Random Number Lit

The next entry I pulled from the Small Works List was from what feels like the most popular list on that spreadsheet, the World Literature List 1000 to 1600. I have only pulled one other name at this point on the list but I have consistently been involved with World Lit from around this time period pretty consistently. Kadambari was on the list just before this one as well as Ki No Tsurayuki. The crazy thing is the connection between this text and Guaman Poma.    The Huarochiri Manuscript represents a strange node in the make up of this history of this time period, and also happens to be the second indigenous authored text from the same region and the exact same time period. So, let me lay this out for a second. Guaman Poma is one of the only native Incan authors in the historical record. Guaman Poma’s 1200 page letter to King Phillip III was lost for hundreds of years as it was accidentally stored in the Royal Danish Library. Guaman Poma would have written his “letter” in 1615-1616.

“Japanese poetry has the human heart as seed and myriads of words as leaves. It comes into being when men use the seen and the heard to give voice to feelings aroused by the innumerable events in their lives” (Tsurayuki 3).   I don’t usually include long quotes in this newsletter but I really love this quote and think about it often as I reflect on reading this text. It is not often the case that when I pull a work a name off the Small Works list that someone I know has intimate knowledge of their work. I know someone through a friend who grew up in Japan, and interacted with Ki No Tsurayuki in their education in high school. I have still connect at a deeper level about this work but they pointed me in the right direction with this author, and I set out to read some of the Kokin Wakashu which Tsurayuki was responsible for compiling. In addition to beginning the work of compiling all of the requisite Japanese poetry at the time, in the ‘waka’ style of poetry, Tsurayuki also wrote the p

 I typing these initial comments on Matthew Lewis’ The Monk on September 13 because I am very far behind this month. To date, I have only finished 1 book and my aim is usually for 4 books a month. I may not make it this month. I loved Matthew Lewis’ The Monk but I do not think I would read this book again. This book genuinely troubled me at times that made me have this crazy sort of feeling of simultaneously not wanting to continue reading because the subject matter was so troubling but then wanting to continue reading so as to be quit of this horrendously troubling text.  This book is astonishingly modern in its explicit depictions of horror that I am amazed that it has not had a famously popular horror movie adaptation. It would be difficult to adapt because of the nature of the crimes committed but it would be a riveting film if handled well. Throughout the text, though, I was confused often because the names and the placement of the stories seemed to run together. I had to read a s

Knut Hamsun sprung off the list like a loaded gun. I can’t tell you just how electric this text is and how much of a change of pace this novel is from the works that I have been reading lately. The difference between a Tolstoy or a Burke is from a Hamsun is like a Cadillac and a Ferrari. Both are cars, but one does a lot of different things than the other. Hamsun’s writing is deeply engrossing but in a way that is disorienting and alarming at once. Similar to Huxley’s writing, the chaos of the moment with the use of soma and the sanctioned time of the group sex, the pressure just builds and builds but there is a kindness in that text that feels like it is going somewhere that you know that the brakes aren’t on now but will be clamping down soon. Hamsun did not have that same level of assurance. The momentum of this novel just builds and builds and builds until the moment of the crisis hits, and you are not sure you are in calm hands until the very, very end. Like reading Kafka, there i

  Fresh off the reading of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World a 20 th century dystopian future that is all about pleasure and infantilizing the populace so that they never question the developments of society, I read the ancient thing, Aeschylus’ Oresteia . Couldn’t have been any more perfectly arranged.  Aeschylus, apparently, is the oldest of the Greek playwrights. The Oresteia is the crowning achievement for this period. The Oresteia is written in a trilogy of short plays, the first being Agamemnon, the second being The Libation Bearers , and the last The Furies . I bought a copy of this text so that I could see it on the page.   Translator’s Corner – I was first introduced to classic literature at the young age of 15 when I was challenged by an English teacher to read The Odyssey over the summer. I did so and fell in love with classic literature since then. The translation that I picked up at the time was Robert Fagles. I may end up rereading the Odyssey for

I don’t have a ton to say at the moment about Edmund Burke. I would like to avoid making this publication tinged with the concerns of today. I will be writing this document for perhaps the next 35 years, if I live until I am 70 and so there will be several different epochs of the context that surrounds this document. When I first pulled Edmund Burke’s name, many recent texts popped up that deal with his writing. Most of these texts include Burke in the current debate about conservative politics in America. This may be true, but this is not going to be the focus of my interest in Burke. Because I would not characterize myself as a conservative, there is a certain bit of intrigue that wants to really dig in here and see where that vein goes, but I chose instead to refocus on something directly of interest.   I began reading Burke’s Reflections on the Revolutions in France because it was the first thing that popped up on Audible and I listened to perhaps the first 2 or 3 hours of that d

 This book is not what I expected. I talked with an administrator at my college about this book recently, and he told me that it was the first book he was assigned to teach when he started teaching high school English. He may have said he had to teach it to freshman. That seems remarkable to me. There is so much sex in this book. While there is no sex depicted explicitly on the page – this entire society revolves around sexual gratification for sex sake because it is no longer tied to reproduction. There is a deeply conservative heart beating behind the pages of this book. I don’t often do this but I found an interview with Huxley from the 60s after I finished this book because I wanted to get a sense of the man as I was mulling over his ideas in the book.   I will say this first, the whole book leads to a final conversation between the Savage and the regional World Controller which is delightful and sort of the glorious "accuse your gods" moment that a certain subset of fict

There is some part of this process where I truly love the random nature of this project. I did not want to considered very much how these books came to be on this list. I took my time at first figuring out how I wanted to find the books, but once I had a few trust worthy things in place I just started adding stuff to get to 1000. Lanark must have been in that push. I don’t know if it was a Goodreads list or some random one on the internet but Lanark came to me, and I read this book. Anthony Burgess, who wrote A Clockwork Orange – which I am not sure is on my list at all, claimed this book should be in the top 100 works of the 20 th century. I was game for a challenge.  At this point, I will say that I am versed in the Scottish culture. Well, two of my best friends were born and live in Scotland. The introduction to Lanark was written by Janice Galloway who wants to convince the reader that the highest possible value expressed by the Scottish culture is to not show off. I will let th

  Banabhata – Kadambari   I pulled this one from the Small Works List (World 300 – 1000 AD). The only note that I had there was a 4 letter name, Bana. I went to the Google, and found out that Bana was one of the most celebrated authors of this era of Indian writing. He wrote two famous works, the Harshacharita (Deeds of Harsha - a history of his era of India), and Kadambari (a Hindu romance). For whatever reason, it did not seem possible to find a way to engage with the Harshacharita whether I couldn’t find a readable copy or whatever, so I chose Kadambari . I will say here that I loved the first half of this book. I have never encountered a text like Kadambari . I am not sure if this is common for Sanskrit or Hindu based texts, but the whole thing felt like a dream. The lyrical descriptions of very minimal activities was magical to follow. It was difficult to parse at times what was happening as I was reading something written in English and translated very well. Transl