The View From Sari's World

I joined the classics challenge a few weeks ago promising to read at least three classics and one retelling. First up for was the epic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The poem tells the tale of Sir Gawain of the Round Table and his challenge of the Green Knight. During the first celebration of King Arthur’s reign the Green Knight (an immortal) rides to the castle in order to trade blows with a worthy knight. It is an old Irish challenge based on the epic Fled Bricrend in which the hero Cuchulain plays a game with a immortal being called Uath. Cuchulain strikes Uath in the neck causing him to lose his head. Uath picks up his head but comes back the next day. Cuchulain being the good hero offers his head. Uath strikes Cuchulain but leaves his head intact and declares Cuchulain the winner for being honest enough to offer up his head.

The Green Knight challenges Arthur’s knights as a way to honor Arthur as the new King of the land. To the embarrassment of the court no knight stands up. Arthur finally does to show the Green Knight respect. Sir Gawain is horrified that Arthur would offer his life for the knights so he takes his place. He tells Arthur “I am the weakest, the most wanting in wisdom I know, And my life, if lost, would be least missed, truly. Only through your being my uncle I am to be valued”. Sir Gawain then offers the Green Knight his word that he will offer his head as part of the game. Sir Gawain strikes the knight and all watch as the head rolls away from the body. The body then picks up the head and turns it to Sir Gawain saying “in one year’s time come to my castle to finish the game.
The story is about Sir Gawain’s travel to the knight’s land. He does not know exactly where the knight lives so he stops at a castle to ask directions. It is in this castle and what happens in it is where the bulk of the story takes place.

I enjoyed the story in its poem form far more than I thought I would. The words flowed and the language was easy to understand. I found myself so absorbed in the story I finished it in one sitting. The story was a lesson on honesty and valor. This is one classic read I would recommend, for the sheer joy of reading a poem that feels like a novel. Why don’t they write books like this anymore?

I am starting a Sunday evening weekly roundup post. Each Sunday I will do a post about things that happened during the week that I found interesting. Some days I do not blog because, honestly dear reader, I do not feel I have much to say. Between school, work and my budding relationship I am finding my mind and interests are elsewhere.

A few posts back I wrote about my favorite podcasts with many of you writing me about yours. I want to thank you as I found some new favorites. I listened to a lot of them this week at work and at home. Today I was listening to Wait Wait Don’t Tell me, the NPR news quiz program. The funniest podcast line of the week came from the show. The host was talking about the movie New Moon and offered this gem “these people are not vampires; they are out of work Abercrombie and Fitch models”. I laughed hard because it is so true. What would Bella do if she came across a real vampire? After all, she is no Sookie Stackhouse.

This week Sara Palin’s book Going Rogue came out. She is doing a book signing in here in Reno at our Costco! Guess it is true, you can find bulk BS in Costco. Thankfully Stephen King’s Under the Dome came out, giving the book buzz back to a real writer.
I was reading about the re-start up of the Hadron Collider when this caught my eye “The nuclear physicists working on it were surprised at how quickly they got beams of protons whizzing through the 17-mile (27-kilometer) circular tunnel underground late Friday.” Seriously? A 10 billion dollar machine and the scientist are surprised about how well it works? Did they think they would have to hit it with a hammer to get it going?

Earlier this week I had a heated discussion with some women who feel vaccinating children is wrong because of their fear of injecting chemicals into children. But apparently they have no problem feeding their children preservatives, sugar and food laced with pesticides. How do you argue with that logic? I tried but failed. I guess they feel it okay if they fill the children with chemicals but not someone else.

We had our first winter snow fall on Friday. They (who are they, does anyone know?) that we would get at least 6 inches, we got about 5 minutes. I love the snow, it forces me to bundle up and read. This week I finished Between a Bridge and a River by Craig Ferguson. I fell in love with his comic style and hope to read more by him. I also finished Sir Gwain and the Green Knight. I know, I know I should have reviewed it, and I will, now that I got all this off my chest.

So dear reader, what is on your mind?