I, for one, find most television boring (there are, of course, delightful exceptions). For me, most television is like Pakistani restaurant in my neighborhood - very cheap prices, but the food covers the plates only milimeters thick. It is at a faster pace, but by the time I’m interested, they have moved on.
While I was not impressed by Pride and Predjudice, one of my faviorite books is Anna Karenina, so I certainly have no prejudice against the 19th century (I also like Nathaniel Hawthorne). Anna Karenina is slow and long, but I agree with the statement that Tolstoy is more like real life than fiction. One watches the characters not so much as part of a plot, but as one would watch two peers who have started dating who one suspects might be incompatible, and each day look to see which direction their relationship is taking. Also, if Tolstoy spends time describing a coat, then there is something important about the coat.
I just finished The DaVinci Code…it wasn’t too bad. Nothing to write home about…I bet it’ll make a great movie (especially since Ron Howard is directing) All in all it was pretty good. Of course, I can see why the Catholic Church is a little upset about it, and the “scholarship” that he uses to make his points are more often than not completely shoddy…but it is a work of fiction, and it is portayed as nothing but that. I thought his Hebrew transliteration was especially funny…he translated an English H in to a Hebrew Waw!!! Pretty funny if you ask me, of course that’s the only way he could make the word he wanted in English, so he just did it that way! I’m back into Aasimov’s Foundation Trilogy at the moment…truly sublime!
Thanks, Adelheid. Your opinion has been usefull (the book is not in my wishing list anymore ). I will read the Bettini’s book that should also be available from my local library.
Regards
Misopogon
I must confess, I started Middlemarch when it was a set text for a literature course, but I didn’t finish it. Then my mother, my sister-in-law and I started watching costume drama one evening a week, and we watched Middlemarch. With the characters from the series in my head, I started reading again, and finished it in a jiffy. Now I’ve got to watch Tom Jones, there’s another bookmark halfway a book staring reproachfully at me…(and another set text I never finished).
I haven’t read the DaVinci code, only Demons and Angles, which many people told me was better than the DaVinci code. I enjoyed it as light reading, but I could tell from reading that book, that his books are probably good reads, but nothing out of the ordinary, as in extra special or at all thought-provoking.
I should read the DaVinci code soon though, so that i can join in on the debates on it
there are only two books that i was supposed to have read at school that I didn’t finish: Death in Venice and Goethe’s Faust part II - and I know that I will never pick those books up again… never ever…
It is based heavily on a book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail written in the 80’s. It’s a nonfiction book that tells the story of how the authors slowly came to learn about different facts and theories related to the story of the holy grail but with implications back to the time of the crucifixion. As this story progresses even the authors are very cautious to repeatedly state that these are only theories and that the evidence is rather thin. It’s a great read, though, especially if you are interested in the time period of the crusades.
I just found another book which might be of interest to people studying Latin - it’s “The Romans and their Gods” by R M Ogilvie, and it gives a lot of facts about the religious beliefs of the Romans. I now find that some of those more puzzling passages in Latin poetry etc are now much easier to understand!
The discussion about “The DaVinci Code” has reminded me about all those books that Eric von Danikan (not sure of spelling) wrote about 20-30 years ago with “evidence” that spacemen built the pyramids and so on. His research was very dubious to say the least, but it was surprising how many people believed the whole thing! The books certainly gave a lot of real scientists and historians a good laugh if nothing else!
If not real, they gave me a good time at least. I remember reading one of his books with a lot of interest. Maybe not aliens, but still is curious to know of those weird things that are scatered all over the planet.
I don’t really think so. As far as Holy Blood Holy Grail goes…one of the authors was on a TV show talking about his book and the “factual” evidence for what he was reporting. I wasn’t convinced…not only did the man not come off as a scholar at all (he had such a horrible comb-over it was comical) he left me with the impression that he was quite off his rocker. I just don’t buy the story…not only that, but there isn’t a stitch of solid historical evidence to support his claims. There are a few gnostic gospels (branded by the early church as heresey), that contain some things that could be suggested as support, but none of it blatantly so. I pulled out my Nag Hammadi Library and browsed through the Gospel of Mary, and didn’t find it to reveal anything like Brown or others are suggesting. What there is, is a bunch of “hidden” stuff that you must be “enlightened” to understand…but that is just how gnostic writing is, that’s just what gnosticicm is all about…at least in the early first few centuries that the gnostic cult was flourishing…but now I’m rambling on…sorry
For me…there isn’t much to debate, other than the fact that it was a pretty good book…it kept my interest, and suprised me a couple of times. All the rest of the “controversy” I feel is quite silly. Evangelicals (a group I bemoaningly include myself in) get their panties in a bunch over the silliest things
I just read a short book called The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky. One of my friends said the main character was a lot like me. Besides the drug usage and alcohol usage, she was pretty close.
). I will read the Bettini’s book that should also be available from my local library.
