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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

I read the translation of the Odyssey done by the real Lawrence of Arabia. It was available in paperback. Apparently he was a life-long Greek scholar, and worked on the translation in his tent.

I used Lattimore for the Iliad.

Mr. Tolbert was the admissions director who interviewed me. I was a terrible speller then and now, but then I was without the aid of a spell checker. Mr. Tolbert chided me for my misspelling of "laundary".

But I had won two state awards for poetry, and they seemed to value creativity and imagination above other criteria.

Mr. Tolbert advised me to read a book by House and Harmann entitled "Descriptive English Grammar" since all St. Johnnies are "grammarians."

I spend the entire Summer diagramming every sentence exercise in that 400 page hard cover book.

We were not asked to read the Iliad or Odyssey over the summer.

I did read War and Peace during the Summer prior to my Senior year.

But during that Summer before Freshman year, I also read Mohammed Marmaduke's Penguin edition of "The Glorious Koran" from cover to cover, and underlined and looked up each and every word which was unfamiliar. I still have my annotated copy. I did that, not because of St. John's, but because I had read Laurence Durrell's "Alexandrian Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive and Clea" in high school. Those novels described many scenes from Islamic life, including one scene in which some Muslim businessmen hire a blind muzzine to recite/chant/sing portions of the Qu'ran from memory. The businessmen weep from the beauty of the language.

Needless to say, I was quite curious to see what this Qu'ran might be like. I found it rather dry. I never felt any urge to embrace Islam. I forced myself to finish the book as an exercise and a discipline.

I relate all this because it was part of what I did the Summer before my Freshman year. I was very fortunate in not having to work during my summers. I had all my time for reading. We were not wealthy, but there was sufficient money for my needs.

I was scared to death that I would not be able to do all the required work.

I honestly don't think that I could go back and do it over now. At age 57 I do not have the energy that I had at 19.

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