READING LIST

I'm writing a post now because I said that I would in my previous post and if I left that as the most recent one then I would just confuse everyone since I make a big deal out of how I don't want people to read just that and then hate me for being inane, self-deprecating in a quite annoying way and ultimately pointless. Since you shouldn't really have a blog just so that you can update it with posts about how rubbish you are at blogging.

I AM DOING IT AGAIN. Wow. Okay, moving on swiftly: yesterday I got my third reading list emailed to me. I think this is my final reading list for Michaelmas (for the unindoctrinated, this is the autumn/winter term at my university) since there are three papers so three reading lists, while terrifying, seems to make sense.

I got my first of the three just over a month ago now, on about the 17th or 18th of August (I think). The three papers I'm doing are Victorian Literature, An Introduction To Literary Studies (or something, it's got a name like that and it's about theory and criticism I think) and Medieval Literature, where we get to choose between Middle and Old English. I'm going with Old English, I think, but I don't decide until I've done a couple of classes in each.

There's little point in keeping it massively secret so I might as well say where I'm going, which is Oxford. The reading lists, together and separately, are all rather formidable; if I was going to read all the primary Victorian texts alone, disregarding all the other stuff, then we'd be looking at a book every two days or something from this point on. I have not read as many so far as I would have liked. I am currently working through Bleak House... I kind of like it, actually, but it is not going to be finished in two days.

I'm liking the look of the lit theory, although I haven't really done much reading for that yet (since the Victorian list goes on about everything being vital and the theory list being recommended for dipping into I think I've decided to prioritise) and I'm also really, sadly excited about the medieval stuff, possibly largely because the other day I remembered studying Chaucer's The Miller's Tale and decided to send friends who aren't Middle English-nerds some funny bits of the tale, such as when Absolon works out that he didn't kiss Alison's face because women don't have beards and when he keeps bringing her all the food and money in a really hilarious, yet stupid, way. My friends were bemused, I was laughing. I want to do Old English because I hear all the cool kids know dead languages, and also it may be my only chance to lean about the hronrad or the other cultural references that other friends of mine sometimes make to anglo-saxon while I desperately try to look like I'm totally up on my medieval knowledge. Anon, anon, anon. See what I did there? I'll be writing blog posts in runes in no time, just you wait.

Know what else I've discovered? I do not get on with most of the Victorians. My Mum (who I promised I'd be in bed hours ago - sorry, Mum! I just wasn't tired!) lovea the Victorians for some weird reasons of her own and I know a lot of people actually like the Bronte sisters three (top points if you can spot the cultural reference there, I'm on fire tonight with my indie cred) and all the other people who wrote about governesses trapped in their own biblical, fiery nightmare but I don't want to sleep with Heathcliff or Mr Rochester (which a disturbing amount of people do, if the number of facebook groups devoted to them is any indication) and would rather not read anything where every page has to contain at least three references to hell or fire (or preferably both, which a healthy amount of good piety thrown in) for the author to be able to move on. OKAY, YOU GOT ME. Jane Eyre isn't quite that bad. I was exaggerating for comic effect. I don't think it worked though, sorry.

I do like what I've read of Hopkins, largely because he was really weird and doesn't read like yr typical Victorian - there's all that sprung rhythm (which I still don't really understand, although I also don't really get how people spot whether something's iambic or trochaic etc., so really, I'm a bit fucked when it comes to analysing the metrical aspect of poetry) and wanting to have sex with Jesus and all that other stuff. I prefer him to the other Victoriana that I have read, although, as I said, I am enjoying Bleak House. I'm not sure if I'd be able to analyse Dickens though, there's too much there! In this way maybe i'll be better at the Brontes. I guess I will find out with time.

My problem is that I finish a book by one of the Victorians and then want to read something different - I generally have quite a short attention span and so I don't want to just read the same sort of stuff over and over. I got a Glyn Maxwell book that I ordered second-hand in the post today, his debut collection, Tales of the Mayor's Son. It's incredible, he's got to be one of my favourite poets ever.

I start university in 16 days, or something. It now seems quite close, although loads of my friends go tomorrow (/today, since it's half two in the morning now) and so by comparison it is an age. I am going to bed now. Whine at me in the comments about how pointless I am, you kno you want to.