I've proposed to read "Great Books". There are a lot of ways a person could define that. I think Adler and Van Doren describe a "great book" well when they say that it is a book that is "always over our head" no matter how many times we return to it. It is written at so many levels that, as we grow, we constantly find new things in the text. So, where does one begin such a journey? Which book should be first?
For myself, there was only one logical place to begin this reading project...Homer. What could be a more perfect beginning than "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey"? They are, after all, the oldest stories in Western Civilization (let's exempt the Bible from consideration). I will not use a strictly chronological method to selecting the order of texts, but it seemed a good way to begin. I'll be using the new Robert Fagles translation [Buy it at Amazon.com here].
One more comment: school starts this week, so I may be a bit of a slacker in posting. Apologies!
this was very enlightening, my perspective of the megalopolis of books has been nonchalantly increased thanks to your insights.
ReplyDeletexoxoxo unicorns&mermaidsrmylyfee.