Potent Potables for 1000

Wanted to share two examples of authors treating/dealing with words as powerful things. As we listen to sound-bite upon sound-bite from various Presidential candidates and endless commentators, it doesn't hurt to remember what powerful things words are.

"...we should become aware of what we are doing when we speak, of the ancient, fragile, and (well used) immensely potent instruments that words are." - Lewis, Studies in Words

"He chanted a song of wizardry,
Of piercing, opening, of treachery,
Revealing, uncovering, betraying.
Then sudden Felagund there swaying
Sang in answer a song of staying,
Resisting, battling against power,
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;
Of changing and of shifting shape
Of snares eluded, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps." - Tolkien, Silmarillion

Love that Quote!

I was watching a Lewis documentary covering Narnia and some of the material from Surprised by Joy which prompted me to go look up this full quote. I think it's great so I wanted to share it with you.

“One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. “One Word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the your lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for the Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s a small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.”

Community Book Shelf: RIP

Well, the grand experiment that was the Community Bookshelf never really took off. I think for that to work requires a critical mass of people such that whenever any given person logs on whether after days or weeks since checking there is something new to look into. With less than 50 members (less than 25 that were contributing members) it was hard to reach that point. The biggest thing that I miss about the bookshelf was the ability to post a short topic and get people's opinions. I can do that with the blog, but it's a bit of a side step from the usual, "self-indulgent inane claptrap dealing with naught but daily minutiae". I suppose my scattered readership will have to deal for one day.

Less eulogizing and more discussion I suppose.

I have been interested in building my library again recently. I'm going to post (below) the books that I'm most interested in reading right now, which largely fall into categories of classic literature, classic christian literature, and for lack of a better term fantasy (but "fantasy" used in the classical sense...more mythopoeia, not the more modern sense). In other words this isn't an exhaustive library list, but rather a books a "haven't read yet but want to"-list.

However, in addition to posting my list, I'm hoping that in the comments section I might hear back from some of you with what books you think I should add to my list and or what you think of any of the books on the list. Have you read some of them, did you like them, think they were terrible? Do they make you think of other books I should read?

There, I suppose that is verbose enough. Discuss :)

C.S. Lewis
The Pilgrim's Regress
The Allegory of Love
A Preface to Paradise
Lost Studies in Words
The Discarded Image
Letters to an American Lady
Letter to Malcolm

George MacDonald
Phantases
Lilith
The Light Princess
The Princess and the Goblin
The Princess and Curdie

G.K. Chesterton
The Everlasting Man
The Man Who Was Thursday
Orthodoxy
What's Wrong with the World

St. John of the Cross
Canticle and Dark Night of the Soul
Living Flame of Love

Herman Melville
Moby Dick

Tolstoy
War and Peace

Currently Reading

I just glanced over at the side bar and saw that it said I was still reading "Gilead". Yikes. Truth be told I finished "Gilead" about 2 days after Amon and I got back from Colorado. So much to do, so little time to do it. Updating the sidebar of the blog falls into that category of items reserved for ironing curtains and dusting the top of your book shelf; you know you should do it but somehow it always seems to not be done.

So SINCE "Gilead" I've read the Lemony Snickets books 1-5, part of "Lake Wobegon", bits and pieces of "The Dangerous Book for Boys", and have been brushing up on C.S. Lewis in preparation for the soon to be re-convening Inklings group. I'm currently reading Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughter House Five" as part of my ongoing attempt to read more of those English Lit. class/cultural classic books I some how missed out on. I while back I read "The Old Man and the Sea", and I've also read "Lord of the Flies" recently.

The book we'll be covering in Inklings this semester is "Surprised by Joy". It's Lewis's "autobiography" although I'd think today's literary critics would describe it as more of a memoir. It is certainly told with a point to make (how he became a Christian and what the motivation means for his literary aesthetic) and it only covers a portion of his life. I think it will be interesting to compare his attitudes and approach to life, literature, Christianity in "Surprised by Joy" (written relatively early in life) to one of the books we did last semester in Inklings "A Grief Observed".

Upcoming reads include something by Shakespeare (either a comedy or a history...who's to say), some Chesterton, probably re-read Phantases, some peruse the Annotated Hobbit, and An Acceptable Time, the other 8 Lemony Snicket books, and who knows what else.

Let me know your thoughts on any of the books I've mentioned...I'd love to hear.

Mike