Wilfred, for instance, the struggle between local secular authority and papal authority is rather hidden behind the man’s misfortunes – if indeed it can be considered a misfortune to be deprived of property when you have renounced property. The most interesting thing about these saints’ lives is what can be read into them.

One could make the case, though, that as in the book, so in the life. As a biography, I’m not sure that it’s wholly successful – the line of the life story is lost in a tangle of relationships. The Clear Stream: The Life of Winifred Holtby. Classic spinster novel takes a supernatural turn. A curiously structured book,which made more sense on realizing that it was part of a series about Gorse, rather than a stand-alone novel. The reading components less supplementary and useful than in other volumes in the series. Cute retelling of Cinderella, about a third of which was nonsense. I rather enjoyed the structure of it, which I found myself thinking about rather more than I normally do when I read a twelve hundred page book over the course of a weekend. Up to his usual tricks I see much better than Kafka on the Shore.

Amusing hyperbole about the dangers of wheat to the human organism. Surprisingly primmer than I remembered but I might have it confused wtih Cecilia or Camilla. I’d forgotten about Mrs Clay running off at the end with the young Mr. Sweet and amusing like Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, like all the pleasant miss-ish books re-published by Persephone. The didactic, third person, impersonal narrator also much shorter than I remembered. A bit hard to get into, and harder to get out of. An odd book, all bits and pieces, but of the sort I like. Very unhappy teachers at a mediocre prep school. An attempt to understand the life of the dilettante Harry Crosby, who committed suicide with a girlfriend for no reason other than the will to death. Some interesting stories, but the author seems more broken and less wise at the end than he did at the beginning, which is not my preferred trajectory for journalist memoirs. This is a good example of the genre, on an interesting topic – less academic than I was hoping for, but that’s my own problem. When professors of English literature reach a certain age, they tend to publish these amusing books, half memoir/half essay, usually about reading, often about literary criticism they are not scholarly books, though they are born of a scholarly frame of mind.

Yet another 18th century novel proving that the male sex are unreasoning creatures, swayed by emotions, and given to the vapors. It is satire of course, but mostly it is silly. As deep a mess of silliness as one could hope for. This is where you find out what I’ve been reading.2012 :: an eudæmonist an eudæmonist › reading

Northanger abbey gutenberg