Another Book Meme
Ian Hamet of Banana Oil! (he's in Shanghai and has a compulsively readable and viewable blog) passed a meme to me publicly several days ago. I've been traveling so I am just now getting up to speed with it.
You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
- King Lear. In such an environment, the greatest of all tragedies, especially one containing the line, "...but I am bound / Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears / Do scald like moulten lead."
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
- The problem-solving intellect of Ellery Queen, the contained passion of Elizabeth Bennet, and the mechanical heart of Battle Angel Alita. And perhaps I should add Susan Ivanova (Bablyon 5). Hmmm... I perceive an odd pattern here...
The last book you bought is:
I bought three:
- The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
- Playing With Fire by Peter Robinson
The last book you read:
- Hell to Pay by George Pelecanos
What are you currently reading?
In the order that I will probably finish them:
- The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. (The American title of The Northern Lights)
- Soul Circus by George Pelecanos.
- Battle Angel Alita: Angel of Chaos by Yukito Kishiro
- Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson
- The Flute of God by Paul Twitchell
and
- Great Oxford: Essays on the Life and Work of Edward de Vere 17th Earl of Oxford, 1550 - 1604 Endorsed and with a forward by Sir Derek Jacobi. General Editor: Richard Malim.
Five books you would take to a deserted island:
Assuming that I am literally limited to single works:
- Hamlet, Shakespeare (in case I start feeling sorry for myself)
- The Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu (my oriental fix)
- The Shariyat-Ki-SUGMAD (spiritual sustenance)
- The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand (she's weird but inspiring)
- SAS Essential Survival Guide (being practical...it is a deserted island)
Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons)? And Why?
1) Gil at A Reasonable Man, to see if he exposes his low-brow side.
2) Hope at Humor Hangout, because she's a librarian who I picture with glasses and a tight bun. What happens when she lets her literary hair down? (This violates one of her blog rules about content, but maybe we can persuade her to modify.)
3) Sadie at A Fistful of Fortnights, because her blog appears to beg for it.
*** English majors are novel lovers.
posted by WitNit at
6:10 PM
4 Old Comments:
Ok, I did it (kinda).
And, I swear, I hadn't noticed that you included a survival guide, too.
Gil, I suppose I'd be sitting there on that island having just finished The Fountainhead and wishing I had chosen Atlas Shrugged instead.
OHHHHH. My apologies for missing this a few days ago. Study study study, tis the season. I'll get right on it late tonight;-)
Glasses, yes. Bun, no. Short hair. And I am not, technically, a librarian. I am a library technical specialist. That is to say, a gloried clerk with additional syllables. I have started a library blog:
http://thelittlelibrary.blogspot.com/
What the heck.
As to your questions:
As King Lear is a play not a book per se, I would want to be Iolanthe by Gilbert and Sullivan as the music is lovely and the libretti charming. Can a tragedy have as its hero such a second-rater as Lear?
I suppose one can love Nikolai Rostov of War and Peace. A good and decent man with a hot temper.
The last book I read was Ataturk. It is awful to admit that I hardly ever read books anymore, spending as I do so much time blogging. I have a hard time keeping up with my periodicals. Let’s see, what did I recently read other than my own prose (booring). A little article in The New Statesman about Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. Book reviews of a biography of John Jay and of Hugh Hewitt’s book Blog in The American Conservative and a review of a new book about Oscar Wilde in a fairly recent issue of The Weekly Standard.
What am I currently reading? An article in Asian Survey about the development of democracy in Bhutan. Poor little country, getting overwhelmed by in influx of Nepalese.
Derek Jacobi is way over-rated.
Ayn Rand, as one reviewer pointed out, depended on courtiers to live and was far from a model of self-sufficiency. But, then, she made the point that some people can and should force others to cater to needs of the stronger.
Desert island books:
A study bible
The OED
The annotated letters of Dickens
The annotated diaries of Gladstone
The Golden Bowl (not on tape yet, as far as I know, and I will not voluntarily read it)
Jane Austen is the only major female writer that seems able to create convincing male characters, seems to me.
So, how is Franklin doing in your estimation?
Hope
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