Classic Status (Mostly)

Chaucer and His Contemporaries: Essays on Medieval Literature and Thought, Edited by Helaine Newstead.

Bought by me because it has essays by Inklings C. S. Lewis, Gervase Matthews, and Neville Coghill.

Ranking: Dispensable.

File Code: Essays. Medieval Literature. Paperback.

Coleridge: Poems and Prose Selected by Kathleen Raine.

“As to me, my face, unless when animated by immediate eloquence, expresses great sloth, and great, indeed, almost idiotic good nature. Tis a mere carcass of a face; fat, flabby, and expressive chiefly of inexpression.” This is why I love Coleridge beyond his poetic works. He has no Romantic delusions about himself, as one feels Byron or Shelley had; he has the same ‘immortal longings’ without feeling the pride that needs to have people piled on the altar of his genius. His letters show him to be witty, learned, opinionated, but humble. I feel that one could talk to him at the nearest inn and enjoy a conversation from the domestic to the divine. It was basically Tim Powers’ portrayal of him that drew me further in. The movie “Pandaemonium” is a good fictionalized version of his life.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Poems and Prose. Selected. Paperback.

The Case for Christmas, by Lee Strobel.

“A Journalist Investigates the Identity of the Child in the Manger.” Untangles the objections and seeming contradictions in the Gospel accounts. Susan gave me this little book, a present, I think, from her church.

Ranking: Keeper for now (sentimental).

File Code: Christmas. Religion. Paperback.

Monsignor Quixote, by Grahame Greene.

Father Quixote is a simple priest who suddenly gets bumped up to the rank of Monsignor. He sets out on the road in his battered car, Rocinante, with the friend he calls Sancho (a Communist ex-Mayor) through post-Franco Spain. A meditation on the Quixotic nature of faith and how it seems to the ordinary world. I remember I began watching the adaptation with Alec Guinness and Leo McKern but missed parts of it. I finally caught up with it on YouTube, over 30 years later.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Novel. Faith. Paperback.

Journey to the Center of the Earth, by Jules Verne.

I have 2 copies of this Scholastic book, the first got in Fourth Grade and the other one later to back up its battered body. The early 70’s kind of crawled in at the end of the run of “steampunk” sci-fi films adapted from Verne and Wells since Disney’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”. With an eccentric and daring professor, runes, and a descent from the Victorian era into a prehistoric world, it was just my cup of tea. In fact, this was the first place I ever saw runes. All part of my 4th Grade “Renaissance”.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Science Fiction. Classic. Novel. Paperback.

The Three Musketeers, by Alexander Dumas.

I suppose I got this book in Fourth Grade because it was a much talked about classic of the time, with the Michael York/ Christopher Lee/ Frank Finlay/ etc. etc. movie out in 1973. Never read it. Old and battered but around so long … Sigh.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Adventure. Novel. Classic. Paperback.