Basically every day on this blog is a what I’m reading day, but Wednesday is as good a day to do it as any. It is Odin’s day.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve been in the middle of Independent People by Halldor Laxness for a while. It is a story of an Icelandic farmer around the beginning of the 20th century, but aside from a few mentions, it seems like it could be set any time from the founding of Iceland. It has a severeness and violence to the tone that suits the subject matter and setting. It is a very good read for trying to get in the right mindset to write about Vikings and medieval societies.
I am also reading a story a day or so from Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender. She is a master of the short story. She writes them with odd points of view and about people too strange for a novel. I rarely see the purpose of a short story (often I think they should either be a novel or the author should not have bothered), but with hers, I see the purpose of all of them. My favorite is the harrowing “End of the Line”.
What I Just Finished
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter and Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton, which I intend to write more about on Friday.
What I’m Reading Next
Well, this section will always be full of good intentions, but not much expectation of actually fulfilling them. The entries from last week still apply, and I should also pick up Don Quixote again, which was assigned for a class last semester. We read the first 230 pages for the class, but there is another 600 to go, and it is a masterpiece. A messy, hilarious masterpiece.
I saw The Man of La Mancha at an impressionable age, and whenever I pick up Don Quixote I end up with the songs in my head, as well as many romantic notions about the nobility of Don Quixote’s sort of fictional madness.