The Year of Reading Dangerously

2004 is burning to the stub, and as the year’s final light flickers, the Literate Kitten ponders the future. Namely, next year.

One of our goals is to promote literature and literacy. To that end, we will commit to a Literary Goal for 2005. Something ambitious, of course: Books considered by general consensus to be great. Books that peer into the bottomless well of the human spirit and reflect back our souls. Books that quench the thirst of the reader in his relentless search for the fountain of selfhood. Oh, and the meaning of life. In other words, books read in entirety only by scholars and editors and mothers.

Thankfully, there is no dearth to such ne plus ultra of portentous prose.

The Literary Goal of the LitKit will be to read said work in its entirety and comment upon the proceedings (including bewilderment as well as enlightenment) throughout 2005. The hope is that by tackling such erudite works of literature the Literate Kitten will inspire other readers to set a literary goal as we light into the next annum, even if it is only to finish one book. Cover to cover. A good book. And, no: Books in which dialog appears in balloons floating from people’s mouths or have a title featuring letters of the alphabet (“A” is for Abscam) do not count as “good.” Being the bossy feline she is, LitKit will run a recommended reading list for you next week.

As for the Year of Reading Dangerously, here is the short list. We’ll come to some sort of decision as the bell tolls for 2004.

Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

Homer, The Odyssey and the Iliad

J. W. von Goethe, Faust