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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 13, 2008 - 09:28pm PT
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Roger
If you want to read a 20th century masterpiece that depicts the horrors of slavery/racism, it ain't Beloved. Read Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! It's his most challenging novel (and if you know Faulkner, you know that's saying something), but the payoff is worth it.
I read Morrison's Song of Solomon because everybody (big fans) told me, "it's her best" (I mean a near unanimous consensus)...eh.
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jstan
climber
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Apr 13, 2008 - 09:35pm PT
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Absolutely fascinating thread! I took a look at Garfunkel's list. He himself and not an assistant is keeping it. Data is missing which an assistant would never have been allowed to omit. He has been reading extensively in the Greco Roman period. I kick myself. A month ago I passed up a half price book with both the translated and the original from that period. I am an idiot! A certified idiot.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2008 - 09:41pm PT
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Part of being in a book group is that you have to read what other people think is interesting. Most of the time, I have no complaints, but we still schedule our meeting far enough apart that there is plenty of time to read one or two other books. It is always interesting to hear what other members have to say--it is rare that we raise the same points.
Personally I would rather read Faulkner. But I can't get anyone else interested.
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kwit
climber
california
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Apr 13, 2008 - 10:45pm PT
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Hey Roger,
I don't post here so much but for this one I can't resist--I'm finishing a PhD in literature right now, but I teach undergrads and I have no patience with erudite and difficult (and, as you say, *old*) theory written for its own masturbatory sake.
There's a book out by Oxford University Press--I think it is from 2006--called "How Novels Work" by a person named John Mullan. He's a professor at University College, London but his book is not designed to be an hermetic academic book. He covers everyone from Daniel Defoe to Jane Austen to Joyce to J.M. Coetzee to Philip Roth to Donna Tartt. You should check it out.
And let me know how it is.
If you haven't read J.M. Coetzee's *Foe* you should revisit Robinson Crusoe and then read Foe--an incredible (and postmodern) reconception of Defoe's novel.
Kara
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Big T
Trad climber
Running Springs, CA
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Apr 14, 2008 - 12:11am PT
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A personal definition of "post modernism":
Most of the "so whats" have already been expressed in previous works, and those remaining are basically inexpressible using the same methods that have been used in the past.
This is how I understand it, although it doesn't make the term any less annoying. One has to wonder what terms we will use to refer to future literary movements. I teach my students that movements tend to react to previous movements. Thus, Romanticism was a reaction to rationalism (or the Age of Reason), Realism and Naturalism were movements reacting to Romanticism... But then it gets a lot harder to support this theory when you get to Modernism, and even more so with "Pomo."
EDIT: I Think this is evidence that the world will end soon. (;
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Apr 14, 2008 - 03:24am PT
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To largo's point on vividness.
I think vividness only comes from being relatable and relateability comes from motive. The inner workings of the mind. So if a story doesn't further the plot that shows the motives that then shows the 'reveal' or in po mo the very lack of a 'reveal', then it sucks.
Po Mo is better thought of as a suspicion of metanarratives. i personally think this implies in it's basic form a. self reflection, and b. a story (critical?) about the story, which can be either about the full story, or not.
Those that understand po mo, will understand that last part. Think matrix.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 14, 2008 - 07:00am PT
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Roger
Just a thought on how you might persuade your book club to give Faulkner a chance...I'm sure they all admire Cormac McCarthy (Oprah, you know), well, inform them that Faulkner was a huge influence...and maybe give them a few short stories to try: "A Rose for Emily", "Barn Burning", and "Dry September".
McCarthy's Border Trilogy is well worth the time, too (though I hated The Road).
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Apr 14, 2008 - 11:13am PT
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Roger, The Rhetoric of Fiction is a classic work of criticism, but there is no single text that will help you decode the modern novel. Serious literature of the last century or so has developed hand in hand with changing styles of literary criticism, and "serious" novels now tend to be written primarily for critical and scholarly audiences.
If you want a primer to the various schools of literary criticism that emerged in the 2nd half of the 20th century, Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory is still probably the best intro. Terry has his partisan moments, but is a better writer than most folks who are deep into theory. Gerald Graff's Professing Literature is a good, readable history of the development of literary criticism and scholarship in the 20th century, that gives a useful intellectual context for the shifts in styles of literature. And Vincent Leitch's American Literary Criticism from the 3os to the 80s is usable.
