Booknotes 4.16

The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin, published 1839, nonfiction. Darwin’s record of his observations — geological, anthropological, botanical, entomological, and more — from his multi-year voyage around South America. Quite enjoyed it, and reading Darwin himself (I’ve only ever read downstream authors) was particularly exciting, as primary sources often are — at least for this nerd, who now hopes to find more naturalist memoirs. Looking forward to The Origin of Species and Darwin’s autobiography.

The Song of Roland, anonymous (translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff), published 1040ish (translated 1919), poetry. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t particularly care to read about battles, with rare exceptions. In spite of all the hewing of people skull to waist, this was, I am afraid, not one of those exceptions. I also felt Moncrieff did a much better job translating Proust than he did here. But — but! — it was broken into short stanzas, which made for an easy read, and old Charlemagne’s dream prophecies were interesting. Glad I read it, since I’ve long wanted to as part of my very sporadic grand tour of medieval literature.

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative, by Austin Kleon, published 2012, nonfiction. I’m fairly certain I read this around the time it came out, but apparently I neglected to add it to my reading log, so here we are, rereading for the log’s sake. And it was good for me to read it again. Sometimes I’ve felt like I should be creating art ex nihilo, free of influence by other artists, but a) that’s impossible and b) art in conversation with prior art is much more interesting anyway. I also found this bit true of my own website: “Having a container can inspire us to fill it. Whenever I’ve become lost over the years, I just look at my website and ask myself, ‘What can I fill this with?’”

The Unseating of Dr. Smoot, by my friend William Morris, published 2023, fiction. Until very recently, my interest in realism in fiction was more wane than wax, and my interest in local fiction — both geographically and culturally — was for a long time nigh nonexistent. But I have changed as a reader, and I’m glad I have because I enjoyed this, including its BYU and UVU parts and its Latter-day Saintness. My brain refuses to think about books in a literary criticism kind of way (as is no doubt already very clear to all of you who endure these reviews), so I have no real insights to share here, but what I can do is list some more of the things I liked: Rebecca’s lecture on Gilead (more and more I’m finding I like nuggets of nonfiction in my fiction), the flavor of life in academia (including Mormon studies), the way some feel about the culturally magnetic pull of BYU, and, in one of the two short stories after the main novella, the parts about playing the organ. (In a previous ward I was the organist for a few months, but I now realize to my dismay that I’ve retained precisely nothing of what I learned about playing the organ. I am not exaggerating.)