#Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne

[lizziestudieshistory]

I'm still learning fuck all about John Donne from this biography, but it remains far more entertaining than it has any right to be. Today's gem on the history of handshakes:

[saiddcain]

Language makes demands. It is an excavatory skill; each word needs to have its surface dusted, to see if below there is gold or snakes. Those who do not understand that language was multi-layered and subtle — those who read it lazily, who failed to imagine the demands it daily makes — deserved very little in return.

— Katherine Rundell, Super Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne

[elucubrare]

spurred by seeing the st. lucie's day poem: one of my all-time favourite literary biographies is katherine rundell's "super-infinite: the transformations of john donne," which is illuminating, funny, well-written in its own right, and brimming with genuine love for its subject. highly recommended for anyone who wants to read more about donne or just generally wants to have a good time

it's on my wishlist, so this should be what i need to actually get it!

[kingarthurflourofficial]

5/5 Books of 2024!

(*denotes a re-read!)

Some Desperate Glory (fantasy/sci-fi) Emily Tesh

The Golden Enclaves (fantasy) Naomi Novik

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance (fantasy) Foz Meadows

Gaudy Night & Busman's Honeymoon* (mystery/realistic fiction) Dorothy L. Sayers

The Year of the Griffin* (fantasy) Diana Wynne Jones

System Collapse* (sci-fi) Martha Wells

Lady of Quality* (romance/historical fiction) Georgette Heyer

mislaid in parts half-known (fantasy) Seanan McGuire

the benefits of being an octopus (middle grade, realistic fiction) Ann Braeden

the woods all black (horror, folklore) Lee Mandelo

his majesty’s dragon* (fantasy, historical fiction) Naomi Novik

a sorceress comes to call (folklore, fantasy) T. Kingfisher

someone you can build a nest in (folklore, fantasy) John Wiswell

the exiles* [series] (middle grade, reaslistic fiction) Hilary McKay

jingo* (fantasy, sci-fi, satire) Terry Pratchett

gilgamesh (folklore, historical) trans. Herbert Mason

the duke at hazard (historical fiction, romance) K.J. Charles

the house of the red balconies (romance, fantasy) A.J. Demas

box hill (romance [?], historical fiction) Adam Mars-Jones

the goblin emperor* (fantasy, politics) Katherine Addison

&

the witness for the dead*

Super-infinite : the transformations of John Donne (non-fiction, historical) Katherine Rundell

chapters* (poetry, humour) Tim Key

[decepti-thots]

3, 11, 16?

I've done 11!

What were your top five books of the year?

Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin

The Last Unicorn - Peter Beale

Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative - Mieke Bal

Memorial - Alice Oswald (this was a reread)

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne - Katherine Rundell

Bonus new book, so I have five non-rereads. The Employees - Olga Ravn

What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?

Rose/House by Arkady Martine wasn't terrible, but for how people talk about it, I expected far, far more. It's meandering and never seems to come to any realization about what its point is, and it's abstract in a way that feels less like artistic vision and more like obfuscation for the fact it has Vibes about its ideas but no actual coherent thesis- and a book that short and high concept needs one. Also, the writing is flowery but ultimately not very tight, prose-wise and pacing wise. It left me so uninspired it made me farrrr less likely to check out A Memory Called Empire, tbh.

[hoursofreading]

best books of 2023

2023 isn't over yet but thought i'd make a post listing my most favorite books that i loved enough to get hard copies.

tom lake by ann patchett. my first ann patchett novel. love, love, love. almost persuaded me to settle down, marry a farmer and pop out babies, preferably 3 girls!

galileo's dream by kim stanley robinson. my first ksr novel. what if time travelers from the future traveled back to 16th century italy and exposed galileo to modern physics and math? this story is so bittersweet

strangers drowning. inspired me to go vegan and donate regularly to charities and animal sanctuaries. see https://niallharbison.substack.com/ for a beautiful example.

a swim in a pond in the rain. such goodness from george saunders. loved his discussion on tolstoy's master and man. look at this quote: “I feel about Olenka the way I think God might. I know so much about her. Nothing has been hidden from me. It’s rare, in the real world, that I get to know someone so completely. I’ve known her in so many modes: a happy young newlywed and a lonely old lady; a rosy, beloved darling and an overlooked, neglected piece of furniture, nearly a local joke; a nurturing wife and an overbearing false mother. And look at that: the more I know about her, the less inclined I feel to pass a too-harsh or premature judgment. Some essential mercy in me has been switched on. What God has going for Him that we don’t is infinite information. Maybe that’s why He’s able to, supposedly, love us so much.” gahhh

a life of one's own by joanna biggs. forever grateful to ms biggs for introducing me to zora neale hurston and elena ferrante. after i read this book, i started listening to lectures by prof. hungerford from https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-291

super-infinite, the transformations of john donne by katherine rundell. after i read this, devoured all of donne's poetry. printed out a copy of "love's growth" to affix in my office cubicle

[west-o-the-moon]

John Donne was, according to Katherine Rundell, "a neologismist. He accounts for the first recorded use in the Oxford English Dictionary of around 340 words in the English language. Apprehensible, beauteousness, bystander, criminalist, emancipation, enripen, fecundate, horridness, imbrothelled, jig." — Rundell, Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne (Faber, 2022)

[sheepisreading]

Books I finished in May 2023

Again, not a lot here but y’know.

