When I retired midway through 2020 one of my plans was to read books/works I had always wanted to read, or reread books/works that were particularly important or that I had not read in years (sometimes decades!). Those works included not only novels, but plays, collections (poetry, essays, stories), encyclicals, histories, biographies, and so on. There are literary and spiritual classics, mysteries, and some contemporary works.
I keep a count for each year.
2020 - 55
2021 - 85
2022 - 66
2023 - 69
2024 - 72
There were also some mini goals, focusing on works I had not yet read by authors I liked. So in the past five years I have finished all of Shakespeare's plays, the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, the Navajo mysteries of Tony Hillerman, the Divine Comedy, and the Father Brown mysteries of G. K. Chesterton.
I did not always finish works I set out to read. I tried to read Don Quixote, but gave up 100 pages in. I tried to read all the poetry of Walt Whitman, but got tired of his style.
I'm getting to the point where I'm running out of good works to read! I like classic mysteries, for example, but contemporary ones are often not to my taste.
And as the years advance and mortality looms I have increasingly begun to think that when I go all this will be lost. I think of that scene in Blade Runner as Roy Batty is "dying":
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."
It's not time for me to die, yet. At least I think it's not!
I still have some goals to meet. I want to read all the Dickens novels have not yet read, for example. Still a few to go. And I'll soon be done with all the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novels. I've set goals for this year.
And even if all I've read will be "lost" the memories of me will live on, and those works will have shaped who I am, the impressions I have left with people, and even the poems, plays and stories I've written. Hopefully after I'm gone some of my creations will still be read, and might inspire at least a smile or two.
So ... Onward!
Pax et bonum
