This was very helpful! An annotations video would be great, too. (Gentle, no-pressure nudge) I think I will reread Huck Finn after my current ebook. It will probably help me to appreciate James more. Good luck on GWTW. I couldn't make it through much of the movie, even. 😂
Glad it was helpful. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about annotations. If next week or so goes well I'll have a video on that featuring how I plan to annotate Huck Finn.
Thank you for easily explaining. I immediately thought of James Asma Huckleberry Finn. And also that Nat Turner book you were reading. Great idea to slow down your reading
There you go again!! At the start of this video I thought...wow this is over my pay grade. LOL. and now it is all about...I gotta get copies of Huck Finn and James...neither were previously on my TBR. But seriously I always learning something from your videos.
Lol, my diabolical plan of spreading books is working. bwaaahahaha. But really, thank you! I'm always so happy when someone feels encouraged to read and do more. My hope was to make the topic more approachable to the everyday reader, so I consider this a success!
Earlier this year, I wanted to read the memoir, Better Living Through Birding, by Chris Cooper (the Black birder that got harassed in Central Park by a white lady). There were so many holds on that book from my local library, but I saw another memoir by the ornithology professor (and now McArthur Fellow) J. Drew Lanham - The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature, published 7 years before Chris Cooper's book. Both are about how the love of watching birds grounded them and became an essential part of their lives and identities. They turned out to be a great pair of books! And now I've been reading many more bird watching memoirs. Talk about sub-sub-sub genres, but they make for really interesting comparative reading!
I am planning on reading Huck Finn and James by the end of the year. However it will be later this fall. Before that happens I am going to read David Copperfield and Demon Copperhead. The latter book has a deadline because it’s for a book club and I want to be familiar with the inspiration beforehand. I read and liked Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker a couple months ago for the same book club. A year ago I read Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller which I didn’t care for. Both are Iliad retellings but told from Briseis’ and Patroclus’ POVs respectively. I was constantly being reminded of SoA as I went through. It *almost* made me want to read the Iliad to see what was in the original and what the authors made up.
@@noteworthyfiction Yes, I have been doing syntopical reading even though I didn’t know there was a word for it. I remembered another one I did earlier this year. Spoiler: Every month I have been reading a different Shakespeare play. I happened to choose Romeo and Juliet the month before a different bookclub read Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons. I was excited about it because Rosaline is the girlfriend that Romeo is fretting over when his buddies convince him to crash the Capulet party. I was so disappointed. I think that Shakespeare’s works are sacrosanct. I was expecting the same story with additional material from Rosaline’s perspective. Instead Romeo is made to be a villain who preys on young girls and all the prominent men in Verona are part of a sex trafficking ring.
Wow this video gave me back some of the excitement I had in my university Lit classes! I really did not realize how much i read like this until you listed examples on how people can syntopically read. I tend to pick up patterns very easily in books, especially if I'm reading the same author over and over ( cannot read Brandon Sanderson anymore cause of this 😂). But apparently I do it a LOT 😂. When you asked if reading the books back to back possibly changes my opinion on the latter book, I literally gasped. To give an example, two weeks ago I was reading the nonfiction 'The Poisoner's Handbook' (the one we talked about on stream) and in it there is a murder done so poorly by a couple that the author James M Cain wrote TWO books based on it, 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' and 'Double Indemnity'. I got both as audiobooks but read 'Double Indemnity' first, trying to connect the dots of the actual real-life event to the storyline. I quite liked it! But boy did it affect my opinion on the other book. Lot more slurs in it, very unlikeable characters and storyline, etc. But I guess the previous book, also helped me take a step back and look at what the author was trying to do with the 'Postman'. Was it purposefully written to piss off the reader and to make us dislike the characters on purpose, etc. Man this video has me excited about reading like this more haha
yay! Mission accomplished. I definitely think a lot of people naturally read this way and this method is more explaining the experience and how to be intentional than inventing something new. I love lit classes for that reason too.
