The Magic of Libraries

One of the challenges inherent in this monumental task we have undertaken is the relative obscurity of the authors who have won the prize. For those of us who have chosen to delve into the history of the award it makes it difficult for us to find the early works. They are mostly available through academic sources and also, because of that, ridiculously expensive. Plus many of the texts are used for language study which makes it difficult to find texts in English.

Which brings us to The Library.

The library has always been one of my favorite places, a magical storehouse of knowledge that I can access for FREE! But lately when I go I've been getting mostly movies and an occasional book or CD. I might walk by the information desk on my way to the non-fiction stacks or talk to them if the checkout computer isn't working. I have certainly not been making full use of the library's services. Until now.

In my quest to not pay a hundred dollars to read the next installment of Nobel winners I turned to the library. The St. Paul Public library has saved me in the past with Happy Boy; they had it in their basement and I was able to check it out. The Great Galeoto and Mireio presented a larger problem. The St. Paul library did not have them in their collection, and I happened to know that the copies owned by the Minneapolis Public library were checked out. What to do? I searched the University of Minnesota Library and there they both were, in English and on Campus. Fabulous! Except I do not have borrowing privileges at the U of MN libraries and the person in my house who used to does not anymore either. Hmmm....

I decided to go out on a limb and see if I could get them through inter-library loan. I stepped up to the information desk and sheepishly said "Um...yeah...um...can you..." And voila 5 minutes and 4 days later one of them is in my hand! Magic!!

I love the library.

A photo of Echegaray: Winner 1904

Losing Steam

It appears that our project is losing steam. We finished Rome (an incredible feat), we finished A Happy Boy (which was very happy by the way) and now we're on to....um a couple of guys. Yup, only one third (not me) of our trio has managed to be with it enough to find and get the materials.

I actually looked them up on Amazon and found that they are very expensive. I also found that you absolutely-for-sure cannot trust what language amazon says the text is in because I previewed a text they said was in English and found it to be completely in Spanish. Now, I would like to improve my Spanish but I do not think I would get as much out of the Spanish text as I would one that was translated for me.

So, we will carry on...somehow. This project may take more like 20 years rather than the ten I originally projected, but hey, that's life.

Next up

After Rome it seems that all of us have been a little slow to get the material for our next author.

Bjørnstjerne Martinus Bjørnson is a Norwegian author who is famous for his stories of Norwegian peasant life. He was very involved in politics and from his biography I gather that his written work has a strong political stance. I guess I had better pay my library fines so I can check out the books.

Fin

Done with Mommsen. I read the last ten pages after our meeting because I felt that after such time and effort I couldn't get to the end and not complete the book. It would be like getting a block from the finish line in a marathon and not finishing when you were still capable of running. Lame.

Lots of food for thought in Mommsen. It makes you think about the root of our culture and where our values, and problems, come from. Our trajectory is so similar and yet I still have hope for our future, as a country and as a global community. We can do better.

Extensions and Weird Egyptians

Thank goodness we decided to give ourselves an extension on the deadline. I now have a chance of finishing the book. It's still going to be close though, I think I have about a hundred and fifty pages left to read and three days to read them. Doable but not easy.

So the Egyptians...yup...they were weird. It seems that Cleopatra was married to her brother. Gross! I read about this sibling sex phenomenon in the news recently because they have just done some genetic research on King Tut and found that he was a little disabled and that this particular kind of problem generally happened only when there wasn't enough genetic diversity. They said he was married to his sister or his mother was his sister or something like that. I thought it was news that the ancient Egyptians accepted that as normal, but apparently I was wrong. Mommsen knew about it, and put it in his book. They don't teach you that in high school world history. Incest! Yikes.

Deadlines

The deadline is looming for Mommsen and I have 300 pages left. I feel like I'm in school again, reading as fast as I can and kind of dreading opening the book.

His writing is engaging for a history text. I love his little asides about who he thinks is right or wrong, and the personal additions about the characters that are written as if they are his old friends. But MAN I can't tell a Lucianus Lacullus from a Marius Lucretanus (and I'm making those up because I can't remember actual names) for the life of me! Who are these people and where do they come from?!

My only hope for this text is that I can get some solid glimpse of Roman life and the way the world has been shaped by it. And that I can finish it in time for our discussion - which is kind of like climbing Everest.

Progress

I like to think that we, as a people, have made progress in the last two thousand years; that we're more diplomatic and less violent.

After reading more about Rome though I wonder if that's true. Maybe we don't put heads on spikes and drag dead bodies through the street but have we really made any progress? Lately I've been thinking that our progress has been all in weapons design. We don't have to physically fight, we just shoot 'em, or bomb 'em, or torpedo 'em out of the water. It's no less damaging to those involved and far more damaging to the earth.

Will we always fight? Have there ever been peaceful human beings on earth?