This is probably one of the most self-indulgent posts you’ll read from me this summer. I’ve been doing some great reading, and should chronicle my literary adventures.
Because of my scatterbrained sense of time, I picked too many reading projects this summer. I read the first book of Augustine’s City of God before coming to Mississippi, but quickly decided to put it on the shelf for next fall. I enjoyed it greatly, but couldn’t balance it with some other large projects. Among the things I can recall off-hand: he has some really wonderful material on the pilgrim-life of a believer and a great argument against suicide. The second one is especially intriguing because of his attack against certain “virtuous” characters in history and literature, like Cato Minor, whose biography by Plutarch praised him so highly that he became a posthumous hero to Romans and subsequently many Christian writers. I enjoy Augustine’s writing, sometimes. He, and I confess to being as bad, has a tendency to write very long, very winding sentences, and so it’s difficult sometimes to get one statement out of him without getting three others that you didn’t mean to reach for. I think it’s a good thing. It makes him more difficult (but not impossible) to quote erroneously. And he’s so fluent, both in thought and in Latin, that I could tell when he was getting exited while writing. It’s a good read so far, but I imagine there will be some dry parts coming up. It’s a long read.
I finished Exodus sometime last month, and began Leviticus. I became distracted, though, and read through the first eight chapters of Jeremiah, several chapters of Proverbs, all of Colossians, and parts of Mark and Matthew. The last time I read Jeremiah I remembered liking it, but this time around has been wonderful! There is so much in there; it’s fun to theologize, but the real value for me is in the poetry, the raw human expression and relation to God. Jeremiah is uncompromisingly harsh, devastatingly outraged, pained, hopeful, and confident in everything he says. A lot of people prefer a psalm if they’re going to tackle Hebrew poetry, but I must confess my liking of Jeremiah’s intensity, which is often only his as he acts as a conduit for the greatness and power in the Lord’s words. There is a very intriguing narrative at work. At one point God asks the prophet,
I also read Freakanomics, which was assigned to me by Ben. I will post on this tomorrow. I have a few choice words….
And the work I’ve put the most time into, undoubtedly and for good reason, is Don Quixote.
This book is fabulous! I highly recommend it to anyone. It’s really among the first modern novels, and set the stage for many other prose pieces afterward. Cervantes has a similar education to Montaigne and Shakespeare, and is especially like the latter in his comedic attempts. This book is laugh-out-loud funny in some parts, and I commend the translator, Edith Grossman, for allowing it to be so. I’m not yet done with this book, though. I have 591 out of 940 pages read. For a while I was at four chapters a day, but now that I’m working on my project for Ben I’m not able to manage it with my reading in Bible and Freakanomics-like assignments and articles online. I will try for two chapters a day. I really only have one thought after having read so much, and it's a confusion: I’m not sure if I’m a knight errant or if knights errant are the same thing as liberal arts majors. Time will tell. I hope to finish it before leaving Mississippi.
The second half of this post is dedicated to stuff that I want to read, but instead of writing lists, I’ll show them to you. There’s Ancient & Medieval Philosophy, Art and Arts, Bibles and Bible Study, Mathematics, Modern Fiction, Modern Non-fiction, Modern Philosophy/Commentary, Music, Poetry, Reference, Social & Political History, Teachings, Sermons, etc. My most recent additions have been to the Modern Fiction and Non-fiction lists, including some books recommended to me by folks down here. (I am an obsessive Amazon.com shopper.)
Blah, blah. Have a great weekend!
Because of my scatterbrained sense of time, I picked too many reading projects this summer. I read the first book of Augustine’s City of God before coming to Mississippi, but quickly decided to put it on the shelf for next fall. I enjoyed it greatly, but couldn’t balance it with some other large projects. Among the things I can recall off-hand: he has some really wonderful material on the pilgrim-life of a believer and a great argument against suicide. The second one is especially intriguing because of his attack against certain “virtuous” characters in history and literature, like Cato Minor, whose biography by Plutarch praised him so highly that he became a posthumous hero to Romans and subsequently many Christian writers. I enjoy Augustine’s writing, sometimes. He, and I confess to being as bad, has a tendency to write very long, very winding sentences, and so it’s difficult sometimes to get one statement out of him without getting three others that you didn’t mean to reach for. I think it’s a good thing. It makes him more difficult (but not impossible) to quote erroneously. And he’s so fluent, both in thought and in Latin, that I could tell when he was getting exited while writing. It’s a good read so far, but I imagine there will be some dry parts coming up. It’s a long read.
I finished Exodus sometime last month, and began Leviticus. I became distracted, though, and read through the first eight chapters of Jeremiah, several chapters of Proverbs, all of Colossians, and parts of Mark and Matthew. The last time I read Jeremiah I remembered liking it, but this time around has been wonderful! There is so much in there; it’s fun to theologize, but the real value for me is in the poetry, the raw human expression and relation to God. Jeremiah is uncompromisingly harsh, devastatingly outraged, pained, hopeful, and confident in everything he says. A lot of people prefer a psalm if they’re going to tackle Hebrew poetry, but I must confess my liking of Jeremiah’s intensity, which is often only his as he acts as a conduit for the greatness and power in the Lord’s words. There is a very intriguing narrative at work. At one point God asks the prophet,
What wrong did your fathers find in meAnd then the Lord illustrates the consequences for Israel and Judah’s sins, moving from human judgment to his own: “Now it is I who speak in judgment upon them” (4:11). The whole of the first part seems to rotate around these two questions: What fault do humans find in God, and what fault does God find in humankind? And overarching this question is the statement that God’s judgment is superior to ours; in fact, the whole theme of the first seven chapters is that humans misjudged even what would make them happy, “committing adultery with stone and tree” (3:9), and suddenly feeling fear like a woman in labor whose realizes too late that her midwives, which are the idols she worshiped, intend her great harm:
that they went far from me,
and went after worthlessness, and became worthless? Jer. 2:5 ESV
I heard a cry as of a woman in labor,Very powerful.
anguish as of one giving birth to her first child,
the cry of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath,
stretching out her hands,
“Woe is me! I am fainting before murderers.” 4:31
I also read Freakanomics, which was assigned to me by Ben. I will post on this tomorrow. I have a few choice words….
And the work I’ve put the most time into, undoubtedly and for good reason, is Don Quixote.
This book is fabulous! I highly recommend it to anyone. It’s really among the first modern novels, and set the stage for many other prose pieces afterward. Cervantes has a similar education to Montaigne and Shakespeare, and is especially like the latter in his comedic attempts. This book is laugh-out-loud funny in some parts, and I commend the translator, Edith Grossman, for allowing it to be so. I’m not yet done with this book, though. I have 591 out of 940 pages read. For a while I was at four chapters a day, but now that I’m working on my project for Ben I’m not able to manage it with my reading in Bible and Freakanomics-like assignments and articles online. I will try for two chapters a day. I really only have one thought after having read so much, and it's a confusion: I’m not sure if I’m a knight errant or if knights errant are the same thing as liberal arts majors. Time will tell. I hope to finish it before leaving Mississippi.The second half of this post is dedicated to stuff that I want to read, but instead of writing lists, I’ll show them to you. There’s Ancient & Medieval Philosophy, Art and Arts, Bibles and Bible Study, Mathematics, Modern Fiction, Modern Non-fiction, Modern Philosophy/Commentary, Music, Poetry, Reference, Social & Political History, Teachings, Sermons, etc. My most recent additions have been to the Modern Fiction and Non-fiction lists, including some books recommended to me by folks down here. (I am an obsessive Amazon.com shopper.)
Blah, blah. Have a great weekend!
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