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How to Read Poetry Like a Professor
Title: How to Read Poetry Like a Professor: A Quippy and Sonorous Guide to Verse Author: Thomas C. Foster Published: New York: Harper Perennial, 2018 I recently read his book How to Read Novels Like a Professor, so this is my next Foster installment. I was not disappointed. He continues to educate in a light-hearted manner. Poetry is just a little different as in many can read a novel and for the most part jump right in with one go and get the gist of it. But poetry is a different animal. Personally, I love poetry. Foster explores the definition of poetry, how it “uses language to take us to a place beyond language… and reading poetry requires more than just your brain.”[1] Now this doesnt really give us a definition of poetry, but it gives you the idea that were dealing with a different type of animal. Poetry is almost a different language, or it can appear that way. I like to see it going beyond language. I do agree with Foster that it is best to read poetry out loud. Especially when first starting out with a new poem. Also, a good piece of advice he gives is…
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The Adventures of Augie March
Title: The Adventures of Augie March Author: Saul Bellow Published: New York: The Viking Press, 1953 I am an American, Chicago born – Chicago, that somber city – and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man’s character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn’t any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles.[1] And that my friends is how Bellow begins The Adventures of Augie March. It truly is an American story. One that captures the hopes, dreams, and disappointments that many may experience. The characters are alive and believable. There is a little bit of Augie in each of us I believe. We want to do our own thing and make the best of life, but very often we are carried along by the current. It is almost as if the inevitable has a way of grabbing us by the coattails and dragging us along. The experiences and encounters that Augie experience are very wide in what…
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The Everlasting Man
Title: The Everlasting Man Author: G. K. Chesterton Published: Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1974 (Originally 1925) There are two parts of this book, “On the Creature Called Man,” which points out how special mankind is in relation to all other creatures, and the second part, “On the Man Called Christ,” which points out how special Christianity is to all other religions and myths. Now I believe Chesterton did not write this with the aim of instructing those that are already enlightened and members of the Christian way. But rather, he had in mind those lost souls who were bored, confused, or perhaps even intolerant of Christianity. He understood that they may be too close to the issue and their senses had become deadened and that they no longer were able to feel wonderment at what is truly wonderful. It is also written to the crowd that may have been caught up in Darwinism or those that just couldn’t see mankind as special anymore. So, he provided a path by starting outside and looking in. If one is having trouble understanding something it is usually best to try a different angle or paradigm. On reading this I thought I would have…
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Grendel
Title: Grendel Author: John Gardner Published: New York: Vintage Books, 1989 I’m back. For the last three hours I have been Grendel. Caught up in the story by John Gardner. From its opening page it held me spellbound. My heart is racing. I am caught up in the story. I close the book, lean back in my recliner and take a deep breath. Slowly my breathing returns to normal. I hear the clock ticking on the wall. The sounds of birds outside. The faraway sound of highway traffic. Reality returns to me. Gardner weaves a spellbinding story of the creature Grendel from the story of Beowulf. From the first page I was hooked. The many anachronisms just seemed to naturally fit and become part of a mystical weave that Gardner created. It is a philosophical work, one that is sure to bring questions. I wrestled with Grendel as he struggled to understand and give a meaning to his life. He covers a wide scope of Western philosophy over the ages. I feel it would be a good conversation starter for a class of students. Let them all read it and discuss what they identified with, what they struggled with, and…
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Maps of Meaning
Title: Maps of Meaning Author: Jordan B. Peterson Published: New York: Routledge, 1999 This book has deepened my perception of myths, archetypes, dreams, and ultimately how I understand myself and those around me. It presented a new perspective on how I look at fear and the unknown. Peterson presents his book as a process of discovery. Through personal revelations, thoughts, dreams, and even a letter to his Dad, he takes us on a journey of discovery. “Our most fundamental maps of meaning – maps which have a narrative structure – portray the motivational value of our current state, conceived of in contrast to a hypothetical ideal, accompanied by plans of action, which are our pragmatic notions about how to get what we want.”[1] We have where we are, where we want to go, and how we plan to get there. Whether we realize it or not we have maps that we use every day. The comfortable map of what we know versus that which is not on our map, the unknown. This unknown is the chaos that surrounds us. Fear is not conditioned; security is unlearned, in the presence of particular things or contexts, as a consequence of violation of…
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How to Read Novels Like a Professor: Book Review
