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Originally Posted by Sonic Youth 37
I read 1/4 of A Portrait about 2 years ago as I was trying to read Ulysses the first time, then stopped reading it when I stopped reading Ulysses.
Call of Cthulhu was read in about an hour last week. It was great. I found a 3mb text file of Lovecraft on Project Gutenberg that I will make my way through in due time.
I read 90 pages of Dracula today. As you said, the first bit from Harker's diary is good, but the rest has been meh at best. Lucy and Mina's diaries and letters are boring me to tears.
The verse translation of Inferno (even with flipping to the explanation pages at least twice per page) is among my top 10 favorite things I've ever read.
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Yeah I've actually never read Portrait because of Ulysses. Still have a good 120 pages to go on that. I'm just assuming. It's the first thing I'm going to pick up when this monster is slain. Well, maybe after Absalom, Absalom--but I might read that before I finish Ulysses, anyway. I just don't want to read Portrait simultaneously. That would be kind of confusing, I think.
Everything by Lovecraft is more-or-less of equal quality. It's good to read a few at a time, though. Savor it throughout your life.
As for
Inferno, I dunno. Maybe it's just me. I was really excited the first time I read it and got a nice leather-bound Harvard edition of the Divine Comedy, and I think I did enjoy it, but I was just a little disappointed. I was also just starting to get into literature so I may not have had the patience and training I needed. No doubt, it's one of the greatest works of all time, but from what I've heard from people that read it in the original, it's far more enjoyable untranslated, especially if reading it for the purpose of breaking into Eliot/Pound. I don't think the translation gives you quite the "tools" you need to pick up direct references. Either way, I didn't like it enough to continue to Purgatorio. Maybe I should read a more modern translation. And maybe skim through the first part of Machiavelli's History of Florence so I don't have to consult notes as much.
And Dracula: I kept waiting for it to get better and it never did. There are a few promised scenes, but they're brief and surrounded by boredom. Renfield is the sole reason I kept reading, but I'm not sure whether I'm glad I read it or not. I guess there's merit in reading everything, but it will be tedious.