My little book that is most definitely not a diary

I was at the glorious Belfast Continental Market a few weeks ago. I think I'll go find a picture of it. I'm going to start posting much more multimedia on this little blog. The technological age and all this hoohah. So... here we go...

Aw, would you look at that? Absolutely beautiful. The Belfast Continental Market is a glorious little gem of attempted culture in our great capital where various stalls from various different countries are set up ie. crepes, weird meat burgers et cetera...

That was quite cynical. I adore the Continental Market and I shouldn't be so harsh about it. So, on my annual galavant around the block this time, I bought a delightful pair of... Polish (?) slippers (I should probably upload a picture in the new spirit of things but I don't want to) and, what this post is really about, my glorious little leather-bound book.

It's my book log book - which I keep accidentally referring to as my log book log. Which makes no sense.

My book log book is my log book where I log books! This means that I record the date and opening thoughts of whatever book I happen to be starting, note down a few thoughts throughout if I feel the need, and then a short summary/review plus the date whenever I finish the book.

Glorious! It will be an absolute asset when I start cramming literature into my tiny mind for university interviews.

I'm writing this post because I made the first step today. I wrote in the little book (should I name it? - I name quite a few inanimate objects...) for the very first time - apart from when I wrote my name it, which doesn't count because it was boring. And in my glorious little leather-bound book I wrote:

Monday 27th December

The Odyssey

Homer 

There was some little comment following that but I've forgotten what it was now.

Isn't that exciting? Doesn't it fill your heart with glee? Written recordings of every book I'm going to read until the end of time! Exhilarating!

I'm reading Homer's 'Odyssey', in case the little quotation (multimedia!-ish) above didn't give it away. It's the Penguin Rieu prose translation. I had a little rant about this in my glorious little leather-bound book earlier because how are you possibly supposed to understand Greek epic poetry if you are reading a prose translation of Greek poetry? Then I realised that even if I had been reading a poetry translation it would have been meaningless because there is simply no way that a translation could have preserved the original meter and structure of Homer's millenia-old Greek verse.

Or could they?

I don't know. I'm too tired to contemplate it.

Digression. I deeply, deeply like 'The Odyssey'. It's written in an 'oral' style that I believe essentially means it was written to be spoken in verse - like a story. This leads to many very hilarious repeated words, phrases, paragraphs and scenes in my icky prose translation that were originally necessary to keep rhythm in the Greek verse and are now just strange. For example, at the start of every single day, we receive the nice little phrase - "As Dawn arose, fresh and rosy-fingered". Menelaus is "auburn-haired", Odysseus is "resourceful", Athene is "The Goddess of the shining eyes". Every. Single. Page.

PICTURE INTERLUDE.

That's good old Menelaus looking less than auburn-haired in his grey, grey bust.

But yes, I am thoroughly enjoying 'The Odyssey'. Further updates as I progress.

Ohayo gozaimasu!