Title: How to Read Novels Like a Professor Author: Thomas C. Foster Published: New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008 About the Author[1] Thomas C. Foster grew up in rural Ohio. His early inspirations to literary works came from Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain. He taught literature from 1975 until his retirement in 2014 with his last 27 years at the University of Michigan-Flint. He has written the following books published under HarperCollins: How to Read Literature Like a Professor (2003, revised 2014), How to Read Novels Like a Professor (2008), Twenty-five Books that Shaped America (2011), How to Read Literature Like a Professor—for Kids (2012), Reading the Silver Screen (2016), and How to Read Poetry Like a Professor: A Quippy and Sonorous Guide to Verse (2018). Less well-known works include Form and Society in Modern Literature (Northern Illinois University Press, 1988), Seamus Heaney (Twayne, 1989), and Understanding John Fowles (University of South Carolina Press, 1994). He is still active writing books and you can find his blog site at thomascfoster.com. My Perspective This book was an accidental find. Meaning I was not looking for it and it was not recommended by anybody I knew. As far as I was concerned…
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Emile or On Education: Book Review
Title: Emile or On Education Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau Introduction, Translation, and Notes: Allan Bloom Published: New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1979 (Originally published in 1762) About the Author[1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a Genevan philosopher and music theorist, was born June 28, 1712 and died July 2, 1778. His father was a watchmaker and his mother was the niece of a Calvinist minister who died a few days after giving birth. In 1728 he converted to Catholicism and the next year joined a seminary. He dropped out of the seminary and taught music to girls of wealthy families. In 1745 he commenced a relationship with Thérèse Levasseur who was the chambermaid of the hotel where he was staying. They had five children together and all of them were sent immediately to the local foundling home. He married Thérèse in a civil ceremony in 1768. He worked with the Encyclopedists, Diderot and d’Alembert, writing all the articles pertaining to music for the Encyclopédie. In 1754 he reverted to Calvinism and again became a citizen of Geneva. His more famous literary works are Julie, or the New Heloise (1761), Emile, or On Education (1762), The Social Contract (1762), and The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau…
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Right and Reason: Book Review
Title: Right and Reason: Ethics in Theory and Practice, Second Edition Author: Fr. Austin Fagothey, S.J. Published: Charlotte, North Carolina: TAN Books, 2000 About the Author[1] Austin J. Fagothey (1901-1975) was born in San Francisco, California. He entered the Society of Jesus after graduating from St. Ignatius High School in 1917. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1931. Over his long teaching career, he taught English, Greek, theology and philosophy. He chaired the Philosophy Department for thirty years at Santa Clara University and served on its Board of Trustees from 1943-1973. The university awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in 1974. My Perspective Right and Reason was a required book for my Morality and Justice class that I am finishing up the last week of. Only selected chapters were required reading, but I read the book in its entirety and I am glad I did. It is recommended in the Preface that the reader has some basic understanding of the Aristotelian-Thomistic system. It uses the problem method. “This consists in introducing one of the major problems of ethics, explaining how it arose and…
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Book Review: TBS Missionary Discipleship
Title: Threshold Bible Study: Missionary Discipleship Author: Stephen J. Binz Published: New London, Connecticut: Twenty-Third Publications, 2017. 130-pages. My Perspective My first introduction to the Threshold Bible Study series was at my parish when I joined a Sunday Bible study group. The books were designed to be used as a small group or for individual study. They are organized and presented so that a specific topic can be covered in six sessions (at least that has been my experience thus far). Each session has a number of quick sections followed by questions. The sections typically start with a Bible quotation, followed by commentary, then questions, and then a prayer. It is not meant to be read in one sitting, although one could. I have enjoyed going through several years of these small group sessions. There are many times we have drifted “off track,” but I believe these for the most part were guided by the Holy Spirit to allow the group to respond to issues that appeared to be outside the topic, but in reality they helped us gain a better understanding of our relationship with God. This particular book is about missionary discipleship. All Christians that have been baptized…
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My Thoughts on Aristotle’s On the Soul
Title: On the Soul (De Anima) Author: Aristotle translated by J. A. Smith Published:. Preamble It was the summer of 1983 that I walked over to the Ohio State Fair from the trailer park where I lived. The newest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica had just released, and they had a booth. With my love of books, living on my own, and just a few days into the ripe wise age of twenty, I was easily convinced to take a loan and purchase a library. This collection consisted of a thirty-volume encyclopedia, a fifty-four-volume set of Great Books of the Western World, a three-volume Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, and a twenty-one-volume collection of the Annals of America. Since then, I have lugged these 108 books from one end of the country to the other. I have never regretted this purchase. This collection was my Wikipedia. It gave me incite into the world around me. The Great Books, encyclopedia, and the dictionary I have used consistently over the years. The Annals, for some reason, have been referenced or read very rarely, some volumes not at all. But, to get back to my topic, Aristotle. Two books, in this collection, are dedicated to his…
