Subject
Re: What does VN rail against? (fwd)
From
Date
Body
From: "Welch, Rodney" <RWelch@SCES.ORG>
Well, I guess I may as well give my own experience.
I'm a member of a book club -- one of those Great Books things that the Mr.
Schiff referred to. We meet every two weeks and I wouldn't think of missing
a meeting. Last wek we did King Lear; before that, The Education of Heny
Adams. A month or so ago, the Inferno.
You can carp about this all you like, but what's true of clubs like this is
what's true of everything -- you get out of it what you put into it.
Granted, the readings we get are usually somewhat chopped up for
middle-class consumption, but no one stops you from reading the whole work
if you wish -- if I have time over the two weeks between classes, that's
what I do. Twice or three times if I can.
There's a very real value in groups like this for those of us who are no
longer in school. For one thing, it gives you a chance to discuss books with
people of similar interests. For another, it gives you the extra push to
read certain valuable works, or exposure to certain ideas, that I, for one,
probably wouldn't receive otherwise. I can assure you I would have never
picked up a book of any kind by Max Weber had it not been assigned; I gained
a lot regardless.
And I never fail to drop the Nabokov grenades whenever the discussion
centers on Gogol or Chekhov or Kafka. Especially Kafka -- Nabokov was the
star of our Kafka discussion.
Rodney Welch
SCESC Public Information
803-737-2555
-----Original Message-----
From: Galya Diment [mailto:galya@u.washington.edu]
Sent: Thursday, March 04, 1999 11:09 AM
To: NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu
Subject: Re: What does VN rail against?
From: "D. Walker" <dlwalker@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
I would like to share this with the list vis book clubs. My mother was
invited to join one in Shreveport, Louisiana. She is not a club joiner at
all (a true Nabokovian!), but decided to go along to hear the discussion
they were slated to have. She was apalled to find out that the club has a
"professional reader" who reads the books and then tells the club members
about them, thereby saving them the ordeal of actually having to read
anything!!!
Lynne Walker
Well, I guess I may as well give my own experience.
I'm a member of a book club -- one of those Great Books things that the Mr.
Schiff referred to. We meet every two weeks and I wouldn't think of missing
a meeting. Last wek we did King Lear; before that, The Education of Heny
Adams. A month or so ago, the Inferno.
You can carp about this all you like, but what's true of clubs like this is
what's true of everything -- you get out of it what you put into it.
Granted, the readings we get are usually somewhat chopped up for
middle-class consumption, but no one stops you from reading the whole work
if you wish -- if I have time over the two weeks between classes, that's
what I do. Twice or three times if I can.
There's a very real value in groups like this for those of us who are no
longer in school. For one thing, it gives you a chance to discuss books with
people of similar interests. For another, it gives you the extra push to
read certain valuable works, or exposure to certain ideas, that I, for one,
probably wouldn't receive otherwise. I can assure you I would have never
picked up a book of any kind by Max Weber had it not been assigned; I gained
a lot regardless.
And I never fail to drop the Nabokov grenades whenever the discussion
centers on Gogol or Chekhov or Kafka. Especially Kafka -- Nabokov was the
star of our Kafka discussion.
Rodney Welch
SCESC Public Information
803-737-2555
-----Original Message-----
From: Galya Diment [mailto:galya@u.washington.edu]
Sent: Thursday, March 04, 1999 11:09 AM
To: NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu
Subject: Re: What does VN rail against?
From: "D. Walker" <dlwalker@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
I would like to share this with the list vis book clubs. My mother was
invited to join one in Shreveport, Louisiana. She is not a club joiner at
all (a true Nabokovian!), but decided to go along to hear the discussion
they were slated to have. She was apalled to find out that the club has a
"professional reader" who reads the books and then tells the club members
about them, thereby saving them the ordeal of actually having to read
anything!!!
Lynne Walker