Complete Sonnets by William Shakespeare

4/10

This is, according to my calculations, one of two remaining Shakespeare's that I have not posted but which I had read prior to reading the Complete Works. I read this in the 2006 or 2007 year range. It's my least favorite of Shakespeare. I am a Shakespeare plays man. His sonnets are boring to me. Plus, when people think Shakespeare is hard to read it is probably the sonnets which give this reputation because his plays aren't too difficult overall. Also, the reason the sonnets are hard to read and understand is because it's poetry and 95% of all poetry is hard to understand.

Here are some good lines:

The opening line to sonnet XVIII which is a funny line because it is used in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie:

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

The couplet from sonnet XLIII:

"All days are nights to see, till I see thee,
And nights, bright days, when dreams do show thee me."

The couplet from sonnet XCIV:

"For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds:
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."

Silas Marner by George Eliot

8/10

Just finished reading this tonight. Mallory again chose it from a group of four books I had chosen. She liked the little girl on the cover.

This was a solid novel. It was my first George Eliot book and I enjoyed her writing. She has a slightly unique writing style that demands focused attention. She writes well but not simply. I caught myself having to re-read certain parts not because I wasn't paying attention but because my brain didn't quite comprehend what was being written. But after the re-read I usually caught on to what was being said and would even reflect that it really could not have been written any other way. Here's an example of one that I liked: "A dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters a desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic." Good stuff.

And the story was interesting as well. The Silas Marner character was well done. Most of the other side characters were pretty boring by and large though. Not too boring, but I was mostly just interested in Marner.

There are a few quotes I could share but I have decided to just do this longish paragraph that I really liked:

"Favorable Chance, I fancy, is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. Let even a polished man of these days get into a position he is ashamed to avow, and his mind will be bent on all the possible issues that may deliver him from the calculable results of that position. Let him live outside his income, or shirk the resolute honest work that brings wages, and he will presently find himself dreaming of a possible benefactor, a possible simpleton who may be cajoled into using his interest, a possible state of mind in some possible person not yet forthcoming. Let him neglect the responsibilities of his office, and he will inevitably anchor himself on the chance, that the thing left undone may turn out not to be of the supposed importance. Let him betray his friend's confidence, and he will adore that same cunning complexity called Chance, which gives him the hope that his friend will never know; let him forsake a decent craft that he may pursue the gentilities of a profession to which nature never called him, and his religion will infallibly be the worship of blessed Chance, which he will believe in as the mighty creator of success. The evil principle deprecated in that religion is the orderly sequence by which the seed brings forth a crop after its kind."

Fargo by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen

9/10

So this is the only screenplay I've ever read. I spotted this "book" at a used bookstore many years back and decided to give it the purchase. Awesome story. But comes with some strong language obviously.

This book comes with a short intro from the Coen brothers that is pretty interesting. Fargo famously starts by declaring "This is a true story." People love true stories. You watch it thinking, "Wow, I can't believe this actually happened." Turns out it is not based on a true story at all. This is a similar device used by Nathaniel Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter which I believe I discussed briefly in my The Scarlet Letter post a few years back. The intro discusses how their Grandma would tell them these remarkable stories and claim that they really happened. But they realized in retrospect some elements of Grandma's stories "test credulity." The intro ends by saying of their screenplay, "It aims to be both homey and exotic, and pretends to be true." I think it's a pretty sweet trick myself. Good old Coens.

The Sea Wolf by Jack London

9/10

I just finished reading this tonight. I felt like it was at last time to regain a little control in my book selection process while keeping Mallory's role as book chooser because she has enjoyed doing it for me. So I chose four books off of my bookshelf and then had Mallory choose my book from only those four. She chose The Sea Wolf "because it has a wolf in it." For those keeping score at home, she has chosen my last two books based on witches and wolves. I haven't decided yet if I should be concerned about this.

Anyway, to the book. It was great. I really, really liked it. When Mallory said she chose this book because it has a wolf in it, boy did it ever. Wolf Larsen, captain of The Ghost to be exact. What a great character, one of my favorites. He rivals Captain Ahab from Moby Dick in the crazy ship captain department. His character was so interesting through having the combination of a super sharp intellect and ferocious behavior. The main character and narrator, Humphrey Van Weyden, was a great character as well. How he came to be a sailor on The Ghost, his interactions with Wolf Larsen, and his overall growth throughout the book are all very interesting and well done by Mr. London. I liked the whole book overall, but definitely enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second half. I was lost with a lot of nautical terminology at parts but appreciated it nonetheless because it made it feel authentic.

This was my second Jack London book that I have read and I have enjoyed both. I own no more Jack London books so I will have to be on the lookout for another from him for future reading because I really like the way he writes. He is a great storyteller.

Three quotes:

Referring to Wolf Larsen who was at the time in a depressed mood: "I... knew this man's sadness as the penalty which the materialist ever pays for his materialism."

"Fire is fanned by the wind until it leaps up fiercely. So is desire like fire. It is fanned, as by a wind, by sight of the thing desired, or by a new and luring description or comprehension of the thing desired."

"After all, I thought, it is better and finer to love than to be loved, if it makes something in life so worth while that one is not loath to die for it."