The Kevin J. Anderson / Rebecca Moesta reading was pretty good. They talked about their writing (Kevin’s published 89 novels!) and Kevin read the first chapter of his upcoming book Slanhunter. We were the first people to hear it or see it — not even his wife (Rebecca) had read the chapter yet. It’s a sequel to A.E. Van Vogt’s Slan from the 1940s.

Anyway, there was a science fiction/fantasy symposium this afternoon (”Life, the Universe, and Everything”) but I need to finish the layouts for Translating Scripture. I haven’t been much into sci-fi/fantasy in the past few years, other than Tolkien, really. But my fond memories of reading Star Wars novels as a kid are coming back.

After writing that last post, I searched for Chaucer on the LDS.org archives and found an article by Arthur Henry King entitled Literature and Testimony. He says, “I think that with all his so-called liberality Chaucer is nevertheless a great religious poet.” Lately I’ve been reading AHK’s Arm the Children and I respect him a lot — he’s becoming one of my role models, in fact.

Continuing on with the idea of that last post, I see two options before me. The first is to discard anything that has anything bad in it (and of course the definition of “bad” is an issue that has to be wrestled with, but thankfully the Spirit helps) and completely avoid it. The second is to recognize that the great artists and writers of the past often had blemishes and were imperfect, but their art is still great (for the most part) and I should overlook the moral faults. I don’t know yet which is the more correct path…

So in my History of the English Language class this morning we read some Middle English texts (well, two pages’ worth) and it was tremendously fun, especially now that I’ve studied Old English. The last text we looked at was the first few paragraphs of the Canterbury Tales, and when I got out of class I just had to go over to the bookstore and get a cheap ($6 paperback) copy of Chaucer in the original Middle English. I also picked up a Lonely Planet Cantonese phrasebook.

I do have a bit of a dilemma, though. (And not just about my lack of frugality when it comes to books.) If I remember correctly, Chaucer can be a bit on the bawdy side. Ditto for Boccaccio’s The Decameron and Voltaire’s Candide. I’m still not sure how to reconcile my beliefs with such literature — are they “virtuous, lovely, and of good report”? Is there enough of value in these books that I really ought to read them? (And if so, I would suppose that I should skip over the questionable parts.) Knowing that they’re “great” literature and icons of an era makes it harder to decide. Shakespeare’s great as well but he has his somewhat obscene moments. At any rate, it’s a lot easier to skip over something bad in a book than it is in a movie. I have a feeling I’ll be writing more about this in the near future.

Well, Kevin Anderson and Rebecca Moesta are giving a lecture at the library in half an hour, so I’d better go get a good seat.

I’ve been spending every spare moment working on the book, and we’re getting even closer. It’s a good feeling. I did go to see The Boxcar Children tonight, however, and it was a nice warm fuzzies sort of play. Other than that, I haven’t done much reading these past couple of days. Soon, though — soon. Oh, today at the bookstore I gave in to the temptation to get a Chinese Book of Mormon, and I ended up getting the simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean editions as well. I was going to get the Chinese hymnbook and German hymnbooks too, but I’m glad to say I had at least a tiny bit of self-control, even if it wasn’t enough to stop me from buying the other books. (Someday I need to write about my lack of ability to save money and how I almost always end up spending everything on books instead… It’s more than just a hole in my pocket — my wallet is the hole!)

Remember that book I mentioned a week or two ago when talking about audiobooks, Steve Leveen’s The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life? Well, shortly thereafter I ordered it through ILL (interlibrary loan). It arrived today and when I got home from school I picked it up, intending to read only a chapter or so. An hour and a half later, I came to the end of the last page. Reading for that long is something I haven’t done in a while, and it felt so good. I’d forgotten how good it feels. In fact, it was just what I needed in this way-too-busy week that could have driven me to the brink of insanity had I not taken a nice and well-deserved break. I love reading.

Harking back to another post, I think I’ve been converted to writing in books: as I read Your Well-Read Life, I kept fighting the urge to mark good passages and write my thoughts in it. (It’s a library book, definitely a no-no.) In my reading for the C.S. Lewis Society meetings I’ve been marking ever since The Great Divorce, and it really does make a difference. Everything stays in my memory so much clearer and longer than it used to. (”Everything” meaning the important and good stuff, of course.)

Another thought: I’m the kind of person who feels obligated to finish a book once I’ve started it, but in reading these books on reading, it’s repeatedly emphasized that it’s okay to stop reading a boring book. And it’s a really good point: life is only so long, and there are so many books out there that we’re doing ourselves a disservice if we don’t read only the best books (for us).

Well, my nice new hardcover Silmarillion is begging for some one-on-one time, so au revoir for now.

I’ve done most of the chapters (all but two) and have started on the appendices. You can actually see a PDF of Chapter Two online at TranslatingScripture.com. My goal is to finish it by the end of the week (or at least as much as I can).

Because of it, I haven’t been reading very much lately. I did pick up Jane Eyre again and read a few wonderful pages. It was the part where Mr. Rochester examines Jane’s paintings, and as I read the passage I found myself wanting to paint.

I’ve worked on the book every spare moment today and edited all the chapters, but I was only able to format one of them (in InDesign). Although I thought I’d have most of the day to work on the book, I’d forgotten about the Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting (two hours) and ended up getting together with some of my extended family (two and a half hours). But that’s okay. The other chapters are much shorter than this one (five or six pages compared to 37 pages) and won’t take long.

So I’ve decided that tomorrow’s going to be my marathon day for finishing most of the Translating Scripture layouts. When I get done there’ll be only two chapters and one or two appendices left. We’re getting close. I started using OmniOutliner tonight to keep track of which chapters I’ve edited, which I’ve sent back, which I’ve gone through one last time, and which I’ve copyfitted. It’s a good system. Anyway, we’ll have a sample chapter up on the website (TranslatingScripture.com) pretty soon, and I’ll link to it when it’s up.

While walking through the Wilkinson Center today on my way to print up some stuff, I caught sight of tables and tables of books in the Garden Court. My wallet is thin as it is, but I couldn’t help myself. And I’m glad I did: for $12, I got John Maxwell Hamilton’s Casanova Was a Book Lover, Ronald B. Shwartz’s For the Love of Books, and a nice hardcover edition of Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. ‘Tis a good day. I really like reading about books, perhaps more than any other subject. It’s kind of like reading about one’s friends and loved ones, in a way. And this Houghton Mifflin edition of The Silmarillion is quite beautiful. A lot of the books on my shelf are somewhat ugly 1960s and 1970s copies I got for 50 cents at the local thrift store, so it’s nice to have some aesthetically pleasing books to make up for it.

Found this Rousseau quote in my planner: “The world of reality has limits; the world of imagination is boundless.” Mmm, I love quotes like this! I’ve got homework to do right now but sometime later I’ll talk about imagination and creativity.