I've developed an odd ambition to read every novel that was made into a Classics Illustrated comic book. Issue #1 of Classics Illustrated is Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, which I read about a decade ago. (It's amazing how villainess Milady takes over the story in the second half.) The second issue is Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, and I picked it up yesterday at Lillian Smith library.
It's a bit slow so far, with lots and lots of visual description: I'm glad I've read the comic. It occurred to me to read into the novel's Norman-Saxon conflict a subtext of the emerging class tensions in Regency Britain. Cedric the Franklin seems to represent the upper-middle class, the backbone of the modern British social order. Of course, the squirearchy of the antebellum American South took Ivanhoe to heart and made the Normans their role model, which is odd because Scott's Normans are basically jerks.
It's a bit slow so far, with lots and lots of visual description: I'm glad I've read the comic. It occurred to me to read into the novel's Norman-Saxon conflict a subtext of the emerging class tensions in Regency Britain. Cedric the Franklin seems to represent the upper-middle class, the backbone of the modern British social order. Of course, the squirearchy of the antebellum American South took Ivanhoe to heart and made the Normans their role model, which is odd because Scott's Normans are basically jerks.
At yesterday's memoir slam there were just six people, so we had time to do three subjects: breakfast, bad grades and Saturday rituals. (The latter two had been my suggestion.) On bad grades I wrote about being in Grade 7 the year we were in Mississauga, and the art teacher giving my blue squares 1 out of 5 because the edges were messy; on Saturday rituals I talked about the color comics in the weekend newspapers and swimming at the university pool. But I couldn't think of much to say about breakfast.
I got the idea of starting a Meetup group to attend the memoir slam, to see if we can attract Meetup people, since I can organize a second group with no extra fees. (I had to quit trying to start the Ph.D. Students Meetup because of the Acting Meetup on Saturdays, but I was getting nowhere anyhow.) I've set it up and we already have one new member!
Last night's choir practice was the last for three weeks. We started "Tu Scendi Delle Stelle" (we'd done this under Giuseppe, but this was a simpler arrangement) and Jose Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad." I forgot to bring the book of Hemingway stories for John George, so I'll just have to remember it next time.
This evening I got an email from Blanche Klein. I attended the first meeting of her book club, then didn't get to any of the later ones. But I think she liked my book suggestions, and I'm impressed that she remembered me. (They'd just been reading The Leopard, which I'd suggested.)
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