I did read 58 pages of This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared. Tomorrow I plan to read more of it, too. Yet I also began the 1st 50 pages of The Last Unicorn. I suppose having read so little of either book it must seem strange that I am naming this Blog after one of them. Yet for the longest time I have wanted to read The Last Unicorn and Thomas the Rhymer. In fact there are several other books I have dreamed of reading and yet have found too little town: Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso; Tasso’s The Liberation of Jerusalem; and Camões’s Lusiadas. I also long to read Robert Browning’s The Ring and the Book. Next there will be The Dog Master by W. Bruce Cameron; and Overstory by Richard Powers.
All that being said, after finishing This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared–hopefully by Tuesday–and then The Last Unicorn and Thomas the Rhymer–I shall go back to The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History and then Napoleon: A Life. I want to include the two fantasy novels to read because of my friend’s continual harping at me in order to read for “fun.” As for the three “epic” poems, I have often wished I could squeeze into the time to read them–but still have no idea when it would be. I have however read the first canto (20 pages) of Tasso’s The Liberation of Jerusalem. As for the others–The Ring and the Book; The Dog Master; and Overstory–I will need to wait until I have a juicy amount of time.
I admit that my near constant need to work is because of Tales of the Land of the Firebird and A History of Frances Westin Williams. Reading about the Napoleonic Wars is important for both Russian and Swedish histories. While reading The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History, I decided to get biographies Napoleon: A Life and Alexander I: The Tsar Who Defeated Napoleon. Next I shall read considerably on other subjects, from Peter the Great: His Life and World and Catherine the Great: A Portrait of a Woman to countless books on Stalin and Putin. And of course, I have a copy of Das Kapital; a 3-volume Russian Philosophy; and Main Currents of Marxist Thought. I believe both Peter and Catherine made it so that Sweden was no longer a “Great Power.” Having finished Renia’s Diary and planning to reread The Diary of Anne Frank and Anne Frank Remembered, I shall read the following on weekends:
Raoul Wallenberg (another biography);
Letters and Dispatches 1924-1944: The Man Who Saved Over 100,000 Jews, Centennial Edition;
The Secret Holocaust Diaries;
The Girls of Room 28;
We are Witnesses: Five Teenagers Who Died in the Holocaust;
Surviving Theresienstadt: A Teenager’s Memoir of the Holocaust;
Ester and Ruzya;
Haggadah of the Holocaust Survivors.
During the week, I shall read more histories of Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Chechnya, and the gypsies. Next I shall read about their folklore, and the “high literature” of Russia. I wish I knew more about the “high” literature of Poland, Ukraine, and (if there is any) Chechnya. Yet I don’t know how to go about finding it if it does exist, and time is of the element.
Yes, time is of the element… I hope to be read “up-to-speed” by next year… and though, God willing, it will be late enough that my work will not be necessary, I must keep writing towards the goal of bringing justice to Ukraine, but also Poland and even Chechnya. I hope some day I shall write a Tales of the Land of the Firebird Part II featuring the Balkans and Central Asia. As the Prophets say, “Justice, justice, seek ye justice.” By reading about the Holocaust I help bring about the messianic age.