I'm curious ....... when your schedule has you reading the first half of a book, then the last half a year later, how do you remember what you've read? Doesn't the lack of continuity cause a problem? Just wondering, as reading through the Great Books intrigues me!
I typically have a good enough memory that I can carry forward fairly easy. I don't recommend it though. If I was redesigning the list, I would take out the two parters with literary works. And frankly, I've been thinking about doing this very thing. With the Bros Karamazov, the gap between reading was only a year, so my impressions were fairly recent. Later on in the list, we do the second half of Rabelais's 'Gargantua' and the gap is much larger. I don't like this. It helps, a little, to remember that a lot of these were literally published as several books. The readers, then, would have dealt with these gaps in the same way. It's not ideal, but if you think of them as a series of connected books, it works a little better.
I'm curious ....... when your schedule has you reading the first half of a book, then the last half a year later, how do you remember what you've read? Doesn't the lack of continuity cause a problem? Just wondering, as reading through the Great Books intrigues me!
ReplyDeleteI typically have a good enough memory that I can carry forward fairly easy. I don't recommend it though. If I was redesigning the list, I would take out the two parters with literary works. And frankly, I've been thinking about doing this very thing.
DeleteWith the Bros Karamazov, the gap between reading was only a year, so my impressions were fairly recent. Later on in the list, we do the second half of Rabelais's 'Gargantua' and the gap is much larger. I don't like this.
It helps, a little, to remember that a lot of these were literally published as several books. The readers, then, would have dealt with these gaps in the same way. It's not ideal, but if you think of them as a series of connected books, it works a little better.