Christmas Bookish Gifts - NOVA this week

Christmas Bookish Gifts – NOVA this week

Observations from my weekly wanderings, usually in Northern Virginia (NOVA).

We bookish sorts certainly make Christmas gift giving easy on our loved ones, no?

I always have a list of upcoming TBR, and even though I read mostly eBooks, I like to own the tree book. 

This year I received...

But the MOST exciting book gift this year was an individually signed copy of Deliverance by James Dickey. It’s also a very nice leather bound copy by the Franklin Library, but of course, the autograph is the real appeal.

Not a book, but related to my love of books, and in particular to my favorite books/author, I got several vintage Lord of the Rings posters. These are the actual posters that I bought in my youth when I and first fell in love with LOTR. I had given them up for lost, but son found them this year at my parents house, and then had them professionally framed.

This is a 1970 1st Trade Printing Map of Middle Earth by Pauline Baynes

And this 1988 poster by J. Cauty

And definitely not a book or even book related – just marvelously entertaining, I also got one of these:  https://www.facebook.com/casescene/videos/1787104894634259/

You really have to watch the video; it's amazing. 

The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal (92 down, 8 to go)

(translation by Richard Howard) 

…it seems that nature has not granted me a heart with which to love and be melancholy; I cannot raise myself higher than vulgar pleasures, and so on. ~ Fabrizio del Dongo

The Charterhouse of Parma is a tale of romance, confounded by political intrigue, treachery, and adventure, wherein Stendhal pries into the psyche and soul of the young hero.

The hero, Fabrizio del Dongo, an Italian nobleman who, upon coming of age, runs off to join the cause of Liberté as he almost manages to enter Napoleon’s army. It’s all over before Fabrizio can truly enter the fray, but this adventure begins a lifelong sequence of right-place, wrong-time scenarios, and vice versa.

Fabrizio is intelligent though initially uneducated, honest, charming, and good looking, but in spite of this, I didn’t quite find him worthy of my sympathy, and this is the one weakness in the story for me. Fabrizio is also fickle, occasionally ungrateful, and impetuous bordering on reckless – no, he is outright reckless at times with his own life and with others’.

Nonetheless, it is an exciting tale reminiscent of The Count of Monte Cristo. The prose is affective and accessible, partial credit to the translator. Stendhal was an early practitioner of realism, when most of his contemporaries wrote in the Romantic style. I haven’t seen it labeled thus, but I would also call it a coming of age tale. There are also elements of Fabrizio that seem to be modeled after Stendhal himself, who like Fabrizio served in Napoleon’s army.

My rating: 3 ½ of 5 stars

This rating, just above the median on my scale, means I liked it, but didn’t love it. I intend to read more by this author, probably The Red and the Black. Have you read Stendhal or The Charterhouse of Parma? What did you think?

Excerpts

 

We must confess that, following the example of many serious authors, we have begun our hero’s story a year before his birth. ~ Narrative reference to Tristram Shandy

As after a great storm the air is purer, so Fabrizio’s soul was tranquil, happy and, so to speak, refreshed.

“I was in love with love”, he wrote to the Duchess; “I did everything possible to gain knowledge of it, but it seems that nature has not granted me a heart with which to love and be melancholy; I cannot raise myself higher than vulgar pleasures, and so on.” ~ Fabrizio del Dongo

A lover thinks more often how to reach his mistress than a husband how to protect his wife; a prisoner thinks more often how to escape than a jailer how to lock his cell; thus, whatever the obstacles, lover and prisoner will triumph. 

 

I am inclined to think that the immoral delight Italians experience in taking revenge is a consequence of their power of imagination; people of other countries do not, strictly speaking, forgive; they forget.

.

 

Twelfth Night; or What You Will by William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night; or What you Will by William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night is a comedy by Shakespeare, written and performed around 1601-02. The setting is early 17^th Century Illyeria (Western Balkans).

I am including this play in the Literary Christmas Challenge, because even though it is not a Christmas story, Shakespeare wrote it as a Twelfth Night celebration to close the Christmas season – hence the title.

It is indeed a comedy. I have not read many of Shakespeare’s comedies yet, but this was by far the most comical. As with any play, something is lost in reading. I’d love to see it in its proper form – a stage play.

The main characters, Viola and Sebastian, twin brother and sister are separated in a shipwreck and each assumes the other drowned.

Viola, assumes a male identity, Cesario, and enters the employ of a nobleman of Illyeria. The cross dressing motif is one Shakespeare uses frequently, and in this instance, it works particularly well as Viola, posing as Cesario, resembles her brother Sebastian, and is often mistaken for him.

In one comical encounter, Viola offends some gentlemen who threaten her with violence and are subsequently emboldened when she cowers before the threat. They mock him (her), and Viola laments to herself:

Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me tell them how much I lack of a man.

Later, when they encounter Sebastian, convinced of his cowardice they make sport of him, only to find they’ve twisted the tail of a tiger.

There is an absurd love triangle. Cesario (Viola) delivers messages from her Lord Duke Orsino to the Countess Olivia to express his love. The Countess, however is smitten by Cesario (Viola), who cannot reciprocate by reason of nature and duty.

Viola, meanwhile falls in love with Duke Orsino – but similarly cannot express her feelings.

And well – it’s great fun, and a comedy – all turns right in the end.

Phrases from Twelfth Night that are now part of English vernacular:

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Used Bookstore Finds - NOVA This Week

Observations from my weekly wanderings, usually in Northern Virginia (NOVA).

 

Usually in Northern Virginia, but this week mostly in NOAL (Northern Alabama), which comes very close to being a fun and ironic play on words.

I was in Huntsville on business, which is extreme Northern Alabama, nearly SOTN (Southern Tennessee - doesn't trip of the tongue so well). On the way home Thursday, I had a few hours to kill before my flight, and there was a used book store right next to my lunch stop – so as you can imagine – that was a nice diversion. I found a few treasures, most importantly this gem.

I read The Father Christmas Letters last year at Christmas time, from an eReader. It is a collection of letters that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to his children, posing himself as Father Christmas. The letters were illustrated by Prof Tolkien (again, purported to be drawings Father Christmas made for the children). In my eReader, the illustrations were small and black and white. They are more enjoyable in full size and color. The cover is from 1926 and illustrates that the North Polar Bear accidentally turned on the Northern Lights full blast.

The book is a bit rare, so it was a good find.

Hope you have a Blessed Christmas.