March 7, 2007

• Spring Reading Challenge

  
  It’s past time to post a list of books for the Spring Reading Challenge.  That my son and I are in the midst of Medieval studies will be readily apparent.  I am focusing my spring reading on this period using the strike-while-the-iron-is-hot rational. 

  Do y’all know what I mean?  For instance, the summer of 2005 was our Civil War summer.  We gobbled up biographies, histories, historical fiction, documentaries, and dramatic films relative to the War Between the States.  After that we moved on.  When a book on a particular battle arrived summer 2006 from a friend who remembered that we had been ‘into the Civil War’, I just could not drum up much interest.  Alas, the Civil War iron is stone cold; I grant you, I’ve come out of that forrest; the wind has blown leeward, I’m not joshing!

  King Arthur has never fascinated me, but I’m ready to give it a try.  There are a few children’s books to work my way into some kind of affection for the poor old fellow.  I’m counting on Rosemary Sutcliff’s prose to carry me across the threshold.

  The Discarded Image, C.S. Lewis
  Civilization of the Middle Ages, Norman Cantor
  Mysteries of the Middle Ages, Thomas Cahill * If I can find it without buying it
  Histories of the Kings of England, Geoffrey of Monmouth * I might do some serious dipping and skimming
  The Black Arrow, Robert Louis Stevenson
  Prince Otto, Robert Louis Stevenson
  Scarlet Music, Hildegard of Bingen, Joan Ohanneson
  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans J.R.R. Tolkien
  Sword and the Circle, Rosemary Sutcliff
  Light Beyond the Forest, Rosemary Sutcliff
  Road to Camlann, Rosemary Sutcliff
  Sword at Sunset, Rosemary Sutcliff
  King Arthur and His Knights, Howard Pyle
  Otto of the Silver Hand, Howard Pyle
  Winning His Spurs, G.A. Henty
  Divine Comedy, Dante

  Read aloud to fam: That Distant Land, Wendell Berry ~ My love Wendell Berry’s writing is growing and growing. It’s so fun to read Berry aloud and hear grunts of assention, ahs of agreement, and giggles of delight.  It’s ectasy to know that there are volumes of Wendell Berry prose, poetry and essays awaiting future evenings and car trips.

  I can’t resist the temptation to give you a Wendell Berry morsel. A young couple has just received a gift – an opportunity to purchase the farm that he has been renting from the estate of the former owner.

  “Do you know what I want, Wheeler?”

  “I expect I do.  But tell me.”

  “I want to make it on my own.  I don’t want a soul to thank.”

  Wheeler thinks, “Too late,” but he does not say it.  He grins.  That he knows the futility of that particular program does not prevent him from liking it. [...]

  “It’s no use to want to make it on your own, because you can’t…But when you quit living in the price and start living in the place, you’re in a different line of succession.”

  Elton laughs.  “The line of succession I’m in says you’ve got to make it on your own.  I’m in the line of succession of root, hog, or die.”

  “That may have been the line of succession you were in, but it’s not the one you’re in now.  The one you’re in now is different.”

  “Well, how did I get in it?” Elton says almost in a sigh, as if longing to be out of it.

  “The way you got in it, I guess, was by being chosen.  The way you stay in it is by choice.”

                            (pp.283-284)    from “It Wasn’t Me” in That Distant Land by Wendell Berry

  • 12:07 pm
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