mmel

[mmel]

12/5/19 currently reading

The Trail of the Serpent & Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.

Between the years of 1860 and 1910, M. E. Braddon wrote 80 novels!!!! They were considered “sensation novels” at the time. I read about her in Henry James’ biography. He respected her work because she was enormously prolific and popular. However, he and others criticized her for being too campy and sensational, appealing only to the lower physical desires of humans, targeting their shock and horror instead of a higher moral sense. 

The Trail of the Serpent was her first novel, written very quickly when she was only 24. I enjoyed it. It was so full of murder and death and dirt, sensational indeed!!! Her writing style in that novel is much more casual and colloquial than anything of Henry James. Lady Audley’s Secret is her most famous and loved work. The prose is much more mature and beautiful. 

These are the only two M. E. Braddon novels the Nashville library carries. I’ll go back to Henry James after this. I’m onto the 3rd out of 5 volumes of his short stories!

[mmel]

11/19/19 currently reading

all of Henry James’ short stories in chronological order

I figure I’ll get sick of this eventually but for now I’m sticking to it. Haven’t gotten bored yet! I’m hoping they’ll get better as I go along...most of them are available for free online which is great. Strange to think he wrote all this material before he wrote his first novel. I’ve read some of his best work and I enjoy reading his worst work as well. I don’t know why I like it so much. There’s so much to read and I’m spending so much time with one author. It’s just one of those things.

[mmel]

christiana snapped this picture of me while i was conversing with an italian about my upcoming move to france

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this had been the most played song on my record ever since its release. i’m very happy about that.

[mmel]

i made this lil record!!!

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[mmel]

11/6/19 currently reading

The Bostonians by Henry James. A novel about a strange friendship that develops between two women fighting for women’s rights in the 1870s. I am struck by how this guy can create such fascinating and convincing female characters

[mmel]

currently listening to this lecture series. especially love the first two — Leisure and Walking

[mmel]

10/31/19 future plans

november - save money. save money. read henry james. save money. december - save money january - trip to california: talk to mom, thomas, grandfather, lizzie about future plans february - save money. start to sell things I own. actions based on january conversations  march - trip to idaho. talk to dad and mary about future plans april - trip to florida may - july - birthright isreal trip  after that: question marks everywhere

[mmel]

10/31/19 currently reading

The Portrait of a Lady - Henry James (1881)

I read this novel last year and loved it.

Reading it again because

1. I loved it

2. I’m reading Henry James’ novels in chronological order, and having read the first 6, this is the 7th.

I identify a great deal with Isabel Archer. Considering her tragic ending, our resemblance is frightening. I read this book as a lesson.

I can be proud of the parts of myself that are like this vibrant, magical protagonist, but Henry James is trying to tell me something: If you’re like this and you’re not careful, this is how you’ll end up.

What is it in Isabel Archer that Henry James is warning me about?

What led to her tragic failure?

Is there something she could have done to prevent it? Is there something I can do to prevent my ending this way?

Similar questions came up when I read Roderick Hudson, James’ second novel, about a brilliant but naive artist who ends up killing himself in Switzerland.

[mmel]

books read in 2019

january

1.The Little Mermaid — Hans Christian Andersen (1837) (audio) 

2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — F. Scott Fitzgerald (1922) (audio)

3. Jungle River — Howard Pease (1938) 

4. Lolita — Vladimir Nabokov (1955) 

5. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence — Robert M. Pirsig (1974) 

6. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — Robert Louis Stevenson (1886) 

7. Crome Yellow — Aldous Huxley (1921) 

8. The Story of the Eye — George Bataille (1921) 

february

9. The Immoralist — Andre Gide (1902) 

10. 1984 — George Orwell (1949) (audio) (2nd time) 

