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Book Club, Week 5

Hey all, hope your reading is going well! This week was a major struggle. I’m about a day behind inasmuch as I usually write the week’s article on Tuesday, and release it on Wednesday. I’m releasing today, Wednesday, but I’m also writing today lol.

 

Book V Review

The Iliad, Book V was not enjoyable for me. I fell behind, and so had to majorly play catch up and so missed details that I would have gotten if I’d paid a bit more attention. Nevertheless, we must continue.

I think one reason I did not enjoy this book so much was that, even though the fighting scene was exciting and all that, it was kind of meaningless a lot of the time because the characters that Iliad focuses on were only partially present. Book V goes into a lot of encounters between enemies but they’re folks that I don’t really care about because I don’t know anything about them. Of course, I’m more willing to perceive my dislike of this chapter as being a fault within myself, not one within the 3k year old book lol.

As far as reading goes, I found this one more difficult precisely because I found myself missing details and moments and that in turn discouraged me in reading. This happens to everyone, so I hope you can relate. The way I beat that discouragement and procrastination from reading (because it felt like this chapter just dragged on) was by reading the book aloud. Genuinely, it becomes more exciting for me when I read it out loud, and I think that’s going to be my default, going forward. I have weeks where my internal voice is loud and weeks where it’s pretty quiet. During those times when I zone out or don’t really feel gripped by the book, reading aloud is the best option for me, I think. Can any of you relate? Perhaps these are all issues of an amateur reader. That I certainly am.

So this week I don’t really have a summary, since I didn’t take any notes. But basically it was the big battle between the Achaians and the Trojans, and the gods and goddesses were pitching in on each side. One interesting thing was that Diomedes was granted god-like powers by Athene during the battle and he kind of superhero’d his way through the army, even wounding gods.

 

Ok, for this week let’s do Books VI-VII. They together give us roughly 29 pages, which is about what we’ve been doing up to now, and this week, reading aloud being my default (which makes sense for epic poetry), I hope to do a better job of both grasping the plot and taking notes.

My final thought is that I’m grateful for the internet. I’ve been constantly looking up characters and summaries and whatnot in order to help me grasp the story. If you have been on the fence about that sort of thing, don’t worry about doing it!! We all need help sometimes and that has certainly helped me.

What are your thoughts on the book so far? Have you enjoyed reading it? Who might be one of your favorite characters, and what is your opinion on issues I’ve brought up, such as the drastic focus on characters that seem insignificant to the plot? I’d love to hear your feedback!

 

Here’s the updated reading list. Remember that new additions will be in bold. The Founding of Christendom, By Warren Carroll

  1. Homer (c. 9th century BC)

    1. Iliad

    2. Odyssey

  2. Aeschylus (c. 525-456 BC)

    1. Tragedies

  3. Sophocles (c. 495-406 BC)

    1. Tragedies

  4. Herodotus (c. 484-425 BC)

    1. Histories

  5. Euripides (c. 485-406 BC)

    1. Tragedies

  6. Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC)