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KuntryKlimber
Mountain climber
Rock Hill, SC
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Apr 14, 2008 - 11:29am PT
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Joseph Campbell, the power of myth
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Apr 14, 2008 - 11:40am PT
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Vividness and humor. Succinct, Largo. And nice.
Brings to mind many, many of your ledes.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Apr 14, 2008 - 12:47pm PT
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Roger, we've veered toward fiction here, ignoring (except for writings about structure, and criticism) the non-fiction half of your reading.
I like the comments that have been sweeping up the 2500+ years of literature, just a few score genertions, and they remind me of the excitement of a new book that goes a bit further into the backstory of that. Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade is brand new (2006) and summarizes current knowledge and speculation about steps toward becoming human. (Are we there yet?...) Wade is a NY Times science writer, so it's well done.
Two points excited me.
One is the leap of Homo Sapiens from the Horn of Africa across the neck of the Red Sea to populate the rest of the planet. It was likely a single migration, with as few as 160 people, about 50,000 years ago. They (we...) ended up in "the long contest with the Neanderthals for the posession of Europe." Maybe more of a battle of wits, hinging on tools, than hand-to-hand combat. We are all descended from that group, as told by the power of modern genetics. Full literary value: those straits are called Bab el Mandeb, the Gates of Grief.
The other exciting event leads more directly to that horizon of literature. Two genetic mutations have surfaced, one 37,000 years ago and one a mere 6,000 years ago. It seems "likely that each conferred some cognitive advantage." Wade traces language from there, and from language it's...jeez, I was about to say "a short step." More like "one giant leap for mankind" to literature.
I have a couple of other non-fiction recommends, but since I got carried away on a surge of cognitive advantage (just an excitable boy...), I'll sit back a moment, let this cool and settle in.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 16, 2008 - 05:29pm PT
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Thanks for the comments, education, and good ideas. I put two suggested literary critisism books on my purchase list, one from Kara (kwit) and one from klk—I’ll post book reviews.
There were lots of suggested readings. Here is my list of recent reads and the current list of open books and next in line. It covers about 14 months.
Book Club reads:
An Artist of the Floating World Ishiguro
River of Doubt Candice Millard
The Reader Bernhard Schlink
Thirteen Moons Frazier
The Name of the Rose Eco
Three Cups of Tea Mortenson & Relin
All the Kings Men William Penn Warren
American Creation Ellis
The Nine Toobin
American Pastoral Roth
Personal reading during the same time
1776 McCullough
Fooled by Randomness Taleb
The Latest Answers to the Oldest Questions: A Philosophical Adventure with the World’s Greatest Thinkers Nicholas Fearn
The Science of Wine from Vine to Glass James Goode
Reading Like a Writer Francine Prose
The Beethoven Quartets Companion Winters & Martin
Hell Dante (Sayers translation)
Purgatory Dante (Sayers translation)
Othello Shakespeare
The Mahler Symphonies Hurwitz
Don Quixote Cervantes (Edith Grossman translation)
You’re in Charge, Now What Neff & Citron
Only a Promise of Happiness Nehamas
Postscript to ‘The Name of the Rose’ Eco
The Key to ‘The Name of the Rose’ Haft, White & White
Currently reading
Paradise Dante (Sayers translation)
A History of the World in 6 Glasses Standage
The Western Canon Bloom
Shakespeare, The Invention of the Human Bloom
A Garden of Bristlecones Michael Cohen
The Canon of American Legal Thought Kennedy & Fisher, Editors
Greek Myths Robert Graves
On the Shelf:
Beloved Morrison (Current Book Club)
Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra Sophocles
Plays and Sonnets Shakespeare
The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha
The Oxford Bible Commentary Barton & Muddman, Editors
How Novels Work Mullan
Literary Theory: An Introduction, Second Edition Terry Eagleton
Thanks, Roger
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 16, 2008 - 06:37pm PT
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impressive list...way to go!
I love Bloom, too, but I don't understand much of what he says (but I have heard him speak a few times and envy his students). Here's a few other Shakespeare scholars that are more accessible:
Stephen Greenblatt (Hamlet in Purgatory, Will in the World)
Harold Goddard (The Meaning of Shakespeare)
A.C. Bradley (Shakespearean Tragedy)
Ron Rosenbaum (The Shakespeare Wars)
Dover Wilson (What Happens in Hamlet)
and Bloom (Hamlet, Poem Unlimited)
more general: David Denby's Great Books
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Anastasia
climber
Not here
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Apr 16, 2008 - 06:44pm PT
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That is the whole point of the ClimbFest that is happening in a few days. We are in the process of introducing to the public a collection of good art, literature and photography that best depicts mountain adventure and environment.
