:: getting back in the saddle ::

junior year, part b, begins on monday (where does the time go) and I'm not going to make it through war & peace blog-wise.

hooray, you say. also, nobody cares. and this should have happened long ago.

what's up: I still don't get this book. I still love it, and I'm so happy to be reading it again, even though I'm dreading the -- well, no spoilers. but there will be tears. I know I tend to cry too much over books,* but this, seriously; this will break my heart again. 

*ever heard the story of my first time through bleak house, when I reached the part where richard carstone "began the world -- not this world, oh no, not this; the world that sets this right" and then miss flite let her birds go free, and mama came running upstairs thinking the sobs were a person in physical pain? (as if emotional pain isn't legitimate, come on, mom) ...well, now you have. good book. slightly embarrassing memory.

I'm still taking exhaustingly extensive notes, and I will post some sort of summary of my reading experience/overall book themes, but honestly it's just too much with a new semester coming up to commit to more. also, I can take my notes in personal, abbreviated shorthand and know better what I'm talking about without doubling the time (at least) by translating them here. where, as I am painfully aware, no one reads them.

which is fine. really, it's okay. it just seems kinda stupid to write them twice over when it's all only for me, anyway; and do I have insight? no. I don't even know what I'm talking about. so that could be awkward, if I keep spreading the ignorance.

so for all intents and purposes, war & peace is done. next on the list: a re-discussion of "ulysses" by alfred, lord tennyson. I wrote about this poem a loooong time ago, when the real odyssey was fresh in my mind, but I've grown since then and have a slightly different perspective (like, can we discuss how inaccurate it is that poem-O calls his old mariners together, when homer clearly states (book 23! lines 298 - 303 in fitzgerald's translation!) that he has to collect all new men who have never even seen the sea? what's with that, alfred??). but it's a gorgeous poem, and I'm excited.

peace :)