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Jul. 11th, 2020 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee341.
Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero by Charles Sprawson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a vexing book. Its subject matter is deeply interesting, and I very much appreciate that Sprawson seems to have scoured 19th-century literature and letters for all mentions of swimming (paying particular attention to the Romantic poets); I also really enjoy all the descriptions of Greco-Roman baths.
But it's written as if entirely for himself with few transitions between quotations and with a kind of stream of consciousness leaping from topic to topic. It does that thing that 19th century and early 20th scholarship does where quotes are put in quote marks but not cited in any way and everyone is referred to by last name with no context or identifying details which is fine if the last name is Byron and not so much if the last name is Borrow. It ends abruptly. It's also just weird in places; for example, at several points Sprawson uses the word autistic to describe a Romantic poet or two and he seems to be using it to be mean entirely self-absorbed rather than to indicate he thinks they were autistic in our modern clinical sense of the word, but when I did a quick google search of autistic, he seems to be using an earlier meaning in which autism denoted a condition in which fantasy predominates over reality, but it's still an offensive choice to make when that is not what autism means today.
Those caveats aside, I really did enjoy reading the book. It made me long to swim. I love the way that it dovetails nicely with all the reading/researching I'm doing for my class this fall on 19th century British poetry and prose.
View all my reviews
A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is absolutely delightful.
I know I've seen multiple versions of this novella (shout-out to Mickey's Christmas Carol!), but I'm not sure I ever read it. If I did, it was ages and ages ago.
Since I am familiar with the story, the only thing that surprised me is how funny it is. Dickens is extremely witty.
View all my reviews
2. I am having a lot of fun putting together my 19th-century British poetry and prose class. I think it's going to work really well. We're going to read North and South (Gaskell), Syrlin (Ouida), Man and Wife (Collins), A Christmas Carol (Dickens), lots of non-fiction prose essays (Arnold, Carlyle, Ruskin, Ouida again, etc.), and much less poetry, but *shrugs*.
3. I am also enjoying using up old, almost-done notebooks and pens and tossing their carcasses. So satisfying. I think I used up three or four pens in this last week. Glorious!
4. I am trying to do daily journalling that is different from my regular journalling. Usually I write in my private diary to vent or process emotions. So it's very therapeutic but not all that great reading. I want to start keeping a different kind of journal that is not about whining about my life LOL, but I'm having trouble finding good prompts. So many of the prompt lists I see seem geared toward the kind of introspection I'm trying to avoid (questions like "What's holding you back from following your dreams?" or "What three things would you like to change about yourself?").
Anybody have recs for interesting journal prompts? I don't mind if they're introspective; I just don't want the kind that seem to be focused on working through emotions or processing things you don't like about yourself. I'm not really wanting to use this journal to write poetry or fiction, but prompts that are geared toward memoir or creative non-fiction would probably work, too.
Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero by Charles SprawsonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a vexing book. Its subject matter is deeply interesting, and I very much appreciate that Sprawson seems to have scoured 19th-century literature and letters for all mentions of swimming (paying particular attention to the Romantic poets); I also really enjoy all the descriptions of Greco-Roman baths.
But it's written as if entirely for himself with few transitions between quotations and with a kind of stream of consciousness leaping from topic to topic. It does that thing that 19th century and early 20th scholarship does where quotes are put in quote marks but not cited in any way and everyone is referred to by last name with no context or identifying details which is fine if the last name is Byron and not so much if the last name is Borrow. It ends abruptly. It's also just weird in places; for example, at several points Sprawson uses the word autistic to describe a Romantic poet or two and he seems to be using it to be mean entirely self-absorbed rather than to indicate he thinks they were autistic in our modern clinical sense of the word, but when I did a quick google search of autistic, he seems to be using an earlier meaning in which autism denoted a condition in which fantasy predominates over reality, but it's still an offensive choice to make when that is not what autism means today.
Those caveats aside, I really did enjoy reading the book. It made me long to swim. I love the way that it dovetails nicely with all the reading/researching I'm doing for my class this fall on 19th century British poetry and prose.
View all my reviews
A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles DickensMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is absolutely delightful.
I know I've seen multiple versions of this novella (shout-out to Mickey's Christmas Carol!), but I'm not sure I ever read it. If I did, it was ages and ages ago.
Since I am familiar with the story, the only thing that surprised me is how funny it is. Dickens is extremely witty.
View all my reviews
2. I am having a lot of fun putting together my 19th-century British poetry and prose class. I think it's going to work really well. We're going to read North and South (Gaskell), Syrlin (Ouida), Man and Wife (Collins), A Christmas Carol (Dickens), lots of non-fiction prose essays (Arnold, Carlyle, Ruskin, Ouida again, etc.), and much less poetry, but *shrugs*.
3. I am also enjoying using up old, almost-done notebooks and pens and tossing their carcasses. So satisfying. I think I used up three or four pens in this last week. Glorious!
4. I am trying to do daily journalling that is different from my regular journalling. Usually I write in my private diary to vent or process emotions. So it's very therapeutic but not all that great reading. I want to start keeping a different kind of journal that is not about whining about my life LOL, but I'm having trouble finding good prompts. So many of the prompt lists I see seem geared toward the kind of introspection I'm trying to avoid (questions like "What's holding you back from following your dreams?" or "What three things would you like to change about yourself?").
Anybody have recs for interesting journal prompts? I don't mind if they're introspective; I just don't want the kind that seem to be focused on working through emotions or processing things you don't like about yourself. I'm not really wanting to use this journal to write poetry or fiction, but prompts that are geared toward memoir or creative non-fiction would probably work, too.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 02:26 pm (UTC)<3