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While Tristram Shandy is running from death and we are all wondering if he will live to give us all 40 volumes or if death has him firmly by the whiskers, we should choose our next major read.

Just in case death wins by a nose and we find Tristram's hat upon the floor too soon, here are the nominees from the Random Book Generator (RBG�) and your notorious group moderators, in no particular order. Now it is your turn to tell us your life and opinions on these nominations before next week's poll, an' please your honours, in as straight a line as possible.

1. The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner

2. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad

3. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway

4. Sentimental Education, by Gustave Flaubert

5. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, by Benjamin Franklin

6. Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius

Schedule

Feb 26 - Mar 3	Tristram Shandy Week 15 + This discussion.
Mar 4 - Mar 10	Tristram Shandy Week 16 + Poll
Mar 11 - Mar 17	Tristram Shandy Week 17 + Run-off Poll if needed
Mar 18 - Mar 24	Interim Read Week 1
Mar 25 - Mar 31	Interim Read Week 2
April 1 - Discussion starts on 1 of the 6 above; no fooling.>/pre>

These all sound good EXCEPT the Flaubert.

I’ve read three of these (Heart of Darkness, The Sun Also Rises, and The Autobiography of Ben Franklin) and would be all for rereading the Conrad or Franklin, the Hemingway less so. Someday I’d like to read The Sound and the Fury, but after reading Tristram Shandy, I‘ll need a break from complex narrative ;). No opinion on the Flaubert. I’ll probably vote for Meditations partly because I’ve wanted to read it for a long time and partly because I just read an old letter of my grandfather to his (adult) children which mentioned it.

I've not read 4, 5, and 6--Meditations has been on my TBR list longest. I'll be pulling for that.

I may or may not have time to participate this round, but I'll consider joining in, especially if Faulker or Marcus Aurelius are picked.

Christopher wrote: "These all sound good EXCEPT the Flaubert."

I can say the same just change Flaubert on Marcus Aurelius. But I believe you are right on Flaubert.

What's so horrible about Sentimental Education? Just curious why the animus against Flaubert (or is it against this novel in particular?) I haven't read it, but apparently some people like it:

Before that first trip to Paris, Kafka and the Brod brothers studied French, mainly to read Flaubert’s Sentimental Education in its original language. There was little Kafka loved as much as that book. Max Brod soon declared Sentimental Education his favorite book as well, hanging a portrait of Flaubert over his desk. Kafka saw himself as the spiritual son of Flaubert.

Thomas wrote: "What's so horrible about Sentimental Education? Just curious why the animus against Flaubert (or is it against this novel in particular?) I haven't read it, but apparently some people like it:

Be..."

Is it because of Madame Bovary perhaps? I dislike that book, but it is partly because of it that I am curious about Sentimental Education. Also, that Sterne had a sentimentalist streak in him, and I have never understood "sentimentalism" as a philosophy, or whatever it is appropriately called as a movement or ... or .... Should it be considered in contrast to Romanticism or Reason or, to go more modern, emotional intelligence? Or have I got the positioning way off base?

Lily wrote: "Should it be considered in contrast to Romanticism or Reason. . ."

Wikipedia's Sentimentalism (Literature) is a good place to start.


In short it is the heart side of the head vs. heart debates.

Thomas wrote: "Max Brod. . .hanging a portrait of Flaubert over his desk. . ."

I am trying to think what would happen if I hung a printout of Flaubert's portrait in my cube at work. It might give me more time to read Flaubert. :)

David wrote: "I am trying to think what would happen if I hung a printout of Flaubert's portrait in my cube at work. It might give me more time to read Flaubert. ..."

The logic seems to be that hanging Flaubert's portrait will predictably cause bureaucrats to treat people like bugs, thus freeing them from the machinery of social obligation and give them more time to read.

You might just get debugged in an IT company.

Having read sections of Meditations I'd like to offer a couple of caveats. First, I think we would want to use the same translation as the aphorisms in particular find meaning in individual words. Second, I think this would be a hard book to discuss in this forum. Why? Because some aphorisms and remarks will speak to one reader, and other aphorisms and remarks to another. There are hundreds of stand-alone thoughts in Meditations, intended for just that ... meditation. Unless we organize ourselves to read selectively, we could end up talking past one another.

The Franklin book intrigues me, because I've never read it and because it's short, which would be a welcome change from our most recent reads. I've been a fan of Conrad and Hemingway for a long time and would happily re-read those pieces. As for the Flaubert, I'm neutral.

I think my second-hand impression of l'Education Senitmentale came mostly from Edmund Wilson's essay in The Triple Thinkers.

Here is the gist of his essay:

L' Education sentimentale, unpopular when it first appeared, is likely, if we read it in youth, to prove baffiing and even repellent. The title may have given the impression that we are going to get a love story, but the love affairs turn out invariably to be tepid or incomplete, and one finds oneself depressed or annoyed. Is it a satire? The characters are too close to life, and a little too well rounded, for satire. Yet they are not quite vitalized enough, not quite responsive enough, to seem the people of a straight novel. But we find that it sticks in our crop. If it is true, as Bernard Shaw has said, that Das Kapital makes us see the nineteenth century ‘as if it were a cloud passing down the wind, changing its shape and fading as it goes, so that we are afterwards never able
o forget that capitalism, with its wage slavery, is only a passing
phase of social development, following primitive communism, chattel slavery and feudal serfdom into the past� � so Flaubert’s novel plants deep in our mind an idea which we never quite get rid of: the suspicion that our middle-class society of manufacturers, businessmen and bankers, of people who live on or deal in investments, so far from being redeemed by its culture, has ended by cheapening and invalidating all the departments of culture, political, scientific, artistic and religious, as well as corrupting and weakening the ordinary human relations: love, friendship and loyalty to cause � till the whole civilization seems to dwindle.

But fully to appreciate the book, one must have had time to see
something of life and to have acquired a certain interest in social and political dramas as distinct from personal ones. If one rereads it in middle age, one finds that the author’s tone no longer seems quite so acrid, that one is listening to a muted symphony of which the varied instrumentation and the pattern, the marked rhythms and the melancholy sonorities, had been hardly perceptible before. There are no hero, no villain, to arouse us, no clowns to entertain us, no scenes to wring our hearts. Yet the effect is deeply moving. It is the tragedy of nobody in particular, but of the poor human race itself reduced to such ineptitude, such cowardice, such commonness, such weak irresolution
—arriving, with so many fine notions in its head, so many noble words on its lips, at a failure which is all the more miserable because those who have failed in their roles have even forgotten what roles they were cast for. We come to understand the statement of Mr. Ford Madox Ford that he has found it is not too much to read the book fourteen times. Though L' Education sentimentale is less attractive on tile surface and less exciting as a story than Madame Bovary , it is certainly the book of Flaubert’s which is most ambitiously planned and into which he has tried to put most. And once we have got the clue to the immense and complex drama which unrolls itself behind the half-screen of the detached and monotonous style, we find if as absorbing
and satisfying as a great play or a great piece of music.

Gary wrote: " Unless we organize ourselves to read selectively, we could end up talking past one another."

I am intrigued. I also agree it can seem all over the place at times and he to me he seems to reword something he already said earlier, or include some different and subtle nuance to it. After all, it was a personal philosophical notebook, and was never an organized work he intended to publish.

Without putting too much work into it, as it will need to win the poll before we read it, how would you, or anyone else here, specifically suggest organizing the reading of it, other than straight through at about 2 books per week?

Gary wrote: "The Franklin book intrigues me, because I've never read it and because it's short, which would be a welcome change from our most recent reads. I've been a fan of Conrad and Hemingway for a long tim..."

What edition are you referring to when you say that, Gary? (I find a great many are available, created from Franklin's voluminous papers by a variety of scholars, but apparently still able to be considered an autobiography. Wiki has one particular suggestion, which has caught my attention, but I will leave that trail open until I hear what you and others here suggest.)

Lily wrote: "What edition are you referring to when you say that, Gary? (I find a great many are available, created from Franklin's voluminous papers by a variety of scholars, but apparently still able to be considered an autobiography. "

Lily, I followed the link David provided at #1. It took me to Amazon where the autobiography there is described as 143 pages in a print edition. I looked up other print editions on Amazon and all are less than 150 pages, hence my comment that the Autobiography is a short read. I don't doubt that there are also scholarly and longer collections of Franklin's writings.

David wrote: "Without putting too much work into it, as it will need to win the poll before we read it, how would you, or anyone else here, specifically suggest organizing the reading of it, other than straight through at about 2 books per week?"

In my view, the Meditations is widely esteemed, often purchased, but seldom read in its entirety - which doesn't mean we shouldn't. With that in mind, I suggest that folks who are interested follow this link to the most popular modern translation and use Amazon's "Look inside" function for a taste. (Every translation has its critics, but the fact the Robert Fagles endorses this one is good enough for me.)

As for how to read the Meditations, some readers recommend plunging in and reading straight through skipping over parts that are confusing or obscure. Others suggest taking a bite at a time and digesting it before moving on. As a group read we would probably want to take the faster route.

Great list! For the first time, I’m in the happy position of owning copies of all six, and will probably vote for one of the three I haven’t read (Faulkner, Franklin or Flaubert), but would just as happily reread the others.

Christopher wrote: "I think my second-hand impression of l'Education Senitmentale came mostly from Edmund Wilson's essay in The Triple Thinkers.

