Day Six - Project 3

  This is ridiculously slow-going.  I think there used to be a time in my life when I could read quickly.  It's day six, and I am not finished The Prince and the Pauper yet.  I know Magda had her dance and swim class (that's a consecutive set of activities, not concurrent) this morning, and we took a trip to the library in the afternoon, but I am just so slow now when I read.  Mary just walked in and told me she's almost finished Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors this evening.  Well, she started it this evening too.  I actually told her I would read along each week with her on her Spear-shaking.  I got through Tempest, Twelfth Night, A Winter's Tale, Macbeth, and Merchant of Racists Venice, and got really behind with Othello.  I just really REALLY hated Merchant of Venice.  I figured an English teacher should have, y'know, READ SHAKESPEARE a bit in his adult life, right?  But since I am a slow reader, and a slow reader who decided to challenge himself with Twain's bibliography, I'm falling behind not only on my project, but someone else's project, too.

  The Prince and the Pauper is pretty good.  Twain does a good job with the details of 16th century life.  I feel like the dialogue is a little over the top - like if Tom Sawyer and Joe Harper got a hold of a book of Tudor language and decided to change every word to Knightspeak, and so forsooth.  Really noticing how Twain's plot development seems to always have a series of mini-adventures that slowly bring you to the resolution.  I know people are going to say, "Wow, Mike, REAAAAAALLLLLY insightful!  That's what rising action is!"  But I mean he really tells each one as a short story with its own climax and conclusion.  Mark Twain novel's would be good for short series, like a tv mini-series or (and I don't know why I'm thinking this) a Saturday afternoon matinee serial.....Episode 12 - Tom and Huck and the mysteries of Jackson Island!  Maybe not the mid 19th century American ones, some Director would want to show how gritty and real they were by using the N-word the correct number of times based on the source material.  But I would enjoy a 2013 prince n' pauper attempt.

I found this in an article, but all her stuff is great.
http://www.jodiharvey-brown.com/book-sculptures.html

 

  Yeah, it's been a busy week.  I found a weirdly organized volume 1 of Twain's autobiography at the library (yayyy!  Using the trip as part of the time involvement in the project for today)  and "The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg", which I may read tonight as a break from his full-on novels for the rest of the night.  If I can get through Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Roughing It, most of the other novels (of which I found a few on Project Guttenburg) seem to be long short stories.  Maybe I'll find a day and do two or three of them, and find some last ditch time to get some essays and short stories.  I may not get them all, but I ain't gonna be a slouch, neither, I reck'n.  Dagnabbit, I meant yea, verily.

  Twain is awesome.

-Mike