This is a great 😊idea! I've been reading a few books written in the late 1940's recently: this started by accident but I've carried it on. Mostly crime but some regular fiction too. It's been a good way of getting a handle on that odd time between the war and the fifties.
ooo! I can see how that grew into something. Sounds like an interesting set of books to compare and that you're gleaning a lot from the experience. Excellent!
Okay, I chucked when you said, "I don't know if I can do that." In reference to reading Gone with the Wind again. And I'm still reeling from your Nat Turner book review. That was wild.
I am currently listening to the audiobook of the Iliad, which is narrated by Audra McDonald. I have the Odyssey, which is narrated by Claire Danes. And then I will go on to listen to the Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (the first in a trilogy). I will also listen to the Oresteia Trilogy by Aeschylus, Clytemnestra by Constanta Casati, and to finish off with two of my favorite retellings- Circe and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I am legally blind, so I need to rely on audiobooks and fortunately these are all great audiobooks! I often go down side roads when listening to nonfiction, one book becomes five or six or seven. I am very greedy. I want all the knowledge.🥴
Fascinating video, thank you. I wasn’t familiar with the term before, but the idea is something I have done instinctively before. Doing it with more intentionality in the future will be good. Maybe I’ll reread Hamlet alongside Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead sometime.
I love that book combo idea! And I do think most people do it intuitively, which is why I thought it might help to call out its name and describe it in brief.
I do this too! But also, I love stumbling into vastly unrelated books and finding some way they coincide--haven't been able to find a word to describe that, though @bookish and I tried! 🤣
Finding connections where non exist? I do that all the time. 😂 There is a word for that: apophenia or patternicity. Not sure if that's what you do, but I'm guilty of it for sure!
Hi Nicole - Thanks for another interesting video! I didn’t know the word ‘syntopically,’ so thank you for explaining all that! Here’s a question: If Drood is supposed to be narrated by (a fictionalized) Wilkie Collins, I wonder if there are any of Collins’ books that would be good to read before tackling Drood? And I was wondering if you’ve read The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon? The Tale of Genji and The Pillow Book were written in the same place-and very close to the same time. The two authors served different empresses, so (according to wikipedia) their times at court did not overlap. But Murasaki certainly knew about Shōnagon. She wrote about Shōnagon in her own diary-and not very flatteringly! The Pillow Book is not a novel like Genji; instead, it’s Shōnagon’s diary of her time at court. If you like reading top-ten lists about truly random things, I think you’d like this book. It's full of lists like… * Rare Things * Hateful Things * Things That Have Lost Their Power * Things Worth Seeing * Things That Make One’s Heart Beat Faster * Things That Gain by Being Painted
Her ‘Hateful Things’ list is very long! Here’s a short example: “One is in a hurry to leave, but one’s visitor keeps chattering away. If it is someone of no importance, one can get rid of him by saying: ‘You must tell me all about it next time’; but, should it be the sort of visitor whose presence commands one’s best behaviour, the situation is hateful indeed. “A man who has nothing in particular to recommend him discusses all sorts of subjects at random as though he knew everything. “One is just about to be told some interesting piece of news when a baby starts crying.” - from 'The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon' translation by Ivan Morris
Here's what Murasaki Shikibu said about Shōnagon: “Sei Shōnagon has a most extraordinary air of self-satisfaction. Yet, if we stop to examine those Chinese writings of hers that she so presumptuously scatters about the place, we find they are full of imperfections… If one has to sample each interesting thing that comes along- People are bound to regard one as frivolous. And how can things turn out well for such a woman?”
You're very welcome. For Drood I would recommend The Moonstone and The Woman in White as I understand Drood has plot spoilers on both. If you like Collins I'd also read Armadale as there's quite a few references/easter eggs in Drood on that one too. I own The Pillow Book and got it because of their connections. I have a fun reading project for that starts in January.
The syntopical reading would be any reading that you do where you're reading two books to and compare their themes, plots, or other literary elements. So yes, if you're comparing a trope that would count. A trope is just what academics would call a literary device or character attribute/trait. So, for example, all the reading you're doing on classics retelling would be syntopical reading or at least comparative reading if you're taking the time to compare them with the original.
