Thursday 10 July 2014

Walden, and some books on words

The readers of my blog may interpret my absence as mack of reading, which is, to some extent, true. I've been busier and my time has been consumed by my job, and also by my increasingly unhealthy addiction to Shakespeare. The latter has proved to be a huge hindrance to my old reading habit, since now I use my time not only to read and reread Shakespeare, but also to do some research about his works, mostly, theatrically.

However, I picked up my old book Walden some time ago and started reading it instead of rereading Shakespeare's plays that I've read before. It's interesting that Thoreau and I agree upon some points about life. For example, I sure agree with his willingness to live in simplicity, and I agree that the more you have, the more you need to keep your possessions. I'm still halfway through the first chapter of Walden, so I don't have the full picture of Thoreau's idea of perfect way of living.

Apart from that, I've been drawn (by Shakespeare and other excellent poets) into the words and their significance. Before I realise it, I think about words almost everyday when I let my mind wander; their meanings, their origins, their sounds, etc. So, to prevent myself from getting insane I read some books on language, words, and linguistics. What I love the most is the relation between word, sound, and meaning. It's fascinates me how the words in different languages with the same meaning are different, or, sound differently because the people using them hear, or rather, translate noises around them differently.

Well, this, like the entirety of this blog, is more of a hobby than a study. So I don't really push myself to understand everything, but rather learn bit by bit conveniently.

So, that's it. Let's hope I'll finish Walden soon so I will have some material to review on this blog. Have a nice day.

2 comments:

  1. From your 'teaser' of Walden, I think I want to read it even more now. Well...I must be patient till next year... *sigh*

    Just curious....how many languages have you ben studying? And which one is the most beautiful for you? For me, it's Francais!

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  2. I've just bought Walden! I'm so excited about starting it! :)

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