Journal Entry 1 by Penhaligon from Toronto, Ontario Canada on Thursday, October 02, 2003

This is a very small book, only 68 pages, which is part of the CBC Massy Lecture Series. Although it is not an especially easy read, it is in layman's terms and gives you a lot to think about. It makes you realize how important and vital literature is in our lives.

From the back cover:
"What good is the study of literature? Does it help us think more clearly, or feel more sensitively, or live a better life than we could without it?...What difference does the study of literature make in our social or political or religious attitude? In my early days I thought very little about such questions, not because I had any of the answers, but because I assumed that anybody who asked them was naive. I think now that the simplest questions are not only the hardest to answer, but the most important to ask, so I'm going to raise them and try to suggest what my present answers are."

"Northrop Frye was one of Canada's - and the world's - most distinguished and respected authorities on English literature."

(softcover) 

Journal Entry 2 by MissQ from Fredericton, New Brunswick Canada on Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Penhaligon brought this to our mini-meetup in Toronto last weekend. She says it's not a light read...It's about the study of literature and sounds very interesting. And it's nice and short :-) Thanks!

Accepted on the relays by karendawn. 

Journal Entry 3 by MissQ from Fredericton, New Brunswick Canada on Saturday, January 17, 2004

OK, I gave it a try...I made it about 40 pages (out of 68). I know I probably should have stuck it out but I found nothing was really sinking in. It was a very interesting topic but just felt too much like a "school book" for me. And since it was taken directly from a series of lectures that ran on CBC radio, that's what it reads like...lectures. I just wasn't having fun reading it and often had to go back and re-read paragraphs after realizing that I didn't know what I had just read. It is a topic I'm interested in (the study of literature) but I guess this book just wasn't for me and I didn't want to force myself to finish it. I hope karendawn appreciates it more than I did.

Because I didn't finish the book, I'm not going to rate it. 

Journal Entry 4 by MissQ from Fredericton, New Brunswick Canada on Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Sent off to karendawn today...Hope you find it intellectually simulating :-) 

Journal Entry 5 by karendawn from Lafayette, Indiana USA on Tuesday, February 03, 2004

This one arrived yesterday. Thanks for sharing it. I'll let you know what I think when I'm able to get to it (it's near the top of Mount TBR). 

Journal Entry 6 by karendawn from Lafayette, Indiana USA on Wednesday, February 18, 2004

I'm about halfway through the book and really enjoying it. I like (mostly) Frye's discussion of literature. I'm adding this journal entry because there's a section I want to copy out. It's exactly what I've been trying to get my students to see and Frye says it so clearly:

"But the poet, Aristotle says, never makes any real statements at all, certainly no particular or specific ones. The poet's job is not to tell you what happened, but what happens: not what did take place, but the kind of thing that always does take place. He gives you the typical, recurring, or what Aristotle calls universal event. You wouldn't go to Macbeth to learn about the history of Scotland--you go to it to learn what a man feels like after he's gained a kingdom and lost his soul. When you meet such a character as Micawber in Dickens, you don't feel that there must have been a man Dickens knew who was exactly like this: you feel that there's a bit of Micawber in almost everybody you know, including yourself. Our impressions of human life are picked up one by one, and remain for most of us loose and disorganized. But we constantly find things in literature that suddenly co-ordinate and bring into focus a great many such impressions, and this is part of what Aristotle means by the typical or universal human event." (pages 24-25)

We've been discussing in class about why we read literature and I suggested to the class that we read it to find out more about ourselves and the world we live in. That literature is about the human experience. I'm going to share the above passage with them and see if it helps. 

Journal Entry 7 by karendawn from Lafayette, Indiana USA on Sunday, March 28, 2004

I've finished reading the book and my comments above basically cover anything else that I would say about the book, so I will let them suffice and not make any additional comments right now. 

Journal Entry 8 by karendawn at on Monday, May 03, 2004

Released on Monday, May 03, 2004 at Mailed to a fellow Bookcrosser in n/a, n/a Controlled Releases.

off to kayote on The Cheshire Kat