The Vulgar Eclectic
Vulgar: of the usual, typical, or ordinary kind
definitions courtesy of Merriam-Webster
Eclectic: composed of elements drawn from various sources
recent blog posts
- Virgin Soil by Ivan Turgenev
Another book jot from April, 2021:
I just finished reading Virgin Soil (1877) by Ivan Turgenev, translated by Constance Garnett. It was the last novel he published. Right away, the characters feel almost like real people. It’s as if the reader is making new acquaintances and getting to know the kind of people they are. I find his writing to be so simple and graceful and fluid. Reading it is almost like drinking a glass of water or being outside on a spring day. The story takes place in the late 1860’s in Russia, during a time of social tension and the rumblings of revolution. Many of the characters are agitators and revolutionaries, and the book follows a sort of unfolding love story, as it traces various perceptions of, and commitments to, “the cause”. It’s a humane look at some of the ways in which political ideologies intersect with personal, interior lives.
One of the more minor personalities is especially sympathetic. His intermittent presence offers interesting insights into the questions posed. The novel is a wonderful balance of character, plot, and ideas, with seemingly effortless prose.
For we Russians are a queer lot, you know, we expect everything; someone or something is to come along one day and cure us all at once, heal all our wounds, extract all our diseases like an aching tooth. Who or what this panacea is to be — why, Darwinism, the village commune, Arhip Perepentyev, a foreign war, anything you please! Only, we must have our teeth pulled out for us! It’s all sluggishness, apathy, shallow thinking!”
- Suppositions
- Lathyrus, wild pea
- The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
Book jot from April 2021:
I just finished reading The Last of the Mohicans (1826) by James Fenimore Cooper. It’s one of his Leatherstocking Tales, and second in the internal chronology of the series, although it can be read as a stand-alone novel.
A tale of adventure and action, it seems like a sort of precursor to much of romantic modern fiction, including fantasy and some kinds of science fiction.
Cooper has a peculiar prose style, even for the time. Somehow, I like it. And he does a great job putting you in the setting—the woods, riverbanks, and shorelines of North American wilderness. The reader doesn’t really get inside of the characters very much, although I felt closer to the protagonists than I did in The Deerslayer, the book that precedes it. The ending is quite dramatic, and the reader is left with a sense of the profound value of friendship and loyalty.
“We are not about to start on a squirrel hunt, or to drive a deer into the Horicon, but to outlie for days and nights, and to stretch across a wilderness where the feet of men seldom go, and where no bookish knowledge would carry you through, harmless.”
The Last of the Mohicans, endpaper illustration
by N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945); Oil on canvas; 1919 - Chicken of the Woods
I came across this beautiful mushroom the other day in someone’s front yard. I believe it is from the Laetiporus genus, probably Laetiporus sulphureus.
