Juxtapose

I am currently entrenched in two books. The first is, supposedly, the complete works of E.A. Poe. I love Poe. I have loved him since I was ten years old. His perfect blend of madness, saneness, and genius has always been enthralling to me. I think I like his work in whatever form (poem, short story, literary criticism, comedy...) because I have always had to think about what I was reading. Some books require no thought. I have a tendency to skim over things because I read quickly, and when both my skimming and lovable Adult Attention Deficit Disorder tendencies come together, I often end up reading through entire pages of text while I space off and start thinking of something else. And no, this has not been a useful study habit. With Poe, though, I have always had to work to understand all the nuances of what he is saying. He is so descriptive, yet he leaves so much to the imagination.

I've never been much for horror, but Poe pulled me in at an early age. I think I was eleven when I read The Telltale heart, in my "I'm having emotional problems and I want to shock people stage." I carried around The Poe Reader with me everywhere for two years afterward and had to fend off horrified exclamations from my grandmothers. Poe served his noble purpose of venting my pre-pubescent morosity for a time. For a while, I read only the well-knowns - the horror. Then, much later, I discovered the coolness of the other Poe. His comedy is comedic. His literary criticism is critical. His poetry is truly poetic. Overall, he is (err.. was) a marvel. Sure, he was a crazed alcoholic. Sure, he wrote, often disturbingly, from a first-person perspective (I've often wondered if he almost believed some of the horror that he wrote). But above all, for a borderline demented wino, he wrote some great literature. And nobody can take a penknife and gouge an eye out of a cat like Poe can.

The other good read I'm into now is A Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich, by Aleksandyr Solzhenitsyn. My family has had The Gulag Archipeligo in our bookcase for years, and it was only about a year and a half ago that I picked it up and started reading it. Solzhenitsyn writes from the perspective of one who knows the effects of communisim on the people, and he did know. He is an amazing guy, and even his fiction is incredible. ADITLOID truly does portray a day in the life of Ivan, and it's funny how a day that is so bland and grey can be written in a way that portrays it as utterly bland and grey, and yet, I can't put the book down. It's fascinating. This is the fifth Solzhenitsyn book I've read so far (after The Gulag Archipeligo, The First Circle, Cancer Ward, and Warning to the West), and so far, it has been the easiest read of the previous four. I haven't gotten all the way through it yet, even though it's only a small book, but I'm dreading the time when I'll be finished with it. Then I'll have to read it again, and it won't all be new to me anymore. Probably, after I finish ADITLOID, I will read Warning to the West again. It's a collection of three (I believe) of Solzhenitsyn's speeches. All I can say is - What. A. Guy. If there was ever anyone who I would love to hear address an auditorium, it would be him. His writing causes me to hang on every word, and how much more would I hang on them if they were audibly spoken?

Anyways. Good reading. Although, I don't know why I'm reading anything at all when my anatomy and pysiology book is glaring at me so from my floor. I think it's jealous.