As I mentioned earlier, I thought it would be funny to compare the books I have lying around the office with those at home.
The home edition:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Name of the book and author: War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
3. Turn to page 123.
4. Go to the fifth sentence on the page. Copy out the next three sentences and post them to your blog: 'Please, General, as if I would,' answered the captain, his nose redder than ever. He smiled, and his smile showed that his two front teeth were missing--they had been knocked out by a rifle-butt at Izmail. 'Oh, and tell Dolokhov to rest easy-I shan't forget him.'
5. Tag--I don't want to tag--it irrationally feels like a chain letter request to me. I would love to hear what others have lying around, though.
I'm currently 65 pages into War & Peace (so I don't know what is going on in the above passage) and it's brilliant. The only problem is that the book is so heavy I can only hold it to read for so long before I feel like my forearms are tired.
This edition clocks in at 1359 pages, plus end notes.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
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4 comments:
Dear Cyndi F,
Just came over to have a look at your blog, courtesy of Michael Blowhard. You have a nice range of interests, if I must say so myself. A Portrait of a Lady is James's middle period, however, if I may be pedantic. I finally, after 20 of his books and going back to Wings of a Dove after a lapse of decades, wrote him off as a groupy of old-world status, abasing himself before opaque idols of . . . what, exactly? Hard to say.
Anyway, when it comes to books to heavy to hold up, my policy is to cut them in half with a razor knife. That way you can demonstrate to your friends what is truly important about literature. War and Peace is the greates novel ever written, in my humble opinion, even better than the sequel. Read 'em both together and I bet you'll agree.
We have a house in Boulder, so maybe I will meet you some time.
Best,
You may be pedantic. I was just applying my personal James meter as mentioned: how many times I have to read each sentence before understanding is achieved.
The razor blade is a great idea. I have a lot of travel coming up and was sorry I couldn't take the Tolstoy with me.
Yea, I was being pedantic. Fact is, thinking about it more, maybe it was his early period, the culmination of. Certainly his best novel though.
I am a retired gardener myself btw, and envy those beautiful perrenials you all can grow out there.
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