Poquette's Bookaccino III

Here we are at Bookaccino III which hopefully will continue in the same vein as the original Bookaccino and Bookaccino II. Let us hope this will take us through the end of the year.

When I opened Bookaccino back in January I posted a list of books I hoped to read during the year. Here we are in the first days of autumn and even though I have actually read more than fifty books this year, quite a few titles from my original TBR remain unread. Some of them I still want to read sooner rather than later. Others, I can't quite recall why they are on the list.

Ongoing interests that will carry forward include religion and mythology (pagan influences); ancient, medieval and Renaissance art, literature, history and philosophy; literary criticism. And I hope to read more fiction.

Here is how that original TBR stands now:

Fiction:
The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
The City & The City by China Mieville
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

General Nonfiction:
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
Howard's End is on the Landing by Susan Hill

History:
The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance by Joscelyn Godwin
The Mirror of the Gods: How the Renaissance Artists Rediscovered the Pagan Gods by Malcolm Bull
The Survival of the Pagan Gods by Jean Seznec
The Cello Suites by Eric Siblin
Plutarch and the Historical Tradition by Philip A. Stadter
A History of Histories by John Burrow

Literature/Literary Criticism:
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Strife of Love in a Dream by Francesco Colonna
Commentary on the Dream of Scipio by Macrobius
The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature by Gilbert Highet
The High Medieval Dream Vision: Poetry, Philosophy and Literary Form by Kathryn Lynch

Many of these are still of interest. Others will merely fade away . . .

What I am actually in the process of reading:

The Infinity of Lists by Umberto Eco
Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater
How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell
Commonplace Books: A History of Manuscripts and Printed Books from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century by Earle Havens
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser
Forged by Bart Ehrman
Young's Night Thoughts; With Life, Critical Dissertation and Explanatory Notes by Edward Young
Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories by Thomas Mann

I'm almost finished with the first five, so this list will become much shorter very soon.

Re: your earlier mention of Lucretious, from the New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/08/110808fa_fact_greenblatt

and a podcast http://www.newyorker.com/online/2011/08/08/110808on_audio_greenblatt

Welcome Bookacino III,

I note that like me you are still inching your way forward with The Faerie Queene.

That makes at least three of us busy with Spenser.

By the way, I've been reading Sir Thomas Browne's Major Works, and he has a few references to your old favourite, Boethius. Specifically, Browne has a partiality for the concept of the Eternal Present, which the editor (C.A. Patrides) of the Works says comes from Book V of The Consolation of Philosophy.

I look forward to your discussion of the Macrobius. Great stuff!

I think I am with you on Faerie Queen, but I haven't cracked it in over a month and have only barely started it.

Robert

Thea, thanks so much for those links regarding Lucretius! I enjoyed the podcast and will finish the article tomorrow.

Barry, Dewald and Robert – I must clarify: The Faerie Queene is still on my list, but I too have left it for so long that I'm going to have to start over. When I complete this group of books I'm almost finished with, I will get back to it. For a while there I simply was not in the mood. But I'm beginning to snap out of it! And thanks, Dewald, for the Boethius reference!

wrmjr – I hope to get to Macrobius before the end of the year. By the way, I have been searching for references in Montaigne to Boethius and I'm having no luck. Can you give me a hint where to look? Thanks!

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel (2006) Yale University Press, Kindle Edition

There are many ways of thinking about libraries — many more than I had ever thought of until dipping into Alberto Manguel's The Library at Night. As a former librarian I was drawn to this book, especially since it was written by the author of A History of Reading which I read and enjoyed when it first appeared in the mid nineties.

Manguel, whose father was a diplomat, spent his teenage and college years in Argentina where he met the blind Jorge Luis Borges and became one of his readers.

Now in his sixties, Manguel has created an idyllic library, one wall of which is what is left of a 15th century barn near the Loire. His library at night provides a convenient jumping off point for many and various erudite ruminations on the idea of "the library" through the ages.

One of the delights of this book is the assemblage of many quotes from all times and all places about the significance of libraries for individuals and for communities. One could fill a commonplace book with all these quotes. And he is eminently quotable himself throughout as well. For example:

"I've spent half a century collecting books. Immensely generous, my books make no demands on me but offer all kinds of illuminations."

He occasionally says things with which I gently disagree. For instance:

"The love of libraries, like most loves, must be learned. No one stepping for the first time into a room made of books can know instinctively how to behave, what is expected, what is promised, what is allowed."

The instinctive love of libraries is not necessarily a function of "knowing how to behave, what is expected," etc. My love of libraries from my earliest memory was instantaneous, intense and absolutely instinctive. But this is a minor quibble.

He begins by asking the question: Why the human compulsion to collect and assemble and analyze information and organize it in books and libraries? And in a series of essays with titles that make vague reference to the subject matter, Manguel thinks out loud — and shares with us many anecdotes of what others have said and thought — about the Library of Alexandria, cataloging, the limitations of space and the development of encyclopedias as solutions to space problems, banned books, vanished and destroyed libraries, design of libraries, the chance juxtaposition of books on shelves that one finds serendipitously, the library as study, unread books, imaginary books and libraries, the implications of national libraries for national identity, the infinity of libraries and the World Wide Web. All these topics are peppered with anecdotes regarding famous collections ranging from the libraries of famous persons to great national collections.

4 stars

Suzanne, I enjoyed your review of The Library at Night. My first thoughts are wondering what Alberto Manguel would make of "Librarything". A place where anybodies libraries can be held electronically. I note that he is not a Librarything author and one of the fascinations of this place is to peak into heritage libraries.

I suppose he might not regard an electronic library as a library at all, as it is not a physical place where books are stored.

Thanks, Barry. Manguel would probably be both fascinated and repelled by the phenomenon of LibraryThing. His chapter on imaginary books and libraries makes me think this might be so. Somewhere he says, however, he is skeptical of the "electronic library," whatever that might be that he was referring to. He is most definitely not a fan of cataloging with respect to his own library, prefering instead to group his books under the various categories that interested him. So I fear we will never see his books on LibraryThing.

Because of the number of books (never stated except that they arrived in hundreds of cartons) and overlapping themes, he began to realize that though this was impractical, any filing system is arbitrary in the end. And then he goes on to describe various arbitrary systems, from that used in ancient imperial China, to the first alphabetical method devised by Callimachus and to the Dewey decimal system which he says he is reluctant to undertake.

He seems to vascillate between an appreciation for a well-ordered library on the one hand and a chaotic dreamlike entity that might have been conjured up by Borges himself. Manguel in his eclectic appreciation takes us on a dazzling tour of many libraries. And despite his aversion to cataloging his own library was capable of saying:

"If a library is a mirror of the universe, then a catalogue is a mirror of that mirror."

I'd forgotten that you were planning to read The Way We Live Now. I started writing a review of that the other day—should be up sometime this week!

52. Marius the Epicurean: His Sensations and Ideas by Walter Pater (1985) Penguin Classics; also Kindle Edition

Is Marius the Epicurean really a novel — I mean in the novelistic sense of "Novel"? Let us measure it against E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel and see what we come up with. We know Forster read Marius because he mentions it in the introduction. Forster lists people, story, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern and rhythm as aspects worth talking about.

We do have people. Marius is the main character, of course, and we start out with his boyhood, his friends, his encounter with the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, he grows up and he dies. Oops! Spoiler! There, I said it. Yes, Marius does indeed die, but then don't we all? So that's really not much of a spoiler. It is the circumstances that make all the difference.

There is a story — sort of. Boy grows up, meets the Emperor and a few others along the way and dies. This is the kind of bare bones "story" that causes Forster to refer to it as a "low atavistic form."

Is there a plot? Actually . . . no. There is no plot. Forster says that the plot is dependent upon causality. And Marius sticks strictly to the march of time.

One could stretch Forster's definition of fantasy and talk about Marius's interiority as a complete fantasy, but that would be to do both Forster and Pater a disservice. Let us just accept that fantasy is not a part of this novel.

Regarding prophecy Forster says:

With prophecy in the narrow sense of foretelling the future, we have no concern and we have not much concern with it as an appeal for righteousness. What will interest us . . . is an accent in the novelist's voice. . . . His theme is the universe, or something universal, but he is not necessarily going to 'say' anything about the universe.

Marius would fall within Forster's definition, as it addresses something universal, larger than life in its quest for truth and a right way of living.

"Each aspect of the novel demands a different quality from the reader. The prophetic aspect demands two qualities: humility and the suspension of a sense of humor." And further on he reiterates that "we are not concerned with the prophet's message . . . what matters is the accent of his voice, his song."

And this is where Pater shines. In his era he was viewed as a great stylist. For the modern reader, the florid sentences take some getting used to, but persistence is rewarded. The intense interiority of this novel really does require the extra effort to get in synch with Pater's style.

But Marius is not entirely devoid of humor. There are two chapters which are largely lifted from classical antecedents that provide a spot of comic relief. Neither of these moves the story forward in any way but enriches the book nonetheless. One is the story of Cupid and Psyche from The Golden Ass by Apuleius, newly translated here by Pater, and the other is a highly edited satirical dialogue of Lucian which is delightfully reminiscent of Socrates.

And just to wrap up this discussion of aspects, pattern and rhythm are largely absent.