    1. History of the Peloponnesian War

  7. Aristophanes (c. 448-380 BC)

    1. Comedies (The Clouds, The Birds, The Frogs suggested)

  8. Plato (c. 427-347)

    1. Dialoges (The Republic, Symposium, Sophist, Phaedo suggested)

  9. Aristotle (384-322)

    1. Works (Politics, Rhetoric, Poetics, The Nichomachean Ethics, Organon suggested)

  10. Epicurus (c. 341-270)

    1. Letter to Herodotus

    2. Letter to Menoeceus

  11. Cicero (106-43 BC)

    1. Works (Orations, On Friendship, On Old Age suggested)

  12. Lucretius (c. 95-55 BC)

    1. On The Nature Of Things

  13. Virgil (70-19 BC)

    1. Aeneid

  14. Vitruvius (c. 80-70 — c. after 15 B.C.)

    1. Ten Books on Architecture

  15. Horace (65-8 BC)

    1. Odes and Epods

    2. The Art of Poetry; (Or Epistles)

  16. Livy (59 BC-AD 17)

    1. History of Rome

  17. Plutarch (c. 45-120)

    1. Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Moralia

  18. Tacitus (c. 55-117)

    1. Annals

  19. Epictetus (c. 60-120)

    1. Discourses

  20. Justin Martyr (100-165)

    1. Works (Likely to use “Writings of Justin Martyr” from Veritatis Splendor Publications)

  21. Lucian (c.120-c.190)

    1. The True History

  22. Marcus Aurelius (121-180)

    1. Meditations

  23. Mike Aquilina (Born 1952)

    1. The Fathers of the Church, 3rd Edition: An Introduction to the First Christian Teachers

  24. Plotinus (205-270)

    1. The Enneads

  25. St. Ambrose (c. 339-397)

    1. The Complete Works of St. Ambrose

  26. St. Augustine (354-430)

    1. Confessions

    2. City of God

  27. St. Benedict (c. 480–547)

    1. The Rule of St. Benedict

  28. Beowulf

  29. St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109)

    1. Works

  30. The Song of Roland (c. 12th Century)

  31. The Nibelungenlied (13th Century)

  32. Steve Weidenkopf (born 19974)

    1. The Glory of the Crusades

  33. St. Thomas Aquinas (and Peter Kreeft) (c. 1225-1274)

    1. A Summa of The Summa

  34. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

    1. The Divine Comedy

  35. Francis Petrarch (1304-1374)

    1. Sonnets

  36. Boccaccio (1313-1375)

    1. The Decameron

  37. Chaucer (1340-1400)

    1. Canterbury Tales

  38. Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471)

    1. The Imitation of Christ

  39. Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)

    1. Notebooks

  40. Machiavelli (1469-1527)

    1. The Prince

  41. Erasmus (c. 1469-1536)

    1. Christian Humanism

    2. Henry VIII and the Reformation

  42. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

    1. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres

  43. Sir Thomas More (c. 1478-1535)

    1. Utopia

  44. Martin Luther (1483-1546)

    1. Three Treatises

  45. St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556)

    1. The Spiritual Exercises (Exercitia spiritualia)

  46. François Rabelais (c. 1495-1546)

    1. Gargantua and Pantagruel

  47. Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola (1507-1573)

    1. Canon of the Five Orders Of Architecture

  48. Andrea Palladio (1508-1580)

    1. The Four Books On Architecture

  49. John Calvin (1509-1564)

    1. Institutes of the Christian Religion

  50. St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

    1. The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila

  51. Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)

    1. Essays

  52. St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)

    1. Dark Night of the Soul

  53. Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)

    1. Don Quixote

  54. Vincenzo Scamozzi

    1. The Mirror of Architecture

  55. Edmund Spenser (c. 1552-1599)

    1. The Faerie Queene

  56. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

    1. Essays

      1. Advancement of learning

      2. Novum Organum

      3. New Atlantis

  57. William Shakespeare (1564-1626)

    1. Works (esp Midsummer night’s dream & Hamlet)

  58. St. Francis De Sales (1567-1622)

    1. An Introduction to the Devout Life

    2. The Catholic Controversy: A Defense of the Faith by St. Francis De Sales

  59. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

    1. Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences

  60. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

    1. The Leviathan

  61. Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

    1. Meditations on First Philosophy

    2. Discourse on Method

  62. John Milton (1608-1674)

    1. Works (Esp. Paradise Lost)

  63. Moliere (1622-1673)

    1. Comedies (The Miser, The School for Wives, The Misanthrope, The Doctor in Spite of Himself, Tartuffe suggested)

  64. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

    1. The Provincial Letters

    2. Pensees

  65. Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677)

    1. Ethics

  66. John Locke (1632-1704)

    1. Letter Concerning Toleration

    2. Two Treatises of Government

    3. Essay Concerning Human Understanding

  67. Jean Baptiste Racine (1639-1699)

    1. Andromache

    2. Phaedra

  68. Antoine Desgodetz (1653-1728)

    1. The Ancient Buildings of Rome

  69. Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)

    1. Robinson Crusoe

  70. Johnathan Swift (1667-1745)

    1. Gulliver’s Travels

  71. St. Louis de Montfort (1673-1716)

    1. True Devotion to Mary

  72. George Berkeley (1685-1753)

    1. Principles of Human Knowledge

  73. Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

    1. Spirit of laws

  74. Voltaire (1694-1778)

    1. Candide

    2. Philosophical Dictionary

  75. Henry Fielding (1707-1784)

    1. Tom Jones

  76. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

    1. The Vanity of Human Wishes

  77. David Hume (1711-1776)

    1. An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding

  78. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

    1. On the Origin of Inequality

    2. The Social Contract

  79. Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)

    1. Tristram Shandy

  80. James Stuart (1713-1788), Nicholas Revett (1720-1804)

    1. The Antiquities of Athens

  81. Adam Smith (1723-1790)

    1. Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

  82. Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804)

    1. Critique of Pure Reason

    2. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals

    3. Critique of Practical Reason

    4. Science of Right

    5. Critique of Judgement

  83. Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

    1. Reflections on the revolution in France

  84. Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)

    1. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

  85. John Jay (1745-1829), James Madison (1751-1836), and Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804)

    1. Federalist Papers

    2. Articles of Confederation

    3. The Constitution of the United States

    4. The Declaration of Independence

  86. Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832)

    1. Faust

  87. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1850)

