The Great Bookcase Weedout of 2010

[icepixie]

I am entirely unpacked. Hurrah! As promised, here are photos of the Great Bookcase Weedout of 2010.

This is what I was up against:



There was a double row of books on each of the shelves. The narrow white bookcase you'll see later was piled even deeper.

In order to rearrange and figure out what I wanted to sell to the used bookstore, I had to take everything down. Because I am a fool, I decided to start this process at 6:30 at night. Once I started, I had to finish, because, well:







The two boxes quickly filled up with used bookstore fodder. By 10:30, I had finally finished. Behold:





Of course, it helped that we moved one of the bookcases I brought back into the dining room, and I got to take it over entirely:



My anthologies and such wound up on yet another bookcase in the den, which I haven't taken a picture of because it's kind of hidden behind a chair, and I figure this is self-indulgent enough.

Anyway. Yaaaay, it's done! Now I just have to hope that my cunning plan of using the two sets of bookends as a kind of barometer of Hey, You Need to Sell Some Books will work out for me. Once they get within a couple inches of the edge, it's time to chuck the ones I don't want anymore? We'll see.

Comments

[icepixie]

I remember trying to read one of the Artemis books. I got about ten pages into it before giving up, probably for the same reasons you don't like them, though I don't remember it at all now.

Oh, man, are you telling me. Whooff.

I sort of enjoy some 18th century fiction. Pamela, for example, is a laugh riot--although I'm pretty sure much of the hilarity is unintentional--and on a certain twisted level it's also kind of sweet. Humphrey Clinker is also fun and funny, and I've heard enough good things about Sterne to have Tristram Shandy fairly high up in my to-read pile. But I have to be in exactly the right mood for those kinds of books, or they become really irritating.

[foursweatervests]

The only 18th century fiction I enjoy is American, and for obvious reasons, there isn't a lot of that. If Pamela is anything like Charlotte Temple, I'm sure I'd love it. Charlotte Temple definitely has the whole unintentional-hilarity thing going for it. It's one of my favorites from that century. And from what I've heard, Humphrey Clinker is a novel I would love, while I reject eve the notion of Tristram Shandy. I simply don't have patience for the elaborate storytelling it embodies, which is one of the reasons why I can't stand any of Alejo Carpentier's work. And, unfortunately, I've had to read his attempt at magical realism 3 times.

[icepixie]

OMG, we had to read part of Charlotte Temple in the colonial American lit class I detested. Didn't really care for the excerpt, either. IMO, Pamela is much better. Instead of falling prey to her seducer/employer, she gets to keep her virtue despite his increasingly ridiculous advances, writes increasingly hilariously overwrought letters to her family about the experience (it's an epistolary novel), and eventually she and Mr. B. actually fall in love and get married, then spend the rest of the novel making fun of the snobby neighboring gentry who look down their noses at her servant girl origins.

Humphrey Clinker is another epistolary novel about a cranky, foolish extended family traveling around England. It's been eight years since I read it, but of the novels in my 18th century class freshman year, I remember liking it and Rob Roy the best.

while I reject eve the notion of Tristram Shandy. I simply don't have patience for the elaborate storytelling it embodies

I can understand that. Me, I'm all about elaborate, puzzle-like books--possibly my four favorites are Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Byatt's Possession, Kostova's The Historian, and Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. The more complex and allusory it is, the more I like it. :D Totally going to check out Carpentier's work now; I'm sadly not at ALL educated in LatAm lit.

[foursweatervests]

Instead of falling prey to her seducer/employer, she gets to keep her virtue despite his increasingly ridiculous advances, writes increasingly hilariously overwrought letters to her family about the experience (it's an epistolary novel), and eventually she and Mr. B. actually fall in love and get married, then spend the rest of the novel making fun of the snobby neighboring gentry who look down their noses at her servant girl origins.

Oh my god, that sounds amazing. I need to get me a copy of that! I loved Charlotte Temple because it was so. very. dramatic. and not because it had an awesome plot. Plus, it's interesting to see what a bestseller is at different points in history.

Well, you know what, good for you. It takes a very particular sort of mind to be able to go for that.

I'm sadly not at ALL educated in LatAm lit.

Well, you're lucky, 'cause that's basically all I'm educated in. I'm not totally sure I can recommend Carpentier to you, though. (Anyone, really.) He's...hmm. Okay, I took grad classes in Spanish as an undergrad because I was too far beyond what my first college offered Spanish undergrads. And I was the only one in that class to finish that book, and I only did so through sheer bloody-mindedness. Everyone - and I mean everyone else (who were all grad students, by the way) stopped by chapter four and just stared at the professor as he tried to get something out of us. It was boring, it was unnecessarily complex - one sentence extended an entire fucking chapter, thankyouverymcuh, which is bad enough in English but when it's in your second language....no. Just no. Also? Literally nothing happened. I don't, didn't, and never will understand the point of this book. I love magical realism, I cannot recommend Marquez hard enough. I would shank Alejo Carpentier for what he did to magical realism. If you want really good, complex puzzles of stories, try Jorge Luis Borges or Julio Cortázar. Both excellent, both very good at insane mindfucks, and both beautiful prose writers.

[icepixie]

Oh my god, that sounds amazing. I need to get me a copy of that!

Totally worth it.

I loved Charlotte Temple because it was so. very. dramatic. and not because it had an awesome plot.

Yeah, that's pretty much the selling point for Pamela as well. There's less melodrama than Charlotte Temple, though, and more of Pamela being overwrought about things we wouldn't consider a big deal today.

It was boring, it was unnecessarily complex - one sentence extended an entire fucking chapter, thankyouverymcuh, which is bad enough in English but when it's in your second language....no. Just no.

ZOMG. I enjoy modernism and its associated stylistic tricks to a perhaps unhealthy degree (Ulysses and I are like THIS), and that sounds painful even to me.

I've heard I need to read Borges, and Marquez as well. They and Cortázar are definitely going on my list. Thanks for the recs!

[foursweatervests]

No problem! For Borges, try Death and the Compass, and for Cortázar, try...Autopista del Sur. Um. It might be translated as Motorcyclist from the South? Both gorgeous modern pieces, both short stories, and seriously amazing. I'm actually more of a fan of Marquez's short stories as well (though his novels are excellent), and my favorite is A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings (I'm pretty sure that's the translation in use). Un día de estos is very good as well, but I've never seen an English translation of it, whereas AVOMWEW is one of the most commonly translated even though it was only published in one printing of one book of short stories in Spanish. Funny, that.

[foursweatervests]

re: Autopista del Sur

Technically it means Southern Highway, but I seem to recall something about Motorcyclists in the translation. It's hiding somewhere in my notes but I'm way too tired to drag them out and find it. Sorry!

[icepixie]

I'll look them up! Thanks. (I'd say I'd try to read one in the original Spanish, but I don't think my skills are good enough for much beyond a picture book anymore...)

[foursweatervests]

There are some books I think should only be read in the original language because they lose almost everything that makes them unique in translation. Quijote, for example. These? Not nearly as difficult a translation project. I'm sure you'll be able to find an awesome English version of each.