Here is the gist of his essay:

L' Education sentimental...

And once we have got the clue to the immense and complex drama which unrolls itself behind the half-screen of the detached and monotonous style, we find if as absorbing
and satisfying as a great play or a great piece of music.
"

Thanks for sharing this, Christopher. I’m a big fan of Edmund Wilson’s criticism, and his thoughts persuade me to seriously consider reading the Flaubert now that I’m on the far edges of middle age..(but I’m still leaning toward voting for Marcus Aurelius)

Gary wrote: "Lily, I followed the link David provided at #1. ..."

Okay. Thx, Gary. I follow your logic -- and although we often discuss editions here, we have generally left which one to use open to the individual reader. While I'd probably not use the Touchstone edition given what I have read to date about various printings of this landmark autobiography as American publishers learned to be more rigorous about manuscript faithfulness, I do think one can certainly select an edition with which one can be comfortable for any discussion here.

I'll comment on part of why I have been slow to respond, hopefully without totally muddling myself. I have spent a number of hours recently listening to Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. While it has not been a "close listening," I have enjoyed it thoroughly. I have especially enjoyed the latter part of Franklin's life, as he interacted with Establishment figures in the ferment of Europe of the time and returned to aid in the establishment of the United States. It is my understanding that his autobiography, sometimes called "memoir," is limited to his early life, although Franklin generated many writings far beyond that period. And, while I would like to read his autobiography (and like the idea of slipping in a shorter read), I am weighing what that would be like with this group, especially given that our recent reads of Hume and Tocqueville (and Sterne?) are closer in time to the latter part of Franklin's life.

(While not really eligible as a W.C. read, another book that does interest me is The Compleated Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: Volume Two, 1757-1790, compiled by Mark Skousen . I currently have a library checkout of Benjamin Franklin: A Biography in His Own Words edited by Thomas Fleming. It, too, is fun to peruse.)

Having read Mediations I do not to cheer for this or that nominee (Book I), and will honestly be pleased by any outcome. However, I am always ready to read something with this group that I have not read before. And while I am enjoying TS, I am also ready for something that I can just read once or twice through that won't send me off to the footnotes or research projects every other paragraph.

Adding a black spot in the the humility column for today, I boast of having read Franklin's autobiography and Meditations both on several occasions. I have not read, and I am still not feeling much enthusiasm for Flaubert. I am left with Faulkner, Conrad, and Hemingway to continue whittling down to one.

The Franklin and Conrad are both great. Faulkner and Hemingway are on my list. I'm going to refrain from voting this time around, we'll see if I have more time to participate.

David wrote: "I am left with Faulkner, Conrad, and Hemingway to continue whittling down to one...."

Conrad feels awfully bleak to me right now. (I've read it at least 1 1/2 times.) I'd probably take a break from W.C. if it is chosen, although I'd check in from time to time on what is posted.

The poll is posted.

The poll will start on Wednesday 12:01 AM EST on March 4
The poll will end on Tuesday 11:59 PM EDT on March 10

I hope everyone affected by the time change is doing well. Remember to get your vote in before the poll ends Tuesday at 11:59 PM EDT (UTC-4).

Vote early and vote often.

Vote often?

Source of "Vote Early and Often"
The cynical phrases "Vote early -- and often" and "Vote early -- and vote often" are variously attributed to three different Chicagoans: Al Capone, the famous gangster; Richard J. Daley, mayor from 1955 to 1976; and William Hale Thompson, mayor from 1915-1923 and 1931-1935. All three were notorious for their corruption and their manipulation of the democratic process. It is most likely that Thompson invented the phrase, and Capone and Daley later repeated it.

I remember it from comedy sketches on TV when I was younger, most likely Laugh-in

David wrote: "Source of "Vote Early and Often"
The cynical phrases "Vote early -- and often" and "Vote early -- and vote often" are variously attributed to three different Chicagoans: Al Capone, the famous gangs..."

Something right about its origins being Chicago mayors and gangsters.

Pre-poll data suggested Meditations was a strong early contender--pushed mostly by online chatter, but that early support seems to have vanished with actual voters. Evidently Meditations was not as successful turning out the waves of these previously 'invisible' voters as was hoped for.

Bryan wrote: "Pre-poll data suggested Meditations was a strong early contender--pushed mostly by online chatter, but that early support seems to have vanished with actual voters. Evidently Meditations was not as..."

What was Marcus offered by the anti-Faulkner forces in exchange for dropping out?

Bryan wrote: "Pre-poll data suggested Meditations was a strong early contender--pushed mostly by online chatter, but that early support seems to have vanished with actual voters. Evidently Meditations was not as..."

I voted for Meditations, but poor Marcus wasn’t generating much turnout so I swung my support to another candidate in the spirit of “vote often�.

Christopher wrote: "What was Marcus offered by the anti-Faulkner forces in exchange for dropping out? "

Reason and Temperance? (Or was it a chicken in every pot?)

Christopher wrote: "What was Marcus offered by the anti-Faulkner forces in exchange for dropping out?"

They are going to give Marcus more funds to make Hadrian's wall higher to keep out the Northern hordes that have developed ladder technology, Quentin's watch, and a promise not to burn down his barns until the next poll.

Well, I'm switching back to the Meditations camp in the hope a broad-based coalition emerges at the eleventh hour.

Cphe wrote: "I voted for Sentimental Education sitting lonely at the bottom of the pack, unwanted, unloved, unmoved. I always vote for the underdog but in this case I fear Madame Bovary has a lot to..."

I was tempted to follow you, Cphe, but have instead decided to simply abstain from voting this go around. But I do hope that its poor showing here doesn't mean Sentimental Education is not reconsidered sometime while I am still reading with this group. And I think there were some excellent choices all round this time. I hope to be able to enjoy whatever is selected, although how much time I'll be able to spend on it....??

Good reading to us all.

Cphe wrote: "I voted for Sentimental Education sitting lonely at the bottom of the pack, unwanted, unloved, unmoved. I always vote for the underdog but in this case I fear Madame Bovary has a lot to..."

Madame Bovary is a beautiful book about hideous people. I didn't appreciate it the first time around, but it definitely grew on me after a second and third reading. It requires a careful dissection, and dissection is something we do pretty well here, so it would be interesting to read with the group. Maybe SE would be too at some point.

Is there a consensus that Madame Bovary is unloved?

I didn't read it with this group, but I loved it even on my first read, and I was told it's even better in French, it's like poetry in prose form, with every word, every sound carefully chosen.

So maybe it got its reputation or recognition largely based on something that got lost in translation, but I didn't hate Emma (the character) either, I thought it was a pretty good portrayal of heroic failure. If only Beckett could fail like that, maybe he wouldn't need to endeavor to fail better.

The winner is The Sound and the Fury
Here are the weighted results:

R	W	W%	Book
8	18	41.9%	The Sound and the Fury
4	10	23.3%	Autobiography of B. Franklin
3	7	16.3%	Heart of Darkness
3	4	9.3%	Meditations
1	3	7.0%	Sentimental Education
1	1	2.3%	The Sun Also Rises

Look for the discussion to begin April 1.

Very much looking forward to this! So glad it was chosen.

We're glad to have you join us, Sam. We look forward to your input.

Enjoy the read. I think I am going to sit this one out. I know I should read TSATF, and no doubt I would I would be better for it, but the thought of reading a stream-of-consciousness book about wretched and deranged Southerners just fills my heart with dread. Maybe I'll go pick up something by Jane Austen.

We'll miss you, Roger. I hope you'll consider reconsidering.

One thing I have to say about this reading group: it's not afraid of heavy lifting. Having read Faulkner before, I would not take on TSATF on my own. But with this group, I'm actually looking forward to it : )

Thanks, Gary.
I'm already feeling a very heavy weight on my shoulders :)

I'm not sure if I'll join in with this read or not--I just read it last year, but I think it's worth re-reading. No doubt I'd get a lot more out of it the second time, though I thought it was excellent the first time around.

Roger wrote: "Enjoy the read. I think I am going to sit this one out. I know I should read TSATF, and no doubt I would I would be better for it, but the thought of reading a stream-of-consciousness book about wr..."

Stream-of-consciousness?? Oh, count me out as well. I once tried Virginia Wolf. It made my brain hurt.

Kerstin wrote: "Stream-of-consciousness?? Oh, count me out as well. I once tried Virginia Wolf. It made my brain hurt...."

[g] Can it be worse than Hardy's Jude ?

Well, from what I know of Faulkner's reputation and the reviews that went with the audio for TSaTF, maybe...

Still, with Tamara's leadership, I'm willing to give it a try. (With a bit of wheedling, she might tell us more about her willingness to moderate this thing. I suspect there is a story in there somewhere, like Thomas with Ulysses a few years ago (a story I never learned) or Eman with Homer....)

(By the way, I deeply enjoy Woolf, at least most of the time, even though she can be hard to follow. Was it The Waves ? I'd exhort you to try something else?)

Note to others: Kerstin just moderated dear Jude on the Victorian! board.

Lily wrote: "(By the way, I deeply enjoy Woolf, at least most of the time, even though she can be hard to follow. Was it The Waves ? I'd exhort you to try something else?)"

It was To the Lighthouse. I never reached page 30. I think I started over about three times. I would have tossed the book across the room, but my ancient kindle didn't deserve that kind of outburst ;-)