Thursday, May 11, 2006

The reading goup project

I've posted a shortlist of possible titles for the next reading group project.

Discussion of Middlemarch is still ongoing. Some are still reading. I for one still have things to say about it (but I've been swamped with work), including my impressions of the 1994 BBC adaptation, which I'm halfway through watching.

But I'd like to start another reading project in a few weeks' time.

The shortlist:
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Ulysses, James Joyce
The Red and the Black, Stendhal
Fathers and Sons, Ivan Turgenev

I'd narrowed it down to the first 4 titles some weeks ago. I added Turgenev only because of the references to it I encountered in Snow.

By coincidence, I was reading an essay, "A book that changed me," by Doris Lessing just this morning:
I do not believe that one can be changed by a book (or by a person) unless there is already something present, latent or in embryo, ready to be changed. Books have influenced me all my life. I could say as an autodidact — a condition that has advantages and disadvantages — that books have made me what I am. But it is hard to say of this book or that one: it changed me. How about War and Peace? Fathers and Sons? The Idiot? The Scarlet and the Black? Remembrance of Things Past? But now they all seem dazzling stages in a long voyage of discovery, which continues.


I'm struck by the overlap in our lists, what it might indicate about where my mind is at.

If you read Middlemarch with us, or if you didn't, and if you want to read one of the above titles, leave a comment at Reading Middlemarch indicating your preference. Reading will likely begin mid-June and carry on through August.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the Lessing quote. "Dazzling stages in a long voyage of discovery" - ahhhh.

Anonymous said...

(Happy Mother's Day, Isa!)

martha said...

I'm looking for short, but that may not be possible. War and Peace(not short)? The Red and the Black? Snappy title, and I think it is rather short. I will be on vacation in June and part of July, so I'll see what I can manage reading wise. But Ulysses? Nooooo, please!

Arethusa said...

That's cool, I've been eyeing "Brothers Karmazov" these days and added it to a wishlist.

Anonymous said...

*sigh* I'd love to read several of these, but life is still too crazy, what with the stresses of new job, a kitchen remodel starting in 2 weeks, and several upcoming performances. (This is also by way of explaining my lack of visiting/commenting here and elsewhere, and my blogging only about cats and food for the past few weeks.)