When you want to curl up with a good novel, you do not normally expect to have to do a lot of homework in preparation. After all, we think of a novel as leisure reading. Marius is an exception. It helps to know something about Pater himself, and it especially helps to know something about the intellectual and religious context in England leading up to and during the 1870s and 1880s when Pater was studying and eventually teaching at Oxford. Most Americans particularly are unlikely to be fully aware of the religious crisis that occurred at Oxford in the 1800s surrounding the so-called Oxford Movement. Knowing the historical context is essential to fully appreciate this very unusual novel. At the risk of causing the reader's eyes to glaze over, I would like to give a bit of that context in order to encourage people who enjoy philosophical fiction to explore further in preparation for reading Marius the Epicurean and other of Pater's writings.

The Oxford Movement culminated in the 1845 defection of John Henry Newman from the Anglican priesthood and his subsequent ordination as a Catholic priest and his later elevation as a cardinal. By the time Pater entered Oxford, a rather militant attitude had developed with respect to those desiring to teach at Oxford, and anyone who appeared to be other than a down-the-line Anglican might be subject to sanctions if not outright dismissal. Pater's own career at Oxford was disrupted because of what he wrote in the Conclusion of Studies in the History of the Renaissance, which was his first book published in 1873.

In addition to or perhaps even as an outgrowth of the consequences of the Oxford Movement itself, the arbiters of literary taste in the 1870s and 1880s were John Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle and Matthew Arnold, who were the highly didactic opinion leaders of the day in terms of their judgments regarding the acceptability, or otherwise, of budding writers. Their collective reaction to Pater's Renaissance along with the highly judgmental atmosphere then prevailing at Oxford made life very difficult for Pater, and in fact, aside from the articles he continued to publish regularly in the literary magazines of the day, he never published another book until Marius in 1885.

What was the uproar about with respect to his notorious Conclusion to The Renaissance? It was primarily over the essentially hedonistic message of the following paragraph:

Of this wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for art's sake has most; for art comes to you professing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake.

Pater was encouraging students "to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions," for "our one chance lies . . . in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time." His overt hedonism was viewed in a dim light as it seemed to suggest unbelief in any reality beyond this life, which meant that his moral qualifications to be a teacher of young men at Oxford were put into question. Should such a person be influencing the young?

Today, we read that paragraph and shake our heads because our value system has changed so dramatically. And that contrast in value systems is at the very heart of Marius the Epicurean, which is an account of youth and young manhood, tracing the development of his religious and philosophical attitudes.

Marius, it turns out, was much less of an Epicurean than the title suggests and most interpreters of the book believe. In fact, I interrupted my own reading of the book to do some background investigation of this very topic — and also to read a fairly recent biography of Pater to try to understand what was going on in his book. For this is the most unusual novel I have ever read. My own feeling is that there is nothing else quite like it. Marius is highly autobiographical in the sense that while we are reading about Marius's development, we are in fact reading about Pater's own experience. In some ways, this book is a response to the critics who were so outraged by his work at the beginning of his career, and it is an effort to set the record straight in a work of fiction.

Pater has set the novel during the reign of Marcus Aurelius so as to be able to suggest the pagan and Christian milieu during a period of relative calm in the history of Christian persecutions and also attempts to describe the appeal of the Church during the second century while it was still a fresh and developing religion.

Marius initially admires Marcus Aurelius, for whom he works briefly as secretary, but he loses respect for him when he is seen to be indifferent to the sufferings of both men and animals at the circus games that celebrated his return from a campaign. Marius saw an incongruity between this indifference and the Stoicism Aurelius professed.

As Marius goes through life exploring especially the Hellenistic philosophies — Epicurean, Stoic, Skeptic — he concludes that no single school quite fills the bill, and then of course he encounters Christianity and explores his own positive response to it but never seems to experience real faith. In this sense, he seems to be mirroring Pater.

Basically, I enjoyed this novel. I suspect it will stay with me for a long time. It is rich in historical and literary lore that those of us may be ignorant of who did not have a Victorian classical education at Oxford.

Do yourself a favor, dear Reader, and avoid the mistakes I made in approaching this book. First of all, I read the version from Project Gutenberg, which has only a few notes and no introduction. I eventually ended up buying a used copy of the Penguin Classics version published in 1985, which has fairly good notes and a useful introduction written incidentally by Michael Levey, author of The Case of Walter Pater, the excellent critical biography I read and now recommend.

Read the notes, which help to breathe some life into this erudite novel and will surely make it a richer reading experience. Look up Apuleius, Numa, Lucian, Lucretius as they come up. Read about the differences between the Cyrenaic and Epicurean schools of philosophy. Remind yourself of the broad outlines of the Aurelian Age.

Take the detours. For example, you will find Lucian's dialogues to be as charming and witty as Socrates'. You will learn that a chapter titled "A Conversation Not Imaginary" makes vague reference to a collection of Imaginary Conversations by Walter Savage Landor. Nobody reads these anymore, but perhaps we should. Much of this literature — Landor, Lucian, Lucretius — is available at Project Gutenberg for sampling.

Since I began this review by dissecting Marius in light of E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel, I would like to add some criticisms of my own. Difficult as it is, I have to admit it was odd to read a novel that reflected so few aspects of a typical novel. It had a basic story, a few undercharacterized people, it had a touch of prophecy, but no plot, no fantasy, and no pattern or rhythm. What drives this novel is one's curiosity about Marius. And with all the interiority, I still come up feeling a bit empty. We never learn much about how Marius actually feels, only what he thinks.

While Pater wanted to draw comparisons between the Age of Marcus Aurelius and the Renaissance and the Victorian Age, I was disturbed by his constant tearing of the curtain, his repeated violation of the time-space continuum, by making reference to later authors, books or events. These intrusions have the same effect as anachronisms. For example, after reciting the story of Cupid and Psyche from The Golden Ass by Apuleius, Pater writes: "The petulant boyish Cupid of Apuleius was become more like that 'Lord of terrible aspect' who stood at Dante's bedside and wept." Such instances are too common and tend to break the spell. It is as though Pater has forgotten he is writing a novel and not an academic treatise. Forster might not be as bothered by this as I was because he recommends detaching our criticism of a novel as much as possible from time and place, but in this case it is very difficult because the book is so much a part of its time and point of origin, even though it was set in an era sixteen hundred years earlier. The time-space problem is a difficult one to sort out in this instance.

More than once Forster says that human nature is unchangeable. And this is why this book is worth reading. It gives us a glimpse of one young man's development and the humanity of his creator.

This review is also posted on the book page here.

Susanne, Excellent article on Walter Pater (so much more than a book review), which I will refer to when I get to read Marius the Epicurean I have to say that you have given the book every chance by all the reading round you have done and your advice to other potential readers is very valuable. As I have said before Pater is not an easy read and my Everyman edition does not cut it as far as introductions and notes are concerned.

Interesting point about the time-space continuum. I wonder why this happened: did he just get confused, or more likely did not think it important. I wonder if Pater thought he was writing a novel?

Thumbed of course.

Thanks Barry. I did get a bit carried away, didn't I? And it is because Marius is a difficult read that arming oneself with plenty of background helps to relieve that difficulty and increase the pleasure. It is definitely a book that reflects a different kind of education than most of us have had today.

With regard to Pater's intent, I believe he knew he was writing fiction, but I don't think he analyzed what constituted a novel per se. There is something didactic in his style of fiction, as can be seen in his Imaginary Portraits. I don't think they even qualify as short stories. They seem to be designed to teach or convey a philosophy or set of ideas in an entertaining way. There may be a name for this but I don't know what it is. Landor's Imaginary Conversations are probably in the same category.

How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell (2011) Kindle Edition

I have been reading this a bit each day along with Marius the Epicurean and The Library at Night, thus explaining why I have finished them so closely in succession. As I am all reviewed out, so to speak, I probably won't do a review of this.

But it is remarkable the synchronicities that I found among these three very different books. They all had something to say somewhere along the line regarding Hellenistic philosophies. And in fact, Montaigne was another example of an individual who displayed a bit of the Epicurean, Stoic and Skeptic in his personality.

This was a very appealing introduction to Montaigne and his work. One of these days I really must tackle the Essays. I would give it 4 stars.

ETA: I really must thank whoever pointed me in the direction of this book. At the moment, I cannot remember who it was. If you read this and recall, please let me know.

Thanks for your insightful review of Marius the Epicurean. Reading your review, and my (distant) reflection on the book, I feel that the difficulty in understanding this novel by Walter Pater mainly lies in the problem of understanding the fabric of his thought. We may attempt to approach Epicurianism, Stoicism and Skepticism, through their original Greek sources, but we can not imagine how Pater lived that philosophy in his age, a time and a world that no longer exists. Besides, we are hampered by a very reductionist understanding of these philosophies, in which we tend to summarise each of these philosophies in a single word, or a synopsis which is so short to distort the richness of its world view. I also suspect Pater of deliberately veiling some of his main ideas, as his 'pleasure principle' extended to the carefree enjoyment of male love was out of the question in Victorian England.

I do not think classifying Pater's novel as a novel that reflected so few aspects of a typical novel. In my opinion, E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel is a rather crude tool to measure such an intricate novel as Marius the Epicurean. To me Forster's booklet is not an instrument to analyze novels, but should rather be read as a relatively simplistic guide to aspiring novelists, presenting some tips on what a novel should look like.

Edwin, thanks for your comments. I agree with your point about our tendency to a reductionist understanding of Hellenistic philosophy. "The carefree enjoyment of male love" was only a small part of Pater's "pleasure principle." Without getting too deeply into the philosophical underpinnings, I do believe that Pater explored them rather more than I was able to convey in my review. To reiterate, it was most helpful to have read a quick summary of both Pater's life and thought and the Hellenistic schools as well as Cyrenaicism, of which I was totally ignorant.

