My First Foray into Renaissance Literature

In the coming session at uni, I’m taking a class on Renaissance literature and culture. As the book stack for all my subjects is pretty high, I’ve already started reading one of the books set for this renaissance class. I’m only 70 pages in to Don Quixote (which is over 900 pages long), but so far I’m finding it so much mo

re enjoyable than I expected! In fact, one of the funniest classics I’ve ever read. What I thought would be a classic chivalrous tale turns out to be a wicked satire of the genre, starring a man gone mad who thinks prostitutes are ladies and windmills are giants. 900 pages may put you off, but I highly recommend the book. Aside from the nonsense that happens in the book, Cervantes makes so many hilarious quips and includes so much biting sarcasm that he’s had me chuckling my way through those first 70 pages.

But even if you never pick up Don Quixote, I hope you can be encouraged to pick up an old book that you are doubtful about and just give it a go. If this (short) experience has taught me anything thus far, it is that I should never judge a book by my completely uninformed prejudices. I had no basis for thinking Don Quixote would be hardly entertaining at all. I’m just glad university forced me to pick it up. But I hope it doesn’t require the force of a tertiary institution for you to give books a go. Try them out, give them 100 pages, and be amazed at what you discover.

Just a Little Notice

I really wanted to be writing about literature in general and ideas and thoughts I’ve had regarding books and writing and stuff. You’ll probably notice that this hasn’t been happening lately and it has all been on specific books. But that’s just how its been lately. Rest assured: in a month I’ll be back at uni and discussing literary theory and techniques and periods and all that jazz all the time, so you can expect some of that to overflow here in the future. Look forward to that!

Vanity of Vanities

Faithful readers – whom I must confess have lacked much to read lately, but thus are all the more faithful – to you I must admit that I have found a new literary character who falls into the category of ‘Just Plain Awesome Men of Literature’. For me, this category is lightly populated, containing before now only Mr. Knightly of Emma, Mr. Thornton of North and South, Gilbert Blythe of Anne Shirley fame, Remus Lupin of Harry Potter, and perhaps as a wild card Sam Vines of Sir Pratchett’s famous Discworld series. I even did a quick sweep of the old bookshelf and didn’t come up with anyone else.

But now, I am more than happy to admit into this eclectic company Major William Dobbin of William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.