Coffeespoons

I didn't finish House of Mirth in time for our book discussion last Saturday. When I stepped into the venue, I had only read up to 72% of my ebook. So I was thinking of keeping quiet as I hadn't finished the book (though I did know the ending), but then I'm not the kind who keeps quiet in any kind of discussion. It was interesting that many people from the club identified Lily Bart as a gambler. I didn't see that at all. I mean, sure, she had gambling debts. But you don't really see her engage in gambling in the novel. Being the romantic kind, I pegged her as a rebel. The poor girl seemed to want to get away from the kind of life she was weaned into. Though at the same time, she knows that she'll always value money and beauty highly. Nevertheless, though she had a great number of opportunities to finally marry someone to secure her future, she never saw any plan through. And though she could've fought dirty like many of the people in her set, she never ...

Ulysses wordle ( img src ) Early this year, during a conversation on Twitter, Jaclyn of a book diary and I decided that we'd have a read-along. I'd never done one before and I thought it might be fun. Besides, I figure that, sometime during the year, I'd need this push in my reading. And so, Jaclyn suggested Ulysses. Perfect, really, since I only went as far as the second page long in my previous readings of the work. We decided we'd check in on each other every 16th of the month, since Bloomsday, the day in celebration of Joyce and Ulysses, happens on June 16. I do not take credit for this idea. To be honest, I stole it from dovegreyreader who ran a Ulysses read-along almost 3 years ago. So, this is the first check-in. Frankly, I'm 6 pages into the text. However, I did read the introduction and the publication history. Around 3 or 4 years ago, I took a course called History of the Book. One of the most fascinating examples of a book with an intricate...

This is me trying to catch up with all those reviews I want to write... When I was a teenager, I remember watching a movie with a kid and a ghost of a woman in white. I loved that movie, and have always thought that it was entitled The Woman in White . So, I thought that the movie and Wilkie Collins' novel were one and the same. Because of my vague recollections of that movie, it took me until page 100 or so to figure out that both were completely different stories. In the first place, there wasn't a kid in the novel. In the second, there was no ghost either. And so, curiosity finally got the better of me and I googled the movie. Apparently, it was entitled The Lady in White . Not so far off then, was I? The Woman in White , however, is one of those classics that readers keep saying is unputdownable. Now, I've read my share of classics, and let me tell you, though most of them are beautiful reads, few of them are unputdownable. Then again, most classics are so much ...

In an earlier post, I spoke about my love for poetry and mentioned my favorite poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." I said I was initially dissuaded by the title. For does it not promise a love song--a thing of beauty--only to find out that the love song is from someone named J. Alfred Prufrock? The name seems to connote someone stiff, staid, unromantic. Hence, for years, I ignored it because I judged it by its title, not knowing that Eliot intended that effect exactly--the conflict between the hint of romance and the boring name. And, my lord, what a heartrending conflict in a lovely poem it is! I say this now because I bought Skylark for the same reason that I initially avoided Prufrock--the judgment on a name. The name, of course, evoked the bird. But with the name and image were thoughts of freedom, of flight, of beauty. Of dawn, song, and heaven, like Shakespeare's sonnet 29 . But Skylark, the title character of Deszo Kosztolanyi's novel, evokes...

Read: 5/11/09 5/5 stars Why am I reading Peter Pan ? Two simple reasons: (1) I hadn't read it before, and (2) I was looking for an intelligent and short read. Albeit it took me around a week and a half to get through this short book, mostly it was due to work pressures that prevented me from getting much reading done. And in the short bits that I was able to snatch some time to read Peter Pan , what astounded me is how charming this book is and a distant, distant contrast to perhaps any movie or play adaptation I had seen. Granted, the movie adaptations I had seen were cute and charming in themselves, evoking a mischievous Pan. But Barrie's book shows a highly intelligent treatment of his characters. Pan isn't just a mischievous boy who refuses to grow up. In his sense of fun and adventure is a certain ruthlessness, simply because he is a child. Interestingly, though, Pan is extremely compelling, even if he is heartless. His heartlessness isn't borne out of malice, but ...

That is my response to all this repackaging of Jane Austen. I long for the days when Austen was just Austen, and not "the Grandmother of Chick Lit." For pity's sake, she's only the grandmother of chick lit because some marketing executive thought it would be great to cash in on the "intellectuality" of Jane Austen's novels. Point 1: Jane Austen never wrote just romance novels. Austen's novels were a highly incisive commentary and criticism of the foibles in her society. Point 2: Jane Austen did not write for the reader of the 21st century, so please, spare me the comment that "she's not readable" or "she's boring." Boring probably to a lot of us who have been weaned on the shallow prose of the Dan Browns, Sidney Sheldons and Stephenie Meyers of our day and age. (By the way, I have read and enjoyed these authors. Notwithstanding, I think their prose is shallow.) I'd like to reiterate that Austen's writing would be m...