The Lady Of The Lake

On one of my blogs a month or so ago, I said that I was reading "The Lady of the Lake" by Sir Walter Scott, not to be confused with "The Lady of the Lake" in the King Arthur lore or the cute lady by the lake that I saw walking today.

I wanted to announce it -- as a matter of great pride, frankly -- that I managed to get the entire thing read. I know how to read, one. OK? I do know how. But I don't do that much reading, at least historically. I've been very faithful to read the first five pages of practically everything, and if it weren't for me, most bookmark companies would be out of business by now.

Be all that as it may, I did -- I repeat, I did manage to get this entire work by Walt Scott read.

At first I looked it up on Wikipedia to get my bearings. But after that, I was able to figure it out OK, for the most part. Some of the geographical references didn't mean much to me, and some of the poetic language is obscure, but I kept at it. There was two or three weeks in there when I wasn't keeping up with it. But then one day I decided, I'm up to the 5th Canto (out of 6), why not just give it a couple days of serious slogging and see what might happen?

So ... a big gold star for me. Seriously, I might go to Walmart, get myself some poster board and a container of gold stars, and do some serious reading. It was very motivational for me as a kid in Sunday School, memorizing verses and getting a gold star; now that I'm an adult and can afford all the gold stars I want, I could award myself multiple gold stars for things that are fairly difficult, like this "Lady of the Lake" work. It's surely a 10 star piece. Or six at the very least, one for each canto.

It was good, too. Some places were rough going, but for the most part, I give it from four to six stars, maybe up to 10.

My memory isn't that great. But it starts off with this guy separated from his mates. He's out on the hunt and ends up in what seems like a mystical fairyland. That's the impression you get at first. There's a woman, whose father turns out to be a guy banished from a particular realm. There's an old soothsayer kind of guy, who foretells things and interprets the signs of the times, etc. There's competing Scottish clans, heroes, battles, people in disguise, etc.

It's definitely worth reading. But you need to do what I did, look it up on Wiki first and get your bearings.