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Wednesday Reading Meme
Nov. 1st, 2023 08:15 amYes! After a long hiatus, Wednesday Reading Meme is BACK!
What I’ve Just Finished Reading
Alexander Grin’s Crimson Sails, a love story translated from the Russian by Irina Lobatcheva and Vladislav Lobatchev. This is one of those books where I feel something is lost in translation - not so much in the translation from one language to another, but from one culture to another, perhaps also one time period to another.
When our heroine, Soll, was a little girl, a man told her a story about a ship with red sails that would come bearing her true love. Years later, she falls asleep in a clearing, where an English sea captain beholds her and leaves a ring on her finger. Soon after, he learns her story in a nearby village, fits out his ship with sails of crimson silk, and sails in to claim his bride.
Sir. Sir you have never even spoken to this girl. She’s never even seen you! Do you even share a common language! I realize that Soll’s tenacious belief in this story of a ship with crimson sails may seem to tell you that her character is sweet and dreamy, but it might just be that she’s stupid. (Of course she isn’t, because it’s not that kind of story, but nonetheless.)
And yet clearly other people, in other places, other times - or maybe just a different cast of mind - find this a beautiful love story.
Also Mary Stolz’s Cat Walk, a slender book about a barn cat who wants to be a pet cat and goes through various misadventures before finding a forever home. Delightful, as Mary Stolz’s books so often are. I particularly enjoy the way that she writes animals: they’re anthropomorphized in the sense that they have conversations with each other, but they still feel like animals and not human beings who happen to be tiny and furry.
What I’m Reading Now
Another Mary Stolz book: Coco Grimes. I'm just one chapter in and I still have only the vaguest idea what this book is about, but apparently Mary Stolz has become one of those authors where I’ll pick up anything based just on the strength of her name.
What I Plan to Read Next
Back in the saddle on the Newbery project! My goal is to finish the four 2023 books before the end of 2023. I will also be starting the Honor books from the 1930s, but at a more stately pace.
The pace will perforce have to be more stately, because almost all the books will have to come through interlibrary loan. But I think it will be good to slow down. On my trip, I was reading fewer books, and paradoxically the fact that I was reading less helped my to-read list feel less like a to-do list. It’s not a list that I’m supposed to finish; indeed, not a list I want to finish! Imagine arriving at a day when there are no books left that you want to read. The horror!
What I’ve Just Finished Reading
Alexander Grin’s Crimson Sails, a love story translated from the Russian by Irina Lobatcheva and Vladislav Lobatchev. This is one of those books where I feel something is lost in translation - not so much in the translation from one language to another, but from one culture to another, perhaps also one time period to another.
When our heroine, Soll, was a little girl, a man told her a story about a ship with red sails that would come bearing her true love. Years later, she falls asleep in a clearing, where an English sea captain beholds her and leaves a ring on her finger. Soon after, he learns her story in a nearby village, fits out his ship with sails of crimson silk, and sails in to claim his bride.
Sir. Sir you have never even spoken to this girl. She’s never even seen you! Do you even share a common language! I realize that Soll’s tenacious belief in this story of a ship with crimson sails may seem to tell you that her character is sweet and dreamy, but it might just be that she’s stupid. (Of course she isn’t, because it’s not that kind of story, but nonetheless.)
And yet clearly other people, in other places, other times - or maybe just a different cast of mind - find this a beautiful love story.
Also Mary Stolz’s Cat Walk, a slender book about a barn cat who wants to be a pet cat and goes through various misadventures before finding a forever home. Delightful, as Mary Stolz’s books so often are. I particularly enjoy the way that she writes animals: they’re anthropomorphized in the sense that they have conversations with each other, but they still feel like animals and not human beings who happen to be tiny and furry.
What I’m Reading Now
Another Mary Stolz book: Coco Grimes. I'm just one chapter in and I still have only the vaguest idea what this book is about, but apparently Mary Stolz has become one of those authors where I’ll pick up anything based just on the strength of her name.
What I Plan to Read Next
Back in the saddle on the Newbery project! My goal is to finish the four 2023 books before the end of 2023. I will also be starting the Honor books from the 1930s, but at a more stately pace.
The pace will perforce have to be more stately, because almost all the books will have to come through interlibrary loan. But I think it will be good to slow down. On my trip, I was reading fewer books, and paradoxically the fact that I was reading less helped my to-read list feel less like a to-do list. It’s not a list that I’m supposed to finish; indeed, not a list I want to finish! Imagine arriving at a day when there are no books left that you want to read. The horror!
