7/9: unexpected connection
I'm trying to read a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story every day. It sounds like a sweet plan, but I'm only on day 3 so I don't know if it will stick as a habit. Today's story was "The Minister's Black Veil," which I do--but very vaguely--remember reading back in high school. Today I was struck by the symbolic similarities between the veil in Hawthorne's story and the veil in C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, one of my favorite novels and one which I'm re-reading this summer for a book club. I think that Lewis must have known Hawthorne's short story; some of the resonances seem too clear to be coincidences? I'm sure other readers and researchers have studied the relationship between the texts, but I guess what I enjoyed is coming upon it in an unscholarly way today--just drawing an unexpected line connecting two literary dots, and enjoying the fact that books talk to one another and I get to listen in.
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2 comments:
Every day for how long??
I started 2011 by reading The Scarlet Letter and thoroughly enjoyed it as an adult.
Have you every watched Shadowlands? There are two versions and I enjoyed them both - "enjoyed" being an honorable word for a very sad life in many ways.
Hi, Barbara--I thought I'd try a story a day until I've read them all, so I think that would take me a few months.
I haven't seen Shadowlands, but maybe I'll check it/them out before my book club meeting. Thanks for the recommendation--I took one of your earlier recommendations (for Downton Abbey), and really enjoyed the series, so thanks for that, too!
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