Reading
- fantasy as a kind of displaced vision of Catholicism as seen by a Protestant culture
- similarly, Walter Scott’s medievalism as a predecessor and template for fantasy
- William Morris
- Michael Moorcock
- Jack Vance
- Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
- John Crowley’s Little, Big
Finished reading: Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast by Patrick McGilligan. A fascinating book in many ways but Lang was such a despicable person that I feel I need a palate-cleanser of some kind. 📚
Finished reading: The Magic of Code by Samuel Arbesman 📚. I really enjoyed this book, and may have more to say about it later; it put me in mind of a period in my life when I was first discovering the fascination of code. I wrote about that in a series of essays for Books & Culture, and have re-posted those on my big blog, all 18,000 words: “Computer Control.”
Finished writing: Paradise Lost: A Biography by Alan Jacobs. Joseph Addison said, “We have an actual interest in everything [Adam & Eve] do, and no less than our utmost happiness is concerned and lies at stake in all their behavior.” Virginia Woolf said, “Has any great poem ever let in so little light upon one’s own joys and sorrows?” Thus my book. 📚
Finished reading: What in Me Is Dark by Orlando Reade, which I wrote about, at some length, here. 📚
Finished reading: Fantasy: A Short History by Adam Roberts. An outstanding survey. I’m amazed first of all by how many fantasy novels Adam has read, especially among the hyper-prolific and hyper-expansive post-Tolkienian set. Hundreds of thousands of pages, I imagine. The chapter on “Children’s Fantasy” is a particular highlight for me, but Adam is also notably brilliant on
I just wish he could have gone on longer about some of this stuff, but that’s what his various blogs are for. 📚
Finished reading: Lonely Magdalen by Henry Wade. A remarkable Golden Age detective novel that starts as a police procedural, then around halfway through turns into a social novel about events from twenty years earlier — then becomes a procedural again. It reminds me in several ways of Ian McEwan’s Atonement. 📚
In the middle of Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett, I came across a funny/insightful passage I thought I might blog about — only to discover that it has its own Wikipedia page. 📚
Teaching The Nine Tailors to 16 first-year students and they are into it. I am rather shocked by their enthusiasm. We’re three-fourths of the way through — I wonder how they will feel about the ending. 📚
Currently reading: Passions of the Soul by Rowan Williams. This book is exactly what I need right now. 📚