Friday, October 2, 2015

Eight years of sickness, idleness, and ignorance - happy birthday to Wuthering Expectations!

The “eight years of my adolescence comprise a period of sickness, idleness, and ignorance” writes Vittorio Alfieri in his Memoirs (1806).  A few days ago Wuthering Expectations turned eight!  Health, activity, and knowledge may be on their way.

I feel that I have not had a single good idea in the past two years, but I have read a couple hundred good books which makes up for a lot.  Every two years, inspired by the title of a great Sonny Rollins album, I remind myself of what I have been doing.  This Is What I Do, Part 4.

The most popular, and also unpopular, thing I wrote was my best bad idea: a review of a review of a novel I have not read.  Although completely sympathetic with Francine Prose, on her side aesthetically, I could see that her review of The Goldfinch had serious problems of argumentation and evidence.  So the post was like a self-corrective.  It attracted terrific comments.  Always read the comments.

The basic aesthetic approach of Wuthering Expectations is best seen in a series on John Ruskin’s Modern Painters from two years ago and a series on Gustave Flaubert’s Sentimental Education that began last week.  And in between, a week on W. G. Sebald’s A Place in the Country.  I’m only linking to the first posts.  You can move forward from them, day by day, until either you or I are sick of the topic.

Other series that were fun to write:  Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (those posts had especially good titles), Émile Zola’s L’Assommoir, Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, Ippolito Nievo’s Confessions of an Italian. Big significant books.

Not that smaller books are less fun.  H. G. Wells’s The First Men on the Moon, Herman Bang’s Tina, Anthony Trollope’s The Eustace Diamonds (well, this one is big).  A ramble through some shorter and longer early works of Henry James.

I can’t complain about all of the readalong opportunities of the past two years.  Knut Hamsun’s Mysteries, John Crowley’s Little, Big, Nicanor Parra’s Poems and Anti-poems, Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, all great books to share with other readers.  Worst yet best of all was Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s What Is To Be Done?, read by more people than I possibly would have guessed not just at that time but subsequently – I still see ripples from the readalong on other book blogs.  Maybe that was my best bad idea.  Many thanks to everyone who invited me along or joined in.

I splash around with Algernon Swinburne.  Authors I have read and not read.  Who is this Dino Campana character?  Who is this John Davidson character?  Who is this Sidney Lanier character?  Book bloggers have more freedom to just ask that question.  No professional need to pretend to expertise we do not have.

I say farewell to D. G. Myers.

How can I thank all of the book bloggers I read, or who stop by Wuthering Expectations to read, skim, comment, collaborate, or correct?  My writing is better as a result, my “thinking,” and especially my reading, which is where the blog begins, every day.  Thank you!

26 comments:

  1. Your post appeared just as I was catching up on your posts of the past couple of weeks, which should indicate the esteem in which I hold Wuthering Expectations: I don't want to miss a thing (the damn auto-correct keeps wanting it to be "Withering Expectations," but obviously there's no sign of that, thank heavens).

    Congratulations on eight years (eight!) and a great many thanks for what has become without doubt one of the truly essential - and certainly among the most wide-ranging, insightful and playful - literary blogs on the web.

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  2. Congratulations, Tom! You've created one of the most sensitive, generous and intelligent book blogs I know.

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  3. I have enjoyed much and learned more in the postings. Well done! And, yes, I second your tribute to David. I miss him.

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  4. Eight years! Congratulations! And very well done indeed! I don't often comment but I always read, and you are my reading / blogging hero - thank you for your wonderful posts :)

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  5. Here is to many more years. Your posts have greatly expanded my reading life.

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  6. Congratulations on your 8th! All of the reading, writing, and thinking on display here at Wuthering Expectations is the best of the best.

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  7. Congratulations! I'm always simulated and informed by your posts. How are your eyes holding out?

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  8. Stimulated, I meant. I think that's what I meant.

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  9. Well done you. May there be more.

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  10. Congratulations on eight years of Wuthering Expectations! That's quite an achievement. Here's to many more.

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  11. That's amazing! Congratulations! Though I don't always comment, your posts are always stimulating reading - look forward to the next 8 years! :)

    kaggsysbookishramblings

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  12. Happy anniversary Tom.

    Your blog is so unique and intellectually stimulating. I love reading it.

    Here is to the next eight years!

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  13. Happy anniversary! Thanks for the Chernyshevsky, and everything else! Thanks especially for The Ring and the Book.

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  14. I'll echo the others: here's to many more.

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  15. Congratulations and happy blogiversary! Thank you for your wonderful posts (and emails).
    (When are you going to start writing about The Portrait of a Lady, by the way?)

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  16. Feliz cumpleaños and alles zum Geburstag to you!

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  17. Bon anniversaire! Lapiz verde y puyu! Thanks for all the great posts.

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  18. Eigth years and still fresh. Now that's something. Congratulations.

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  19. Congratulations. I hope there will be many more years.

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  20. Well done, and keep up the good work. This site is the tops.

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  21. Well this is all right. Maybe I should write one of these very year. Or only every three years, as a guard against vanity.

    I do appreciate the kind words and encouragement. The encouragement does not hurt at all with an enterprise like this. Back atcha,

    I have vague plans for a major rethink at the 10 year mark, which is now almost soon.

    To specific points:

    My eyes ain't so bad. No complaints.

    I have read 37% of The Portrait of a Lady in two weeks, suggesting I will need four more weeks. Boy I hope I can speed that up a little. Maybe I will pick up the pace when G. O. shows up.

    More importantly, when am I going to write about Marius the Epicurean. That book is difficult!

    By training and temperament I hate writing about a book in progress. Writers set too many traps for their poor credulous readers. I do not know why writers are so cruel.

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  22. Happy Birthday! I hope there are another eight years and more ahead!

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  23. Thanks for your years of high quality (and high frequency) blogging. When's the book coming out?!?

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  24. Richard, Stefanie, thanks. As for the book, maybe this has been the book.

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  25. Echoing others here: thanks for the extraordinary work you do. I was just pointing out your blog to my students the other day as one of the best of its kind. You make me want to read things I never knew I wanted to read. Onwards!

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  26. Students, good, good. I am very popular and influential among the youth of our day, or so I assume.

    Thanks for the compliment. I've been enjoying your series of short stories in the classroom.

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