Looking For A New Challenge

[Moruk]

In order to put my pens to good use, I've been copying texts that interest me. I've finished all of the Iliad and Odyssey and now want something else--so I'm angling for suggestions.

 

At one point I thought Milton would be a good choice, but he's, well, too Miltonic, too Latinate for easy copy. I'm tempted by Vrigil (Mandelbaum) or by Ovid. Neither of these really excites me. There are sonnets, of course. Again, thinking of obvious choices (Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, Meredith, e.g.), again, same problems. I've also tried Bierce's Devil's Dictionary--delightful and witty but hardly worth copying from beginning to end.

 

So if any of you have any experience you would like to share, I would love to hear it. Thanks.

Edited June 24, 2019 by Moruk

[Cast]

I don’t have any suggestions. But I am interested in seeing the responses of others. This would be a great thread along the lines of What Books are you reading now.

[BDarchitect]

Those are epic works to re-write! For handwriting practice I copied the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Amendments, and I thought that was a lot. You could polish those off in a commercial break!

I had to translate Cicero and Caesar for four years in high school, and thought that was torture then. Have you considered Marcus Aurelius' Meditations?

Or maybe something more humorous, like early PG Wodehouse.

[BaronWulfraed]

The Canterbury Tales...

 

Le morte d'Arthur...

 

Beowulf...

 

The Faerie Queen...

[Moruk]

The Canterbury Tales...

 

Le morte d'Arthur...

 

Beowulf...

 

The Faerie Queen...

 

I may be one of the few who has read the Faerie Queen through to the end--and I've yet to receive my certificate of completion. But to copy it, I'll have to fall on my sword. Thanks, though, for the suggestions.

Edited June 24, 2019 by Moruk

[Karmachanic]

The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Nice and long with lots of variety to keep it interesting.

[Toby-B]

Well, if you're angling for suggestions, then how about 'The Compleat Angler, or The Contemplative Man's Recreation', by Izaak Walton & Charles Cotton, first published 1653.

Yes the 'compleat' in the title should be spelt 'complete', but they spelt it wrong at the printer way back in 1653 (and it was a mistake, and not an old English spelling), and since then it has become traditional to spell it the wrong way with each subsequent publication.

[Moruk]

The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Nice and long with lots of variety to keep it interesting.

 

I have occasionally thought about copying a play of some sort--one of the Greek plays, perhaps, or Sartre--but Wilde would be a good choice. Thanks for the suggestion .

[samasry]

Short story by Leo Tolstoy, for example How Much Land Does a Man Need?

Or any other story by Leo, there are many gems.

Edited June 28, 2019 by salmasry

[AAAndrew]

Patrick O'Brian would be good. His books are fantastic, and he includes the bodies of various letters and journal entries in line of the text. You could then write these out as if you were seeing the actual letter. Start with Master and Commander and go from there. If you haven't read them, then you have a treat in store.

 

And there are 20 books.

[Cast]

Actually, I do have a suggestion. Since you copied the Iliad and Odyssey, you might try Herodotus. Some of what was once considered fantasy in his account is now being validated by new scholarship.

[inkstainedruth]

 

I may be one of the few who has read the Faerie Queen through to the end--and I've yet to receive my certificate of completion. But to copy it, I'll have to fall on my sword. Thanks, though, for the suggestions.

 

I had to read Book I for an English Lit class in college. I was so excited (I had read a prose version excerpt in a book when I was a kid) -- until I actually started reading it.... Then it was like "Well, let's see. Guy writes this and dedicates it to Elizabeth I to get himself brought home from Ireland. And it didn't work.... I can guess why: she was a smart cookie AND something of a party girl as well and probably did the same thing as me, which was to throw the book across the room going 'I can't get through this BS!'" (I suspect this because when she first became Queen of England her councillors apparently were going "Why, oh WHY can't we have a nice, sober dedicated Queen like her cousin Mary up in Scotland? Instead, we've got someone who only seems to care about clothes and parties....")

