Today is a milestone. The Maine Page Turner turned ONE!
Last year I attended a speaking engagement by Mike Volpe, a specialist in new media and social network marketing. Of everything he said, this sentence was the one that really stuck with me:
"Ninety-five percent of blogs peter out within a year."
Besides providing you with (hopefully) something interesting to read, I have been determined to beat that statistic. And I have you, my dear readers, to thank for these 365 days of success - and beyond. When I've struggled with what to read or write about next, I think about you, anticipating my next post. I want to give you something interesting, or funny, or sad, or just something to ponder. I know you are reading, and I love your feedback. That means so much to me.
A few statistics: I've reviewed 39 books since the launch of The Maine Page Turner. Only 14 of those are off "The Shelf Project." I'm easily distracted. Squirrel!
(Sidebar: you've probably noticed that I'm slightly obsessed with Pixar. Yes, it's true.)
I'm planning some new things for the days ahead. Hold onto your hats!
Showing posts with label progress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label progress. Show all posts
11 October 2012
09 December 2011
Anna Karenina - DONE!
Finished last night! This one isn't just crossed off THIS list, but crossed off my "bucket list."
People ask me, "How do you like it?" I think the truest answer is that I didn't really like it, but I certainly appreciated it.
In 2011, hardly anything is shocking anymore. A trashy rich family is a household name (Kardashian), a congressman send photos of his "junk" to his girlfriend, a candidate for the presidency has a long and sordid history of harassing women but seems to think this is irrelevant to his fitness for office. Female movie and music stars are, for the most part, anything but "ladylike." The governor of California has children with his wife and his live-in housekeeper in the same year.
Flash to the 1870s. Tolstoy wrote A.K. in the Victorian era. People of quality didn't even say "leg" because one's leg was too close to one's private parts, so instead they used euphemisms like "limb," and so forth. But Tolstoy, whew! Extra-marital affairs (by women!), and all the details of babies out of wedlock. Women birthing their babies, women breastfeeding their babies. And in Part Six, there's some mysterious (and particularly wicked) revelation from Anna to Dolly that because of her terribly difficult delivery of Vronsky's daughter, she should not have any more children, and the method by which she is preventing this is depicted like this (for real): .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................
What does that mean??? Tolstoy wants us to use our imagination. "This discovery, which suddenly explained for her all those formerly incomprehensible families with only one or two children, called up in her so many thoughts, reflections, and contradictory feelings that she was unable to say anything and only looke at Anna with wide-eyed astonishment." (p.637) IMHO, it was either birth control or oral sex. The horror!
Tolstoy gives us "real life" in an era when people didn't even admit to having bodies. Salacious reality.
The book is worth wading through to get to Part Seven. Anna's inner monologue is so genuine, worthy of 20th century writing of the inner mind. She's having a mental breakdown, possibly because of her personal guilt, her jealousy and paranoia, or maybe because of her opium addiction (I believe the latter is likely the biggest neurological problem). The episodes on trains (and, sadly, UNDER them) become the structural story arc. Trains must have been something of a fabulous novelty to 19th century Russians.
I had no idea that the Russian upper crust spoke so much French. Even more than Russian, it seems.
Part Eight is a bit of a let down (although anything would be after amazing Part Seven). Tolstoy is trying to make some sense of the tragedy of Anna & Vronsky. In this case, why bad things happen to bad people. Levin has a mystical revelation: that we must put our needs last and live "by the soul," for God. It's as though it's BECAUSE Anna & Vronsky didn't do this that their lives follow the path ending in tragedy. Now, maybe that's so. Maybe because they pursued a carpe diem attitude that everything unraveled. But I didn't like how Tolstoy boiled the whole epic down to a morality play. Life is a lot more complicated than that. And Tolstoy had done a darn good job at depicting life. Real life, warts and all. In Part Eight, he folds. Bleh.
Excellent translation. I had tried to read a different edition of A.K. a few years ago and stalled out. If you're going to read A.K., I recommend this (award-winning) translation.
If I never read another long Russian name (with "patronymic" and all: Darya Alexandrovna, Stepan Arkadyich, Agafya Mikhailovna) it'll be okay with me.
