but we’ll see.
In high school I got kind of annoyed because Penelope spent so much time crying, but reading the book a second time round, I’ve noticed the parallel between Penelope’s situation and Odysseus’s. Penelope is beset by unwanted suitors; Odysseus is beset by Calypso. Penelope cries in her room; Odysseus has an actual crying chair where he sits and weeps as he looks at the sea every day. If anything, Penelope is more proactive than Odysseus: she promised to wed once she finished weaving a particular shroud, so each night she secretly unweaves what she wove that day. Odysseus just cries.
Of course Odysseus is up against a goddess, so there’s probably not much he can do.
I’ve also begun Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Nothing much to say about it so far, but will keep you posted on developments.
What I Plan to Read Next
In years past, I’ve always done one challenge per month for my yearly Reading Challenge, but I’m thinking this year I might barrel on through (at least for a while; I may lose steam and space the challenges out more by and by). Unnatural Death isn’t going to read itself, you know.
The Newbery awards for 2018 will be coming out this month! Probably not till the end of the month, but still, something to look forward to.
