[I need a librarian icon.]

[hermionesviolin]

I finally got to doing UnitHead's bookshelves this morning. I checked in with Alyssa about whether to go across or down and she said across, which I was prepared to concede to although my instinct is down (years in libraries, what can I do?) but it turned out that the shelves were already largely alphabetized (which was a yay in and of itself) and they went down (score)! Books included The Pearl by Steinbeck (one of the three books I have ever hated with a fiery passion -- Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea and Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome were the others ... all of which I should probably reread [I was in 9th/10th grade when I read them] -- though I should probably add C. S. Lewis' Surprised By Joy to that list given how much I ranted and raved when I finished it ::waves at Emma:: ) and Dickens' Great Expectations. And for my dad ... Economic Analysis of Law, Third Edition (Richard A. Posner) and Tom Schelling's The Strategy of Conflict.

Comments

*puzzlement*

[theatre-pixie.livejournal.com]

Why did you so loathe Surprised by Joy? I haven't yet read it myself, but I am an enormous fan of the play Shadowlands and of Lewis' work in general (okay, so I've only read The Chronicles of Narnia, but I keep *meaning* to read the other books--along with the dictionary because Lewis just has that way about him).

I'm just... curious. And I find loathing in response to a book a curious thing (in some cases, at least).

Re: *puzzlement*

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Surprised by Joy is touted as a conversion narrative, and while I don't mind that most of it feels more like straight autobiography than leading up to a conversion (esp. since of course what's relevant to later events is largely subjective) but the end is basically "And then I converted; the end." Which is fine except when the expectation is that there will be an explanation of _why_ he stopped being an atheist -- and that in fact this is the primary point of the book. I can't remember how much I LJed about it, but at some point all those posts about that Inklings class (spring semester 2005) will get tagged for easy reference.

I'm not a big fan of Lewis. His fiction isn't bad -- though I wouldn't say it's great either -- though I don't always agree with the theology behind it, but Mere Christianity frustrated me because I just didn't buy his foundational logic (plus he's heavily influenced by Chesterton, who makes me violent because he's so flippant and his logic isn't very good and I don't agree with him). I've had various others of Lewis' nonfiction works recommended to me, so I'm keeping an open mind that he is sometimes an effective writer of nonfiction, and I do sometimes find myself referring back to arguments I've read of his, but I definitely wouldn't say I'm a fan of him.

Re: *puzzlement*

[theatre-pixie.livejournal.com]

Ah, that helps. Thank you.

Re: *puzzlement*

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I'm glad.