11. The Catcher in the Rye — J.D. Salinger (1951) (audio) (2nd time) 

12. Animal Farm — George Orwell (1945) (audio) (2nd time) 

13. The Woodlanders — Thomas Hardy (1877) 

14. Descartes in 90 Minutes — Paul Strathern (1996) 

15. Jane Eyre — Charlotte Brontë (1847) 

march

16. Discourse on the Method (1637) (in Heffernan) & 16.5 The Search After Truth by the Light of Nature — René Descartes 

17. Bilingual “Discourse on the Method” & Essays — Descartes & George Heffernan (1994) 

18. Autobiography — John Stuart Mill (1873) 

19. Méditations — René Descartes (1641) 

20. Discourse on Method and Related Writings — René Descartes (Penguin Classics) incl. le monde et les règles 

21. Meno — Plato (385 BC) (audio) 

22. Crito — Plato (audio) 

23. Poetics — Aristotle (audio) 

24. The Apology — Plato (audio) 

25. Phaedo — Plato (audio) 

26. Five Dialogues — Plato (euthyphro, apology, crito, meno, phaedo) (2nd time except euthyphro) 

27. Ion - Plato 

28. The Art of Loving — Erich Fromm (1956) 

29. On Liberty — J.S. Mill (1859) 

april

30. A History of Knowledge — Charles Van Doren (1991) 

31. Why I am So Wise — Friedrich Nietzsche (Penguin abridged Ecce Homo) (1908) 

32. The Varieties of Religious Experience — William James (1902) 

33. Pragmatism — William James (1907) 

34. Candide — Voltaire (1759) 

35. Short stories by Voltaire — Zadig, Micromegas, The World as it Is, Memnon, Bababec, Scarmentados Travels, Plato’s Dream, Jesuit Berthier, Good Brahman, Jeannot and Colin, An Indian Adventure, Ingenuous, One-Eyed Porter, Memory’s Adventure, Chaplain Goudman (1747-1775) 

36. The Great Conversation — Robert M. Hutchins (1952) 

may

37. Aeschylus’ Oresteia Trilogy & Prometheus Bound (458 BC) — Laurel Classical Drama (1965) 

38. Sophocles’ Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes (~400 BC) — Laurel Classical Drama (1965) 

39. Euripides’ Medea, Hippolytus, Alcestis, The Bacchae (~430 BC) — Laurel Classical Drama (1965) 

40. Mythology — Edith Hamilton (1940) 

41. Erewhon — Samuel Butler (1872) 

42. The Iliad — Homer (850 BC) 

43. The Little Prince — Antoine de Saint Exupery (1943) 

44. Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound (2nd time), The Suppliants, Seven Against Thebes, The Persians (Penguin Classics) 

45. Teaching From the Balance Point — Edward Kreitman (Suzuki guide — 1998) 

june

46. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (2nd time), Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone (2nd time) (Penguin Classics) 

47. The Odyssey — Homer (850 BC) 

48. The Secret Garden — Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911) 

49. Coraline — Neil Gaiman (2002) 

50. The Lost Art of Reading — David Ulin (2010) 

51. Sophocles’ Ajax, Electra (2nd time), Women of Trachis, Philoctetes (2nd time) (Penguin Classics) 

52. The House of the Seven Gables — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851) 

53. The Awakening — Kate Chopin (1899) (audio) 

54. Straight is the Gate — André Gide (1924) 

55. Wuthering Heights — Emily Brontë (1847) 

56. Journey to the Center of the Earth — Jules Verne (1864) (audio) 

57. East of Eden — John Steinbeck (1952) 

58. Sons and Lovers — D.H. Lawrence (1913) 

59. Grapes of Wrath — John Steinbeck (1939) (audio) 

july 

60. Attached — Amir Levine (2010) (audio) 

61. The Prophet — Khalil Gibran (1923) (audio) 

62. The Four Agreements — Don Miguel Ruiz (1997) (audio) (2nd time) 

63. The Transparent Self — Sidney Jourard (1964) 

64. The Return of the Native — Thomas Hardy (1878) 

65. The Souls of Black Folk — W.E.B Du Bois (1903) (audio) 

66. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) (audio) 

67. The Call of the Wild — Jack London (1903) (audio) 

68. The Importance of Being Earnest — Oscar Wilde (1895) (audio) (2nd time) 

69. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz — L. Frank Baum (1900) (audio) 

