Winter Reading
from Jordan M. Poss @ Jordan M. Poss: Blog, Ltd.For the well-known purposes of this blog I have loosely redefined winter to mean December and January, which is roughly the time-frame allotted to this list when I was still in undergrad. I’ve hyperlinked those books of which I’ve written a more detailed review on Amazon.com.
And now,
Winter Reading, 2007-08
The Saga of Hromund Gripsson, trans. by Gavin Chappell – B
Frogs, by Aristophanes, trans. by David Barrett – A-
A Gun for Sale, by Graham Greene – B+
The Sunset Limited, by Cormac McCarthy – A+
Laxdaela Saga, trans. by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson – A+
Egil’s Saga, trans. by Bernard Scudder – A
The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue, trans. by Katrina C. Attwood – A-
The Saga of Ref the Sly, trans. by George Clark – A-
How Should We Then Live? by Francis Schaeffer – C+
Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu, trans. by D.C. Lau – C
The Dhammapada, trans. by Juan Mascaró – B
The Bhagavad Gita, trans. by Juan Mascaró – C-
Beyond Opinion, by Ravi Zacharias (also Ed.) – A-
The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard – A
Ecce Homo, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by R.J. Hollingsworth – B
The Divine Comedy: Hell, by Dante, trans. by Dorothy Sayers – B-
Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, by Alister McGrath – A-
Frogs, by Aristophanes, trans. by David Barrett – A-
A Gun for Sale, by Graham Greene – B+
The Sunset Limited, by Cormac McCarthy – A+
Laxdaela Saga, trans. by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson – A+
Egil’s Saga, trans. by Bernard Scudder – A
The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue, trans. by Katrina C. Attwood – A-
The Saga of Ref the Sly, trans. by George Clark – A-
How Should We Then Live? by Francis Schaeffer – C+
Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu, trans. by D.C. Lau – C
The Dhammapada, trans. by Juan Mascaró – B
The Bhagavad Gita, trans. by Juan Mascaró – C-
Beyond Opinion, by Ravi Zacharias (also Ed.) – A-
The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard – A
Ecce Homo, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by R.J. Hollingsworth – B
The Divine Comedy: Hell, by Dante, trans. by Dorothy Sayers – B-
Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, by Alister McGrath – A-
Favorite Hero
Here I’m divided in my loyalty, something both of these heroes would know about. Egil Skallagrimsson—eponymous hero of Egil’s Saga—and Snorri the Goði of Laxdæla Saga are both intelligent, cunning men who often find themselves in situations demanding either diplomacy, at which Snorri excelled, or a fine grasp of swordsmanship, which is where Egil found his niche. Both are fascinating, psychologically deep heroes with not a little guts between them.
Favorite Villain
Easily the best villain of the last two months’ reading is Raven, the antiheroic protagonist of Graham Greene’s A Gun for Sale. While the book is certainly not Greene’s masterpiece—Raven is neither as psychologically complex as Brighton Rock’s Pinkie and A Gun for Sale is not the dark masterpiece that The Third Man was—the book tells a remarkable story remarkably well, all of it centering on the servile self-hatred of Raven. Raven is a study in black and white and how it mixes in individual people.
Most Pleasant Surprise
As much as I hate his philosophy and the movements that spun off of it, Friedrich Nietzsche is a very entertaining writer. His Ecce Homo is probably not the best place to start—a mistake I often make—but it was a fast and dirty guide to the man’s philosophical and personal development throughout his rather pathetic life. The book is also worthwhile as a subject of debate—Nietzsche officially went insane a while this book was still with the publisher, but reading it one has to wonder whether his madness had not begun some time much, much earlier.
Biggest Disappointment
This was a strange time for my reading. I liked a despicable man like Nietzsche’s writing but found an upstanding, widely-admired Christian’s work bitterly disappointing. Francis Schaeffer’s How Should We Then Live? offers the reader a brief guide to the western world’s philosophical development over the last two thousand years. An admirable goal, and one that has been accomplished well (John Blanchard’s Does God Believe in Atheists? comes to mind), but Schaeffer allows his outline and presuppositions to flavor the accuracy of his research. He grossly misinterprets and then criticizes Dante Alighieri and a number of other medieval writers, and while his accuracy gets better the nearer he comes to his own era (a fault, I point out in my Amazon.com review, shared with John Foxe), I couldn’t help but wonder what else had been left out or misrepresented.
Favorite Read Overall
While I’m torn and also want to give this title to Cherry-Garrard’s amazing memoir The Worst Journey in the World, the book I enjoyed reading most is “something completely different.” Mentioned above, Laxdæla Saga is one of the most popular and well-known of the Icelandic sagas, and for good reason. While it covers a great deal more time than a saga that focuses on a single hero or event, the figures that walk its pages are no less fascinating and psychologically real than anything encountered in a modern novel. And for those interested in reading more of the saga literature, Laxdæla Saga is one of the major works dealing with Snorri the Goði, a major figure in many, many of the sagas.
