Tag – Lit. You’re It.

I got tagged by Alix in Wunderland ~ a lovely thought from her.
Thanks, Alix!


~You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451...
which book do you want to be?
I've always worried that I could never memorize word for word any book. But now, I think that maybe if I were limited to five books in my life - to sneaking them into my life like rare and savory lovers back in the day - I just might be able to memorize them. And the parts I didn't remember? Well, you know I'd make them better. So here they are:
-Paradise Lost by Milton: the best book I ever read for a college class. I adored this book; cried over it. Canonical texts rarely did that to me.
-The Time Travel Series by Madeliene L’Engle. This includes: A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, An Acceptable Time. My favorites as a young person. My best friends from way back.
-And finally, since I won’t cop out and say one of Norton’s Anthologies, Good Poems, edited by Garison Kealor. Maybe it’s just the Midwesterner coming out in me, but I love this collection. The whole idea that began this book – reading poetry on the radio that regular people could (and should be able to) relate to – inspires and rivets me. Some of my favorite poets and poems can be found here, not a few that I didn’t know before I bought this book. It’s lovely.
-Ok, and one other adolescent lit series I couldn’t live without knowing: The Dark Is Rising Series, by Susan Cooper. I’d MAKE myself memorize all of them. I swear.
-Hell, I’ll just make it five for a nice number. How about Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Yeah, that’s perfect.


~Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
I'm going to take this to mean a literary fictional character, rather than include anyone from film. As I said earlier in Wunderland, I have always been SUCH A DORK

that there are so many old crushes I won’t be able to list them all.
-Laurie in Little Women began the whole thing. I was so angry when Jo refused him that I refused to finish reading the book (for a few weeks at least) [5th grade].
-Mac from Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom, also by Louisa May Alcott (I imagine few of you have read these – they are SO old fashioned). He’s bookish, nerdy, super-intelligent and ends up writing poetry [7th grade]. Do I really need to explain?
-I had a HUGE crush on Adam Wellington from A Ring of Endless Light. He was studying to be a marine-biologist and took the protagonist out to swim with dolphins and look at the stars. This boy, I was sure, was my destiny [9th grade].
-Barney Snaith from The Blue Castle. He’s perceived as a rougue (like Logan in X-Men: mmmmhhhmmm) and very misunderstood. All through my lonely (and not so lonely) highschool years, I dreampt of marrying this nature-loving, book-writing man. [Actually, L.M. Montgomery was very good at this – so many of her heroinnes’ lovers I desperately wanted to find in life – Gilbert Blythe, Teddy Kent – all of them intelligent, sensitive, trustworthy, sensual. On reflection I think Montgomery helped shape my ideal of manhood. Nerdy. I know.]
Finally, Griffin, from Griffin and Sabine. It’s not so much that I had a crush on him as it is that my sleeping-dreams of people I did not know awake became so much more frequent and intense – and the same people would continually reappear in my dreams. Like blogworld, except asleep and with less drama and more... love. Are they real? Does it matter as long as I’m learning from them or from the experience? I love the concept behind the little gems in this series.


~The last book you bought is...?
The Foxfire Book #1 (a gift from JB). I am sooooooooo excited about reading all of this one (and the rest of them). I love Appalachian Lit.

~What are you currently reading?
...other than Foxfire and random poetry from day to day:
-Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
-The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
-Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (I have to read it in order to call myself an English teacher)
-In the Cherry Tree by Dan Pope
-futureproof by N. Frank Daniels (though it breaks my fucking heart)
-Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse (again, feels like I ought to have read this by now)
-Literary Trips edited by Victoria Brooks
-The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss
Not to mention sooooooooo many others – probably six or seven more that I have begun since Christmas and sincerely hope to finish soon. As soon as I have a few weeks of summer I will be so much more informed. Or at least, more fulfilled.


~Five books you’d take on a deserted island:
1 The Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary – with Bible thin paper amounting to 2230 pages. (This has always been my first choice for the whole deserted island scenario.)
2 The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare – with notes and everything the bard ever wrote, and some of the stuff they just attribute to him (I’m WAY behind on my Shakespeare).
3 Some kind of huge tome on linguistics and languages of all sorts – from Gaelic to Japanese to Cherokee, from Welsh to Ebu to Portuguese; I want words.
4 Ok, now I’m going to cheat and say the most recent Norton’s Anthology of Poetry.
5 I have to cheat again and steal Alix’s idea: A photo album of all my loved ones. This would also include PLENTY of space to write in for my own mental health on said deserted island.


~What 3 people will you tag, and why?
With Blogs:
JB because he’s not around to ask in person and I think you all should know. Plus, I'll use any excuse to blog about him ;).
Lefty because he just seems like he’d have some interesting things to say (not that I necessarily think he’ll reply until the new blog is up and running).
Skrambled because I want to know what kind of stuff he reads.
Without Blogs:
Pilgrim, because I should already know his answers to these, and it might get him thinking about the real stuff again.
Carrie, because we are destined to live connected lives.
Bobbins and Thread, because I miss her.

Please, comment on the ones you like and dislike (oh you lovely critics). Ask me about them. Tell me YOUR favorites. Tell me if you post this quiz. I LOVE to talk about books. Seriously. [Did I mention my utter dorkiness?] Also, bonus points to name the sculptures/sculptor and bonus bonus points to name my desert island of choice pictured above. Even if you don’t have that much to say, just put the quiz on your blog. It’ll make you look smart.


And now, a totally off-subject Poem by Emily Dickinson, origianally discussed with JB about how apt a poem can be, even 150 years later. Brought to mind again by Skrambled Ramblings, and his Dickinson poem. I have altered it by one letter only, for blogworld (oh yes, My Pretties, I have been contemplating you):

288
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you - Nobody - Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know!

How dreary - to be - Somebody!
How public - like a Frog -
To tell one's name - the livelong June -
To an admiring B[l]og!