Goal - 2 books 220 pages
Total - 2 books 150 pages
Result - 70 pages to reach goal
Finally getting into the meat of Leaves of Grass. I made it one more page than my goal for the day so still slowly, slowly catching up.
The first edition is so much better in the beginning. Although, I only read a few pages of the deathbed edition so it could get better quickly.
The first edition though begins with a long preface in prose by Whitman. It's poetical but not a poem. At first it's hard to get into but once I got into the rhythm of it the pace picked up a bit. I've said it in an earlier post but it still holds true - I'm always slower in the beginning when getting used to a new book! The preface has some great quotes, such as:
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body…
Well that's a sort of a list of how he thinks one should live, but I like the idea of it. Basically I'm getting the idea that the book is arguing for a life of loving nature and enjoying all the pleasures of life and that he embraces everything good and bad, and in the end we're all like leaves of grass, in fact we all are leaves of grass as our bodies decompose and feed the grass.
I finished the preface and am onto the first poem "Song of Myself". It's long and I haven't finished it yet. I don't know but it must be by far the longest poem in this version since this version is only supposed to be about 100 pages and I'm already around page 50.
The poem is sort of just free thought thinking through the whole of the world and his philosophy on living in the moment and being happy. He compares his opinion on things favourably to the country of America. I think that was rather unnecessary to give such glowing reviews to one country like that, but he must love it. His scope is so grand I think he does a bit of disservice by talking at length about America in particular.
I've never been a huge fan of artists touting a country though. Now, things inside a country, fine. Physical features, geography, etc. But a country which is just a construction made by humans, just seems unnecessary for art. But I don't have strong feelings on it, it's just not my preference.
Anyway, the stream of consciousness writing is a bit hard to keep up with and I need to read slower than usual but I'm making my way through it. I want to catch up those extra 70 pages, but I might not do it with Leaves of Grass as it's hard enough getting through 37 pages a day of it!
The text is very forward for its day, that's for sure! I'm amazed he talks so openly about subjects such as masturbation and sex and the smell of his armpits and such, and, heh, I don't know if he meant it the same way we now would take it, but he calls himself "wellhung". Ha!
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