Actually, Forster's lectures were not addressed to aspiring novelists at all; rather, they were intended to consider certain aspects of novels from a reader's standpoint. As Aspects of the Novel has become the subject of discussion recently among a number of LT members, I thought it might be interesting to frame my discussion around it, especially since it is so deficient in plot and characterization. I agree that there are limitations to that approach; however, my review was still too long by half.

As novels go, Marius the Epicurean is a strange one. It is indeed fiction, but it has less in common with a typical novel than it does with non-novelistic fictions, as I mentioned in 16 above. Despite the necessity of doing a fair amount of background reading, I enjoyed getting to know Marius. I certainly feel better prepared to read some of Pater's other works now.

The Infinity of Lists by Umberto Eco (2009) Rizzoli

There are people who love lists and people who claim to hate lists, but I believe those haters are narrowly focused on what Umberto Eco calls practical lists. Eco is in the camp that loves lists of a more poetic sort, and in The Infinity of Lists he presents the many subtle and not so subtle ways lists are used or implied in great literature and art.

While it is purportedly a book of lists, The Infinity of Lists calls to mind the commonplace books that began to appear in the 15th century where people gathered various bits and pieces of information they wanted to remember. A commonplace book was in effect a memory storehouse where one could put such memorabilia.

The Infinity of Lists is at first glance an art book, and Eco refers to it as an anthology rather than a commonplace book. It provides a highly focused tutorial demonstrating visually and through the written word, the techniques utilized by both artists and writers to convey everything from lofty notions of the ineffable to infinity. It accomplishes this through examples that demonstrate how a list is not merely a list, but is intended to be a metaphor for something greater than what is written or what is visible in a work of art.

As suggested above, Eco categorizes lists as practical or poetic. The lowly grocery list or arbitrary list of a hundred greatest novels or even a library catalogue can be considered as practical, and for the most part, such lists are not the subject of this book except insofar as they cross over into the realm of the poetic. What interests Eco — and the reader — is the vast number of ways lists or enumerations of various kinds have been used by writers from Aristotle to Borges to create dazzling literary effects, to suggest infinite numbers, to create a sense of wonder, a sense of excess, of chaos or of vertigo. In fact, this anthology contains excerpts from the works of almost seventy different writers from ancient times to the present which demonstrate various rhetorical tools, from Homer's catalogue of ships to Don Giovanni's seductees (2,065 all together), from the excesses of Rabelais to the chaos of Borges' "Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge," and ultimately to what Eco calls "the Mother of all Lists," the World Wide Web.

In addition to this literary anthology, almost two hundred full color reproductions of paintings and art objects through the ages illustrate the text. Eco has almost nothing to say about these works of art, allowing them to speak for themselves as visual exemplars of enumeration, excess, chaos, infinity and vertigo, and more. In many cases what Eco might have to say about the selected art would be very interesting indeed. But one can extrapolate from his comments on literature, and it is probable that no one will come away from the experience of this book with the same view of pictures they had going in.

I have been thumbing through this book for the past two months mostly looking at the pictures, reading the chapter headings and a paragraph here and there, and there is something magical about the effect this book has had on me. Now that I have finished reading it, I still feel that sense of elation that came over me when I first opened it up and paged through it. There is an education to be had between its covers, and this is possibly my favorite read for this year — perhaps for several years. 5 stars

Review also posted on the book page.

Very good review of The Infinity of Lists, Suzanne! It sounds vey intriguing, the kind of coffee table book that one might actually be interested in reading. I have just read Borges's A Universal History of Iniquity, which doesn't have lists, but I am looking forward to getting to his "Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge".

I had not heard of The Infinity of Lists before, but it sounds wonderful, especially for a list-addicted reader such as myself.

Montaigne's essays are marvelous: candid, rambling, witty and companionable, more like an extended conversation with a wise but irreverent friend. It's the kind of practical wisdom, borrowing--as you said--from multiple philosophies and traditions, that can make you feel good about yourself and the world. His travel journal is well worth reading as well.

I have several editions of Montaigne's essays. My favorite is the one illustrated by Salvador Dali.

Thanks, Dewald! Actually, I neglected to mention in my review that The Infinity of Lists is not your typical cumbersome coffee table book. It is an ample quarto and although printed on heavy paper, it is of a size that is easily held and was designed to be read. And I say thank God because most of my oversized coffee table books have been looked at but remain unread. This one is definitely a work of literature as much as of art.

To save you some time with regard to "The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge," it is actually mentioned in an essay Borges wrote entitled, "John Wilkins' Analytical Language," collected in Selected Nonfictions: Jorge Luis Borges. Borges enumerates an incongruous list reportedly given in an ancient Chinese encyclopedia called The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge in which

animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the emperor; (b) embalmed ones; (c) those that are trained; (d) suckling pigs; (e) mermaids; (f) fabulous ones; (g) stray dogs; (h) those that are included in this classification; (i) those that tremble as if they were mad; (j) innumerable ones; (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's-hair brush; (l) etcetera; (m) those that have just broken the flower vase; (n) those that at a distance resemble flies.

Who knows whether Borges is merely reporting or he made this up. Either way, as Eco concludes, "The chaotic list becomes one of the modes of that breakdown of form set in motion in different ways by Futurism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, or by New Realism."

I have only dipped into Borges' Selected Nonfictions here and there, but my sense is that his essays are as quirky as his stories. This really must be moved up the TBR.

>22 StevenTX: - Steven, thank you for stopping by, and welcome. I was just visiting your current thread for the first time and came back with a whole new list of books I'd be interested in reading.

It is so difficult not to stand up and shout that I think everybody should read The Infinity of Lists, since I know that it would not be everyone's cup of tea. Somehow I feel that you would enjoy it, especially if you enjoy looking at art as well.

>23 wrmjr66: - wrmjr, that is quite a picture. I can only imagine what the rest of the illustrations are like. BTW, was it you who recommended Sarah Bakewell's book? Anyway, thanks!

Hi Suzanne, just stopping by to say that I've begun reading The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Greenblatt (re: New Yorker article). Quite entertaining, so far.

Always a pleasure to read your thread!

Suzanne, Enjoyed your review of The infinity of lists which does sound intriguing. Has it had any effect on the way you make lists. Are you tempted to try your hand at listing thoughts etc when looking at a work of art?

Not sure whether I want The Infinity of Lists I checked availability at the Barny Noble's store across town where I will stop tonight and found they had a copy. But online the book is available at a 70% discount; I thought I'd better avail myself of that bargain before it expires, and I have ordered it.

You may have to remind me to read it.

Robert

>26 theaelizabet: Thank you Thea for recommending Greenblatt's article about Lucretius. It became immediately clear to me that The Swerve was must reading, so I ordered a copy then and there. Looking forward to comparing notes!

>27 baswood: Barry, since I am not much of a hand at creative writing, poetic lists are way beyond me and listing thoughts when looking at a work of art isn't quite the way my mind works. I regret that I have so inadequately conveyed the idea of the poetic lists or enumerations Eco has focused on. As for the pragmatic kind which is a wholly different animal, I still make my grocery list on a Post-It. So altogether, not much has changed.

>28 Mr.Durick: Robert, I had The Infinity of Lists for several months before I actually read it due to being continually bedazzled every time I picked the book up by the extent and variety of the pictures. It was quite enlightening when I finally got around to reading Eco's commentary and the anthologized literary pieces! I hope you will enjoy the book even half as much as I have.

Let me know if you need reminding!

>29 Poquette:. Indeed! And I just ordered a copy of On the Nature of Things ;)

Suzanne - enjoying your thread, and trying to keep up. The Library at Night is on my wishlist (I would like to be a librarian in my next life). I'm adding The Infinitely of Lists too...but I'm not sure I whether I would enjoy it or just feel overwhelmed by it.

Thea, I am dropping everything and reading The Swerve. What a find! (When am I going to read all these books on the TBR? Not enough hours in the day.)

Dan, trust me, it's better just hanging out in libraries. Being a librarian involves too much responsibility! And as for feeling overwhelmed by The Infinity of Lists, don't take my hyperbole too much to heart. After all, it is only an illustrated anthology. I think you would be quite taken with all Eco's comments and the literary excerpts. Hopefully, you will enjoy the art as well.

"Being a librarian involves too much responsibility!" - Not the description I might expect. If I could make a living on it, I would be OK with that. I took a single masters class in library and information science (loved the class). The general response I got was when I told anyone what I do was, "You have good job, why would you pursue this?" Anyway, I plan to re-enter the program after my wife finishes her MFA in the spring of 2012.

I'll be interested to hear what you think of The Swerve. It sounds like vintage Greenblatt!

Poquette, I have not had time to catch up on your reading thread part three yet, but I want to say how much I enjoyed your Marius review, and your Eco review. I was, however, very upset by the plot spoiler in the former. It was a total surprise!

Excellent stuff as always. I'll try to catch up over the next few days.

>33 dchaikin: Dan, back in the day (hahaha) when I went to library school, there was some substance to it. My favorite course was the history of the book and printing, which was awesome. I saw and handled some fabulous rare books, including the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and the Kelmscott Chaucer and other early and famous printed books. There was still a possible career for reference librarians. The last time I was in my local public library, the librarian — a recent library school graduate — had not even had a reference course. The Internet and online research tools seem to have made all that obsolete. More's the pitty. Basically the reference desk handled such burning questions as "Where is the periodicals department?" "Where is the restroom?" There is always room for good administrators, but if you go that route, you might as well be in the City Recreation Department. An administrator is an administrator is an administrator. That's really why I eventually left the field. Being that far removed from the books was not what I signed up for. But I treasure a great library as a user. It was that love of libraries that drew me to the field of librarianship and also drove me away. I prefer the outside looking in. But that's just me.

