Catching Up

I read quite a bit.  Not as much as I used to, what with poor eyesight, knees and a hip that ache if I sit more than 15 minutes, and a multitude of distractions which I no longer seem able to block out.  Still, I do read as much as I can.  In my callow youth I felt like every book I started I needed to finish, no matter how hard or boring.  I’m not sure why I felt that way, but I did.  But since I’ve retired, I’ve let that attitude go, and now I read as long as I’m interested, and then I stop.  But sometimes, in recent years, I’ve stopped reading something I was actually enjoying but put aside for something else—and then haven’t gone back to the book.  It’s time I did some catching up, so I’m resolved to finish some important books that I stopped mid-book for some reason I no longer remember.  Here are the main ones on my list:

Moby Dick I read in college (prior to 1971) and recently decided to read again.  I stopped about halfway through to read something else, probably easier.  It’s time now to finish that sucker off.  And having read it before isn’t an excuse.

Ulysses, by James Joyce, is a famously difficult work.  I was reading it in conjunction with a Teaching Company DVD course on the book.  I’ve not read this one before, and it’s considered a major masterpiece of English literature, so I definitely need to go back and finish it.  Besides, some close friends have read it and, while we’re not in a race, I want to keep up with them.  So, after Moby Dick, it’s back to Ulysses.

The Iliad I’ve read many times, taught once, and studied recently in my four-year Basic Program for Liberal Education for Adults at the University of Chicago.  But after reading Why Homer Matters, by Adam Nicolson, I felt I wanted to read The Iliad yet again.  And about halfway through I got distracted by something, no doubt lighter and less . . . classical.  Alexander McCall Smith?  I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.  But I love The Iliad, and it is certainly worthy of another read.  So that’s number three on my catch up list.

Number 4 is indeed exceedingly difficult: all seven volumes of In Search of Lost Time (until recently usually called, somewhat inaccurately, Remembrance of Things Past).  This famously tough read by Marcel Proust has long been on my list to read; in fact, I’ve read the first two volumes already, some years ago.  And then twice (!) I got about a third of the way through volume three and gave up.  At least I’m not alone there: a little research and I found out a lot of people bog down in volume three.  At least that’s what I want to believe.  But I’m not getting any younger, so if I’m ever going to read all of In Search of Lost Time, I shouldn’t tarry too long.  Except it’s been so long since I read Swan’s Way and Within a Budding Grove that I’m going to have to start the whole process over again—accompanied by some coffee and madeleines: read Swan’s Way to understand about the madeleines!

There are other classics I need and want to read (Emma and The Prelude, for example), but that’s a different category.  And then there are some classics I will never read (Finnegan’s Wake is one).  But the four just listed I started and didn’t finish.  It’s time to bring those books to a close.  I’ll keep you posted on how I do!