Twenty-Four Week Update on My 2023 Reading Goals
“And the fire burning in our soul, When deprived of learning is soon consumed.”
Slowly but steadily, I've been returning to creative hobbies. Who knows, I might even have a real essay for you in a few weeks, but for now, here's my six-week update on my reading goals.
2023 Reading Goals: Progress!
1. Finish Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: DONE!
2. Read Tartuffe by Molière (a play): DONE!
3. Candide by Voltaire (a satirical novella): DONE!
4. The French Revolution by Hilaire Belloc: DONE!
5. Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: DONE!
6. Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts: 85% done
7. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
8. Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: DONE!
9. An anthology of French poetry: DONE!
10. Pensées by Blaise Pascal (philosophical musings of a great mathematician)
11. The First Discourse by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (I swapped titles on this one since I wanted something shorter, heh heh)
Lafayetteby Harlow Giles Unger:DONE!From Mother and Daughter: an anthology of the writings of Madeleine and Catherine des Roches: I read three of Madeleine des Roches’s poems, “Epistle to My Daughter,” “Ode 1,” and “Ode 3”
Other (Non-French) Things I Read:
A Pretty Deceit and A Certain Darkness by Anna Lee Huber; Brave New World; Expecting Better: The Surprising Facts and Essential Truths of a Healthy Pregnancy by Emily Oster; Mageling by J.L. Mullins
A selection of what I read with my kids: Charlotte’s Web; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Bible: Revelation, Psalms, 1 + 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Zechariah, 1 + 2 Thessalonians, Daniel
Journal-Style Reflections
Madeleine des Roches’s poems
A few months ago, I shared my reflections on Catherine des Roches’s poem, “Distaff, My Chore.” The poems I read this month were by her mother, Madeleine des Roches, in a volume they co-authored for “the ladies” of sixteenth-century France, imploring them to use their minds and their pens.
Laws and customs in their country at the time left women barely educated and at the mercy of their husbands, without owning their own property or having recourse to legal action if they were mistreated. True to that theme, the three poems I read reflected Madeleine des Roches’s strong desire that French women, and especially her own daughter, would still find strength in their hardships and find their voices.
Here are some of my favorite lines from each poem.
“Epistle to My Daughter”
“And the fire burning in our soul,
When deprived of learning is soon consumed.”
“Letters can be a sacred resource
For one’s health, and for medicinal use;
Letters can increase the courage of the virtuous,
And letters are the art that give
To matter its most perfect form.”
“I cannot grant you a greater gift
Than to urge you to do your duty
Toward the Muse and divine learning.”
“That posterity may know
How much honor you will have merited.
May you some day become immortal through your virtue.
It is thus that I have always wanted you to be.”
“Ode 1”
“In the happy moments of my yesteryear,
I bore my wings close by my side:
But, in losing my youthful freedom,
My feathered pen was clipped before I flew.”
“I so long to spend my time with my books
And, sighing, cast my sorrows onto paper.
But some distracting trouble always diverts me,
Claiming that I must pursue a wife’s vocation.”
“Ladies, let us live as the amaranth
That does not lose its beautiful flower in winter:
The mind imbued with a divine sap,
Through labor makes its strength shine brightly.”
“To help us bear the misfortunes of life,
God imparts to us a mighty intellect
That we are to turn into an active force
In spite of death, fortune, and envy.”
“Ode 3”
“The Heavens, therefore, that take good care
Of you, my Ladies, swear to you,
And do not swear in vain,
That on your own you can
Take revenge on pale Fate
Without having to beg another writer.”
“See the Ladies of France
Who have torn into so many pieces
That monster Ignorance;
Abandoning the playing field to them,
He jumps over the barrier,
And flees from their ramparts.”
Next Steps
Finish the Napoleon biography. I am SO CLOSE.
Read Rousseau’s First Discourse. My husband asked to read it with me, so that should be fun.
I need to finish A Tale of Two Cities. I started it because I thought I’d appreciate it more now that I have learned so much about the French Revolution, but it got hard to stick with it when things got busy.
Read three more poems from the des Roches.
Other, Non-Literary Favorites
I got back into sewing again, finishing a Christmas stocking and hemming a summertime blanket for one of my daughters. Even though some parts of sewing are tedious, there's nothing like holding something beautiful that you made yourself.
I did a crazy thing. I bought a video game. True, it’s twelve years old and was on sale besides, so I was still appeasing my mature, thrifty instincts, but it was still a big deal for me to spend even $12.50 on something so trivial and meaningless as…fun? Ever since I turned 18, but especially since I became a parent, I feel like I need to earn my free time. There’s a hierarchy of what needs to be done after the kids go to bed: quality time with my husband, chores, paperwork, correspondence, creative work (insert Substack here), and waaaay at the bottom, profitless fun. Like saving Skyrim. Or maybe enslaving it. Haven’t made up my mind yet. But anyway, playing for one hour a week, even if I haven’t fully impressed myself by first writing an essay or sending a letter or anything, has been really, really fun.