The 306 Greatest Books #127 - The Lady of the Lake

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.

The Lady of the Lake is a story written as a rhyming poem where, for the most part, each line is eight syllables and every two lines rhyme throughout the entire poem. This structure is often interrupted though, when other aspects of the story take place, such as someone singing a song where the structure would change to every other line rhyming, or some other poetical construct. Structurally speaking this poem is a marvel to read. The poem is laid out fantastically and it is easy to get lost in the words on the page. Unfortunately, this is also a detriment to the story because I found it extremely difficult to follow due to getting lost in the words. Unlike Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, which I felt created a flowing poem and an easy to follow narrative, this story is very difficult to piece out of the poem. I had to read summaries of the chapters before and after reading them in order to fully understand what I had read. Also, many times the flow of the story would be interrupted by lines that were meant to rhyme but didn't. For instance "stood" and "blood" would be used as a rhyming pair and although they look like they should rhyme it really creates an incongruity within the flow. I wonder if perhaps some of these instances indicate that these words were pronounced differently back when this story was written. This also goes for words with extra syllables that didn't fit the pattern of the poem. It makes me stop and have to reread a line 3 or 4 times, breaking the flow of the reading. The story itself is difficult to piece out of this work and I wonder if that is even the reason it is on this list. I assume it is on the list because it is structurally a literary masterpiece but as a story I can not recommend it.

The 306 Greatest Books #20 - Ivanhoe

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book Lists. 

Upon finishing Treasure Island, I searched through my stack of grandfather's books and picked out another book from my list. Ivanhoe sounded interesting. I had literally no clue what it was about before diving in. Turns out, it's Robin Hood. Or at least Robin Hood lite. Reading through the book the main impression I had about the book was this guy who would steal from the rich and give to the poor. Richard the Lionheart was even in the book! It is a medieval romantic novel that takes place in the 1100's about Sir Ivanhoe after he comes back from the Third Crusades. This was definitely a surprising book for me, since I had no clue what I was getting into. Overall it was a very enjoyable book and one of the few on the list that takes place in medieval England.