I'll give you a list of the winners once they are announced. So far the books and articles I have read have been excellent. (Please note that I am not a judge, we have a panel of literally experts, editors, etc. doing that.)
Smiles,
Anastasia
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irregularpanda
Trad climber
Reno
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Apr 16, 2008 - 07:10pm PT
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sounds like you want a great book that redefines the boundaries that confine literature: The amazing adventures of Kavalier and clay by Michael Chabon. Thats my story and I'm sticking to it.
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yo
climber
The Eye of the Snail
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Apr 16, 2008 - 08:19pm PT
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Buzz! Knock it off with the reading, dude, it's keeping you offline.
Speaking of which, this is the literature resource you are seeking:
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/
*giggle
Edit: Wait, what's the lowdown on that Thirteen Moons? Biggest setup for the Second Novel Curse in the history of second novels. Cold Mountain was splendid, I thought, because of the voice, and the whole way through I kept thinking, A) this is gonna be a crappy movie someday, and B) homeboy's gonna have trouble on that next book.
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Ouch!
climber
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Apr 16, 2008 - 08:30pm PT
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It doesn't much matter what you read if it doesn't grab you and hang on. If you have to work at developing interest, it is no more than a laborious exercise in brain crunching.
I dearly loved The Source by Michener and Monte Walsh by Shaeffer. The Grapes of Wrath took me home again. I must be a simpleminded peckerwood.
When my rheumy eyes allow it, I read for pure fun. I'm not interested in great quantities of knowledge. Hell, I never made any use of what little I accumulated over my lifetime anyway.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 16, 2008 - 09:04pm PT
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Roger, what do you do with that?
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 17, 2008 - 08:18am PT
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Hi Ryan, Sam and Ed,
You know me too well, Ryan. I am a Cliffnotes kind of bottom dweller if there ever was one. I would happily pay for a Cliffnotes-life-is-easy-if-you-know-whom-to-ask. Just when I was about to feel really stupid for not thinking of this solution myself, I followed your link and found that when it comes to Roth and American Pastoral , Cliffnotes is shut down-they cannot figure out PoMo (NoPoMo), and everyone is refusing to help them. College kids are flunking. Curly white haired, netflex addicted waggles are flailing. “Where did all the answers go, long-time coming. The answer my friend is blowing on the Threads, the answer is blowing..."
Regarding Thirteen Moons, Frazier should have stopped at an even dozen. The voice was beautiful—took me right into my forbearer’s lives—but the story seemed forced into a full life. Lots of good storytelling in the beginning, then the publisher’s deadlines set in, like rigor mortise, and any story flow was replaced by set pieces, scenes for the next movie. Where is the hard nosed editor to whack the hubris and laziness of the author?
Sam, interestingly enough, most of the books I read engage me, even if they are not all easy. The climbing metaphor works pretty well. How are you feeling?
Ed, I am not sure if I understand your question? Do you mean what do I do with what ever I get out of what I read? It is circular—I read more. Like climbing. I get better at a particular style and push it a bit further. My bent is to search out 5 star books from long passed generations. Homer, Dante and Cervantes were all best sellers in their own times. One of the Pilgrims carried Homer to the new world and commented on the surprising immediacy of the emotions between Odysseus and modern wayfarers (the pilgrims)—now that is a cool thought. The gym is easier, but grunting up the Steck-Salathe has its special charms. Is this what you are asking?
Oh, Bookworm, I have read some of the Shakespeare books that you mention. Stephen Greenblatt is a great speaker if you ever get a chance. I recommend Will in the World to everyone.
My current reading of Harold Bloom are the only books that I have read (reading) of his except that he writes lots of introductions to other's books. So I have gotten used to him and his themes. I like what he has to say. Also, given that he could read serious text at 1000 pages an hour, he is hard to beat for commentary. (At 77, his current rate is 500 pages an hour.)
Got to go. Back to engineering and science papers, and the upcoming sessions fill up the room. Three hours is too long to stand.
Best, Roger
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