Skip to main content

Summer Reading 2018: The Platypus Reads Part CCCXVII

We're already past July 4th, and I haven't addressed the critical issue of Summer Reading. In part, that's because I'm applying to grad schools and six to eight hours of each week day is devoted to language study and catch-up reading. So, right now, most of my Summer Reading is Wheelock's and Hanson and Quinn.

Other things have managed to slip in, however. If you've been following this blog, you may have noticed the Neil Gaiman binge. It started with Troll Bridge, moved on to The Neverwhere, gained steam with The Sandman vols 1-6, The Dream Hunters and Overture, and finished up with Fragile Things and The Ocean at the End of the Lane. That's a lot of Gaiman!

To break up the flow of goth drama and tragic sexuality, we've also been listening to Stephen Fry read the Sherlock Holmes novels and doing our own read-through of Frank Herbert's Dune. We're looking forward to watching the Sci-Fi channels mini-series after we're done with that last one. There's always a little Lovecraft in the mix, so I'm also working my way through all the short stories listened in H.P.'s essay on weird fiction. Maybe it's also good that I'm reading the Vulgate and the Septuagint...

That's Summer Reading so far here at the Platypus of Truth. Every year it's been crazy and unexpected, and 2018 looks to be no different.

Comments

Gabe Moothart said…
Hi Jim! What program are you applying for?
James said…
Hi Gabe! Good to hear from you. I'm applying for my Phd. in Ancient History. Princeton and Stanford are at the top of the list right now and I'm looking for one or two more (deadlines are first week of December -I take the GRE August 10th). This is a real long shot, but from what the people I've talked to are saying, it's the way I need to play given my field, my age, and my time away from the game.

Popular posts from this blog

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...

SNES as Money Well Spent: Platypus Nostalgia

I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was eleven years old.  That's a couple years after it first came out.  The occasion was a little dramatic: to celebrate the end of a two-and-a-half year course of treatment for cancer.  I had no idea that it would be waiting for me at home after the final doctors visit.  It was a nice spring day, the trees were waving gently in the breeze outside the bay windows.  With a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, I set down to play.  What was that first game?  It was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past .  Around twenty years later, my SNES still works as does that Zelda cartridge.  It's been a long way from boyhood in Southern Connecticut to manhood in North Houston, but I'm still playing. Why am I still playing?  There were stretches when I didn't.  Many times, I've just been too busy.  There were also seasons when it felt embarrassing to still be playing video games....

Seeing Beowulf Through Tolkien: The Platypus Reads Part CXCIX

After spending a few weeks wrestling with Tolkien's interpretation of Beowulf , I found myself sitting down and reading Seamus Heaney's translation of the text during a spare moment.  I came to the place where Beowulf presents Hrothgar with the hilt of the ancient sword that slew Grendel's mother.  Hrothgar looks down at the hilt with its ancient runes and carvings depicting the war between the giants and God and meditates on the fortunes of men.  In a flash of insight, I thought: this is the whole poem! Let me explain.  Tolkien believed that the genuine contribution of the Northern peoples to European culture was the theory of courage.  The Northern heroes, at their best, were men who fought for order against chaos -a battle they knew they were doomed to lose.  If they were true heroes, their souls would join the gods and aid them in the final battle against darkness and its monsters and again go down fighting, spitting in the face of the meaninglessness...