Like something almost being said, it's the SPRING 2014 "WHAT ARE YOU READING" thread!

Shirley

The part where Shirley reshapes Christian religion and the figure of Eve, casts Milton aside and sees the holy light through a feminine prism of nature is surely one of the most beautiful things I've read.

'I saw -- I now see -- a woman-Titan: her robe of blue air spreads to the outskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is grazing; a veil white as an avalanche sweeps from hear head to her feet, and arabesques of lighting flame on its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple like that horizon: through its blush shines the star of evening. Her steady eyes I cannot picture; they are clear -- they are deep as lakes -- they are lifted and full of worship -- they tremble with the softness of love and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark gathers: she reclines her bosom on the ridge of Stilbro' Moor; her mighty hands are joined beneath it. So kneeling, face to face she speaks with God. That Eve is Jehova's daughter, as Adam was His son.'
'She is very vague and visionary! Come, Shirley, we ought to go into church'
'Caroline, I will not: I will stay out here with my mother Eve, in these days called Nature. I love her, undying, mighty being! Heaven may have faded from her brow when she felll in paradise, but all that is glorious on earth shines there still. She is taking me to her bosom, and showing me her heart.'

Then they go and have a political fight with an old-fashioned blockhead and throws his bible quoting sexism back at him with radical force. I was left knackered by this monumental chapter in the middle of the book. The novel's ending is a bit... just there, but I feel now C Brontë for me is the greatest of all.

I finished Anti-Intellectualism in American Life last night. The last quarter of the book was mostly concerned with a history of American secondary-school public education and its many missteps. The main interest for me was the degree to which faddism has been a big part of public educational theory for at least a century now. However, my interest did flag after Hofstadter moved past his historic review of anti-intellectualism in American religion and politics, and he started to survey the history of American education.

I'll probably spend a few days messing around in poetry or essays before I take the plunge on a book.

that actually is the essence of educational theory iirc

next thread: "I live in an immense activity, in which everything becomes morning" -- but what are YOU reading Summer 2014??

Youn - like your reading of Journey.... I think he gets more impatient and moves faster, which actually goes against what ellipses does, normally.

Does those is in his later fiction, that is.