I'm not even half way through my Orange Prize reading yet (4 down, 5 to go!) and I have my first Archives assignment due in 3 weeks, so this may not seem like the best time to start making summer reading plans. But we have just had our first week of glorious sunshine here in the UK ... and I can't help myself. I love the anticipation of setting myself a challenge, and I think it can work very well as a focusing tool, even if I don't always stick to it to the letter. I'm very pleased with how my 'Victorian Winter' turned out, for example - I managed to read all four of the period novels I set myself, plus 3 of the non-fiction books and one of the contemporary fictions. The only area in which I utterly failed was the poetry. Must prioritise that next time.
So this summer I'm setting myself the task of reading three novels, two of them decidedly Modernist and the third from an (arguably) Modernist writer. For some reason Modernism feels right for the season - what could be better than streams of consciousness on hazy, blue-sky days? I'm being a little ambitious, however, since the first and fattest of my choices is a book that has already beaten me twice.
1. Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce
I want Ulysses to be to 2008 what Don Quixote was to 2007. That is: a revelation. I'm going to read it, all 1040 pages of it, no matter how slowly. I don't care if it takes me till Christmas. And what's more: I'm going to understand it and, if at all possible, enjoy it. (Colleagues at work assure me that it's 'very easy once you get into it. Really', although I can't decide whether they're just being smug because they've mastered it and I haven't.) My plan is to start it at the beginning of June, probably after the Orange Prize announcement on the 6th, and to read it slowly, with commentaries, while making notes and posting on it regularly. No doubt the latter will fall by the wayside, but I'm determined to try my best. I'm also going to arm myself with an annotated guide to the book's many allusions and references (can anyone recommend a good one?).
I wonder if anyone would like to read along with me? I don't mean in an official kind of way - I won't be starting a seperate blog or setting myself a schedule, because I know how useless I am at keeping to those kinds of things. But perhaps there are other people out there who're daunted by Joyce, but would very much like to read him in company?
2. Pilgrimage (Part One, containing Pointed Roofs, Backwater and Honeycomb) by Dorothy Richardson
I've had a Virago copy of this book loitering around the shelves for a number of years, but have never picked it up. I was reminded of it recently when Carmen Callil (founder of Virago) mentioned it in the Guardian Review - apparently her mother is the only person she knows who has read all thirteen 'parts' of it. Which is a little disheartening, I suppose, but I'm fascinated nevertheless. Pilgrimage (published between 1915 and 1967) was Dorothy Richardson's life work and tells the story of Miriam Henderson, a young woman in search of her identity. The first installment (Pointed Roofs, 1915) innovated the technique known as 'stream-of-consciousness', and once upon a time Richardson was considered amongst the most important writers of the early twentieth century, up there with Joyce and Woolf and D.H. Lawrence. My edition contains the first three books (which aren't very long), and I'm planning on reading them all, probably alongside Joyce. I thought it might be an interesting comparison: the great male author of stream of consciousness up against its female innovator.
3. Night and Day (1919) by Virginia Woolf
This is the only Woolf novel I haven't read, and I've been saving it up. I have to admit that I'm slightly afraid of it. I love almost everything else Woolf ever wrote; she has been my favourite writer for a number of years. But, I keep thinking, what if I don't connect with this novel, her second and most traditional? I imagine I'm just being silly as the synopsis sounds right up my street: a young woman realises that a life spent paying calls, drinking tea and serving her middle-class parents isn't her idea of living at all and decides to study mathematics instead. I'm hoping that it will be the highlight of the summer, a perfect remedy to any Joyce related weariness I might feel. I would quite like to combine it with reading Alison Light's Mrs Woolf and the Servants, which I impulsively bought in hardback and still haven't read. And perhaps I should also read a more general book about modernism in literature - relevant Cambridge Companions are always worth a look.
In other news: I may just have landed both volumes of Franco Moretti's The Novel for £4. The library at work has had a duplicate book auction, with ridiculous starting prices and hardly any interest. No other bids at the end of today, so, fingers crossed, they should be mine by the weekend. Joy!
~~Victoria~~