Edit: forgot a book!

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, Katherine Rundell, 2022

A book I just randomly picked up at the bookstore. I don’t know, I loved the Bill Bryson Shakespeare biography, and this seemed to be in a similar vein but more genuine than funny, which I appreciate. I was also attracted to the book because the idea of the renaissance man, concerned by all subjects of study, is always of interest to me. I’d never actually heard of John Donne, but after rading the book, I definitely understad why people write books about him. Katherine Rundell writes with such distinction and beauty about Donne, using excerpts of his writing and of other scholars’ writing, the whole book is a delight to read. You don’t even have to care one bit about John Donne to read it, I know I didn’t at the start, but I grew to thanks to the exquisite way Rundell tells us about his life. I recommend it ! 

A Certain Hunger, Chelsea G. Summers, 2020

This book I first heard from last year, bought it, and then proceded not to read it for a year. I just didn’t feel like it I guess. I finally picked it up because I had nothing else left to read at my student accomodation. It’s a book about a food writer who kills her lovers. She writes from prison (not a spoiler) and recounts how it all went down. I didn’t vibe with the overly serious food descriptions at first, but I got used to it as I read. It was kinda cool, it’s a contemporary setting too, and I don’t usually read murdery books, so it was a nice change of pace for me. I grew more attached to the narrator towards the end. She really grew on me, I found her a bit pretentious at first but she does show another more introspective and self aware view which warmed me up to her a lot. Basically, a good crime book!

Radical Intimacy, Sophie K. Rosa, 2023

This book was probably handed to me by the gods above. I say that because I read an old fanfic (here, it’s amazing (it’s also fall out boy fanfic be warned)) in like April in which radical intimacy as a concept is mentioned as basically relationship anarchy mixed with non monogamy and like sex and romantic gestures between friends. All of which I subscribe very very much to. I googled radical intimacy after reading it and immediately this book (which JUST came out) popped up! It’s amazing and basically full of everything I’ve always wanted to read on the topics of relationships (or all kinds)! It’s separated in chapters dealing with romance, sex, family, death, friendship under capitalism, and how relationships between people are the thing. As in the thing ever. And I could not agree more! Nonconformative relationships are precious to me and seeing them being spoken about so openly and true-ly was wonderful, especially put into perspective with politics! It’s like Rosa wrote my thoughts out (after doing some research and applying theory to them). I can not recommend this book enough!

[betokeneth]

Katherine Rundell, Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne (2022)

[lizziestudieshistory]

This biography of John Donne has been largely tedious so far, however, the violent discourse on moustache grooming etiquette from the 1590s was worth it 😂

[rionsanura]

In case you were wondering, the Katherine Rundell biography of John Donne that Jamie Parker did the audiobook for does contain Some Poetry.

[kingarthurflourofficial]

december books

i already know i'm about to be missing some since december has simultaneously lasted 800 years and also 8 minutes but here we go!

william again

william the fourth

cue for treason 4/5 (what an absolutely delightful book! thank you darling for recommending it to me! reminded me strongly of emeralds for the king, another of my childhood faves)

william the outlaw

still william

william the rebel 3.5/5 (docked just a Little on all these due to the Product Of Their Times of it all)

Noel Streatfeild's Christmas Stories 4/5 (THE PANTOMIME GOOSE)

dreadful 3.5 (a solid 'modern' fantasy! a Little rough around some edges, but also didn't shy away from the hard implications of being an Evil Wizard while still keeping the tone on the lighter side)

one christmas morning 2.5 (found this one frustrating. the kind of thing that would have been quite good as a novella but was just too long and irritating as a full length book. take a leaf out of Dickens' book and notice how short he kept a christmas carol!)

anne of windy poplars 5/5 (sometimes classics are classics for a reason, it turns out! i missed anne the past few years and was glad to visit with her again)

five red herrings 5/5 (i love a deliberately unlovable book about timetables! what can i say!)

horrible history's guide to oxford 4/5 (thank you for not pandering to children horrible histories writers and also for genuinely interesting facts about oxford!)

i am the walrus 4/5 (unexpectedly poignant if silly middle grade book picked up on a whim!)

