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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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Who took the treasure? Exploring the mystery of missing literature in our libraries
Libraries. A place of learning and a repository of knowledge. The other day I visited one of our local branches with my son and grandchildren. While he was returning books and looking for new ones I strolled around the place. I had not been in this particular branch in over a decade. I was surprised at how open it was. Lots of free space. The shelves were half covered with books. The children’s section was huge. Several people were on computers playing games or web browsing. There was the large section of movies and audiobooks. I made my way to the actual book collection. The fiction section was the dominant part with just a small part for non-fiction. As I browsed the fiction books, I noticed many contemporary authors and multiple copies of their books. I walked through the aisles looking for classics or time-honored works. I am a firm believer in classics. They give us a good litmus test to judge contemporary works. After going up and down all the rows of books I walked up to the desk to ask for some help. The young lady behind the counter was very pleasant and seemed eager to help me. …
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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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Review: The Scholar’s Mission
Title: “The Scholar’s Mission” in The Works of Orestes A. Brownson Collected and Arranged by Henry F. Brownson Volume XIX pages 65-87. Author: Orestes Augustus Brownson Published: New York: AMS Press Inc., 1966. An oration pronounced before the Gamma Sigma Society, of Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H., July 26, 1843. Preamble I was introduced to Brownson in The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk. Since then, I bought the twenty-volume collection of his works assembled by his son. I am surprised I had never heard of him before, but what usually happens after I find someone like this, is his name will suddenly start appearing in other works I read. It is just the fact that now I am aware of him. That is true with so many other things in life. Think of many of the great discoveries made throughout history, once they are known, then it is easy to see. It is like the old tale about Christopher Columbus and the egg. Supposedly he was sitting around with some other people after he discovered America and they were saying how it was not really a big deal. He asked for an egg and requested that they each try to…
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Book Review: A Manual of English Prose Literature Biographical and Critical by William Minto
Title: A Manual of English Prose Literature Biographical and Critical Designed Mainly to Show Characteristics of Style Author: William Minto Published: Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1881. Pages-548. Preamble This book was easy to read and well organized. It has provided me with a better understanding of English Literature and its composition. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in either topic. About the Author The International Association for Scottish Philosophy states that William Minto was born October 10, 1845 at Nether Auchintoul, near Alford, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and died March 1, 1893 in Aberdeen, Scotland. His father, James Minto, was a farmer and his mother was Barbara Copland. At the University of Aberdeen he took honors in the departments of classics, mathematics, and philosophy, graduating with a MA in 1865. He served as an assistant, from 1867 to 1873, to Alexander Bain the professor of Logic at the University of Aberdeen. In 1872 he published the first edition of this book. From 1873 to 1880 he lived in London and contributed numerous literary and political articles to The Examiner, Daily News, and the Encyclopedia Britannica. When Bain retired in 1880, Minto took his place as Regius Chair…
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Book Review: The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft by George Gissing
Title: The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft Author: George Robert Gissing Published: London: Phoenix House Ltd., 1953 (First published 1903). Forward by Cecil Chisholm. Pages-220. Preamble There are books that help me understand who I am, this book is one of those. Now I cannot identify exactly with the character of Henry Ryecroft, but, there are moments of truth that encapsulate certain aspects of myself that Gissing clarified. Gissing portrays Ryecroft as a humble, contemplative, and very mature Englishman of fifty-three. He himself was only forty-three when he wrote this story and he never lived to be the age of his character, Ryecroft. I am convinced that Gissing did not just happen to stumble on the portrayal of Ryecroft, he has a very well-defined sense of human character. This must have come from many hours of contemplative thought and self-reflection. The character is very humble, knows what he enjoys, recognizes his age, and has on overall very mature look on life. Here is a man who can stop and smell the roses, one who can appreciate what he has done in his youth, and yet knows those days are gone, and accepts it. He does not pine away on the…
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Book Review: Wordsworth and Coleridge Lyrical Ballads 1798
Title: Wordsworth and Coleridge Lyrical Ballads 1798 Authors: William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge Editor: W. J. B. Owen, Professor of English McMaster University Published: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969. Pages-180. This was the first collection of poems that Wordsworth and Coleridge put out. It was released in 1798. I got this book from my local library because I am interested in finding out more about the Lake poets. Therefore, this was not a random pick out of the hat. I have some meaning for reading and discussing this work. This essay will cover a brief biographical sketch of the two poets and the editor, and next a discussion of the editor’s portion, and then finally my impression of the poems contained therein. William Wordsworth was born April 7, 1770 in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England and died April 23, 1850 in Grasmere, Westmorland, England.[1] His mother died when he was eight, and his father five years later.[2] Before the age of thirteen , his father had him memorize “large portions” of Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton.[3] He attended St. John’s College, Cambridge, in which he exhibited mediocre academic progress, and instead of striving for honors and fellowship, he settled with a pass…
