The cutouts have been collecting. It's time to update the April 1st Project.
Thursday, January 2, 2025
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
The 2024 Reading List
Early in 2024 I decided to keep a running list of books, plays, and poetry that I was reading. Current reading seems to surface in most conversations, and I found that I couldn't always remember what I had just finished. I read a lot and across many topics.
As I'm new to Instagram and have discovered that most of the book people are sharing lists as a year end exercise, I thought I'd do the same here.
You will note that the bulk of my reading was Shakespeare. Yep, read all of his work in 2024. And you'll also note a great deal of poetry.
It feels like something is missing, but it's likely because I read many books at once and several have been started and remain stacked and waiting...
1. Twelfth Night by Shakespeare
2. Henry VI, Part One
3. Chip Wars by Chris Miller
4. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (A beloved book since childhood)
5. WH Auden’s Lectures on Shakespeare
6. Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen
7. Henry VI, Part Two
8. This is Shakespeare by Emma Smith
9. Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare (A must!)
10. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
11. The World Doesn’t End by Charles Simic
12. Henry VI, Part Three
13. Good Will Come from the Sea by Christos Ikonomou
14. Comedy of Errors
15. Taming of the Shrew
16. A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli
17. Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
18. Richard III
19. Art + Faith by Makoto Fujimora
20. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
21. The Two Gentlemen from Verona
22. Postcards from the Underworld by Sinan
23. King John
24. Richard II
25. Crossing the Unknown Sea by David Whyte
26. The Anchor's Long Chain by Yves Bonnefoy
27. Perreira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi
28. A Writer’s Notebook by W.H. Auden
29. Hamlet
30. Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo
31. Blow Up: Stories by Julio Cortazar
32. The Hebrew Bible as Literature by Tod Linafelt
33. The Key Concepts of the Old Testament by Albert Gelin
34. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy
35. Brand New Ancients by Kate Tempest
36. The Rape of Lucrece
37. Shakespeare’s Sonnets (all)
38. Readings from the Book of Exile by Padraig o Tuama
39. Magnetic Field: The Marsden Poems by Simon Armitage
40. 4,000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
41. Dialogue by Robert McKee
42. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
43. Until August by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. Othello
45. Memoirs, Dreams, Reflections by Jung (still reading)
46. The Visitor by Maeve Brennan
47. The Swimmer by Edna O’Brien
48. Diaries of Exile by Yannis Ritsos
49. Love’s Labour’s Lost
50. Academy Street by Mary Costello
51. Pericles
52. The Source by Tara Swart
53. Cymbeline
54. Homeric Moments by Eva Brann
55. The History of Forgetting by Lawrence Raab
56. Falling Upward by Richard Rohr (my second but not last time to read this)
57. Much Ado About Nothing
58. Merchant of Venice
59. All’s Well That Ends Well
60. King Lear
61. A Lover’s Complaint
62. The Passionate Pilgrim
63. Lovers in the Museum by Isabelle Allende
64. As You Like It
65. Macbeth
66. The Hidden Parables by Todd Michael
67. The Twelve Conditions for a Miracle by Todd Michael (another reread)
68. Genesis - Jensen Bible Study
69. The Writers Guide to Crafting Stories for Children by Nancy Lamb
70. The Economics Book by DK Publishing
71. The Quiet in Me by Patrick Lane
72. The Ferryman (play) by Jen Butterworth
73. Charles Simic Selected Poems 1963 to 1983
74. Antony and Cleopatra
75. Let the Light Pour In by Lemn Sissay
76. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
77. James by Percival Everett
78. Erasure by Percival Everett
79. Corilanius
80. All's Well That Ends Well
81. Carbon Reckoning by Sue Ransom (not yet published)
82. Measure for Measure by Shakespeare
83. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
84. Henry IV, Part One
85. The Secret History of the Zohar by Michael Berg
86. The Merry Wives of Windsor
87. Henry IV, Part Two
88. The Commune by Marios Chakkas
89. The Cabala by Thornton Wilder
90. The Abolition of Man by CS Lewis
91. The Monk in the White Robe by Ira
92. Moby Dick by Herman
93. Our Town by Thornton Wilder
94. Henry V
95. Henry VIII
96. J.B. by Archibald MacLeish
97. The Age of AI by Henry Kissinger and Eric Schmidt
98. Selected Poems Leonard Cohen
99. Confessions of a Sinner by St Augustine
100. The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
101. Inner Work by Robert Johnson
102. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
103. Edward III
