Planning ahead

[larryhammer]

Because we'll be backpacking it in Iceland next month, I want to limit myself to two small books -- a disposable novel and a chewy volume of verse. By "small" I mean a mass-market-sized volume that fits in a pants pocket. As usual with a deadline far off, I'm waffling.

[Poll #983070]

FWIW, Dante and Ovid would be rereads, Milton yet another attempt, and the Longfellow partially read.

---L.

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

Iceland would be an interesting place to read a collection of stories about transformations of Ovid's sort.

On the other hand, you really do need to read Paradise Lost.

On the third (alien?) hand, think hard about whether you want to be trapped with Milton and only Milton for two weeks.

[janni.livejournal.com]

On the fourth hand, Iceland is a highly literate country, whose bookstores stay open until midnight. You can get additional books there.

[larryhammer]

That's my out, if I take PL. I've yet to read more than 200 lines straight.

---L.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

If you haven't found Paradise Lost engrossing at home, it will not be a good friend in adversity. Even though it's soon to be a major motion picture. A thick, diverse anthology of mixed verse (survey) might provide better fodder to match mood and inclination.

Have you read any of Torgny Lindgren's novels? They'd be good to read in Iceland, especially Light. Although it's set in Sweden. Perhaps E. R. Eddison?

The Pope's Rhinocerous is strongly disrecommended; I slogged through it because it was all there was on the Kong Harald.

[larryhammer]

That's why I often travel with one of my two small anthologies (Penguin & Oxford) of narrative verse, actually -- the diversity. But I've been in crunching through several large poems lately, and I suspect I'll still be in that mood.

I'm considering Eddison. Possibly Fish Dinner in Memison, or if I can find it, Styrbiorn the Strong. *notes Torgny Lindgren*

---L.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I've never read more than excerpts of Paradise Lost, but it would be so cool to have read the whole thing. Think of the bragging rights...

[larryhammer]

I'm married to a woman who took a semester course on Milton. She'd still have bragging rights over me.

---L.

[palomapus.livejournal.com]

Isn't that what you get for marrying her formidable coolness? :)

[larryhammer]

Yup, he said smugly.

---L.