So this has been an on-again, off-again thing since sometime around 2003. There used to be several of us writing – then just a couple – then just me, 17 years later. There’s a lot hidden within the archives at this point, especially some multi-part projects that I really did put a lot of time and energy into. I’ve made a landing page that points all those projects, but I’ll just link some of them here too.
The first and I think largest project involved me reading and responding to everything Fyodor Dostoevsky ever wrote (or at least what I could find in English translation). There’s at least one entry for each book-length work and sometimes several. There are a lot of favorite in there – not so different from what anyone else would tell you – for example – that The Brother Karamazov and Crime and Punishment are both classics – but to me, the one that was the most difficult to understand, most chaotic, most confusing ideologically, basically, most Dostoevskyian I guess – was Demons.
On a much more personal note – and probably for that reason the one that generated the most traffic at the time I was writing it – is a series about The Birth of Our First Child. I’ll not spoil it too much, but just say here that it was a long, at times frightening and profoundly humanizing journey.
There’s also Virginia Woolf, whose 10 novels I have all found deeply moving each in their own way – probably the highlight there, for me – again – not exactly a groundbreaking hot take – is either Mrs. Dalloway or To The Lighthouse.
James Baldwin’s collected works have also been hugely important to me, especially, but not only as a teacher. The piece that has most touched me is still the opening chapter of The Fire Next Time – “Letter to My Nephew.” In terms of the fiction, all of it was great in its own ways, but the book that grabbed me and I couldn’t put down was If Beale Street Could Talk.
I’ve spent many, many hours in my life reading and trying to decipher James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, mostly by myself (something I’ve been repeatedly advised not to attempt by people who know better). In fact, before this blog went down and then got relocated, Google actually directed a lot of traffic towards my mostly autodidact attempts at chapter summary.
Another project that has stayed with me much longer – if in a different way – is my exploration of eccentric Canadian pianist Glenn Gould’s 50+ studio recordings.
So if any of that sounds interesting to you, have a look! And I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Original Positions 