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landevale

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About landevale

  • Birthday 01/10/1982

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  1. I actually don't agree with using a cut-off date to designate what's a classic and what isn't. Besides the obvious problems with the fuzziness of dates, I also just think that there is more to it than that. There are works from before WWI which are still read on occasion but are probably not considered classics; for example, I recently read a poem called "To His Royall Highness," which was written during the Renaissance but which I doubt if anyone would consider a classic. In fact, I only read it because it had value as a historical artefact, rather than as a piece of literature. That, I think, is an important part of what makes a classic a classic: it has to have "literary value." That takes time to get established, of course, which means that it's odd to talk about a contemporary classic, but I don't think that age is the only factor. To use the language of logic, age is necessary but not sufficient to define what a classic is. I'm sorry to sound cynical, but I think a classic is really just what people decide it to be. Certain books get labelled that way, and as times change, other books get added to the list. The canon in the past used to be a lot more restrictive than it is now, but I still think that it is surprisingly arbitrary even now. When you think about the definition of classics as those books which have "withstood the test of time," it makes me wonder why it is that some books have while others haven't. The cynic in me wants to suggest that sometimes it is more a factor of pedagogy, elitist attitudes, and what have you, rather than an actual "universal" quality of the writing itself. Sorry if this is an unwelcome opinion... I also realize that I could have maybe phrased things a bit nicer too. Oh well!
  2. Same here. New foods are scary! My own list of untouched (and untouchable!) food includes almost everything that comes out of the sea. Icky! Also, any of the "gross" foods like internal organs of animals, limbs of frogs, tongues of cows, etc. I saw chicken feet in the grocery store the other day. That's just gross. (I really hope that was a dream and not reality...)
  3. I read the first two volumes of Fruits Basket this week. It's a manga series about a girl named Tohru who comes to live with a few boys with a strange family secret. This is my first time reading manga, and I'm really liking it so far! One of my goals for the year was to expose myself to the world of graphic novels and manga, and based on this first excursion, I'm glad I made this goal for myself! Fruits Basket is definitely written for a younger audience as its morals tend to be spelled out rather explicitly by the characters. It is cute, though, and the characters are loveable (at least to me!). My favorite character so far is Kyo, the quick tempered outcast rival of Yuki. His character is so dynamic and dimensional that I always enjoy when he makes an appearance. I'm heading to the library tomorrow to get the next couple of volumes.
  4. I annotate heavily when I'm reading for school, but it's nice not doing that when I read for pleasure. Even then, though, I passagse that I find especially moving or interesting. It is my intention (although it doesn't always happen!) that I will later come back to these passages and copy them into a Commonplace Book of sorts. (It's actually just a computer file, but I got the idea after learning about commonplace books in the early modern period, so that's how I think of it. )
  5. Hmmm... interesting. I'd say: 1. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 2. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky 3. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 4. Hamlet by Shakespeare 5. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (Uber-classics all, and nicely spread through time and space, if I do say so myself. )
  6. You are very welcome :) Its more of a case, refusing to give up until I find a picture I like :lol: but thank you :)

     

    Glad you like the pictures:)

  7. Hi. :) I'm doing fantastic, how about you? Thanks for the pictures. You have a great eye! :)

  8. Hello, how are you? I got it from google but I can't remember what site, I think I typed 'anime reading books' :)

  9. Hey :) I was just wondering what your avatar is from. It's so pretty!

  10. Oh wow, that's a great idea! Sometimes what I like to do is play an audiobook and read the book on paper at the same time. It forces me to keep going that way--very useful for difficult reads. (I used to do that a lot for things written in Middle English!) I think this print/audio combination would work really well with plays. I'll have to try that sometime.
  11. Thanks, Chimera! That helps a lot, since I really am completely out of my element on this. I'll add Blankets to my list and see if I can track it down somewhere.
  12. I think I go through stages... When I was a kid, I think I read because I enjoyed spending time with the characters and living vicariously through them. Later, I read a lot of classics so that I would be well-rounded as a student. In college, I read as a way to relax and take my mind off my studies. In graduate school, I read to survive. And now... I'm trying to read to learn about myself and life in general. I'm not happy with how my schooling had made my reading mostly an intellectual exercise, so I'm trying to put more soul into it now. I am reading so that I can relate to the plot, characters, atmosphere, etc on a deeply personal level, if possible. And with Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, which I am currently reading (and loving!), I find it very easy to do this. Just my own two cents to throw into the mix!
  13. One thing that I've done that has made play reading more interesting is to gather together a group of friends and read the play out loud together. My friends and I did this once in high school, and it was surprisingly fun. We assigned roles for the more prominent characters, and then took on the minor characters as they came. And the good thing about plays is that given the nature of the medium, they can all be read aloud in one evening! Otherwise, you might try watching a production before or after reading the play, since that will help with imagining facial expressions and stage directions, etc.
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