Episode 288: Literary Milestones

On today’s episode of The Literary Life podcast, Angelina and Thomas will be talking about the milestones of a reader’s literary life. This episode developed in response to the many questions they’ve received over the years about challenges people face throughout their reading lives. They begin by thinking back to childhood and recalling the first time they each chose a book for themselves and fell in love with the story, as well as the feeling of getting their first library cards as children. Thomas asks Angelina when was the first time she found herself arguing with a book, and he answers the same question himself.

Other milestones they discuss are changing your mind about a book on a re-read, learning to see past the imperfections of a book to see the underlying truth, distinguishing the work of art from your subjective reading experience, as well as separating the life of the author from the work of literature. They also answer other common concerns such as “Help! I dislike all the characters in this book!”

Be sure to come back next week as we open our next series on Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence in which we will be covering chapters 1-8.

Visit the HouseofHumaneLetters.com to sign up for all the upcoming and past mini-classes and webinars taught by Angelina, Thomas, and their colleagues!

Listen to The Literary Life:

Commonplace Quotes:

The Middle Ages did almost wholly without critics; and by some miracle, did quite well without.
F. L. Lucas, from “The Decline and Fall of the Romantic Ideal“

Nevertheless, a certain cultural and spiritual atmosphere favors the secret and spontaneous development of the inner self. The ancient cultural traditions, both of the East and of the West, having a religious and sapiential nature, favorited the interior life, indeed transmitted certain common materials in the form of archetypal symbols, liturgical notes, art, poetry, philosophy, and myth, which nourished the inner self from childhood to maturity. In such a cultural setting no one needs to be self-conscious about his interior life, and subjectivity does not run the risk of being deviated into morbidity and excess. Unfortunately such a cultural setting no longer exists in the West, or is no longer common property. It is something that has to be laboriously recovered by an educated and enlightened minority.
Thomas Merton, from “The Inner Experience“

On Seeing the Elgin Marbles

by John Keats

My spirit is too weak—mortality
   Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
   And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
   Yet ’tis a gentle luxury to weep
   That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning’s eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
   Bring round the heart an undescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
   That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old time—with a billowy main—
   A sun—a shadow of a magnitude.

Support The Literary Life:

Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support!

Connect with Us:

You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB