A Beautiful Book

I know, I know, you are never supposed to judge a book by it's cover. I just couldn't help it when I went to the library last week and saw this edition of Anne of Green Gables. A hardcover book like this, with beautiful full color illustrations, is just so much more attractive than a pocket sized paper back with no drawings at all. The illustrations in this book are particularly good, too. Perhaps I am superficial, but I am convinced that reading this illustrated edition is making my reading experience more delightful, more memorable, more ....colorful.

**I just uploaded the photo, and can't find another suitable one, so the 'search inside' thing has to stay. It is ironic, considering the subject of this post... I guess that is the way it goes.

Prepositions

Just over the last few days or so Joseph started using prepositions. Last week on the way to the library just for fun I asked him where we were going. I expected him to just say 'Librabrey' (which is how he pronounces it,) but instead he said, plain as day, 'To the librabrey.'
This morning when we woke up he said 'Daddy,' like he always does. That is always what he says first when he wakes up. I always say 'Daddy went to work,' at least during the week I say that. This morning he responded 'Daddy went to work...on the bus'
When I came down stairs, things seem somehow different. He is somehow older this morning, after this weekend. It is amazing to witness these imperceptible changes, that are nevertheless noticeable after they occur. Just now he is playing with his cars on the carpet, and is perfectly entertaining himself

Spring Reading

I found this on someones blog; it looks like fun, so I think I'll give it a try. I already have some ideas: The Odyssey, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, etc. And the great thing is, they are already here on my bookshelves!

Spoon Rack

Last Thursday I went for a walk with Joseph and we happened to pass by an Antique store near our house. I was just browsing, but saw a spoon rack like one my mother used to have. There was also a windmill spoon in it, also just like one she has (the blades actually turn.) I have been wanting such a spoon rack for quite a while, but the dealer intended to sell it with the spoons in it. In the end I bought the rack, and the windmill spoon too. As an interesting fact about it, her husband made it about thirty years ago. I went and got it today, and hung it up right when I got home. Joseph really likes it too.

Classics bookclub

Yesterday evening was my first meeting with the classics book club. It was really a lot of fun. Most of the people there were retirees. In fact the only young people there besides me were one young couple and a woman who is probably 10 years older than me. I guess that most people who haven't retired feel like they don't have time for such things.
Anyway, they are using the first series from the Great Books Foundation, and the next two weeks they are reading Hume. I am not going again until May however, when they read Antigone. I really just want to focus on classics that have some application toward my studies in Art History, and I am just not that interested in philosophy.
It was great to discuss Othello after having just read it; almost felt like I was in classes again, but without the pressure.

Pleasant Surprise

Just as I finished writing my last post, the postman dropped off our next Netflix rental. It is Othello staring Kenneth Branagh as Iago, and Laurence Fishburne as Othello. I haven't actually seen the play yet, so this should be fun. I was really hoping I would get to watch it before our book club discussion tomorrow night, but had doubted that it would get here in time.

A Change of Heart

Right after I wrote that I wasn't enjoying Othello very much, I started enjoying it immensely. I often have to be careful of what I say aloud, because my outspoken opinions often get the best of me. Perhaps it is my nature of always defending the underdog.
Anyhow, I finished the play last weekend, and then started reading some critical literature about it. I read the synopsis of the story by Cinthio from his Hecatommithi, which is the primary source for Othello. While it is true that Shakespeare changed a lot of details (in most cases probably so it would work on stage,) the story is almost identical in plot. One of the differences is how Desdemona (Disdemona in Cinthio) dies. In the Hecatommithi, Iago and Othello beat her, and then arrange that part of the ceiling falls on her, so as to cover up the murder. Now, surely Shakespeare changed this because this would not work well on stage, but something I wondered while reading the play is why did Othello choose to smother her? He first talks of poison, and then Iago says that no, it should be done by smothering. Somehow, Othello thinks this is more just. I found this rather confusing until, in The Friendly Shakespeare by Norrie Epstein, I read that this serves symbolic purposes. The play that seems a bit unfocused in the first scene, telescopes into a suffocating, oppressive thing by the end.
There were lots of other things that bothered me in the beginning too, like why is Othello so gullible? But now I realize that this probably has to do with how the Moors were viewed in England at the time. It is also possible that it just serves the plot to characterize him has being naive. However I still am annoyed by the character Emelia. Why did she just give Iago Desdemona's handkerchief with barely a question? She is obviously a woman of the world, as is evidenced by act 4, scene 3. So why is she so dim when it concerns her husband? I think this is where Shakespeare's alteration of Cinthio's story is weak. Emelia is Shakespeare's character, not Cinthio's. In the original story Iago steals the handkerchief himself, by distracting Disdemona with his three year old daughter. Granted, having a young child wouldn't have worked in 17th century England, but couldn't he have written something more believable?
Overall, the strong points of Othello are the language, but I maintain that it doesn't hold a candle to Hamlet.


***Update. I am now not annoyed with Emelia, since I saw the movie. I simply love this play now; I have seen the light.