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sunshine jen: Post #499
I recently realized that I was quickly approaching my 500th Sunshine Jen post. How did that happen? How did I write 500 of these things?
But I wasn’t at 500 yet, and naturally I fizzled out at 499.
Then this morning in the paper, I saw that Big Jim Thome had hit his 600th Home Run, and that excited the Tribe fan in me. Go Big Jim Go! If he could make it to 600, I could make it to 500. Okay, let’s do this. Here’s 499.
After much reading, I finally finished reading Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.
I had a headache. I couldn’t take any more of Tolstoy’s literary miniseries chock full of bodice ogling, philosophizing, social commentary, and fun-as-hell secondary characters.
Toward the end, I couldn’t wait for Anna to get under that train although some of the prose about her mental state (I read the translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky) was stunning.
If I can take something positive away from the eight hundred page experience of reading Anna K, it was the constant struggle and juggle with multiple characters’ points of view. Tolstoy is a master puppeteer running around his houses and giving his characters voices. I think that must’ve given him a thrill.
Meanwhile, the Sunshine Jen Network is pleased to announce a new show in its lineup, Deadliest Novelist.
Each week two Novelists from two different times go head to head in a fight to a death. Only one novelist will be left standing. Only one novelist can be the Deadliest Novelist.
In Week One, it’s Charlotte Bronte vs. Jane Austen. Austen might have the dialogue and Darcy’s pride, but Bronte has a crazy wife in the attic. Watch as these lethal ladies battle it out for a chance to be deadliest novelist.
Week Two, Dostoyevsky vs. Tolstoy. Who wrote more pages? Who goes deepest into the human condition? Personally (and this is just me), I think Dostoyevsky has a slight advantage.
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