Don't worry...you won't need to read Gone with the Wind while reading Jubilee. While there are similarities, most of those aren't plot-similarities. As long as you've read GWTW at some point in the somewhat recent past, you'll be fine.
That's what I'm figuring. I wouldn't have guessed they had plot similarities, I would have expected just different perspectives on what it's like to live in that area at the time, especially differences in terms of what matters and is important.
I love watching you read that way but it feels to much like a college course to me lol. Only thing I might do is like you with Drood, if a book is going to spoil other books I might want to read then I would need to read the other books. I am mainly a for entertainment reader (Which is why I struggle a bit with Mysteries of Paris lol).
There's no wrong way to read. And I get it, I would not describe The Mysteries of Paris as a thoroughly entertaining book. Sue would have to stick to one story long enough for there to be satisfying tension. Instead he draws it out sooooo long I cease to care/remember.
Great video! How coincidental that you mentioned Gone With the Wind, and I have just bought a used copy thinking I need to at least have read this once. It’s rare that you don’t want to reread something, so what about it is a no for you? People have mixed feelings. I’ve never even seen the movie.
The story, by in large, is well told and adventurous, so it's pleasing to readers who don't question the narrative. That said, the portrayal of African Americans is derogatory and racist (they're all images of Sambos) from beginning to end. She down plays the role of the KKK to nothing more than a men's club, the Irish are treated with racial slurs and derogatory stereotypes, and it seems to support the idea of the Lost Cause romanticization of precivil war south, slavery, and plantations. It's all well packaged, but if you read and feel uncomfortable at points, this is probably why. It's definitely a book that will be greatly impacted by someone's own background as a reader. Thus some may be less sensitive and aware of the impact of passing lines in the books but when you look at the overall characterization of certain people groups you can tell which way the wind is blowing. Hope that helps, but let me know what you think after reading it!
@@noteworthyfictionthank you for that! Ok I’ll proceed with caution, and have been forewarned. When I came across offensiveness in Lonesome Dove, I took a moment to thank my lucky stars I wasn’t around at that time. That may be my best coping strategy as well as venting with friends. 😃
That's the feeling I got with And Ladies of the Club. We all lucked out by not living in their small town. Gone With the Wind Gets a bit much, especially at the end. I read Lonesome Dove around the same time and also felt like it was more characterization than messaging and agenda.
Would the following also be considered syntopical reading: reading books which evoke the same lived experience or parts of it? Not in order to compare them, but because they complement each other and sort of create this synergistic symphony?
I definitely think so. The idea is, as the name implies, to simultaneously read on the same topic. So, in that case, the shared topic would be lived experience. No doubt the synergy that the create helps you have a better understanding of that experience, which is the whole point.
Do you usually read the books for a certain project back to back? In that case, do you tend to gather them all before starting the project? I'm working on a little project myself but I haven't started yet because I don't have yet all the books I'd like to cover. Perhaps I should not stop myself because of that 🤔
Sometimes, though rarely, I read the books back to back (so more comparative than syntopical reading). I almost never have all the books. Frequently I wont even decide on a project until I'm in the middle of a book. I get the books as they come to me unless I'm afraid I might forget about some then I'll get them right away. Don't let it stop you. Start reading, likely you'll find it inspires you to get the other books sooner.
I tried to read Gone with the Wind for my Pulitzer Prize project. I couldn't do it. I know I have to finish it to complete my project. I always try to read other works in the same year. I picked up Zeno's Conscience yesterday. I made the mistake of going in Dollar Tree. There I found a copy of The Bad Muslim Discount. I have heard good things about that book.
Maybe someday we'll suffer through Gone with the Wind together. Dollar Tree can sometimes have some good picks. I've definitely seen some booktube faves there.
I remember reading Gone With the Wind when I was in high school. I also remember throwing it across the room. More than once. (Btw, I wasn't reading it for a class-thank goodness!)
