Reading rewind

Ages ago, my sister gave me "A Room with a View" by E.M. Forster. Perhaps because she called it a more grown up Anne of Green Gables, which I didn't see, I didn't really get into it at the time. I was probably 16. When I went to college, I really enjoyed "A Passage to India," so I got to thinking the first Forster deserved another chance. So that's what's up next, probably once the holiday insanity slows down.

I must say, I'm looking forward to it, if for no other reason than the chapter titles. I don't recall Forster being particularly zany, but the table on contents is great! Chapter 3 is "Music, Violets, and the Letter 'S'" while chapter four is brilliantly "Fourth Chapter." But chapter 6 has them all beat: "The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager, Mr. Emerson, Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, and Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive Out in Carriages to See a View; Italians Drive Them." That's GREAT! And then comes chapter 7, simply "They Return." This should be good.

And this morning, I got to thinking about other things I should add to my to-read list, and for some reason I'm now convinced I need to read "The Inferno." Ah, nothing like a little Dante for some light escapism! And of course, after that I must do "Paradise Lost," which I managed to essentially escape as an undergrad. I had a modern poetry class just after the Milton class, and the scribble on the chalkboard always made me so very glad I wasn't in the Milton class. But I feel it's something I should read, especially since the majority of our ideas about heaven and hell and all that come from these two works and not the actual Bible. What fun.