...by moonlight?

I have to admit, the name of this blog is clever in a silly sort of way. Even sillier, though, is the fact that it has taken me this long to work out the pun. I would keep looking at the address every time I came here, thinking, "Huh, illread. Makes me think of something, but..." And then I would get distracted by some other shiny object, lending proof to my sneaking suspicion that my attention span is... I'm sorry, what were we talking about again?

Here's what I like: "Illread" is both a pledge, as in "I'll read," that is, I shall or I will read, the convention of the URL forcing out the apostrophe, and a confession, as in I (to take the most blatantly obvious example) am "ill read."

But I think, too, that this last is also a charming reference to A Midsummer Night's Dream wherein Oberon greets Titania at the first on-stage crossing of their paths with the line, "Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania." That is, this is a crafty, subtle, underhanded challenge, calling us out to read or risk losing some form of (A) handy child, (B) fairy kingdom, (C) pride, (D) magical love-potion, (E) all of the above in the form of our imaginations, allegorized.

Then, too, you have homophony, such that "illread" becomes "isle red," possibly a reference to the ill-fated Red Island of Rovinj, Croatia. How this last works seems slightly beyond my modest powers of interpretation, but I would imagine it has something to do with the rocks upon which the stormy waters of time will toss us should we fail to keep ourselves afloat with the aid of good, solid, surely-everyone-has-read/watched/listened-to-this-except-me culture.

Any others?

It's Not Just The Academy

So, Mr M Scorcese finally recognised by the peeps in Hollywood and given an Oscar. Huzzah! It is, of course, an outrage that he has never won one before. It is, however, just of much an outrage that I rage outishly about this, and yet really haven't seen that many of his movies.

So, throat cleared, here it is. The real list of shame.

Of his movies, I have seen (in chronological order): Mean Streets; Taxi Driver; New York, New York; Bad (by Michael Jackson - seriously, that was Scorcese); The Departed.

I have, therefore, not seen: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore; Raging Bull; The King of Comedy; The Color of Money (seriously though - who wants to? Paul Newman is not enough... Marty, Marty, what were you thinking?); The Last Temptation of Christ (this was him? Really? What did seminary school have to say about it?); Goodfellas; Cape Fear; The Age of Innocence; Casino; Kundun; Bringing Out The Dead; Gangs of New York; or, The Aviator.

Oops. Maybe I should start this whole netflix business and start remedying all this.

But remember: I have seen Bad.

Mandamus

We have made a start. I am a great believer in starts (so says Joey the Lips Fagan in The Commitments).

So the plan is to push forwards... no slacking (ha!). Despite having work and children and theses to write, I feel we should choose something none of us have read... and force ourselves to do it and discuss it. If I've got this wrong and you've read the suggestions, let me know...

What about Madame Bovary? I've read it, but I don't think I really got it at the time, and as the reviewer in the Observer said,

You could summarise this as a story of adultery in provincial France, and miss the point entirely.

For something which is such a strong portrayal of a woman's situation, how did I not get it? Dunno, really, but maybe we should try this?

Other suggestions:

If you've not done Les Liaisons Dangereuses I really think it's a truly wonderful book... Windup Bird and Stk, that appears to be missing from your lists...

Or, for something fun and a little less heavy, how about Three Men In A Boat?

Answers on a message post please...

Little Lola

Interestingly, we all seem to have read Lolita. I was utterly mesmerised by it. I think what people find troubling about the novel (probably those who haven't read it) is its strength: the ambiguity with which we view Humbert. He is not obviously a monster, despite doing often monstrous things. It's on every list of the greatest books of all time that you can find, it seems. The Guardian's 50 books you must read describes it thus:

With its unreliable narrator and ambiguous tone, Lolita avoids drawing any definite moral conclusions from this notorious story of ageing academic Humbert Humbert and his obsessive confusion of lust and love for a 12-year-old girl. It is Nabokov's playful prose, however, that is the most bewitching aspect of this novel.

It is a truly remarkable work. That it was written in a second language makes it all the more incredible - to have such a command of a tongue that is not your own... my envy is palpable.

Starter for 100

This list of the hundred greatest novels of all time (ever! really!) was posted by the Observer late in 2003.

Of them, I have read twenty-seven.

(If you're interested, by "read" I mean completed them, not just bought them second-hand and left them on the shelf; not started and left with a bookmark about thirty pages in, never to be touched again)

(if you're further interested, the twenty-seven I have read are: 8, 9, 10, 16, 22, 23, 24, 34, 40, 43, 48, 56, 59, 61, 63, 64, 66, 69, 72, 73, 74, 76, 85, 87, 88, 96, 98)

Ill-read by Moonlight

Once upon a time, there was a woman who really did consider herself an erudite, educated person. She had studied Latin. She not only liked subtitled movies, but in many ways, preferred them. She lapped up the classics.

Or did she?

Despite all my best intentions, this is a blog dedicated to my attempts to redress the gaping holes in my cultural knowledge. Therefore it will be, in character:

1) Confessional: It takes a big step of courage and a loss of face to admit which books you have never made it through, particularly when your bravado has sort of... implicated that you have indeed read that book, seen that movie. There's no shame here precisely because we ALL have something to be embarrassed about.

2) Sporadic: One of the reasons why I don't read the classics as often as I should, but instead reach for Dalziel & Pascoe (a vastly superior detective series) is that it takes a long time to read them. They are NOT light reading. Not that there's owt wrong with that--in fact, there's a great deal to be said for simply reading for pleasure, learning, and enjoyment, and this website is not to disparage that.

3) Critical: Why are "the classics" given that status? Is it really going to shape my life and thinking in a more profound way to read Dostoyevsky than Harry Potter? I met someone once, in Madrid, who really didn't understand why you would waste time on HP when you could spend your life trying to make it through the great canons of literature. I personally, generally, do not agree (and nor do others). Instead, I think reading is about joy and education, and you can get both from all sorts of books. However, I think my critical eye and reading skills are underdeveloped, and that they are slowly improving given how important they are for my chosen field of work. Therefore I don't want to read them simply to have read them, but also to discern why they have such an established place in the pantheon of "books you should have read."*

4) Amateur: This blog is about all sorts of "classics". It is also to be written by and for all sorts of folks. While my field is not traditionally part of the literary field, it is immensely word-intensive, focusing on meaning, terms of art; what is meant and understood by a phrase, and what a reasonable person could understand by it. However, I have no technical training, unlike many of the friends who I hope to be involved with the project. The trick is to get over the fear of not-really-knowing-what-you're-talking-about and immerse yourself in the words and your reactions to them... and pick up some tools for future readings / viewings / listenings. Plus, we're all equally screwed when it comes to sound and screen... ha!

All aboard! Full steam ahead this weekend and onwards...

*While I appear to be referring to books all the time, this illiterate blog will deal with albums we should know and love, movies we should have seen and swooned at... however, it's just easier to deal with one medium for this statement of purpose, as it were.