70. The Picture of Dorian Gray — Oscar Wilde (1890) (audio) 

71. Justine — Marquis de Sade (1791) 

72. Love and Will — Rollo May (1969) 

73. Nine Stories — J.D. Salinger (1953) 

74. The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution — P.D. Ouspensky (1950) 

75. The Good Earth — Pearl S. Buck (1931) (audio) 

76. The Symposium — Plato (385-370 BC) 

77. Children’s Stories by Oscar Wilde (1888) 

august 

78. Plato’s Apology (3rd time), Crito (3rd time) ; Laches, Gorgias (audio) 

79. Plato’s Greater Hippias, Phaedrus (audio) 

80. The Scarlet Letter — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850) (audio) 

81. Plato’s Phaedo (3rd time), Euthyphro (3rd time); Charmides 

82. Eyeless in Gaza — Aldous Huxley (1936) 

83. A Little History of the World — E. F. Gombrich (1936) (audio) 

84. Waiting for Godot — Samuel Beckett (1953) 

85. Anna Karenina — Leo Tolstoy (1877) 

86. A Little History of Literature — John Southerland (2013) 

87. Sartor Resartus — Thomas Carlyle (1831) 

88. Macbeth — Shakespeare (1606) 

september

89. An Apology for Idlers — Robert Louis Stevenson (Penguin Great Ideas collection of essays) (1877) 

90. The Cloister and the Hearth — Charles Reade (1861) 

91. How to Read a Book — Mortimer Adler & Charles van Doren (1972) (audio) 

92. Robinson Crusoe — Daniel Defoe (1719) (audio) 

93. The Story of Art — E. H. Gombrich (1950) 

94. The Moonstone — Wilkie Collins (1868) 

95. Emma — Jane Austen (1816) 

96. Daughters & Mothers: Mothers & Daughters — Signe Hammer (1975) 

97. Looking Back — Edward Bellamy (1888) 

98. Franny & Zooey — J.D. Salinger (1955) 

99. Persuasion — Jane Austen (1817)

100. Sense and Sensibility — Jane Austen (1811) (audio and 2011 Annotated edition!!!) 

101. The Aspern Papers — Henry James (1888) 

october

102. Death of a Salesman — Arthur Miller (1949) 

103. Brave New World — Aldous Huxley (1932) (audio) 

104. Dhalgren — Samuel R. Delaney (1974) 

105. Mansfield Park — Jane Austen (1814) 

106. Northanger Abbey — Jane Austen (1817) 

107. Rebecca — Daphne Du Maurier (1938) 

108. Pride and Prejudice — Jane Austen (1813) (second time) (audio) 

109. The American — Henry James (1877) 

110. Washington Square — Henry James (1880) 

111. The Europeans — Henry James (1878) 

112. Watch and Ward — Henry James (1871) 

113. Roderick Hudson — Henry James (1875) 

114. Confidence — Henry James (1879)

115. Portrait of a Lady — Henry James (1881)

116. I’ll Never Be French — Marc Greenside (2008)

117. The Bostonians -- Henry James (1886)

118. Henry James short stories Vol. I 1864-1874 -- A Tragedy of Error; The Story of a Year; A Landscape Painter; A Day of Days; My Friend Bingham; Poor Richard, The Story of a Masterpiece; The Romance of Certain Old Clothes; A Most Extraordinary Case; A Problem; De Grey: A Romance; Osbourne’s Revenge, A Light Man, Gabrielle de Bergerac, Travelling Companions, A Passionate Pilgrim, At Isella, Master Eustace, Guest’s Confession, The Madonna of the Future, The Sweetheart of M. Briseaux, The Last of the Valerii, Madame de Mauves, Adina

119. The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul -- Douglas Adams (1988)

120. French Children Don’t Throw Food -- Pamela Druckerman (2012)

121. Au Contraire: Figuring Out the French -- Asselin & Mastron (2001)

122. Henry James: The Young Master -- Sheldon Novick (1997)

123. Henry James short stories Vol. II 1875-1884 Professor Fargo, Eugene Pickering, Benvolio, Crawford’s Consistency, The Ghostly Rental, Four Meetings, Rose-Agathe, Daisy Miller, Longstaff’s Marriage, An International Episode, The Pension Beaurepas, The Diary of a Man of Fifty, A Bundle of Letters, The Point of View, The Siege of London, The Impressions of a Cousin, Lady Barberina, The Author of Beltraffio, Pandora

124. The Trail of the Serpent -- Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1860)

125. The Silent Language -- Edward T. Hall (1959)

[mmel]

currently in search of:

a french tutor

a person who knows a lot about paris who can guide me through the city