>34 wrmjr66: wrmjr - so far I am enjoying The Swerve, although I do have some criticisms. With any luck — if I can tear myself away from here — I'll finish it tonight and will have more to say.

>35 tomcatMurr: tomcat - glad to see you here whenever you stop by. By the same token, I have been neglecting Le Salon, so I guess we are even. Glad you enjoyed my reviews!

>37 Poquette: I suspect we're basically in the same place, both page and assessment-wise.

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt (2011) W.W. Norton

Although they lived 1500 years apart, the names of Poggio Bracciolini and Lucretius will be forever entwined in the annals of the history of literature and philosophy. Lucretius died in approximately 50 BC and Poggio lived from 1380 to 1459 during the flowering of the Italian Renaissance. If it were not for Poggio, Lucretius would only be known to us today through fragments gleaned from contemporary polemical writings denouncing Lucretius and his more famous predecessor Epicurus.

Lucretius is known to us today for his great Epicurean poem On the Nature of Things. In ancient Rome, Stoicism had the upper hand among what we might call the literary and philosophical establishment. The Stoics bashed the Skeptics, the Skeptics bashed the Stoics, and they both, as well as the Christian fathers, bashed the Epicureans to the degree that very little is extant today of the writings of Epicurus himself. Probably the most coherent statement of Epicurean thought that we have is to be found in Lucretius' 7,000 line poem, which in the year 1400 had been lost to posterity for at least a thousand years.

Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve, among other things, is an account of how On the Nature of Things was found in an obscure monastery in what is now southern Germany by Poggio because of a turn of history that put him in the vicinity and because of his almost lustful desire to find ancient texts that might be buried away in monastic libraries, much as Petrarch had done in the fourteenth century. Petrarch was the father of the book-hunting craze that came to a climax with Poggio in the fifteenth century.

Poggio's reputation, such as it is today, is of a man who plundered the monastic libraries for the ancient texts that had lain buried for a millenium. Among the libraries he is said to have plundered is the magnificent Abbey Library of St. Gall in Switzerland. But as Greenblatt tells us, the custom was not to go around secretly swiping books from unattentive monks. On the contrary, the monks guarded their libraries carefully, and a book hunter like Poggio would be permitted to look at a text, study it within the confines of the library and even copy it if he had the time. But copying a document such as On the Nature of Things is known to have taken 54 days by one well-known scribe. Poggio, whose penmanship was legendary, simply did not have the time or the resources to sit for two months in a library to copy a treasured book. The alternative was to pay a scribe to do the copying and then trust to luck that the manuscript would eventually reach its intended destination. It is gratifying to know that Poggio was a book hunter, but he was no book thief. Incidentally, examples of manuscripts prepared by Poggio survive today and are illustrated in The Swerve.

What exactly is "the swerve" that Greenblatt is referring to? It refers to the belief that the discovery of a complete copy of Lucretius after having been lost to posterity for a thousand years was so influential during the Renaissance that it moved the trajectory of humanism and subsequent scientific theory in unexpected ways. How, you may ask, could an ancient philosophical poem have such an effect? It turns out that Epicureanism posed a considerable threat to the Church in three important ways.

First, there was the pleasure principle, which flew in the face of the doctrine of original sin and the concomitant guilt it imposed which was designed to make worship the focal point of people's lives. Anything espousing pleasure outside of church doctrine was blasphemous or worse.

Second, Epicureanism is not only concerned with the pleasure principle. It posited a theory of "atomism" first described by Democritus but fleshed out by Epicurus and then Lucretius and traceable through the Enlightenment to the breakthroughs in physics during the twentieth century. While the atomism of the ancients is much different than what is understood by scientists today, it provided the spark of inspiration that resulted in our modern scientific understanding of the physical world. And there was nothing in church doctrine that supported such an idea.

Third, and probably most important, while Epicurus believed there were gods, he was certain they had no interest in human affairs, that for them to involve themselves in our world would in fact detract from their own pursuit of pleasure. Belief in this idea qualified one for burning at the stake.

But despite the strong disapproval of Church authorities, On the Nature of Things gained widespread circulation and its ideas began to show up in humanist art and literature. For example, Greenblatt suggests that a painting like Botticelli's Primavera is a physical realization of Lucretius' poetry: "Spring comes and Venus, preceded on the heels of Zephyr, prepares the way for them, strewing all their path with a profusion of exquisite hues and scents."

The Swerve is full of fascinating information about famous people and events of the 1400s, mostly in Rome. Poggio was scribe or apostolic secretary to no less than eight popes, and Greenblatt regales us with behind the scenes details about life in the papal court and the interactions among famous humanists who were at work both there and in Florence.

While this book was enlightening, to say the least, I do have a few quibbles. For one thing, there are copious end notes, but no markings in the text to refer to the notes. And even with all the notes, many undocumented statements probably should have been footnoted. Further, Greenblatt was no doubt conscious of a need to generate suspense in what might have otherwise been a dry history or biography. To create this suspense, he chopped the story up so that it was hard to follow the order of events. Finally, while it seemed that this book was going to be about Lucretius, it turned out to be mostly about Poggio and the intellectual and religious climate at the time of the subject discovery. Except for the tease in the first couple of chapters, it wasn't until chapter eight of eleven that we finally got down to Lucretius, his poem and the Epicurean philosophy it espoused.

As it turns out, the book was an interesting read, despite its flaws.

This review is also posted on the book page.

Great review Suzanne, it looks like a must read for me. It must have been fascinating for you with your Librarian background.

Great review. It sounds thoroughly like Greenblatt. I imagine the end notes and lack of notations are a nod to the fact that Greenblatt is now "popular" (lay people will read him who would never read, say, Jonathan Goldberg). On the Nature of Things is an interesting read, but it can be a bit of a slog now and then when reading through the sections on atomism in particular.

I've been waiting for your review! We largely agree and I will probably land somewhere in the 3 to 3+ stars area. True, it was more about Poggio and "The Church" (which I had not anticipated) than it was about Lucretius, but wow, how fascinating was that? I didn't find the story's telling to be choppy at all, but we agree about the notes and the undocumented statements, which leads me to my 3+ stars. I would have liked a bit more of a scholarly view, I think. As wrmjr66 notes, it was a "popular" approach.

I've just begun The Nature of Things (the A.E. Stallings translation). The introduction to this edition is strong and Stallings, in her notes on the translation, makes a good case for her use of the rhyming fourteener. We see how well that wears as I continue reading.

>40 baswood: Barry, thank you. I believe you would find The Swerve quite interesting as background reading. The book is full of interesting factoids and the bibliography gives an inkling of just how much must have been left on "the cutting room floor" in the process of researching and writing about this period.

>41 wrmjr66: wrmjr - your comment about Greenblatt raises my interest in checking out some of his other work. I see he has written several books about Shakespeare, among others, which sound intriguing. Do you have any particular recommendations? Have you by any chance read Sir Walter Ralegh: The Renaissance Man and His Roles?

>42 theaelizabet: Thea, my review was delayed a couple of days. I kept revising it and trying to keep it short, to little avail. The parts about the papal court were indeed fascinating. I knew Pope John XXIII had been removed from the roster of popes, that his name was finally used again in the twentieth century, but that was all I knew about him previously. Greenblatt really put flesh on the bones of the Schism and the downfall of John XXIII. All in all, a worthwhile detour. Thanks again for telling me about this book! Now, I'm waiting for YOUR review!

My Great Books version of Lucretius is a prose translation by someone named H.A.J. Munro. I note that Project Gutenberg is offering a verse translation by William Ellery Leonard. Both of these suffer for lack of a substantial introduction and notes. Being the note freak that I am, I decided to follow your lead and spring for the Stallings / Penguin Classics edition. The good news is that it was immediately available on Kindle and the notes links are "hot" which will make it easier to read.

This Means This, This Means That: A User's Guide to Semiotics by Sean Hall (2007) Laurence King Publishers

A fascinating and useful reference and introduction to the whole subject of semiotics. I have tried a number of times to read up on this subject and came away not really quite getting it. In retrospect, I believe this subject is made to seem more difficult than it is because most explanations are presented in a very abstract way. This book breaks the subject down, with the help of many illustrations, into its concrete parts and takes the reader through it all in a step-by-step way that clarifies much that seemed incomprehensible before. This is just what the doctor ordered.

Great review of The Swerve, Suzanne. I'm a fan of Stephen Greenblatt -- one of the few literary critics I still read. I recommend his Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World and Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare if you're looking for something else by him. He's also currently the senior editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature.

>42 theaelizabet:, Suzanne, I realized long ago that many others are far better equipped than I to review (you're the perfect example!), so I seldom do it. Loving your thread, though, as always.

>45 janeajones: Thank you, Jane! And I will make a note of your recommendations. Who knows when I will actually get to them. Will in the World sounds particularly interesting.

>46 theaelizabet: Thea, you are too kind. It's funny, I have the same feeling about reviews, but I keep doing them anyway! LOL

I just stumbled on an amazing web site called World Literature Today.

This is a print magazine that is also published digitally, but many of its articles are available at the website.

This website, incidentally, is one of several resources listed on a Club Read 2011 thread for World Literature translated into English, which I recommend if you have not already seen it.

