Reading Journal Twenty Years - First notebook, part 1

Twenty years ago, I was lucky enough to be able to stay in Denmark for a month.  We stayed down the street from a waffle bakery, and every day the smell of waffles would great you as you left the building.  I went to palaces, castles, and Odense.  I fell in love with the work of Thorvaldsen, and the great statue of Perseus Slaying Medusa.  I went to the Viking ship museum.  Pizza with egg is great, btw.  


                While I was there, a college or university sold used books, and there was a huge amount in English.  I purchased several books there.  I got the Queens in the Hive, about Mary Stuart and Queen Elizabeth I, which I read while at Heslingor.   I got the old Penguin edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover (with the white an orange cover) as well as the Penguin edition of the obscenity trial concerning the publication of the book.  And that trial, well, wow.  It was reading this report that I began to keep a reading journal.  I record the starting date of the book, anything I find interesting or beautiful when I read it, and then my thoughts about it.


                I’ve been keeping one for twenty years, June 20.


                It’s nice and strange to look back at the entries.  Useful for checking one’s mental health too.  Anyway, this year, I am every so slowly entering the books into a database; I want to see how many I’ve reread over the years.  Interesting to see if I can see any reading pattern outside of reading for work.


                I started with “The Trial of Lady Chatterley: Regina vs Penguins Books Limited” because there was so much there.  I mean Graham Hugh says, “No sir.  From my knowledge of the habits of authors, it is the last thing I would except for them to quote accurately.  They do it from memory and they always get it wrong”.    I did wonder why the Crown didn’t call any witnesses.


                It was interesting reading this before reading Anecdotes of Destiny by Isak Dinesen, whose house I had visited.  The stories are about the power of stories, of the mixing of reality and fiction.  I many ways, Dinesen’s stories are about the power of creation and fantasy as well as nostalgia a that called into the question of the purpose of art.  It’s true that reading over that entry made me think back to Dinesen’s home, but also because even today we still debate the importance and impact of art.  There is also a bit about gender in Dinesen’s collection and that too ties into the idea of Chatterley and the trial because of the worry about how young people, in particular young girls will be affected by the book.  We are always worried about the girls losing the innocence, and it is the young woman who is disguised as an angel in “The Diver” who says, “You men, love laws and arguments and have great faith in the words that come out though your beards.  But I am going to convince you that we have a mouth for sweeter debates, and a sweeter mouth for debates.  I am going to teach you how angels and men arrive at perfect understanding without argument”.    I did wonder what Lawrence would make of that point.


                Its funny too because I read Geoffrey Chaucer of England by Marchette Chute right after.  Three books concerned with writing and/or art in a row.  Intentional or not.  

Also worth noting that the Dinesen is the only one I've reread in twenty years.