Hip hip hooray!
by chuckofish
How wonderful to be able to give a big shout out to Hilary Mantel for winning her second Man Booker Prize! She previously won the award in 2009 for Wolf Hall. Now she has won the 2012 award for the sequel Bring Up the Bodies. She is the first woman to win twice. I couldn’t be more excited for her, and if you have not yet read either of these two wonderful books–run (don’t walk) to your nearest book store/library to acquire the books and do so!
Meanwhile the wonderful fall weather continues here in our flyover state.
The leaves on the ancient mulberry tree in our yard are bright yellow.
…and at the same time the rhododendron bush continues to bloom
along with several spring annuals!
And I have been trying to find something to read. I have started several books that were recommended by friends and abandoned them all. Bleh. Now I have gone back to an old favorite and am reading Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, Volume One. Not surprisingly, Bob has a wonderful way of expressing things and amazing powers of recall.
Having moved to New York City after one semester of college, he drifts around playing music, staying with people he meets, reading their books, and listening to music. His brain is like the proverbial sponge as he sets about educating himself:
I had broken myself of the habit of thinking in short song cycles and began reading longer and longer poems to see if I could remember anything I read about in the beginning. I trained my mind to do this, had cast off gloomy habits and learned to settle myself down. I read all of Lord Byron’s Don Juan, and concentrated fully from start to finish. Also, Coleridge’s Kubla Kan. I began cramming my brain with all kinds of deep poems. It seemed like I’d been pulling an empty wagon a long time and now I was beginning to fill it up and would have to pull harder. I felt like I was coming out of the back pasture.
Don’t you just love that?
I wonder if Bob has read Hilary Mantel’s books. I think he would really like them and old Thomas Cromwell especially.
dual personalities 
“Casting off gloomy habits” is something I’m sure we all go do a bit of. Gotta love Bob. 🙂
And we all gotta keep filling up the wagon even if it means having to pull harder!
How can you have nothing to read when I’m blogging about the classics constantly?? Get your hands on a collection of Emerson’s essays or Leaves of Grass or (as I’ve just discovered) Aurora Leigh!
I meant to tell you about Hilary Mantel ages ago when I saw it on the publishing Twitter circuit–very exciting! You have great taste.
Mea Culpa! What am I thinking! I did get out my copy of “Leaves of Grass” recently at your prompting…
That tree is awesome.
I’m so happy for Hilary Mantel, but I can’t say I have much hope for the BBC mini series — how do they expect to do justice to those books in four parts?
I like the Bob Dylan, too!
Actually I forwarded a story from the WSJ about the guy who is writing the mini-series, and there may be hope. He certainly seems to be taken with the character of Thomas Cromwell. I hope so anyway.
And Bob is great. Period.