Welcome to Litsy!

Roadtrip read. Quirky/sad.
Book no. 141 of my 140 challenge, so I have updated my GR target to 144 🤞

I don‘t think this has ever happened to me but I didn‘t enjoy any of the stories or perhaps I didn‘t get what kind of stories Swift wants to tell?England is the one I liked the most bc of its premise:a coast guard in Exmoor on his way to work in the early morning hours stops to help a driver gone off road because of a deer but how the story evolves&the ending were dissatisfying as I just don‘t understand what it‘s about.Well written but not for me

A farcical story about a middle age man Douglas who tells his wife he is going to Scotland fishing but sets of on an artistic groups visit to Moscow with his lover the flamboyant actress Nina, who then appears to be permanently avoiding him. His journey around 1980s Russia with the other members and the authoritive olga makes for a strange tale of misadventures. Enjoyable, strange ending, as ever Bainbridge is a great storyteller but not my fave

It‘s a Wordsworth Wednesday. Next three poems:“Anecdote for Fathers,” “We Are Seven,” and “Lines Written in Early Spring.” The first two are well-delivered anecdotes with gentle morals. The last, a short and not too deep reflection on human destructiveness. What I am enjoying most about Wordsworth is the simplicity factor which can catch you off guard with emotion. Idk- they sort of capture a coy childlike naivety perhaps, an innocence.

I‘m on a new medication and feeling a bit loopy this morning, so I‘m jumping ahead to some Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” I‘m reading in fits and starts, shutting my eyes when I get too zonked out. Martin Scofield, in his introduction to this volume, notes that the poem looks forward to the work of Poe and others, and I agree. The use of archaic language, the way the meter shifts, and the imagery are all clear marks of lineage.

I‘ve been enjoying Wordsworth‘s poems (a lot more than his poetics thankfully). I got to three this morning: “Goody Blake and Harry Gill,” “Lines Written at a Small Distance from My House,” and “Simon Lee.” Of these, Goody Blake was my favorite, more a traditional ballad than any of the poems so far, a story with a moral, and a more overt or obvious rhyme scheme with repetition.
#catsoflitsy

Notes on “Lines Left upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree,” and “The Female Vagrant” :
I found “Yew-Tree” to be quite affecting. It spoke to the conflict between the solitary self and community and how we treat ourselves when we are at our lowest. Quite philosophical.
“Female Vagrant” was superb- lots of pathos. I love the lines about war- “Oh! dreadful price of being to resign/ All that is dear in being!”
Slow reading is helping me enjoy this volume so far!

Aside from scattered poems in various anthologies, I have never read Wordsworth or Coleridge with any focus, so I decided to slowly work my way through this volume, like I‘m doing with the 50 other books I‘m currently reading. 📚🙃I‘m grateful for the introductory chapter and the notes because if it wasn‘t for them I would be overwhelmed by the density of Wordsworth‘s Preface. ⬇️