Too much sadness, these last two books.
Next up, Cornelia Funke's Inkheart. I saw the cute movie a few years ago. Liked it, and like most tales, I expect the book will be even better.
At any rate, I'm quite hopeful there'll be less suicide.
People ask me, "How do you like it?" I think the truest answer is that I didn't really like it, but I certainly appreciated it.
In 2011, hardly anything is shocking anymore. A trashy rich family is a household name (Kardashian), a congressman send photos of his "junk" to his girlfriend, a candidate for the presidency has a long and sordid history of harassing women but seems to think this is irrelevant to his fitness for office. Female movie and music stars are, for the most part, anything but "ladylike." The governor of California has children with his wife and his live-in housekeeper in the same year.
Flash to the 1870s. Tolstoy wrote A.K. in the Victorian era. People of quality didn't even say "leg" because one's leg was too close to one's private parts, so instead they used euphemisms like "limb," and so forth. But Tolstoy, whew! Extra-marital affairs (by women!), and all the details of babies out of wedlock. Women birthing their babies, women breastfeeding their babies. And in Part Six, there's some mysterious (and particularly wicked) revelation from Anna to Dolly that because of her terribly difficult delivery of Vronsky's daughter, she should not have any more children, and the method by which she is preventing this is depicted like this (for real): .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................
What does that mean??? Tolstoy wants us to use our imagination. "This discovery, which suddenly explained for her all those formerly incomprehensible families with only one or two children, called up in her so many thoughts, reflections, and contradictory feelings that she was unable to say anything and only looke at Anna with wide-eyed astonishment." (p.637) IMHO, it was either birth control or oral sex. The horror!
Tolstoy gives us "real life" in an era when people didn't even admit to having bodies. Salacious reality.
The book is worth wading through to get to Part Seven. Anna's inner monologue is so genuine, worthy of 20th century writing of the inner mind. She's having a mental breakdown, possibly because of her personal guilt, her jealousy and paranoia, or maybe because of her opium addiction (I believe the latter is likely the biggest neurological problem). The episodes on trains (and, sadly, UNDER them) become the structural story arc. Trains must have been something of a fabulous novelty to 19th century Russians.
I had no idea that the Russian upper crust spoke so much French. Even more than Russian, it seems.
Part Eight is a bit of a let down (although anything would be after amazing Part Seven). Tolstoy is trying to make some sense of the tragedy of Anna & Vronsky. In this case, why bad things happen to bad people. Levin has a mystical revelation: that we must put our needs last and live "by the soul," for God. It's as though it's BECAUSE Anna & Vronsky didn't do this that their lives follow the path ending in tragedy. Now, maybe that's so. Maybe because they pursued a carpe diem attitude that everything unraveled. But I didn't like how Tolstoy boiled the whole epic down to a morality play. Life is a lot more complicated than that. And Tolstoy had done a darn good job at depicting life. Real life, warts and all. In Part Eight, he folds. Bleh.
Excellent translation. I had tried to read a different edition of A.K. a few years ago and stalled out. If you're going to read A.K., I recommend this (award-winning) translation.
If I never read another long Russian name (with "patronymic" and all: Darya Alexandrovna, Stepan Arkadyich, Agafya Mikhailovna) it'll be okay with me.
Too much sadness, these last two books.
At any rate, I'm quite hopeful there'll be less suicide.
18 November 2011
Anna Karenina, Parts 3 and 4
Levin can't make up his mind... does he love farming or loathe it? Are the peasants shiftless, or just misdirected? Does he want to be with Kitty, or is he too proud/shy to have contact with her again? Is he traditional? Progressive? I think that Levin is like many of us: complicated. Changeable. He'd like the world to be in black & white, but like it or not, it's in Technicolor.
And Anna. Anna, Anna, Anna. Yep, your life is a wreck. Your lover knocked you up, you're living this estranged life from your husband, but still with him in the house. For the sake of propriety, or society, or the servants, or most of all your son, although we don't see much contact between the two of you. Where is this Seryozha?
