started reading the book!

so i just started reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.

SPOILER ALERT: the dog gets stabbed with a fork.

Next Meeting: March 5th

I hope you're all enjoying our current selection, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. Christopher Boone is certainly a distinctive character and his unique perspective provides an interesting look at how point of view can affect a story. It also gives us another chance to examine whether we have a reliable or unreliable narrator.

We'll be meeting on Monday, March 5th at 1pm, and it would be great if everyone could come prepared with one question to ask the group about the book. Try to make your question open-ended. By that, I mean try to craft a question that can't be answered with a simple yes or no or a specific piece of information. Try to make it something that will require people to give an opinion or an explanation.

Here are some examples of closed-ended and open ended questions.

Closed-ended:
Do you get along with your sister?
Are those new shoes?
Is Barack Obama a good president?
Where do you live?

Open-ended:
What is your relationship with your sister like?
Tell me about your shoes.
How do you feel about our current president?
Describe your hometown.

Make sense? If not, feel free to comment below or email for further clarification.

In addition to your open-ended question for our discussion, please also feel free to bring along any other questions you have or any materials you think could add to our exploration and understanding of the book. You know I'll have plenty to discuss, but I would love to have you all help drive this discussion, too.

See you Monday!

Next Meeting: January 30th, Ethan Frome

Our next meeting is on Monday, January 30^th at 1pm at the Ralstons’ house in South Portland, and we will be discussing Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. I chose this novel specifically for this time of year because it takes place in New England in the midst of winter. 

One thing I want you to consider is how the New England winter is represented in this novel. What is winter in Starkfield like? Does this view of a New England winter fit with your personal experience?

Another thing  I’d like you to consider, and be ready to discuss, is the integrity of each of the novel’s primary characters: Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie. To that end, please come prepared to support – or argue against – one of the following statements:

Ethan is a wonderful husband.

Zeena is a terrible wife.

Mattie is an innocent bystander.

Choose one of the above statements (or its opposite, i.e., “Ethan is a terrible husband”) and find quotes from the book – things a character does or says, events that occur, ideas that are implied by the narrator – to support it. Be sure to jot down the quotes and their page numbers so you can reference them, and please bring your copy of Ethan Frome with you. If you wish, you can choose more than one statement, or be ready to argue both sides for one of them.

It should be a fun discussion. See you on Monday!

This Sonnet Thing is Tough!

Whew! It took me a while, and I gave up on the rhyme scheme partway through, but here's my rewrite of Sonnet XIX.

Sonnet 19 – Revised by b-nice

Time, feel free to degrade the lion’s claws,

Let everything on the earth return to dust,

Let the teeth fall out of old tigers' maws,

And burn the phoenix while she's still robust.

Let winter, spring, summer and fall come and go,

And do whatsoever you care

To the world's flora and fauna.

But don’t you dare

Put a single wrinkle on my love’s forehead.

Or veins or age spots.

Let him remain unchanged

So future generations will always admire his beauty.

     Actually, never mind. Go ahead and make him old.

     He’ll always be young in my poetry.

And here's the original Sonnet XIX by the Bard himself for comparison:

SONNET XIX

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
      Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
      My love shall in my verse ever live young.

Sorry, what ThePuck meant to say was, how now spirits? wither wander the works of Shakespeare before our eyes before next we meet?

ThePuck want's to know if we will be reading more Shakespeare.

Next Meeting, Monday, January 9th, 2012

When we get together next, it will be an early winter's day and we'll be discussing A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare.

This play is one of Shakespeare's comedies, which you can probably tell from this picture in which a man with a donkey's head is "flying" next to Titania, the Fairy Queen.

The main plot of AMND revolves around the plight of four lovers whose emotions are toyed with by fairies and sprites, but there are also three subplots:

• the upcoming wedding of Theseus (the Duke of Athens) and Hippolyta (the Queen of the Amazons);
• an ongoing fight between the Fairy King (Oberon) and Queen (Titania); and
• an effort by the "rude mechanicals" (six common tradesmen) to produce a dramatic play which will be the featured entertainment at the wedding celebration.

There's a lot going on in this one, for sure, so if you have questions as you read, feel free to post them here on the blog so I and others can chime in -- either to comiserate or help with explanations. ;-)

Also, I know many of you will be reading from the No Fear Shakespeare version of the play. That's fine, but please -- don't allow yourself to skip the Shakespeare completely by only reading the modern translation. If you do, you'll miss out on Shakespeare's incredible ability to turn a phrase. His plots are good, but it's the way he says what he says that really sets him apart from other playwrights.

Consider for a moment, this simple line from Act II, scene i:

In the original version, Robin (aka Puck), greets a fairy with: "How now, spirit? Whither wander you?"

In the modern translation, this becomes: "Hello, spirit! Where are you going?"

Now try saying those two lines aloud.

They mean the same thing, but one of them is SO. MUCH. PRETTIER. Not to mention more fun to say. Really. Try it out on your parents. A cheerful, "How now, Mother? Whither wander you?" as your mom crosses the room will surely get her attention.

So yes, by all means use the modern translation to help you understand, but don't leave the original words behind altogether or you'll miss out on what makes Shakespeare, well . . . Shakespeare.