There is an interview in the current issue entitled "The Romance and Reality of Paris: A Conversation with Alexander Maksik" which caught my attention.

http://www.ou.edu/wlt/09_2011/interview-maksik.html

As someone who has spent some time in Paris, I'm always interested in reading what others have to say about their experience. This is an excellent piece. They talk about the whole expat experience, and I'm sure this will interest anyone who has spent time living in countries not their own. I found myself wanting to jump into the conversation, because so much of it resonated, but there were instances where my own experience of Paris was just slightly different than Maksik's.

Maksik has written You Deserve Nothing a novel whose action centers on the International School of France. It has been compared to Dead Poet's Society and Sophie's World.

The conversation also concerns a new anthology called Strangers in Paris: New Writing Inspired by the City of Light (no touchstone), which is described as "anglophone Parisian writing as it is today, without the veneer and expectations of stereotypes, romantic notions or iconic representations." They discuss the whole topic of being an "expat," and whether that term is even relevant today. They talk about the cafe scene and other interesting topics.

And as if we all need more additions to our tottering TBRs, an "Expat Reading List" is provided at the end for further reading. Some of these titles (more at the website), including the above-mentioned Strangers in Paris, look intriguing:

Paris Trance by Geoff Dyer (2000)
A Little Circle of Kindred Minds: Joyce in Paris by Conor Fennell (2011)
Paris Cafe: The Select Crowd by Noel Riley Fitch(2007)
Paris Par Hasard: From Bagels to Brioche by Terence William Gelenter (2010)
Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik (2000) [I actually have this one, which I started but got interrupted]
The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough (2011) [I just got this one for my Kindle]
Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick (2011)
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (2001)
Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas, tr. by Anne McLean (2011)

Some of these do not have touchstones.

Suzanne, good article on Alexander Maksik and the expat community. I will keep in touch with the world literature today website. Some of the things Maksik was saying about the Parisians rang very true. Most of them do vacation in France or countries where French is spoken. Where I live, generally they are not liked. I think even us Brits score above the Parisians in the pecking order down here.

Changing the subject I have just finished Arthurian Romances by Chretien de Troyes, where of course there are references to the wheel of fortune. One of these is:

Ah Percival! Fortune is bald behind and hairy in front

The note on this bit of text says "The depiction of the goddess Fortune as possessing thick hair in front and being bald at the back is a medieval commonplace: you can grab hold of fortune (by the hair) as she approaches you riding on her wheel, not after she has gone by and is descending: that is if one has sufficient perspicacity one can take advantage of Fortune, but hindsight or wisdom after the event is useless.

great stuff on Paris, P, and thanks for including that list of further reading, which I have bookmarked.

>49 baswood: Barry, that is too funny about the Brits being better liked among your neighbors than the Parisians!

Re that bit of lore about "Fortune is bald behind and hairy in front" is astounding to me, along with the locution regarding foresight allowing one to take advantage of Fortune but hindsight being useless. I have never seen that before, or at least it did not register. How interesting, and thanks for sharing that with me.

>50 tomcatMurr: tomcat, I'm glad you found the list of "expat" books with a Paris point of view to be useful. I posted it here mostly for my own benefit because I didn't want to forget those titles, but I was hoping you and others would be intrigued as well.

57. Imaginary Portraits by Walter Pater (1886) Kindle Edition

I finished reading these four portraits today. I was hoping to gain some insights into Marius the Epicurean because Pater had referred to Marius as a kind of imaginary portrait according to biographer Michael Levey. I come away from this book with little more understanding of Pater than when I began.

Aside from Pater's devotion to aesthetics, which are part of the fabric of these portraits, his other preoccupations with childhood, death, beauty and religion, so apparent in Marius, are repeated and reemphasized with each succeeding story. But in addition, I am beginning to see something else which is somewhat surprising, and that is a thread of decadence. This realization did not come to me until midway through the third portrait, and I now see I must go back and reread the whole thing. But first, I want to read some of Pater's other work, including and especially, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry. So it will probably not be until next year that I will get back to this to reread and review.

At the very least my interest in Pater continues unabated.

Currently I am immersed in two novels. This may be a mistake, because there are some uncanny and unexpected similarities. I may have to take notes. One is John Crowley's The Solitudes, which is the first part of the Aegypt tetralogy. I could not remember who recommended it or why it was sitting on my Kindle! But now that I am into it the relevance to my pagan and esoteric reading is a surprise and is paying off. Also, Crowley has a wonderful style, which is hard to describe but it feels breezy – pardon that term – and it just whisks you along. I'm not thrilled with the main characters, but the story is interesting enough that I shall carry on to see what happens next.

The other novel is The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. I'm participating in the group read in Le Salon and this book is proving to be delightfully entertaining. With all the introductory materials that were presented it sounded like it was going to be a very stuffy philosophical novel and difficult reading on top of that. It is definitely philosophical, but not difficult and the story is told with so much humor and irony that one could absolutely forget its philosophical preoccupations and enjoy it merely as a well-told story.

I am glad you are enjoying The Magic Mountain Suzanne. I am finding it delightful. There is a little magic in it.

I was browsing among the sale books at a local bookstore and happened to pick up a volume which quoted as its epigram a few lines from Milton's "Il Penseroso," the very same lines I quoted in my first thread:

Or let my Lamp at midnight hour,
Be seen in some high lonely Towr,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,
With thrice great Hermes, or unsphear
The spirit of Plato to unfold
What Worlds, or what vast Regions hold
The immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook

This got my attention, and so I flipped through some more and spotted a chapter section on John Dee, and another on Giordano Bruno, one on Ficino and Hermes Trismegistus. This was obviously a book that touched on one of my favorite topics this year — Pagan influences.

The title of the book is The Philosophers' Secret Fire: A History of the Imagination by Patrick Harpur. This is one of those serendipitous finds which are the reason one drops into bookstores from time to time. Of course, I bought it on the spot.

When this year began, I had never heard of John Dee. He was a book collector par excellence, he was an advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, and he was something of a magician, a wizard, a mage. I now find his name everywhere, it seems, and he is featured significantly in at least half a dozen other books that I have acquired this year and most of which I have read:

The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age by Frances Yates

The Art of Memory by Frances Yates

The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance by Joscelyn Godwin

The Friar and the Cipher: Roger Bacon and the Unsolved Mystery of the Most Unusual Manuscript in the World by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone

The House of Doctor Dee by Peter Ackroyd (not yet read)

The Aegypt Tetralogy by John Crowley (currently reading)

All of this pagan influence stuff had a purpose initially, but it has taken me down roads I never dreamed I would be traveling and has taken on a life of its own. It is way too interesting to stop now.

It's amazing where your reading can lead you and all the connections you can make.

Suzanne - I've been reading The Philosophers Secret Fire for the last 3 weeks. I thought about you often whilst reading it - it seems to be covering many of the areas of your recent reading.

I of course came to it via Jung.

Fascinating book. I have 3 or 4 more chapters to read yet, but it is taking up a lot of my thinking time.

Will be interested to see what you think of it.

Dee is fascinating. He was a respected mathematician and astronomer, and he taught many of England's early explorers how to navigate. I haven't read Ackroyd's book on Dee, but I'm sure it will be quite good.

Barry, that is indeed the case.

Zeno, you must have sent me a subliminal message. Now that I've looked a bit deeper, I am dying to get into this book. I've got too many others on my plate just now so it's probably going to have to wait a bit. But in the meantime, I look forward to your comments, review, etc. . . .

wrmjr, Dee seems to have been an exemplar of the Renaissance man. He had his hand in many cookie jars!

The year is coming quickly to a close, and I'm looking at the books I would really like to finish before the year ends, just to complete an imaginary circle in my own mind. This may be a tall order what with the upcoming holidays and a heavy work load.

Aegypt by John Crowley - currently reading. This book was renamed in subsequent editions as The Solitudes.

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann - currently reading.

Arthurian Romances by Chretien de Troyes - recommended by Barry - to be read before . . .

Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach - upcoming minigroup read organized by Barry

The Survival of the Pagan Gods by Jean Seznec - a holdover from my original January reading list

The Mirror of the Gods: How the Renaissance Artists Rediscovered the Pagan Gods by Malcolm Bull - also a holdover

The House of Doctor Dee by Peter Ackroyd

The Philosopher's Secret Fire by Patrick Harpur

Aegypt aka The Solitudes by John Crowley (1987) Kindle Edition

Aegypt, or as it was renamed in later editions, The Solitudes, the first of four novels, takes us on a philosophical and historical journey back to the Elizabethan Age, when Giordano Bruno and John Dee were skating on dangerous intellectual territory as they sought a kind of truth that was foreign to the ecclesiastical powers that reigned during that time. The Inquisition was in full force, and the conditions that people lived in at that time can only be described as totalitarian. Any uttered deviation from conventional thought could be life-threatening, no matter one's station.

Giordano Bruno became famous as a young Dominican friar for his prodigious memory. At one point he was even summoned by the Pope to explain the "secrets" behind his legendary feats of remembering. It is quite probable that Bruno had what we think of today as a photographic memory, but he had been trained in the arts of memory, the rules of which were severely limited by superstitious Church authorities. The process is fully described in the course of this book as well as Bruno's hair-raising journey to escape the grasp of the Inquisition because he was suspected of employing Satanic arts.

John Dee had a burning desire to be a wizard, a mage, and to be able to look in a crystal ball and see angels, or the way to heaven or God himself. We are introduced to Bruno and Dee and the book ends on the threshold of their first meeting.