104. The Lonely Man of Faith by Joseph Soloveitchik
105. Timon of Athens
106. A Winter’s Tale
107. Paris by Julian Green
108. The Tempest
109. Christ, with Urban Fox by John Deane
110. Paul by NT Wright
111. Two Noble Kinsmen
112. Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
113. The Answer is No by Fredrik Backman
114. Nausea by John Paul
115. Songs of Minyar the Damascene by Adonis
116. Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
117. Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong
118. The Runner by David Samuels
119. Consider This by Chuck Pahlaniuk
120. The Shortest Day by Colm
121. Faithful and Virtuous Night by Louise Glück
122. First Four Books of Poems by Louise Glück
123. Gravity and Center by Henri Cole
124. A Divine Language by Alec Wilkinson
125. Budapest by Victor Sebestyen
126. Titus Andronicus by Shakespeare
127. Venus and Adonis by Shakespeare
128. A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare
129. Troilus and Cressida by Shakespeare
130. The Phoenix and Turtle by Shakespeare
131. A Funeral Elegy by Shakespeare (I don't believe he wrote this)
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
A Work of Art
I found the following Chekhov story on Project Gutenberg, and it made me smile.
SASHA SMIRNOV, the only son of his mother, holding under his arm, something wrapped up in No. 223 of the Financial News, assumed a sentimental expression, and went into Dr. Koshelkov’s consulting-room.
“Ah, dear lad!” was how the doctor greeted him. “Well! how are we feeling? What good news have you for me?”
Sasha blinked, laid his hand on his heart and said in an agitated voice: “Mamma sends her greetings to you, Ivan Nikolaevitch, and told me to thank you. . . . I am the only son of my mother and you have saved my life . . . you have brought me through a dangerous illness and . . . we do not know how to thank you.
“Nonsense, lad!” said the doctor, highly delighted. “I only did what anyone else would have done in my place.”
“I am the only son of my mother . . . we are poor people and cannot of course repay you, and we are quite ashamed, doctor, although, however, mamma and I . . . the only son of my mother, earnestly beg you to accept in token of our gratitude . . . this object, which . . . An object of great value, an antique bronze. . . . A rare work of art.”
“You shouldn’t!” said the doctor, frowning. “What’s this for!”
“No, please do not refuse,” Sasha went on muttering as he unpacked the parcel. “You will wound mamma and me by refusing. . . . It’s a fine thing . . . an antique bronze. . . . It was left us by my deceased father and we have kept it as a precious souvenir. My father used to buy antique bronzes and sell them to connoisseurs . . . Mamma and I keep on the business now.”
Sasha undid the object and put it solemnly on the table. It was a not very tall candelabra of old bronze and artistic workmanship. It consisted of a group: on the pedestal stood two female figures in the costume of Eve and in attitudes for the description of which I have neither the courage nor the fitting temperament. The figures were smiling coquettishly and altogether looked as though, had it not been for the necessity of supporting the candlestick, they would have skipped off the pedestal and have indulged in an orgy such as is improper for the reader even to imagine.
Looking at the present, the doctor slowly scratched behind his ear, cleared his throat and blew his nose irresolutely.
“Yes, it certainly is a fine thing,” he muttered, “but . . . how shall I express it? . . . it’s . . . h’m . . . it’s not quite for family reading. It’s not simply decolleté but beyond anything, dash it all. . . .”
“How do you mean?”
“The serpent-tempter himself could not have invented anything worse . . . . Why, to put such a phantasmagoria on the table would be defiling the whole flat.”
“What a strange way of looking at art, doctor!” said Sasha, offended. “Why, it is an artistic thing, look at it! There is so much beauty and elegance that it fills one’s soul with a feeling of reverence and brings a lump into one’s throat! When one sees anything so beautiful one forgets everything earthly. . . . Only look, how much movement, what an atmosphere, what expression!”
“I understand all that very well, my dear boy,” the doctor interposed, “but you know I am a family man, my children run in here, ladies come in.”
“Of course if you look at it from the point of view of the crowd,” said Sasha, “then this exquisitely artistic work may appear in a certain light. . . . But, doctor, rise superior to the crowd, especially as you will wound mamma and me by refusing it. I am the only son of my mother, you have saved my life. . . . We are giving you the thing most precious to us and . . . and I only regret that I have not the pair to present to you. . . .”
