Thoughts About Reading ... #2

Random thoughts about books, reading, and anything else that comes to mind while I type. 

First, I've found that the New York Review of Books reprint series is brilliant! I now buy anything with their distinctive layout pattern and the oblong "nyrb" logo on the spine. This despite the fact that I've heard of almost none of the books they publish. This reprint series is largely dedicated to forgotten, out of print, cult, lost, little or never known books that are of fantastic quality. Often they're books considered "meaningful." Usually fairly short. So far they've not let me down. Most of them are books originally printed in English, but a goodly number have been newly translated from other languages. There are a few books by big names: Dante, Balzac, Chekhov, mostly their lesser known works, but there are many more by authors I've never even come close to reading. It's wonderful finding a publisher that I'm willing to take a chance on anything they print -- much like finding a Penguin title in a used-book shop. Maybe what I like best is the voyage into the unknown, entering the book (and author) blind, not knowing what may happen. I admit checking the copyright date before beginning, though. (No, this was not sponsored. Are you kidding?)

Next, I've started "reading" plays, and I'm not sure what I think about it. Plays are difficult to read and review. A play is intended to be performed and heard aloud, where the viewer is part of a group, experiencing both the play and the audience simultaneously. The actors and stage are part of the work, as is the crowd. In fact, most plays change significantly between the writing and the performance, as the logistics of presenting the play can have a dramatic (dyswIdt?) effect on the substance of the work. A play is not meant to be a silent, private experience, alone with only pages and a cup of coffee. As such, I think it's best to watch a production or two, even if only on YouTube, while reading a play. What is unpersuasive when cold on the page, can be contagious on the stage, as I've found out to my delight.

Finally, having read quite a bit of Austen and the Brontes lately, I must comment about commas. Commas were doubtless much less expensive in olden times, as they were thrown about quite carelessly in the 19th Century. Five commas in a phrase is nothing to these comma-thrifts; two semi-colons and half a dozen commas in a sentence is commonplace. This punctuation overload can endanger the reader's safety and sanity with clauses and parentheticals just bouncing everywhere. I'm reasonably sure that Mrs. Austen was wont to say: "Careful with those commas, Jane. You could put someone's eye out!" I figure this all must have changed during the world wars when everything was rationed: sugar, coffee, and, apparently, commas. Fortunately, today there is a much less danger of becoming stranded in a series of semi-related sentence fragments, or being winged by an errant piece of punctuation.

Well, I seem to have just about run out of thoughts now, so it's time to print a turtle and say farewell till next time.  🐢