WRUR (Reading) Today?

Just started on this, at page 51 now. The french revolution is in its fourth year and Napoleon is besieging Toulon 😀 Still a long way from total power but slowly climbing the latter.

Fortunately many scientists who also have some personal religious beliefs can put aside false certainties for honest doubts, at least while doing their research.

A terrific book. I would recommend the recent biography by Adam Zamoyski, which has a very different thesis. You may be interested in watching this discussion between the two authors:

"Deep in each man is the knowledge that something knows of his existence. Something knows, and cannot be fled nor hid from."

I'm only three chapters into it, but am finding I'll enjoy James Fenimore Cooper's "The Pilot."

Didn't much care for the "Leatherstocking Tales" and Natty Bumppo's exploits I read as a youth. A bit plodding, too unbelievably contrived, and characters were wooden. Mark Twain's critical essay on the subject nails it perfectly. It's too juvenile, even for juveniles. Back when I was a pre-teen I preferred Joseph Altsheler's various series on high adventures of the American frontier. "The Pilot" is written for the adult reader and is good, in that dry 19th century novelists' way. I happen to like the way 19th century novelists wrote. If you can enjoy Melville's "Moby Dick" and Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast" then you'd get into this seafaring tale.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Pilot



Mrs. noelekal and I are perilously close to finishing "Gone With the Wind," But have not had time to read together lately. So, Bonnie's been born, poor Scarlett is still pining for the wretched Ashley and Rhett hasn't quite gotten his belly full of her.

Mammy's my hero in this story.

Wendy and I always keep a book going which we read to each other. We began Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" a couple months ago. A week or so before we'd dragged out the DVD of the film and watched it.

I'd read "Gone With the Wind" in high school a year or so after seeing the film for the first time when it made an appearance in theaters. Was early in 1971 and a cold evening when my mother took my sister and I to see it one weeknight deeming the film "essential" to our cultural development to see it on the "big screen." I remember the date because we'd just gotten a new car and it was the first time we took it out after it arrived from the dealership. The car was a dealer left-over 1970 Dodge Polara.

I didn't recall a thing about the novel that was different than the film and was pretty ho-hum about having read it at the time. Wendy says she began reading it sometime back in early marriage but didn't get too far. We're enjoying the book right now, both for the additional detail that better fleshes out the film and surprising extra twists that aren't addressed at all in the film.

This has to be one of the defining "chick lit" novels of all time, but the writing is quite good. Mitchell writes with clarity and makes expert use of a knowledge of vocabulary that won't become impenetrable to a wide range of readers. To see the film is not a requirement for Mitchell's eye for detail provides vividly colorful descriptions for the reader. Mitchell knew her Civil War too and (so far) gets the facts right ... in detail!

I was reading some current book reviews to Wendy from off the internet the other night. There are still those who adulate the book, but there is also much vitriol hurled at the 80 year-old novel. These criticisms generally have the same themes: racist manifesto, sexist screed, incorrect fairy tale portrayal of slavery, ought to be banned, burned!

I would submit that Mitchell was closer to the attitudes of the 1860s than are today's more indignant critics with their contrived outrage. She certainly knew the audience she intended to reach At the very least, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

It is said that Mitchell wrote the novel over a long period in the 1920s and 1930s "out of boredom." The Wikipedia entry on Mitchell is interesting.

Perhaps Mitchell was influenced by Edna Ferber. She was sure to have read Ferber's novels. Mitchell whips Ferber though if the single Ferber novel I ever read is any indication of that author's capabilities. Perhaps Mitchell was influenced by dull 19th century English novelists. I happen to like dull 19th century English novelists. Scarlett could be a recast "Barry Lyndon" or Arthur "Pendennis" of William Makepiece Thackeray's invention.

I hold that Mitchell revealed far too much about her own innermost thoughts and attitudes in her depiction of Scarlett's disregard for scruples.

School will be out for the summer in about a month, and I'm starting to put together my reading list. First up is this:

I'd better brace myself, since it's about a thousand pages long ... if I do 50 pages a day, I can finish it before the end of June.

Yeah, GWTW is a better reflection of attitudes about slavery and race relations up into the early 20th century than it is about the actual enslavement. Of course neither are actual histories, but draw from it. With the passage of time, both novels have become a part of literary history.

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This thread needs a bump - just finished this

I'm going to have to look these up. But I have to share one of my favorite non-fiction sniper books. At many points in the book, I have to remind myself that these stories actually happened.

Two great untold stories in the same vein as Hidden Figures, although I enjoyed both of these books more.