34. Twice Read Words
I've started re-reading one of my favorites novels, Gore Vidal's Washington DC, a part of his collection of novels on the history of our Republic, weaved into a story line, this one surrounding Senator James Burden Day and Blaise Delacroix Sanford. That pair of characters play significant parts in a different Vidal book, also a part of the series, called Empire.
It is a habit of long-standing of mine to re-read far more books than I read, that is, reading for the first time. I probably own about 2000 books - I really do not know how many there are - and they are one of the reasons I recently moved to a new residence in downtown Louisville, a townhouse with about 1200 square feet of space. One of my goals in the new space is collect all of my possessions into one place, ending the storage of a variety of my "things" at various friends and relatives homes. Most of what I do not have there already is in one of two places, either my mother's home or the basement of my friend Ken's rental property. Both have been very accomodating. Also in my possession, but not in neither my ownership nor yet moved to my new place are some belongings of my brother Kevin's as well as my friend Keith's. Neither seem to be in a big hurry to re-possess their possessions, so one of the rooms in the new place is devoted to other people's stuff, just as some of my friends and relatives have been devoting space in their homes to my stuff. As I said, the process of collecting these collections is underway, and in doing so, I've come across books and other possessions, and am thus interrupted to guage the importance of some of the matter I've come across. (I've written on this in an earlier post).
Eventually, I will have it all there in one place, to go through, allocate to piles of "keep", "discard", or "decide later", which is a euphemism for "keep". Of the things I know I will keep are books - lots of them. As I said, I tend to re-read more than I read. I've re-read any number of history texts from high school and college. I wish I had in my possession the "Word Clues" book I had from either 5th and 6th grade, or 7th and 8th grade (I can't remember which). That text was a resource for learning etymological roots of words of either Latin or Greek origin - stems, roots, prefixes (prefices?), and suffixes (again, suffices?). I think I learned as much about language from that little text as any text I've ever had to use in any part of my education. For instance, take the Latin root jacere,
to throw. From it, we have the English words abject, adjective, conjecture, deject, eject, inject, interject, object, project, subject, and trajectory, among others. Can you see the roots "to throw" in each of these words? From the Greek root epi, meaning
at, upon, or over, we get these words, among others: epidermic, epigraph, epilepsy, epilogue, epiphany (which we've blogged about in the past), episode, episcopal (which begets bishop), epistle, and epitaph and epithet, two related ways of using words, one good and one bad. (And to Stuart P., if he is reading, notice the extemities to which I went in that last sentence with regard to the use of the Oxford comma).
Among the things I to re-read a lot are military (and other) histories, the Bible (both as literature and for inspiration (as well as a resource for history)), Several favorite plays of William Shakespeare as well as anything written about his life and times, most anything related to zoning and land use, and finally all things Arthurian, that is having to do with the mythic and real King Arthur, Dux Bellorum, Comes Brittania, alleged son of Aurelius Ambrosius, perhaps cousin to Prince Merlin, and King of all Britain. Arthur and Merlin have been a curiosity of mine since reading Mallory's l'Morte d'Arthur in tenth grade in Mrs. Risner's English class. As background I read Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain which is far more fiction than fact, but nonetheless a treasure-chest of history.
Recently, I have found myself interested in Renaissance Fairs (and similar events) which have been springing up here and there acoss the Republic. They recreate a festival atmosphere, with little towns being built, wares sold, fencing contests, and other such activities, all staffed by time-appropriate attire speaking in somewhat time-appropriate English. Two were held in Kentucky last year, one in Eminence and the other in Richmond. I attended one day of the festival in Eminence. I intend to go back should they repeat it. Among the performers there were members of a local assembly of the Society for Creative Anachronism, an organization dedicated to the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe. I've listed their website below.
The Eminence fair was held on a farm east of town, covering the woods and corn field of a large farm. I would guess about 100 acres was used in the event. The entry charge, if I remember correctly, was $12.00 for an adult. As there were vendors present, I spent several more greenbacks before departing, but as I said, I would and will return again this summer. Another of the places I intend to return to this year, as I've written before, is Washington, DC. Re-reading Vidal's book will no doubt make that desire gow stronger, and hopefully, after the Primary, I will post to you from somewhere in the Capital City of our Glorious Republic, after having attended some performance of a Shakespeare play or visited the Anacostia Museum, a part of the Smithsoinian focussing on African-American life in the Disrict, and located not along the Mall, but in the Southeast, across the polluted Anacostia, on Fort Place SE, a short street in a beautiful setting within Fort Stanton Park, but not far from the very urban area known as Anacostia.
Until one can visit a place one wishes to visit, the alternative is, now as it always has been, to read about it.
http://www.sca.org
http://www.si.edu/museums - go here, then look for the Anacostia link.
Labels:
Literature,
Washington DC
1 comment:
Thought you might be a bibliophile. We have the same disease here on Tyler Park. There was quite a logistical nightmare when we merged our libraries after the marriage. We live a house with 4 floors, including attic and basement. As we both closed our outside the home offices over the last year, we now have a basement full of books in boxes. I dread trying to go through them as there are are maybe 200 or more boxes.
Upstairs, which used to be three bedroom, we now have one large bedroom and a library. Downstairs, the dining room has been turned into a TV--media area and library.
My little home office, actually used to be the front porch. We glassed in the whole thing and built a wall dividing my space from the entryway into the house. I've managed to push two desks, and about around 90 foot of shelf space into this 8' by 10' doghole I've made. Now Im thinking, I'll make the front porch door a hard entry and knock down this wall I built, giving me another precious few feet to get some of the overflow on shelves, as I'm starting to trip though stacks on the floor.
We need to go though these books, but both of us suffer severe bibliomania, long gone from an interest to an obsession and it's tough to let go of anything
My greatest prize other than a few 1st editions of loved books, is the multi-volume edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and the William Jefferson Clinton edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I remember getting the World Book Encyclopedia when I was a kid. Over a summer, I sat down a read the whole thing like it was one long novel. To this day, I love picking up reference books and reading at random. You never know what you might learn.
When I was a child, my father was going to Berea College. Dad was managing the Berea farm, and we were given the farmhouse to live in, complete with outdoor plumbing. My mother, two years of high school was a voracious reader. The day we moved in, she took me to the attic and there in the middle of the floor was a mountain of books. I was 4 years old and just learning to read a bit. I can remember that day vividly, and my mother saying, "Look at all those books. This is a treasure house." It was indeed, and I would read what I was able to and books with too many big words, I wanted to read, my mother would read to me. It is a very sweet memory to have.
I have kept on my mother's tradition. The most important furniture in our house is the bookshelves, and most of my extra cash goes toward filling them.
I too, admire Vidal historical novels, thought there's several I haven't read--I'll get to them, if I live.
I reading a lot of history these days--re-reading Timburg's, "The Nightingale's Song." I plan next to return to Robert K. Massie's, "Peter the Great" and "Dreadnought", both which I highly recommend if you haven't read them.
I agree--a good book is worth reading over and over.
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