Robert Burton--The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)

As noted in one of the monthly update posts, this was my second time through the Anatomy. I wrote a long series of posts, mostly of excerpted quotations, about the book on the parent blog. Although I think I had a better sense this time around of the overall form and at times, especially during the sections about love-melancholy, was able a little to get caught up in the prevailing spirit of the work, I regret to say that on the whole I still found it more work to get through most days than the rewards of that reading compensated, and I was not unhappy to see it come to an end. It took about two months to get through, and I can go on with the rest of the list now, in which I am in a stretch of readings that are either very long or do not have precisely defined editions, which requires me to exercise some judgment to determine what my list wants me to read.

I should say a few things about Burton before moving on from him. His basic biographical facts largely present themselves as a set of simple, clearly marked, easily recognizable identities, and as such I, and probably other people after my type, are inclined to like him--being from almost the very beginning of the modern era of European history, his associations, as an upper class Englishman, as an Oxford don, as a cleric in the Church of England, as a literary man, carry an aura of purity and naturalness about them that they can have for no contemporary person. He never married, or in outward action veered very far from the grooves in which his life ran once these were established. His book is memorable as an exhibition of how a brain stuffed with a lifetime of endless variations on a handful of core experiences--in Burton's case namely reading and being depressed--organizes itself. There is genuine humor in his book, though there are fairly long sections that are unrelieved by it. The Anatomy has been described by one notable commentator as one of the greatest assaults on the powers of human concentration ever concocted (or something to that effect--I cannot find the exact quote at this instant), and in our age that is especially true. I find I am more distracted in reading by fatigue and the constraints of time in my life than by electronic devices/internet, which I almost never use at home. Grabbing a half-hour to read in relative un-agitated peace--which in this book means getting through seven or eight pages tops--is a chore in itself, and then 3/4ths of the time I am falling asleep by the second paragraph. It is a joke, really. Still, I am pleased that I stuck to it all the way to the end. I always believe I get something out of doing that with notable books, even if this something is effectively nothing by the standards of the truly literate.

The Challenge

1. Birdman (movie).........................................................................5,377
2. We Need to Talk About Kevin (movie)........................................1,711
3. Melancholia (movie)......................................................................970
4. Love at Any Cost--Julie Lessman...................................................245
5. Destruction--Sharon Bayliss..........................................................148
6. The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (movie)..........................................136
7. Children of Dreams--Lorilyn Roberts............................................134
8. American Violet (movie)..................................................................92
9. Discipline & Punish/The Birth of the Prison-Michel Foucault.......90
10. Law & Disorder--Douglas/Olshaker............................................. 75
11. The Trial (1962 movie)..................................................................69
12. Live From Death Row--Mumia Abu-Jamal...................................52
13. Sentimental Education--Gustave Flaubert.....................................42
14. When Rain Hurts--Mary Evelyn Greene........................................38
15. The Sly Company of People Who Care--Rahul Bhattacharya........27
16. White Jacket--Herman Melville......................................................21

We got a few decent books into the challenge this time. Still, older classics tend to limp into qualifying compared with movies and contemporary crime/romance novels, which did not occur to me when I was designing this great competition.

Round of 16

#16 Melville over #1 Birdman. No movie can beat Melville straight-up in this game. This one did win the Best Picture Oscar a few years back, though it seems to have been promptly forgotten.

#15 Bhattacharya over #2 We Need to Talk About Kevin

#14 Greene over #3 Melancholia. This is at least the second time Melancholia has appeared in the Challenge. It advanced fairly deep into the tournament on a previous occasion, and I ended up putting it my list of movies to sent to me, and it is currently sitting in my desk. I haven't watched it yet however.

#13 Flaubert over #4 Lessman

#12 Abu-Jamal over #5 Bayliss. The neighborhood of Cheltenham/Northeast Philadelphia which I am from is full of policemen and firemen and delivery drivers and lots of other people who absolutely and vehemently despise Mumia Abu-Jamal, but I am aware that the rest of the world regards him as a serious person, and a large portion of the legitimate intelligentsia a sympathetic one.

#11 The Trial over #6 The Man With the X-Ray Eyes, When there is a match-up between movies I usually just pick whichever one is older, unless I am convinced one of the films is just absolute garbage. These two were released within 9 months of each other over 50 years ago, which kind of negates the age factor. X-Ray Eyes does have Ray Milland in it, but The Trial is an Orson Welles movie, if not an especially celebrated one, and that is enough to give it the victory here.

#10 Douglas & Olshaker over #7 Roberts.

#9 Foucault over #8 American Violet

A clean sweep for the bottom half of the draw.

Round of 8

#16 Melville over #9 Foucault. I am having these two contend straight up because Foucault is supposed to be serious and important. His book in this instance is also shorter, and he gets points for being foreign as well, though of all the nationalities, I suspect reading French authors probably merits the least credit. However, neither of the libraries I have privileges at has the Foucault book, so he loses here.

#15 Bhattacharya over #10 Douglas/Olshaker. The Bhattacharya is presented as more hipster/literary, while the other looks to be more of the gritty, true facts about the way the world works school, which I admit I tend to be bored by in too frequent doses.

#14 Green over #11 The Trial

#13 Flaubert over #12 Abu-Jamal. I can't take Mumia that seriously.

The elusive truly great book of the competition

Final Four

#16 Melville over #13 Flaubert. Incredibly, neither of my libraries has the Sentimental Education either, a book I am starting to worry that I will never read, even though it is among the favorite books, and easily the favorite Flaubert, among many people whom I consider in some degree to be acceptable models of erudition and worldliness. For some reason it does not come up in either of my official lists. I suppose I should have rammed it through to the victory here--it is my challenge, and I do that--but at the moment I am especially disorganized with regard to my lists, as well as short of cash for any extra purchases, however small, so I am not going to do that.

#15 Bhattacharya over #14 Green.

Championship Round

#15 Bhattacharya over #16 Melville. The higher seed wins for the only time in the tournament. Since I decided to treat Bhattacharya as a legitimate contender based on nothing but the cover of his (her?) book, the circumstance that it is over 100 pages shorter than Melville, as well as available at the library, gives it the victory.

The winning design

This post needed a girl-I'd-like-to-have-had-intrigue-with-in-my-youth picture.