The Weight of a World

[pshaw_raven]

Did y'all know I've never read War & Peace?

I'm considering taking that on because the more I read of other people's responses to the book, the more I think it will be absolutely worth my while. I've come across a lot of blog posts and essays about Tolstoy over the past two years or so and it made me realize I've barely read anything of his writing. And it's not as if I shy away from books with difficult reputations.

On the one hand, it's a chonker. It's something like 1,300 pages. It's a doorstop. But then, I read long books exactly the same way that I read short ones, one page at a time. Some people take on a chapter a day, since there are 365 of them. I tend to do well with a minimum of ten pages a day goal, and by the time I'm "into" it, I don't bother keeping track because I know I'll finish.

It's also supposed to be dense and it has a lot of characters. So it sounds like LoTR. Especially some of the chapters where Tolkien is setting up the Elvish lore or earlier history of Middle Earth and you're reading along like, who the hell are these people. On my more recent read-throughs I know which bits I can skim for now, unless I decide to acquire some of the other Middle Earth books. I'm told War & Peace does something similar - as the story progresses, its focus narrows considerably, and you don't really have to give two fucks about a lot of the characters.

This is probably a lot weightier than anything I should be thinking about on vacation, but we tend to hide from the mid-afternoon heat, and I can't take naps, so I wind up reading, either online or a physical book. And yesterday I stumbled across yet another Tolstoy discussion so that's where this came from. I'll probably pick up a Penguin Deluxe from Bookshop.org.

Tomorrow's our last full day here and I'm already getting a bit Disney-ed out. But I'm also more accustomed to race weekends where the morning run is the major thing I do that day and the parks are just lagniappe. I'm also going to be in need of some intensive yoga sessions and maybe a water fast when I get home, I feel like hell, LOL. Today we managed to snag an early boarding group for Rise of the Resistance, and I think I'm going to pass on Slinky Dog Dash until next time. I'm almost at my fork limit for this trip so I'm trying to make things easier on myself. Yesterday I found out the hard way that there are two very different tracks for Big Thunder Mountain, and one of them is more intense than the other. Fox was like, "Oh yeah, I remember this track from when I was a kid. This one goes really high!" Me: "It ... what ..." *cue five uninterrupted minutes of screaming*

Comments

confessions!

[beachglass]

I haven't read it either :)

altho I've made several attempts, I have yet to pierce it's steel exterior.

that being said, anna karenina is one of my favorites. such an amazing book.

so, maybe one day...

Re: confessions!

[pshaw_raven]

I have been told Anna Karenina is terrific. Kitty had a very nice, very old leatherbound edition which is honestly too nice to really read. I typically make a point of getting paperbacks for the bigger books so they're easier to lug around.

I also found a read-a-long podcast for W&P that might be interesting. I don't mind diving in more or less on my own, but for something of this magnitude it might be nice to have a guide.

Re: confessions!

[beachglass]

aw! I love that retro charlie brown gif.

I would totally rather listen to the book on tape as opposed to drying my eyeballs out.

I mean, you really have to dig to get into it.

that's my humble opinion, tho. lol

:)

Re: confessions!

[pshaw_raven]

Honestly an audiobook version is a good idea - considering my running will really be ramping up to get ready for the marathon weekend this January I'll have plenty of time to listen. I think I'll ask the library about this.

Re: confessions!

[beachglass]

do it.

I think it's sometimes more entertaining to listen to a book being read, as opposed to reading it myself :)

depends on the book, of course, but why not try?

[cdayzee]

I've never read it either. The sheer magnitude is intimidating. I know we're 'supposed' to read the classics & whatnot but meh - I'll remain a 'dumb American' :P

Damned if I didn't forget about Fork Theory! I had to look it up to re-familiarize myself from when you first posted about it. It's brilliant! But yeah, I can totally relate!

[pshaw_raven]

There's a great meme that goes around that absolutely applies here. It starts off saying "List of books to read before you die" and goes like this:
1. Any book you want
2. Don't read books you're not interested in
3. That's it
4. Congratulations, you did it

Sometimes those lists of things like "The Western Canon" or "40 Greatest Books of All Time" are interesting to me, and I can sometimes be persuaded to see how many I actually have read, but I don't think they're always all that necessary. I majored in English Lit so I've had my share of slogging through something I hate because I've got to write a paper on it, and I wouldn't tell people they ought to do the same in real life just to live up to some arbitrary standard of being "literate." I think if someone's reading a book because they're supposed to they aren't going to get much out of the experience.