Spenser made the French Vulgate Arthurian romances positively delightful page turners in comparison -- and for those? It was "Oh, look -- a knight rides along and sees something strange, and then literally 50 feet up the road there's a white monk aka (a Cistercian) to explain to him What It All Means in the Great Scheme of the Universe .... ZZZZZ"

Sometime in the future, I may try taking another stab at The Fairie Queen -- but suspect it's more likely going to end up with me going "OMG -- I got further through Dianetics! And that was twenty pages in before I flung the book across the room going 'I can't read any more of this drivel!'"

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: I'll put in another vote for the OP for copying Shakespearean sonnets. You might also want to look at modern poets as well (I'm a sucker for T.S. Eliot).

Edited July 25, 2019 by inkstainedruth

[sidthecat]

Ovid - beautifully-written and prurient enough to keep it interesting.

[Ted F]

If I may interject here, I find that copying such works as suggested above to be counterproductive. Some years ago I got a medical condition that required me to learn how to write again. At first I tried different works and books, however, at one point I found a file of sentences from Harvard University that consisted of 720 sentences ( 72 groups of 10). They were being used in a class to teach people pronunciation. They are simple sentences and as I practice I can look at a sentence and write it without referring back to it so I can then concentrate on the formation of the characters and my penmanship.

[AAAndrew]

That sounds like a better idea for penmanship practice. Of course, copying a book you really like is just a fun excuse to write with a fun pen.

[inkstainedruth]

+1 to that sentiment.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: After all, there's only so many times that you can write "The quick brown fox" or something similar before you go stir crazy....

Edited August 1, 2019 by inkstainedruth

[PaulS]

If I've written 'now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party' once, I must have written it shed loads. Learning a few lines of meaningful poetry does at least give you variation when you want some new lines with which to try out a new nib or pen.

 

I think history does massive injustice to Elizabeth - look how she controlled the men in her life - though one or two she made shorter by a head - for my money this girl gave England such power and glory - plus baccy and spuds courtesy of Walter, whom Bob N. parodied centuries later.

 

If you wanted a real challenge in terms of a mega soliloquy - a single sentence that runs for thousands of words but without punctuation - try Molly Bloom's rant from Joyce's Ulysses.

 

P.S. getting my lizzies and Mary's crossed - have now changed to show what I actually meant.

Edited August 2, 2019 by PaulS

[XYZZY]

Dante's Inferno. If you like that you have Purgatorio and Paradiso as next steps, and/or doing it in Italian.

[rebcabin]

I'm trying Alice in Wonderland with Gregg shorthand in Red and English in Purple to get some seat time with krazy, new Emperor pens my wife gave me. Here is a faulty start: https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/348654-my-first-pix-emperor-gregg/. I'm going to switch to line-by-line, experimenting with interleaved versus side-by-side. I found a book of AiW in Anniversary Gregg, but I learned Diamond-Jubilee Gregg. They're slightly different. I will use the Anniversary as a guide, but write in DJ.

 

I've thought about the Arabian Nights in Arabic + English, the Psalms in Hebrew + English, and some ancient Egyptian text in Hieroglyphs or one of the Hieratics + English. The Arabian Nights translation by Mardrus & Mathers is pretty good, really long, and a suggestion if you want to play only in English. It took me a long time to find a partial Arabic source for M&M, and I found one decades ago in paper; sorry to say I don't remember how & where I found it. The Psalms are available free online in parallel Hebrew and English here http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2601.htm (the rest of the Hebrew Bible is on the same site in the same form). I haven't started to think seriously about Egyptian. The rest might take me long enough that I'll never get there. But hieratic is available in Unicode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieratic !

 

All my experiments are about working up proficiency in the "foreign" language (in Red). Gregg is nutty enough that I consider it foreign, kind of a hieratic for English.

Edited August 18, 2019 by rebcabin

[rebcabin]

Depending on your tastes and patience, I thought of a bunch more:

 

The Lord of the Rings series, including the Hobbit

Asimov's Foundation Trilogy

Sherlock Holmes (all of 'em)

Nero Wolfe by Rex Stout (clever writing, plus Archie Goodwin is a professional Gregger with an eidetic memory)

Horatio Hornblower (all of 'em)

The Dune series by Frank Herbert

John Carter of Mars

the Conan series (all of 'em)