January Salon

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Last year Katherine at November's Autumn ran a sort of salon to discuss classics.  This year she has decided to focus the discussion on literature written from about 1880-1930.  I don't know how often I'll be able to participate, but I hope I'll be about to sometimes!  I love what Katherine has to say as she kicks off a year of literary discussion:

I'm very glad you're here and hope we'll all become more acquainted along this journey. You could say I hope it will be like a special club but one where everyone feels comfortable and happy and welcome to share their ideas, wanderings, and discoveries through Literature be you an expert or reading your first work that's been graced by that title: Classic. 
There are so many groups of authors that were friends or corresponded. Imagining their conversations are exciting. So, why not, as readers, can't we do the something similar? Only instead we're corresponding about those very authors whose names make our pulse a tad faster and whose stories so many people have read before us and will continue to read after.
To begin with, Katherine asks us to write up an introductory post and provides some questions as a starting point.
  • What draws you to read the Classics?  I like to read a lot, and I read widely.  For the past year or so I've focused more on classics and loved it.  I'd read many classics before too, but it had been a long time since I did it purposefully.
  • What era have you mainly read? Georgian? Victorian? Which authors? I have read lots of Victorians, some medieval/Renaissance, all of Jane Austen of course, and a bit of everything else. 
  • What Classics have you read from the 1880s-1930s? What did you think of them?
  • Name some books you're looking forward to read for the salon.  I have not been clever enough to put a list together...um.  I have only just discovered Edith Wharton.  I have T. S. Eliot on the list of things I ought to read.  I could read A Passage to India, which is the only Forster book I have not read.  Oh!  And I've never read James (except the really super-short things), but Portrait of a Lady is on my list for this year.  How's that?
  • Is your preference prose? poetry? both?  Prose.  I want to like poetry, and mostly fail at it.
For the rest, I'm a librarian and classically homeschooling mom.  I sew and embroider a lot, I love Bollywood movies, and I live in the northern part of California that everyone always forgets about.  It's nice and quiet here.  I like to read literature, history, religion, science, fantasy, and mysteries.  Most things really.  I'm hoping to have a Russian-heavy year, and so far that's going great--I'm loving Anna Karenina (which is just a teeny bit too early for this salon) and a memoir from a Soviet scientist.

Comments

  1. EvaJanuary 6, 2013 at 1:03 AM

    Chekhov is turn of the century Russian! :) I just read one of his novellas so he's on my mind. :) I love James, especially his longer stuff, so you've got some treats ahead of you. And that time period covers the Harlem Renaissance as well! Clearly I'm going to have to join in myself. :D

    (Sorry about falling down on the Ancient Greek challenge in the last half of 2012. But I'm still planning on reading more of them and loved what I did read!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. JeanJanuary 7, 2013 at 5:14 PM

    Thanks for the ideas! I actually have some Chekhov and some Harlem Renaissance right here, so this is great! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. HeidenkindJanuary 29, 2013 at 11:46 PM

    There are tons of fun science fiction and mystery novels from the the turn of the century, maybe you'll have a chance to read to read those. Something by Edgar Rice Burroughs or Mary Roberts Rinehart is always a good bet.

    ReplyDelete

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