tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post4883729987494612459..comments2024-03-29T03:04:00.853-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Your bloody HamletAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-67881789419454994882013-01-08T22:56:00.002-06:002013-01-08T22:56:00.002-06:00General Stumm sounds like a wise maniac - sorry, m...General Stumm sounds like a wise maniac - sorry, man. I read closer to a book every three days, so I will have to adjust my timetable accordingly.<br /><br />This is an encouraging post to revisit, since in five years I have read everything I mentioned, including <i>Hamlet</i>, but the two Dostoyevskys (and David Lodge). Not bad. Boy did I guess wrong about Zola, but the blame lies on the useless "Naturalism" label.<br /><br />In another essay, Epstein writes "I myself would rather be well-read than dead, but I have a strong hunch about which will come first." I wish I had written that.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-85660984560167849002013-01-08T19:46:33.702-06:002013-01-08T19:46:33.702-06:00General Stumm, in Musil's the Man without Qual...General Stumm, in Musil's the Man without Qualities (certainly another book that requires a reread--this time with comprehension), General Stumm discovers that it will require, at the rate of a book a day, a mere 10,000 years to achieve his goal of being well-read. But then he wasn't limiting himself to single century.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-81333659064907064432007-10-09T10:44:00.001-05:002007-10-09T10:44:00.001-05:00Hmm. An insprational comment, productive of many i...Hmm. An insprational comment, productive of many ideas, which I will save for later. Here, I will just make the point that I am not writing because I know a lot about 19th century literature. Quite the opposite.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-79758619582204514992007-10-08T12:59:00.000-05:002007-10-08T12:59:00.000-05:00Okay, well, Jane Eyre was a bugaboo of mine for ye...Okay, well, Jane Eyre was a bugaboo of mine for years because I was told how much I would love it for so long, and was *taught* it in school in this horrific way...a way much similar to the way in which I was taught Moby Dick. In short, I was told that the former was a love story (which, yeah, I guess so, but really it's mostly not) and the latter was about whale-hunting (which, yeah, I guess so, but really it's mostly not). So -- what I'm saying is, none of this is your fault (as more-or-less a product of the same state educational system that screwed you up on this). I have a tremendous regard for both of these books now. I just know in my heart that you will feel much as I do about Melville at the end of this little project of yours, at any rate. My feelings about Bronte are multivariate and complex, and have no idea if you will share them. But -- to paraphrase Joe C. -- the Melville! the Melville! It is something you owe yourself. Hee.the designated knitterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com