Florence July 2016

Where to start?
A month in Tuscany.

My first time in Italy!
Amazing course at the British Institute in Florence.  Grazie mille!

Florence A city so full of magic, it is difficult to know where to start.

So many thoughts and experiences.

La Traviata.
My first Opera, in the Open Air in Il palazio Pitti.

James Joyce Ulysses or Homer The Odyssey

A dilemma, I want to read James Joyce's materpiece, but I feel I have to read the Odyssey first to understand Joyce!

It is getting to the point where I am wondering, should I also read the bible!

Writers are so influenced by classics and religion as well as there own experiences.

It fascinates me, but I guess it is similar to reading Russian text in that background knowledge helps to understand the message from the writer.

So here we go on my own Odyssey, I have decided ot have a look first at Homer. God knows I may need some help!!  But if it helps me understand, James Joyec, Job done.

Watch this space!!

Book review- Frankensteing. Mary Shelley

Having just finished reading this classic book. I find myself pondering about the meaning of the text, the messages that Mary Shelley wanted to share or disguised in her writing.

That's the problem with reading sometimes, don't you think?
Maybe we read too much into the text?
Why not just read for the pleasure of reading?

However, Frankenstein was for me an amazing book. It had to be influenced by my memories of the Hammer Horror films of my childhood and as usual one finds that the book is quite a way from the plot of a film.

How can you forget the Hammer horror version! It was so frightening as a child, although not in Black and white, I seem to remember the films as always being in monochrome , maybe it was our television?

Back to the book, of course the language of Mary Shelley in her writing is very romantic and yet again I find influences from Greek classics as Frankenstein is also known as the modern Prometheus.