    1. Lectures on the philosophy of History

    2. Philosophy of Right

  88. Asher Benjamin (1773-1845)

    1. The Architect, or Practical House Carpenter

  89. Jane Austen (1775-1817)

    1. Pride and Prejudice

    2. Emma

  90. Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831)

    1. On War

  91. George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1831)

    1. Don Juan

  92. St. John Vianney (1786–1859)

    1. Sermons of the Curé of Ars

  93. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

    1. Studies in Pessimism

  94. Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)

    1. Pere Goriot

  95. John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

    1. Apologia

  96. Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870)

    1. Three Musketeers

    2. Count of Monte Cristo

  97. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

    1. Representative Men

    2. Esssays

    3. Journal

  98. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

    1. The Scarlett Letter

  99. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

    1. Democracy in America

  100. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

    1. On Liberty

    2. Representative Government

    3. Utilitarianism

  101. Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

    1. The Origin of the Species

    2. The Descent of Man

  102. Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

    1. Works

  103. Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

    1. Fear and Trembling

    2. Either/Or

  104. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

    1. Civil Disobedience

    2. Walden

  105. Karl Marx (1818-1883)

    1. Capital

    2. Communist Manifesto

  106. Herman Melville (1819-1891)

    1. Moby Dick

    2. Billy Budd

  107. Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)

    1. Crime and Punishment

    2. The Brother’s Karamazov

  108. Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

    1. Three Stories

  109. Lew Wallace (1827-1905)

    1. Ben Hur

  110. Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)

    1. A Doll’s House

    2. The Wild Duck

  111. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

    1. War and Peace

  112. Mark Twain (1835-1910)

    1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    2. Tom Sawyer

    3. The Mysterious Stranger

  113. William James (1842-1910)

    1. The Principles of Psychology

  114. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)

    1. Thus Spoke Zarathustra

    2. Beyond Good and Evil

    3. The Genealogy of Morals

    4. The Will to Power

  115. Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916)

    1. Quo Vadis

  116. Brian Stoker (1847-1912)

    1. Dracula

  117. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

    1. Plays (Man and Superman, Major Barbara, Caesar and Cleopatra, Pygmalion, Saint Joan)

  118. Loius Sullivan (1856-1924)

    1. Louis Sullivan’s Idea

  119. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

    1. The Ego and the Id (The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud)

  120. Pope Pius XI (1857-1939)

    1. Mit brennender Sorge

  121. Henri Bergson (1859-1941)

    1. Time and Free Will

    2. Matter and Memory

    3. Creative Evolution

    4. The Two Sources of Morality and Religion

  122. John Dewey (1859-1952)

    1. How We Think

    2. Democracy and Education

    3. Experience and Nature

    4. Logic, The Theory of Inquiry

  123. George Santayana (1863-1952)

    1. The Life of Reason

    2. Skepticism and Animal Faith

  124. Nikolai Lenin (1870-1970)

    1. The State and Revolution

  125. Bertrand Russel (1872-1970)

    1. The Problems of Philosophy

    2. The Analysis of Mind

    3. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth

  126. St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897)

    1. The Story of a Soul (Tan Classics edition)

  127. Thomas Mann (1875-1955)

    1. The Magic Mountain

    2. Joseph and His Brothers

  128. James Joyce (1882-1941)

    1. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    2. Ulysses

  129. Jacques Maritain (1882-1973)

    1. Art and Scholasticism

    2. True Humanism

  130. Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

    1. The Trial

    2. The Castle

  131. Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975)

    1. A Study of History

    2. Civilization on Trial

  132. Edward Bernays (1891-1995)

    1. Propaganda

  133. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973)

    1. The Hobbit

    2. The Lord of the Rings

    3. The Silmarillion

    4. Leaf by Niggle

    5. On Fairy Stories

  134. C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

    1. Mere Christianity

    2. Miracles

    3. A Grief Observed

    4. The Screwtape Letters

    5. The Great Divorce

    6. The Four Loves

    7. The Problem of Pain

    8. The Abolition of Man

    9. Chronicles of Narnia

  135. John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

    1. A Tale of Two Cities

  136. George Orwell (1903-1950)

    1. Animal Farm

    2. 1984

  137. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

    1. Nausea

    2. No Exit

    3. Being and Nothingness

  138. St. Faustina (1905-1938)

    1. Diary

  139. William Golding (1911-1993)

    1. Lord of the Flies

  140. Albert Camus (1913-1960)

    1. The Stranger

    2. The Myth of Sisyphus

  141. St. Pope John Paul II (1920-2005)

    1. Works

  142. Harper Lee (1926-2016)

    1. To Kill A Mockingbird

  143. Tom Holland (b. 1968)

    1. Dominion


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