Framing accounts of these historical figures, however, is the story of a modern-day historian who has botched his fledgling but mediocre career as a college history teacher. As he embarks on the process of retrieving the wreckage of his life, he ruminates extensively about the notion that there is more than one history of the world, that there is more than one kind of history and he begins to think about writing a book that explores these unorthodox ideas. He thinks, "Nowadays history is made of time; but once it was made of something else. . . . the story of that history not made of time; that history which is as different from History yet as symmetrical to it as dream is to waking. "

He keeps asking the question: Why do we believe Gypsies can tell fortunes? Because they came not really from Egypt, but from Aegypt, the country where all magic arts are known. From childhood he has believed that "Aegypt" is a kind of shadow Egypt of the imagination:

. . . there were two different countries, somehow near each other or at right angles to each other. Egypt. And Aegypt. . . The one I dreamt and thought about, it has a history too, as Egypt does, a history just as long but different . . . the same monuments with completely different meanings. . . . Not Egypt but Aegypt. Because there is more than one history of the world."
*****
Why do we believe Gypsies can tell fortunes? Because we thought once they were Egyptians, even though they aren't, and it was natural to suppose they would inherit, in whatever faint degree, the occult wisdom which everybody knows the Egyptians possessed.
*****
He knew why it is that people believe Gypsies can tell fortunes; he knew why that pyramid and that mystic eye appear on every dollar bill, and from what country the New Order of the Ages issued. It was the same country as the country from which the Gypsies came, and it was not Egypt.
*****
Not Egypt but Aegypt: for there is more than one history of the world.

So Aegypt, or The Solitudes, contains within it an extended meditation upon the nature of history:

How history hungers for the shape of myth; how the plots and characters of fable and romance come to inhabit real courts and counting-houses and cathedrals; how old sciences die, and bequeath their myths and magic to their successors; how the heroes of legend pass away, fall asleep, are resurrected, and enter ordinary daylit history, persisting as a dream persists into waking life, altering and transforming it even when the dream itself has been forgotten or repressed.

Culminating in the question: Is meaning in history like the solution to an equation or like a repeated flavor? Is it to be solved for or tasted?

This question is not answered directly, but participating in the conversation is quite satisfying.

It is not easy to classify this book. Is it fantasy? historical fiction? philosophy? It seems to be all of the above, with more than a touch of the occult and esoteric about it. I found this book to be completely enthralling as it touches on quite a few subjects I have been reading about this year – and it is very well-written. It is difficult to say whether it would have been better to have read this first or whether all that reading prepared me for this book.



ETA – I also posted My review on the book page.

Good review of The Solitudes by John Crowley. It wouldn't do for me though because I don't believe that Gypsies can tell fortunes.

The part of the book that I would like is the extended meditation on history, but I don't think I would go where Crowley goes on this. All very interesting, but I can see why you say that it is not an easy book to classify

Thumbed..

Great review, Suzanne! By a weird coincidence, I have been reading Crowley's Little, Big for the last two weeks, and have been genuinely enjoying it. He seems to me a writer of ideas, but he also has a great, fluent style.

Intriguing review of The Solitudes. Crowley is an author that many have recommended to me, and I only recently managed to acquire all of the volumes of the Ægypt cycle.

Barry, this book is certainly not for everybody. I actually kept asking myself as I was reading about Bruno and Dee: Who – besides me – would be interested in this book??? It is very heavy on the Renaissance history. As for the Gypsies, I don't personally believe that anyone can tell fortunes. The phrase seems to be a literary conceit designed to encapsulate the idea of an "Aegypt" of the imagination. In many ways, the whole concept and sweep of this novel and presumably its successors in the tetralogy, is very poetic in the sense that it encourages the imagination to soar. It certainly got my juices flowing. I was hoping that the series of quotes I included in my review would convey some of that.

Dewald, I was just reading reviews at Amazon of Little, Big. Everything people say about Crowley's beautiful writing are true of Aegypt (The Solitudes) as well. It sounds like Little, Big is more of a fantasy than generally appeals to me, but I will consider it after I have read the other three books in the Aegypt tetralogy. I also have Crowley's Lord Byron's Novel sitting here as well.

Steve, I hope you enjoy it when you get to it. Do let us know what you think.

When is the Parzival minigroup read? I'd love to join in, although I'm not sure if I'll be able to.

According to the Parzival thread, we will begin towards the end of November. Stay in touch with Barry, who is really the ring leader, and star the thread. Hope you can join us.

I'll have to look for The Solitudes, as everything I've read by Crowley has been 1st rate. I think Little, Big is a genuinely good novel...not just a good fantasy novel.

wrmjr - That's good to know. Thanks!

In other news, I just finished reading An Introduction to Iconography by Roelof van Straten, which falls right in with my pagan influences craze. This small but very useful book covers similar ground as The Secret Language of the Renaissance by Richard Stemp, which I read earlier this year. But the approach is entirely different. I will post a review in a day or two.

An Introduction to Iconography by Roelof van Straten (1994) Gordon and Breach Scientific Publishers

How does one identify meaning in a work of art? An Introduction to Iconography presents an outline of the analytical process for finding such meaning and describes tools and where to find them.

But first, what is iconography? It is defined simply as the study of themes, objects and subjects in the visual arts and is a major branch of art history. The first concern is to objectively describe the elements in a work of art. Then the task is to determine what, if anything, those elements mean and to identify literary and artistic sources, published interpretations, and metaphorical meanings.

A subset of iconography is iconology, a branch of cultural history that uncovers the cultural, social and historical background of themes and subjects in the visual arts. As defined in this book, iconology remains a neglected aspect of art historical publications. The author goes to great pains to draw a distinction between iconography and iconology, but then says further discussion is beyond the scope of the book. Not helpful.

The approach to iconography described herein is based on the method of analyzing representational art described by Erwin Panofsky.

In medieval and Renaissance art one commonly finds abstract ideas represented in literature and art by images of Roman gods or personifications of such things as the vices and virtues, for example, or symbolic depiction of allegory. Such personification thrived into the Baroque and Rococo periods, but lost its significance in the 19th century due to the rise of realism, according to the author

The book acknowledges that a person viewing a work of art for the first time cannot be expected to intuit deep symbolic meanings in a painting that may be full of iconic images.

From a personal standpoint, the material in this book was of some interest to me because I tend to be attracted instinctively to iconic art, as contrasted with the kind of art featured in Umberto Eco's Infinity of Lists, which I reviewed recently. Eco's book was quite a revelation to me because it provided a key to looking at paintings that represent masses of objects or people that I had not quite grasped before and thus failed to appreciate the whole body of such art. An Introduction to Iconography provides a systematic approach to analyzing unfamiliar art and isolating and identifying the hidden meanings. It also supplements the material presented in The Secret Language of the Renaissance by Richard Stemp, which I also read and reviewed earlier this year.

A useful reference that was originally written during the Renaissance by Cesare Ripa (1593) is his Iconologia which was published by Dover Press under the title Baroque and Rococo Pictorial Imagery, with Baroque illustrations from a 1758 edition published in Germany. This book contains personifications and allegorical images of every imaginable abstract concept that was popular before the 19th century.

An Introduction to Iconography, which was originally published in German, is a very useful reference and contains extensive bibliographic material — mostly in German — for the serious student.



My review is also posted on the book page.

Suzanne, I see there are only 19 other people who own ths book, which is surprising considering that it seems to be a useful introduction. If you want to appreciate art before the 19th century you really need the information that this sort of book can provide.

I am intrigued by your reference to the Cesare Rippa book. Has this been translated into English. It sounds fascinating

Hi Barry, the Cesare Ripa book has a complicated history. The short answer to your question is, yes, it has been translated into English. That's the Dover Press book that I referred to, Baroque and Rococo Pictorial Imagery. It apparently contains Ripa's text, but the illustrations from 1758 are Baroque and Rococo in style. Ripa's original Iconologia of 1593 in Italian contained only descriptions. Later editions edited by a string of other people contained illustrations. There was even one edition that was illustrations only, having stripped Ripa's text. The Dover edition is in English but it is a translation of a German translation published in 1758, the so-called Hertel edition which contained the Baroque/Rococo engravings. It also contains some supplemental material contained in that Hertel edition.

When I stumbled on this book, I was actually looking for illustrations that reflected an earlier era. The 1758 illustrations are almost unrecognizable from what one would have expected to find in the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance. In fact, as one reads through the descriptions, Ripa's own description is much more elaborate than one might expect and is very interesting. For example, we would expect Fortune to be associated with her famous wheel. But the Baroque engraving relegates the wheel to a minor symbolic ornament at the top of a staff that Fortune carries.

In casting about for further information, I stumbled on the fact that Ripa's book is an exemplar of what is known as "emblem books," and there are a whole slew of them from the 16th and 17th centuries. For more information see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emblem_book

To give you a clearer idea of the Dover book, the link below will take you to an example of a typical two-page spread titled "The World" (Mundus). The first page gives a translation of the Latin epigraph at the top. Next in paragraph form is more or less Ripa's text, as modified through various editions over the centuries. The fatto is a description of the background scene. And finally, you see a translation of the German couplet at the bottom of the engraving. Click on the next page to see the engraving. Obviously you can look at other pages as well, but unfortunately, the Google book does not contain both pages for all images. This one is a good example.

Google books: Baroque and rococo pictorial imagery

Suzanne, Thanks for those excellent links. From the examples that I saw on Google books it looks a fascinating publication. I will keep my eyes open for a reasonably priced copy.

Nothing for a month? Are you on holiday?

Thanks, edwin, for checking in. Didn't realize soooo much time had gone by. And now I shall never catch up. There are thousands of posts on all the various threads I have been following. Now I am faced with the big question: What to read first!

At this point, I am within about a hundred pages of finishing The Magic Mountain, which I continue to enjoy even though for all intents and purposes I missed the group read. For some reason as I have been reading I am reminded of Foucault's Pendulum in the sense that it is full of irony and one never quite knows when the author is having fun at the expense of the reader. I read somewhere that when asked to explain some of the ambiguities, Mann merely suggested rereading the book! Which I hope to do at some point. But I have to finish the first reading first. I have actually read Foucault's Pendulum three times and still have the sense that the joke, if there is one, is on me!

There were so many books on my TBR for 2011, and I'm afraid I've gotten way far behind on my reading, too. But there is always next year . . .

welcome back suzanne, we have missed you.

It's nice to see you back. I'll be interested to read your take on TMM.

Thanks Barry and Dan! I've missed you too!

Just for the record, and to begin wrapping up this marvelous year of reading, the following are books that I have begun in 2011 but did not finish:

Commonplace Books: A History of Manuscripts and Printed Books from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century by Earle Havens — I got more than halfway through this but it really is more of a reference book and I probably will not finish reading it in the conventional way (i.e., cover-to-cover) but will continue to dip into it from time to time.

The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser — no excuses. I just let other things get in the way.

Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are by Bart Ehrman — ditto here

Young's Night Thoughts; With Life, Critical Dissertation and Explanatory Notes by Edward Young — and ditto here.

Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories by Thomas Mann — I read Death in Venice but have not gotten to the other stories. After I finish The Magic Mountain, I will renew my efforts.

The following are remnants from my original 2011 TBR. They cover an area that really dominated my reading this year, namely, pagan influences. While I began really with ancient history, and absorbed some medieval history along the way, I find myself really captivated by the Renaissance and will probably continue reading in this vein well into next year. In the meantime, I have acquired some other books that fit into the same area, but more about those later.

The Mirror of the Gods: How the Renaissance Artists Rediscovered the Pagan Gods by Malcolm Bull

The Survival of the Pagan Gods by Jean Seznec

A few other miscellaneous books are sitting here that I fully expected to read this year:

Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes — acquired at the same time as The History of the World in 10½ Chapters

Imagining Wales: A View of Modern Welsh Writing in English by Jeremy Hooker — picked up when I was immersed in Porius.

A Voice from the Attic by Robertson Davies — highly recommended by ChocolateMuse, and I really wanted to read it before now.

And as a climax to the year end I've been saving:

The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford

We'll have to see about that . . .

nice to see you you back Suzanne. We've all missed you.

Thanks Tom! Afraid I'm never going to catch up! :-

I'm interested in Forged. From what you have read so far, is it something you would recommend?

Dan, I only read the first couple of chapters, and truthfully, I'm going to have to go back to the beginning if and when I ever pick it up again. The main thing I got so far was that Ehrman has taken the well-known fact that the gospels were not actually written by the people after whom they were named and calls them out-and-out forgeries, and his point is to make a case for that rather fine distinction. I got the book primarily because I am familiar with Ehrman through a couple of Teaching Company courses and thought it would be interesting.

Since I didn't feel compelled to drive on through, maybe that's a commentary, and maybe it isn't. In short, I'm not prepared to recommend or otherwise until I have read more. But my sense is that he was trying to make a controversy to sell his book. But I'm not deep into Biblical controversies and therefore am not in a position to cast a judgment on the basis of only two chapters. But you've reminded me that I was interested enough to buy the book, so maybe I'll get back to it sooner rather than later. Sorry I can't be more definite now.

Thanks! I won't rush out and buy it.

Considering my advanced years, etc., etc., I never cease to be amazed at how little I know. With almost every book read this year I have been painfully reminded of this fact.

In this vein, readers of my original Bookaccino thread may recall a book entitled The High Medieval Dream Vision by Kathryn Lynch, which was one of the linchpins of my reading in 2011. The book was especially enlightening to me on the subject of medieval psychology, a realm previously unfamiliar, but which has come up again and again in subsequent reading. Quoting immodestly from my review:

The prevailing belief was that human thought processes were of three types: reason, imagination and memory.

As a result of my long neglect of this thread specifically and LT in general, I have been in the process of reviewing and catching up to date with some of the threads I had previously been following, and I was reminded of a book I bought on impulse, thanks to comments by PimPhilipse, entitled A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment by Philipp Blom. This got buried on my Kindle and the reminder prompted me to look at it and I ended up reading the Introduction which led me to think about Diderot's Encyclopedie.

Long story short, I ended up at a Web site which purports to be a "collaborative translation project" for said Encyclopedie. Among other things of interest at this site is something from the Encyclopedie called "Map of the System of Human Knowledge."

The marvelous thing – and the point of this long digression – is that said "Map" classifies all human knowledge under three headings: Memory, Reason and Imagination.

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/tree.html—Map of the System of Human Knowledge

The point of all the above is, as a result of my meanderings, there are two titles that must be added to the list in 78 above that I fully intended to read this year:

A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment by Philipp Blom

The Philosopher's Secret Fire by Patrick Harpur — which I magically stumbled upon — and I'll never believe otherwise — because of zenomax's telepathic powers!

You need to watch out for that zenomax.

Suzanne -- if you're interested in the medieval theories of memory, you might want to check out Mary J. Carruthers' works: The Book of Memory and The Medieval Craft of Memory.

Barry, so far as I can tell, it's a benevolent influence.

Jane, I actually have The Book of Memory which I have dipped into but have not yet read in earnest. It is definitely on the list for next year.

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (2005) Everyman's Library, translated by John E. Woods

For once I am at a loss for words. I feel totally unqualified to do a review of this book. In view of all that has already been said both in the group read threads and some fine reviews, notably that of Barry, I will say that it is right up there with the best reads of the year. There is so much to it one hardly knows where to begin. But rather than flail around all over the place with my perhaps naive reactions, I will just say that at the end I was surprisingly dewy-eyed over the parting of Hans and Settembrini, despite the fact that the experts tell us that Mann has populated the book with stick figures meant to be mere allegorical symbols of various themes and elements.

As a novel of ideas, this one is a stellar example, and I'm afraid I'll have to read it again before I can get a grip on everything that I know — and think I know — about it.



Another thing that touched me deeply was the musical theme, and particularly Hans' love of Schubert's "Der Lindenbaum," which is part of Die Winterreise, a favorite work of mine. Maybe this or something similar was linked in the group read threads, but regardless, here, sung by Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, is a lovely rendition of this haunting song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyxMMg6bxrg

By the well before the gate stands a lime tree;
In its shade I have dreamt many a sweet dream.
In its bark I carved many a word of love;
In joy and in sorrow I was ever drawn to it.
Today, too, I had to pass it at dead of night;
Even in the darkness I closed my eyes.
And its boughs rustled as if calling to me;
Come here to me, friend, here you will find rest.
The cold winds blew straight into my face
My hat flew from my head, but I did not turn back
Now I am many hours' journey away from that spot,
Yet still I hear the murmur; There you would find rest.

The music went right by me in the book, but those lyrics leave me something to think about. Congrats on finishing.

Dan – it does help to know the operas, both words and music, in order to get Mann's exposition of the music. And the effort is definitely worthwhile – easy for me to say as a lifelong opera and classical music afficionado. If this is all unfamiliar to you, I urge you to give it a try.

Magic Mountain Study Guide and Aid by David Blevins (2011) Kindle Edition

I have now read through this brief survey and at the very least, it serves as a reminder of several things, not the least of which is that I found myself having interpreted certain events and philosophical discussions in quite a different way from the author. This may be a function of misinterpretation or lack of understanding or both. But it does underscore the need to reread and my unpreparedness for properly reviewing The Magic Mountain at this time.

The guide presents essays on each chapter, analysis of each of the major characters, and then a series of critical essays on such subjects as the Bildunsroman, technique and style, influences on Thomas Mann, including Wagner, Tolstoy, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, "The East, The West and Germany" and "On the Novel's Medical Aspects." One feature that is typical of this kind of study guide is a list of "essay topics and review questions." This one is distinguished by being a cut above most such lists of questions, it is substantially longer and can serve to help one organize one's thoughts if nothing else.

Before leaving the subject behind, there are a few quotes from The Magic Mountain that I wish to note here so I won't forget them:

In a discussion by Naphta of alchemy and initiation rites:

"The primary symbol of alchemistic transmutation," Naphta went on, "was the crypt."

"The grave?"

"Yes, the scene of corruption. It is the epitome of all hermetism – nothing less than the vessel, the carefully safeguarded crystal retort, in which matter is forced toward its final mutation and purification."

" 'Hermetism' – that's well put, Herr Naphta. 'Hermetic' – I've always liked that word. It's a magic word with vague, vast associations. . . . Beg your pardon, you were going to teach me more."