Sometimes it's a little tough to know exactly what's going on (like, how pregnant IS she?) because Tolstoy is so Victorian about it. She's crocheting something with white yarn, so I think the implication is that she's "showing."
And Anna. Anna, Anna, Anna. Yep, your life is a wreck. Your lover knocked you up, you're living this estranged life from your husband, but still with him in the house. For the sake of propriety, or society, or the servants, or most of all your son, although we don't see much contact between the two of you. Where is this Seryozha?
Sometimes it's a little tough to know exactly what's going on (like, how pregnant IS she?) because Tolstoy is so Victorian about it. She's crocheting something with white yarn, so I think the implication is that she's "showing."
10 November 2011
Anna Karenina Part 2
Holy cow, this thing is a tome. Now I know why I haven't tackled it yet. Tonight DS said he's surprised that I'm finding it overwhelming... "How did you feel the first time you read it?"
"The first time? Honey, this IS the first time."
He thought I'd read every book in our home. Maybe every book EVER. I suppose I'm now just a mere mortal.
Analogy: Frou Frou (the horse) is to Anna as a broken back is to a broken life. Frou Frou WANTS to race. Anna WANTS to have a more inspiring relationship than that which she has (or doesn't have) with her insufferable husband. Both Anna and Frou Frou are described as fluttering birds within pages of each other. And Vronsky is the agent of both their suffering. Neither is done with malice; he adores both his mistress and his horse. But both are vulnerable... to him.
Levin: "Why should I worry about medical centers that I'll never use, or schools I'll never send my children to, that the peasants don't want to send their children to either, and in which I have no firm belief that they ought to send them?" (p. 244). Screams of Libertarianism. Ron Paul could have said that yesterday. "I will always defend with all my might those rights that touch on my interests" (p. 246). Yikes. Experts say that Levin is Tolstoy's autobiographical character. No socialism there, so far as I can tell.
So the Book Referees (DS and DH) have offered me a respite with a volume of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. I think I need a break from Russian angst.
"The first time? Honey, this IS the first time."
He thought I'd read every book in our home. Maybe every book EVER. I suppose I'm now just a mere mortal.
Analogy: Frou Frou (the horse) is to Anna as a broken back is to a broken life. Frou Frou WANTS to race. Anna WANTS to have a more inspiring relationship than that which she has (or doesn't have) with her insufferable husband. Both Anna and Frou Frou are described as fluttering birds within pages of each other. And Vronsky is the agent of both their suffering. Neither is done with malice; he adores both his mistress and his horse. But both are vulnerable... to him.
Levin: "Why should I worry about medical centers that I'll never use, or schools I'll never send my children to, that the peasants don't want to send their children to either, and in which I have no firm belief that they ought to send them?" (p. 244). Screams of Libertarianism. Ron Paul could have said that yesterday. "I will always defend with all my might those rights that touch on my interests" (p. 246). Yikes. Experts say that Levin is Tolstoy's autobiographical character. No socialism there, so far as I can tell.
So the Book Referees (DS and DH) have offered me a respite with a volume of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. I think I need a break from Russian angst.
01 November 2011
Anna Karenina, Part 1
It's a book in eight parts; there's no reason I have to wait until I'm finished to post about Anna Karenina. I've started this book before, but not this translation, and not in a trade paperback size. This edition is the award-winning Penguin Classic, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (husband and wife!). SO much more readable. It doesn't feel "antique," if feels alive and contemporary. And I think that's just what Tolstoy wanted: for us to see this world, and the unique ways in which these families are unhappy. For us to be able to relate to them.
I have a distinct image in my mind of Anna, but not of Vronsky. Not yet. Maybe it will come to me as time, and pages, go on.
I have a distinct image in my mind of Anna, but not of Vronsky. Not yet. Maybe it will come to me as time, and pages, go on.
24 October 2011
Progress: Ho Hum
 |
| This is how far I've gotten... |
Well, an uninspired start to this project. I'm about a third of the way through House of Sand and Fog, and I'm not enjoying it. Not sure if it's bleak, or I'm too distracted with other things to devote time to reading. Maybe I'm avoiding it because the characters make me feel unhappy. No good can come of this situation.
I'll soldier on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)