I had to read The Great Gatsby in high school and loathed it. I still have people telling me how great it is, and how I should give it another chance, but life's too short to read shit I'm not interested in, and it's definitely too short to re-read the same shit. It takes a major shift in the way I look at a story to induce me to go back to something I hated. Actually that did happen recently - someone pointed out that Catcher in the Rye is actually about the protagonist dealing with being sexually abused. I totally didn't pick up on that when I read it before and I remember finding him boring and self-absorbed. With this person's new take on it, I'm going to read the book again.

Anyway, sorry about the rant :D

I was explaining fork theory to Fox while we were at Disney and he totally got it. Like when you get poked beyond your last fork and you start losing your temper, or how a little kid can hit their fork limit and have a meltdown because regulating your emotions and stuff is already hard when you're that young.

[cdayzee]

I love the message of that meme!!

I think if someone's reading a book because they're supposed to they aren't going to get much out of the experience.
Exactly.

In high school my senior year of English lit, we were reading all sorts of things that I loathed. Finally, when we were reading Shakespeare, I dropped the class because I didn't need the credit, I already had enough to graduate. Plus I was in a class of 'smarties'. I felt I had nothing to prove. I became a teacher's aide the remainder of that year & had no regrets. I saved myself a ton of stress. At this point, however, I had no idea what career path I even wanted to pursue. [Matter of fact, I still don't. I had no guidance or desire, I guess.]

Hmm, interesting perspective about Catcher in the Rye. You'll have to let me know how that changes things.

No worries - I didn't view it as a 'rant' :) I enjoyed the repartee!

[pshaw_raven]

I had to take a semester class in Shakespeare in college. I forget how many plays we read. What I discovered was that watching a play and then reading the text seriously deepened my ability to analyze and understand. I think I just don't process stage directions well, because I'm fine reading dialogue, but I'll get very confused as to what people are doing or where they are. Our professor had a bunch of these old BBC productions on VHS - the ones that look like they were filmed in someone's basement on a shoestring budget, but that had Patrick Stewart in them.

But then, I never have read a lot of drama. I still don't go out of my way to read plays now. I am kind of interested in "A Winter's Tale," but haven't found a video of it yet. Although I'm told it contains the stage direction, "Exit stage left, pursued by a Bear," so that would make the whole thing wort it. XD

And it also helped that I found a book that pointed out all the dirty jokes and terrible puns. The history of English Letters is full of fart jokes, apparently. And puns. Lots of puns.

[rebeccarobota]

I had to read War and Peace in high school, and I remember it being quite engaging! It certainly lends itself to skimming - as I recall I skipped all the historical context chapters in which Tolstoy tells us what Napoleon is up to, etc.

[pshaw_raven]

That was what I'm being told as well - once you get through some of the establishing parts, it gets really absorbing.
I kind of wish I'd tried reading it in high school instead of what I ended up doing, which was Ulysses. I wasn't that into it.

[rebeccarobota]

Ha, I've never read Ulysses! I've got an English degree and everything, but managed to skip most of Joyce, for better or worse.

[pshaw_raven]

It was rough, and I definitely didn't enjoy myself. Aside from a few short stories, I haven't read anything else James Joyce wrote, though I do wonder if I simply took on a book I wasn't mentally prepared for at that time.

[dorchadas]

I haven't read it either, but I remember my father mentioning how everyone had these long Russian names and characters would vanish for 200 pages and then show up again with no reminder of who they were and it became unbelievably confusing. It put me off reading it, to be honest, but maybe now I'd appreciate it.

[pshaw_raven]

I've heard the same thing, so I'm buying a fresh pack of tape flags, LOL. Actually the read-a-long podcast might also help me keep the story all lined up in my head. I've read some books like that, where people just come and go, but someone's mentioned that in this case, you'll have it narrowed down to a few people you really need to worry about and everyone else is ... not "filler" exactly, but they aren't a major character either.

"Programs, get yer programs, you can't tell the players without a program!"