“Thank you, my dear fellow, I am very grateful . . . Give my respects to your mother but really consider, my children run in here, ladies come. . . . However, let it remain! I see there’s no arguing with you.”
“And there is nothing to argue about,” said Sasha, relieved. “Put the candlestick here, by this vase. What a pity we have not the pair to it! It is a pity! Well, good-bye, doctor.”
After Sasha’s departure the doctor looked for a long time at the candelabra, scratched behind his ear and meditated.
“It’s a superb thing, there’s no denying it,” he thought, “and it would be a pity to throw it away. . . . But it’s impossible for me to keep it. . . . H’m! . . . Here’s a problem! To whom can I make a present of it, or to what charity can I give it?”
After long meditation he thought of his good friend, the lawyer Uhov, to whom he was indebted for the management of legal business.
“Excellent,” the doctor decided, “it would be awkward for him as a friend to take money from me, and it will be very suitable for me to present him with this. I will take him the devilish thing! Luckily he is a bachelor and easy-going.”
Without further procrastination the doctor put on his hat and coat, took the candelabra and went off to Uhov’s.
“How are you, friend!” he said, finding the lawyer at home. “I’ve come to see you . . . to thank you for your efforts. . . . You won’t take money so you must at least accept this thing here. . . . See, my dear fellow. . . . The thing is magnificent!”
On seeing the bronze the lawyer was moved to indescribable delight.
“What a specimen!” he chuckled. “Ah, deuce take it, to think of them imagining such a thing, the devils! Exquisite! Ravishing! Where did you get hold of such a delightful thing?”
After pouring out his ecstasies the lawyer looked timidly towards the door and said: “Only you must carry off your present, my boy . . . . I can’t take it. . . .”
“Why?” cried the doctor, disconcerted.
“Why . . . because my mother is here at times, my clients . . . besides I should be ashamed for my servants to see it.”
“Nonsense! Nonsense! Don’t you dare to refuse!” said the doctor, gesticulating. “It’s piggish of you! It’s a work of art! . . . What movement . . . what expression! I won’t even talk of it! You will offend me!”
“If one could plaster it over or stick on fig-leaves . . .”
But the doctor gesticulated more violently than before, and dashing out of the flat went home, glad that he had succeeded in getting the present off his hands.
When he had gone away the lawyer examined the candelabra, fingered it all over, and then, like the doctor, racked his brains over the question what to do with the present.
“It’s a fine thing,” he mused, “and it would be a pity to throw it away and improper to keep it. The very best thing would be to make a present of it to someone. . . . I know what! I’ll take it this evening to Shashkin, the comedian. The rascal is fond of such things, and by the way it is his benefit tonight.”
No sooner said than done. In the evening the candelabra, carefully wrapped up, was duly carried to Shashkin’s. The whole evening the comic actor’s dressing-room was besieged by men coming to admire the present; the dressing-room was filled with the hum of enthusiasm and laughter like the neighing of horses. If one of the actresses approached the door and asked: “May I come in?” the comedian’s husky voice was heard at once: “No, no, my dear, I am not dressed!”
After the performance the comedian shrugged his shoulders, flung up his hands and said: “Well what am I to do with the horrid thing? Why, I live in a private flat! Actresses come and see me! It’s not a photograph that you can put in a drawer!”
“You had better sell it, sir,” the hairdresser who was disrobing the actor advised him. “There’s an old woman living about here who buys antique bronzes. Go and enquire for Madame Smirnov . . . everyone knows her.”
The actor followed his advice. . . . Two days later the doctor was sitting in his consulting-room, and with his finger to his brow was meditating on the acids of the bile. All at once the door opened and Sasha Smirnov flew into the room. He was smiling, beaming, and his whole figure was radiant with happiness. In his hands he held something wrapped up in newspaper.
“Doctor!” he began breathlessly, “imagine my delight! Happily for you we have succeeded in picking up the pair to your candelabra! Mamma is so happy. . . . I am the only son of my mother, you saved my life. . . .”
And Sasha, all of a tremor with gratitude, set the candelabra before the doctor. The doctor opened his mouth, tried to say something, but said nothing: he could not speak.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
