Oresteia

I read the trilogy out loud in Year 12, with my next sister, laying feet to feet on the sofa, both of us eventually falling asleep. Don't remember much from the plays themselves.

But my Year 10 sister is studying them this month--she's reading Classics, and I'm her Classics tutor. AKA she's rubbish at self-motivation, and I have the lovely task of keeping her on task.

And in this case, it truly is lovely, because I found this brilliant 1983 production by the National Theatre of Great Britain. You can watch all of Agamemnon online. And seeing how it is a play, YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE READING IN ANYWAY.

Their version is more modern than the Lattimore translation I read, modern without being contemporary, yet at the same time, it has an Anglo-Saxon torque. Paradox! I love it!

Traditional Greek masks and minimal movement beside prose that takes you back to Beowulf... its chanted, sing-song alliteration, and its stunning, word-canvas kennings... whale-road, ring-giver, bone-house.

There is stupendous rhyming-couplet banter between the chorus and the primary dramatists, eerily reminiscent of Inigo Montoya and Fezzik onboard their ship. (Are there rocks ahead? If there are, we'll all be dead.)

And since the females are played by men, in classic Greek style, every time Clytemnestra appears, she/he terrifies my sister by placing her/his hands on her/his hip and thigh... in a way that, to quote my sister, real women never do, except Robot's Fender.

Reading Resolutions, 2012

I'm not setting a numerical goal for 2012. During the past twelve months, my numerical goal kept treading on my tail, like the whiting and the porpoise. It's more enjoyable to merely say, I'd especially like to read these books this year. And other titles, as they appear and occur...

"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied.
"There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France --
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance."

What would you like to read in 2012?


Froi of the Exiles, by Melina Marchetta
Liar's Moon, by Elizabeth Bunce
The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories, by Joan Aiken
Sea Hearts, by Margo Lanagan
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, by Frank Cottrell Boyce
In the Night Garden, by Catherynne Valente
Passion and Purity, by Elizabeth Elliot
My Man Jeeves, by PG Wodehouse
Phantastes, by George MacDonald
The Art of Life, by Edith Schaeffer
Sarah's Cottage, by DE Stevenson
The Everlasting Man, by GK Chesterton
Descent into Hell, by Charles Williams
All Hallows Eve, by Charles Williams
The Greater Trumps, by Charles Williams
Dombey and Son, by Charles Dickens
Gladys Aylward, the Little Woman, by Gladys Aylward
Devotions Upon Divergent Occasions and Death's Duel, by John Donne
The Drowned Vault, by ND Wilson
Autobiography of George Muller, by George Muller
Planet Narnia, by Michael Ward
The Valley of Vision, by Arthur Bennett
Why Revival Tarries, by Leonard Ravenhill
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken (reread)
Power through Prayer, by EM Bounds


And I'd like to reread my very favorite five books, according to my 17 year old self:

Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery
Little Women, by L.M. Alcott
The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis
Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt

Reading Resolutions: Realized! 2011

Last December, I resolved to read [at least] 60 books in 2011. A smallish number, considering the riotous sprees of my youth, when ten books a week was no unusual number... devouring stack after stack of Cherry Ames stories, every LM Montgomery novel ever written, Judy Bolton, DE Stevenson... ahem. I was a series girl. But I met my 2011 goal. Yay! (I'm also a goal-meeting girl.) Here are a few categories:

Best New Discoveries
Author: Charles Williams
(I adore his writing, so abstruse and bizarre and fusty.)
Novel: Pilgrim's Inn, by Elizabeth Goudge
Character: Sam W/Veller (Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens)
(Indubitably the literary father of Mervyn Bunter.)

Favorite Classic
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexander Dumas

Favorite MG/YA Novels
Okay for Now, by Gary Schmidt *also my Newbery prediction*
The Dragon's Tooth, by N.D. Wilson
Fly Trap, by Frances Hardinge
Starcrossed, by Elizabeth Bunce

Most Difficult to Complete (But I Did!)
Heretics, by GK Chesterton

Disappointments from Authors I Liked Last Year
Uncommon Criminals, by Ally Carter
The Five Red Herrings, by Dorothy Sayers

Surprises from Authors I Didn't Like Last Year
Starcrossed, by Elizabeth Bunce

Favorite ReReads
Saving Francesca, by Melina Marchetta
Listening Valley, by DE Stevenson

Books I Thought Would Be Amazing But Really Weren't That Great
The Piper's Son, by Melina Marchetta

(I feel like such a backstabber to even type the above, but if she hadn't set such impossibly high standards with two of my all-time favorite novels, Piper's Son wouldn't have fallen short for me!)

Books I Didn’t Think Would Be That Great But Ended Up Amazing
What is a Family? by Edith Schaeffer
Rees Howells: Intercessor, by Norman Grubb
Wrestling Prayer, by Eric Ludy

Stats for the total list of books read in 2011 here.

Reading resolutions for 2012: upcoming post.