"Only if you'd like me to. The apprentice must be fearless and hungry for knowledge – to speak in the style of our topic. The crypt, the grave, has always been the primary symbol in their initiation ceremony. The apprentice, the novice hungry to be admitted to such knowledge, must remain undaunted by the grave's horrors; the rules of the lodge demand that he be tested by being led down into the crypt and that he remain there until he is brought forth by the hand of an unknown brother. . . . The path of the mysteries and purification is beset with dangers, it leads through the fear of death, through the realm of corruption, and the apprentice, the neophyte, is the young man who is hungry for the wounds of life, demands that his demonic capacity for experience be awakened, and is led by shrouded forms, who are merely shades of the great mystery itself." (pp. 605-6)

Mann on the subject of love:

In our opinion, it is analytically correct, although – to use Hans Castorp's phrase – "terribly gauche" and downright life-denying, to make a "tidy" distinction between sanctity and passion in matters of love. What's this about "tidy"? What's this about gentle irresolution and ambiguity? Isn't it grand, isn't it good, that language has only one word for everything we associate with love – from utter sanctity to the most fleshly lust? The result is perfect clarity in ambiguity, for love cannot be disembodied even in its most sanctified forms, nor is it without sanctity even at its most fleshly. Love is always simply itself, both as a subtle affirmation of life and as the highest passion; love is our sympathy with organic life, the touchingly lustful embrace of what is destined to decay – caritas is assuredly found in the most admirable and most depraved passions. Irresolute? But in God's good name, leave the meaning of love unresolved! Unresolved – that is life and humanity, and it would betray a dreary lack of subtlety to worry about it. (p. 713)

In the section dealing with "Der Lindenbaum":

Let us put it this way: an object created by the human spirit and intellect, which means a significant object, is "significant" in that it points beyond itself, is an expression and exponent of a more universal spirit and intellect, of a whole world of feeling and ideas that have found a more or less perfect image of themselves in that object – by which the degree of its significance is then measured. Moreover, love for such an object is itself equally "significant." It says something about the person who feels it, it defines his relationship to the universe, to the world represented by the created object and, whether consciously or unconsciously, loved along with it. (p. 775)

Some great extracts from The Magic Mountain suzanne, Towards the end of the book ideas on alchemy really came to the fore, as they did on music.

Our friend tomcatmurr threatened to write a piece on music in the Magic Mountain, I have not seen it yet.

I share your love of Die Winterreise.

The Good Soldier (Norton Critical Editions) by Ford Madox Ford (1915, 1995)

"This is the saddest story I have ever heard." Thus, the famous opening line of The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion by Ford Madox Ford. Ford gives us a story set during la Belle Époque filled with passion to be sure, but also with irony and the suffering of two married couples, one English and the other American. Told by one of the protagonists, it presents as sympathetically as might humanly be expected the sad tale of the gradual disintegration of what appeared at the outset to be exemplars of the beautiful people of the age, "good people," as Ford repeatedly reminds us. Both couples were of the rentier class, i.e., bourgeois, upper middle class, wealthy and with far too much time on their hands for their own good. In calling his novel The Good Soldier, the reader will come to find out the depth of Ford's irony.

Ford's construction of this great tale is masterful in the sense that he keeps the reader on tenterhooks, not in a suspenseful way, but in the way one's impressions of each character rise and fall with each new revelation. And "impression" is the word, because Ford has produced a classic of literary impressionism in the way his narrator Dowell unravels events in his own mind and reveals the character of each protagonist.

What we have here is a kind of circular tale. It is not a narrative in the usual sense where one thing happens after another. Dowell has sat down to tell his story in an effort to understand what has transpired himself, and so as Dowell reminisces and goes back and forth to fill in the blanks as he recalls them, the reader shares his self-revelations and gradual grasping of the enormity of it all.

It is a haunting story. One may come away feeling entirely exasperated with the stupidity and self-destructiveness on display, but The Good Soldier is one of those classics that deserves to be read and reread.



This review is also posted on the book page.

I agree with your excellent review Suzanne. I read The Good Soldier a few years ago. It is a very good novel. A deserved classic.

What did you think of the Norton Critical Edition. Did the contexts and the criticism enhance your reading experience?

Barry, the Norton Critical Edition in this case actually goes way overboard, in my humble estimation. There are at least four extant drafts and several early English and American editions of The Good Soldier, and this edition attempts to account for differences among all of them.

In addition, there are illustrations and copious if somewhat excessive footnotes, which I usually enjoy, especially when they are footnotes as opposed to endnotes, but here the editor assumes the reader is ignorant and does not own a dictionary. There were one or two blatant inaccuracies in the notes as well which does not promote confidence.

The supplementary matter includes contemporary reviews and more current criticism. Taken together, to have it all gathered in one volume is wonderful.

Interesting Suzanne, I understand what you mean by the excessive footnotes. I suppose these books were produced with school/college students in mind.

But that's the confusing thing, Barry. On the one hand, the footnotes seem to be aimed at the very young, yet the scholarly approach to reconciling the various early drafts and texts seems to be at the opposite end of the spectrum. So perhaps the editors are trying to please both.

At any rate, I don't mean to be too critical. Those were merely things that stood out. On the whole, I'm quite delighted with the Norton Critical Edition.

In these waning days of 2011, I have been taking stock of what exactly has been accomplished on this thread. A number of things come to mind beyond the number of books read and whether I have read more fiction than nonfiction, etc., etc.

First, it has been very gratifying to have so many of you add to the conversation going on here. There is no way I could have sustained my own interest in reviewing and reporting on the books I have read without feedback from you. Now, admittedly, my reading interests are several standard deviations outside the norm of the reading curve in Club Read. Most of you are concentrated on fiction, and from my point of view that is a very good thing, because much of my own fiction reading this year has drawn on suggestions made by you, both here and in your own threads. So the bottom line is that I thank you all for contributing your thoughts here and providing the encouragement that I have fed on each and every day.

Second, I am amazed in retrospect at how stimulating it has been to maintain this thread. The record of my own reading and your comments thereto represent something unique and very special in my experience. In fact, I am thinking about turning this record of my year of reading into some sort of a coffee table scrapbook or commonplace book for visitors to my house to peruse if they so choose.

Third, this year of reading has been quite unique in my experience in terms of the subject matter and the concentration on a single idea, which I have reduced to a short of shorthand heading of "pagan influences." While I have strayed from that single idea quite a bit over the year, a surprising percentage of my reading – both wittingly and unwittingly – has related to that idea.

Finally, when the year began, I had no idea really where the trail was going to lead. I expected to read much more fiction than I did. I expected to read one or two books on pagan influences and then move on to other things. The list of anticipated reading at the beginning of the first thread in this series reflects that. Never did I expect the subject matter to be so rich in material, nor did I anticipate the literary side trips I would be taking in pursuit of that idea. In fact, I expect it to continue to interest me for the foreseeable future.

In another post I will present a statistical summary of my year in books, but I just want to reemphasize my very great pleasure with your company and my sincere appreciation for your many interesting and valuable contributions to my thread.

Thank you, one and all!

#100, Brilliant Suzanne, your post sums up how I feel about club read. It has been a great year for reading. See you soon on club read 2012

Reading Summary for the Year 2011

The big surprise here is the number of fiction books read. It's much higher than I was giving myself credit for.

Number of books read: 64
Fiction reads: 25
Nonfiction reads: 39
Begun but not finished: 4
Number left on TBR: Do not ask
Male authors: 50; Fiction: 18
Female authors: 14; Fiction: 5

Authors not new to me: Umberto Eco, Herman Melville, Alberto Manguel, Theodore Sturgeon, Peter Ackroyd, E.M. Forster

More than one work by an author: Paul Auster (3), Cynthia Giles (2), Joscelyn Godwin (3 + 2 as translator), Thomas Mann (2), Walter Pater (2), John Cowper Powys (2), Frances Yates (2)

Top Subjects:
Pagan Influences/Religion/Philosophy/Esoterica – 28
Fiction – 25
History/Biography – 8
Art History – 4
Criticism – 10
Literature/Essays – 4
General Nonfiction – 2

Country of Origin:
US – 33
UK – 20
Germany – 5
France – 2
Latin America – 2
Italy – 1
Greece – 1

Ratings – number of 5, 4.5 and 4-star reads



The Religious Quests of the Graeco-Roman World; a study in the historical background of early Christianity by Samuel Angus
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster
The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville
Saints and Strangers by Angela Carter
The Infinity of Lists by Umberto Eco
The Good Solder (Norton Critical Edition) by Ford Madox Ford



Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age by Frances Yates
The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance by Joscelyn Godwin
Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance by Arthur Versluis
A History of the World in 10½ Chapters by Julian Barnes
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
Whatever Happened to Modernism? by Gabriel Josipovici
Aegypt (The Solitudes) by John Crowley
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann



Boethius by John Marenbon
A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914-1918 by G.J. Meyers
The Golden Thread by Joscelyn Godwin
Aldus and His Dream Book by Helen Barolini
A Night in the Luxembourg by Remy Gourmont
New York Trilogy by Paul Aster
In the Country of Books: Commonplace Books and Other Readings by Richard Katzev
The Perfect Host by Theodore Sturgeon
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater
How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell
This Means This, This Means That by Sean Hall

Biggest Disappointments
Frankenstein, or the Modern Promethius by Mary Shelley
2666 by Roberto Bolano
Illuminations by Walter Benjamin
Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck

Underrated in Retrospect
The High Medieval Dream Vision by Kathryn Lynch
Frankenstein, or the Modern Promethius by Mary Shelley
The Art of Memory by Frances Yates

Yes, Frankenstein is on both lists. At the time I read it I was disappointed. After the passage of time, I realize I gave it short shrift, perhaps unfairly. These things happen.

It would appear interest has shifted to Club Read 2012.

I have begun a new thread there which I have named:

Poquette's Bibliomonde.

Hope you will all find your way there.

In the meantime, Happy New Year one and all!

I am glad to see that my experience of receiving a lot of inspiration from the Club Read thread is something shared. Admiration for your high standards reading list.

See you at Club Read 2012.

Splendid stuff Suzanne. I've learnt a lot from your threads in 2011.

Thank you, Edwin! The admiration is mutual!

Zeno, thank you so much. Your comments have always cheered me on with my somewhat esoteric interests.

I'm inspired by post #100. You have unique path here that has always been interesting to follow, and rich and refined thoughts on it all. On to 2012.

Many thanks, Dan! I do appreciate your thoughtful words and your encouragement throughout.