Super-infinite : the transformations of John Donne 5/5 (VALAR i love it when you can tell someone has eaten slept and breathed a subject for minimum five years! god bless you katherine rundell! absolutely fascinating and you can see why peter wimsey was Obsessed)

the cleaner 2/5 (once again! interesting premise! love the idea of a worker being so subsumed by the clients she cleans for that they are the only thing real to her and she sees herself as a benevolent god to them! the actual execution was disappointing and i think would have been served by the occasional outsider POV)

mrs harris goes to paris 5/5 (watched the movie on the plane and NO SURPRISE the book is SO much better. why do movie adaptations always have to bring romance into it! it's not ABOUT that!)

mrs harris goes to new york 4/5 (thoroughly enjoyable if a little higher stakes than the first! also loved the author's rejection of the premise that everything must hold some meaning, even as the world's no. 1 meaning-assigner)

exit strategy 5/5 (i miss murderbot all the time. re-reading any one of these books is an exercise in appreciating showing not telling and also in being a person)

our hideous progeny 3/5 (thoroughly readable, not to damn it with faint praise. it actually did something most books of the type are too cowardly to do - e.g., let the main character leave her awful husband and run off with his sister. huge props! sorry i wasn't more interested in the weird science of it all.)

the memory theater 3.5/5 (VERY dream sequence-y! LOVED the main character! wish she had actually been the author's favourite character instead of the secondary mc whom, sorry to this man, i did not actually care about.)

christmas tales 5/5 (LOVEEEEE ruth sawyer love trina schart hyman didn't realist this beloved book from my childhood christmases was their work but it explains much! fave tale of all time the one about the greedy kingson being stripped of all his hoarded food and wealth and having it forcibly re-distributed by divinely inspired animals)

we kept her in the basement 3.5/5 (definitely the most....visceral cinderella re-telling i've ever read. very well written and evocative if not exactly my thing - i ended up passing lightly over some of the more gory descriptions, but it was a solid book!)

pippi runs away 5/5 (i didn't know there was more pippi!!! my childhood hero and deservedly so <3)

chapters 5/5 (listen. i don't know shit about poetry. however! i love tim key's poetry so much. both hilarious and unexpectedly poignant)

unexploded remnants 2/5 (REALLY wanted to like this one! unfortunately despite being a novella it read like it was 300 pages of infodumping)

the ladies of covington send their love DNF (great premise! clunky writing.)

those meddlesome kids 4/5 (for someone who grew up watching scooby doo this would probably have been a 5/5! SUCH an interesting writing style; half prose and half? idk. screenplay style maybe? interesting and funny and impressive as HELL to get to the end and realise english is the author's second language)

grain of knots 4/5 (some were stronger than others - I think I liked buttercup farm the best!)

and some fave fics!

pride

raised by wolves

coming home

a man of honour

take away the glass

how i learned to stop worrying and love my spouse

love in another shape

shen yuan of no relation

love will row you out

contrapuntal

final book count for the year: 200!

[decepti-thots]

4, 9 and 12 for the book meme game? :-)

Dd you discover any new authors that you love this year?

I read Emily Zhou's debut collection, Girlfriends, and REALLY enjoyed it! 'Contemporary short stories that are mostly dialogue' is a form I enjoy when pulled off well but for which I have a high bar before I will say it was pulled of well, and the stories in that collection all landed for me in that sense, which is impressive. I also loved the novel I read from Anya Johanna DeNiro, OKPsyche, and immediately went and either read other work by her or added it to my to-read list. Both writers I will be keeping an eye out for new releases from in the future. I also read Eka Kurniawan after meaning to get around to him last year, and while his short story collection was more hit-or-miss, the novel of his I read (Man Tiger) really impressed me.

Did you get into any new genres?

One kind of nonfiction I very rarely read is longform biography, but this year I read one so damn good (Super-Infinite: the Transformations of John Donne) that it inspired me to try, next year, to read some more of those. I'm gonna be prowling around looking for stuff in the same vein. It was a total surprise to me how much I enjoyed it.

Any books that disappointed you?

I really wanted to like Transland: Consent, Kink and Pleasure. I really really did. A book looking at kink through the lens of trans experience is an easy sell for me. Unfortunately it is quite poorly written, has very little interesting to say about its topic for most of the time, and also goes some strangely conservative places in a way that feels totally unselfaware, including around gender and transness. Actually, I think I should go drop the rating on storygraph tbh, now I'm thinking about it, that book was such a letdown.

[hoursofreading]

super-infinite: the transformations of john donne was super good, best nonfic I’ve read so far this year

[kamreadsandrecs]

The 2022 Shortlist:

Caroline Elkins - Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire (The Bodley Head, Vintage, Penguin Random House UK)

Jonathan Freedland - The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World (John Murray Press, Hachette)

Sally Hayden -  My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World's Deadliest Migration Route (4th Estate, HarperCollins)

Anna Keay - The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown (William Collins, Harper Collins)

Polly Morland  - A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story (Picador, Pan Macmillan)

Katherine Rundell - Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne (Faber & Faber)