(Debby)
Aw shucks. I was a little bit disappointed with the ending of Ivanhoe.

(Debby)
What I’m Super Enthusiastic About Right Now

- Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott - Knights traumatized from the Crusades and wandering around England, Robin Hood, Prince John, Richard the Lion Hearted, Friar Tuck, Templar knights (ooh, creepy!), a Jewish heroine (and a huge amount of uncomfortable passages about the Jewish ‘race’), Saxon – Norman tensions, great humor, someone in the early 1800s writing about the 1200s or 1300s or something like that….This book is a Great Time! (I feel like I’ve somehow become a fan of Boy’s Adventure Fiction, between this and Treasure Island. Ah well. So it goes) (not done yet – I’m totally on the edge of my seat! What will happen to Rebecca??)

- Anthills of the Savannah – Chinua Achebe – I love the characters, I love the politics, I love it. (not done yet)

- Beowulf – Seamus Heaney translation – Ooh, it’s great! I remember struggling through excerpts of Beowulf in high school English. Seamus Heaney has transformed it into a Highly Readable poem, so that the story comes out. And it’s a really good story! (not done yet)

- Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land: An Environmental History of Africa, 1800-1990- REALLY interesting book; how colonial and post-colonial environmental policy in Africa has been largely based on misunderstandings of the land, its “pristine” state being largely a myth developed by colonialists and often embraced by post-colonial governments. The narratives of place and the landscape ideals upon which we base our national and regional policies!!! Isn’t that an AWESOME concept? I am SO enthusiastic about this!!!

(Debby)
One thing that tends to jump out at me when I go to the library is that I don’t know a blessed thing about those E.W. authors – Eudora Welty, Evelyn Waugh, and Edith Wharton. The one E Welty book they have is a massive compendium of stories or novels or something – far too big to reasonably take out; E. Wharton books seemed positively too torpid and miserable (Age of Innocence and all that. But maybe I’m wrong? Certainly never read any of them); so that left E. Waugh, and Brideshead Revisited – a book title that seemed familiar, but I certainly didn’t know anything about it.

Brideshead Revisited – turns out to be a very engaging book. Took me by surprise, though. Young love between two men, and then later slightly older and more physical love between a man and a woman. Set between World Wars I & II, which is always an interesting time, especially when the authors are actually writing during WWII.

Um, is it just me, or is there way more of a Respected Tradition of Writing About Homosexual Male Love So Long As One Is Not Too Graphic (Preferably It Is Just A Phase) in countries other than America? Oh, and Africa. Definitely not much of a tradition for it in Africa. Okay, maybe just England.

Well, I don’t know. I can’t think of any American classics involving super intense relationships between men, and right now I feel like there are scads of British classics on that theme. Oh, and all those Greek epics, too.