"Having worked her way up through James Joyce’s shorter works — next to Darcy, she’s crazy about Stephen Dedalus — she has recently embarked on ‘Ulysses.’ 'Since all the action takes place over the course of one day, I do think it probably should be a little shorter,' she says. 'One thousand pages for 24 hours? What’s Bloom doing that’s so interesting?' At the moment, she has only reached page 12, because she’s determined to look up and record every unfamiliar word in a separate yellow notebook. Two pages are already filled up."I'm reminded of another friend who told me recently that she and her 88-year-old mother read together Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist, sharing a passion for words long-distance, in the words of my friend, "another way to homeschool." Life-long learning doesn't get any better.
Cheryl and Deborah, thank you both so much! Soon after I posted this I left for London, then soon after on another trip to visit my family, and I didn't see these generous replies until now. They made my day! Thanks, again. (And hurrah for notebooks!)
What an awesome practice. I tingle over the notebook for recording new and interesting works because I too, have a notebook for capturing new words in the books I read. Again, what an awesome practice.
Lisa, I just found your post -- I will link to it in my mashup this Friday. I used the title "What's in YOUR Notebook" for my She Writes on Fridays post last week and then did a search just now and found we had a little mind meld! Great minds and all, haha. Loved reading this. Take care, Deborah