WAG - Things are still nuts. I may have to spike another story (for the second time in seven days). At the same time, however, I feel compelled to make up for not posting for several days.
Note: This is intended to make things up to regular readers as much as it is tied to the self-knowledge that if I don’t record these stories soon, they will go unrecorded.
So, I am doing a mid-morning post and will see where I’m at later in the evening (around 11 p.m., my typical posting time).
Of course, I am prompted to steal once again.
This copycatted posting device is from my friend’s site,
Interrogative Statement. Chadwick introduced me to his site last week, though it has existed for some time. You will find a permanent link to the site to the left both because I find it interesting and to make amends for stealing a small portion of his thunder.
Note: This tact really won’t work, because he has been linking to my site for some time now. Sometimes people are predisposed to make a mistake and then make amends after the fact. I am reminded of an example from Greek myth. Prometheus knows better than to make Zeus mad, and he knows his actions will achieve that unwanted reaction, but some days he can’t help himself (even when he’s trying to help others).
Anyway, Chadwick had a post about the great works. One is supposed to
bold those they have read. I am further expanding that by
italicizing ones I have only skimmed. Little asterisks (*’s) may also go beside titles that I believe deserve further explanation. Of course, there will be several dozen asides and miscellaneous comments.
The Book List
Beowulf
- Man versus monsters. Wins the first two rounds by himself and the last in a tag team match.
Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
Agee, James - A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
– I almost started it in Humanities (look for this to be a reoccurring theme). Skimmed the Cliff Notes.
Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot
- Don’t expect him to show.
Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March
Bronte, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert - The Stranger
Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales
– read selections for Humanities. Felt like the whole thing. That’s why I’m making this bold.
Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
- Depressing ending. The woman comes to self-actualization and then snuffs herself.
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
- I prefer this over the movie
*Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans
– I prefer the movie over the book. If you look at the names of the main character alone, Nathaniel Poe bests Natty Bumpo any day.
Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
- Skimmed the Great Illustrated Classic
Dante - Inferno
- Read over Christmas one year. Don’t ask about my sugarplum visions.
de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
– finished only half of it before Friday arrived.
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
- was assigned for Humanities class, but I had other projects due that week. See Cliff Notes.
Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
- I have a several copies, the original and the Great Illustrated Classic, and I’ve seen the Disney version.
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
- Though I did read the one by H.G. Wells.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays
Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying
- For the record, the woman doesn’t lie dying for very long.
Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
- Moral: those who live the lifestyles of the rich and famous but weren’t born into it, shouldn’t expect to make such things a habit.
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von – Faust
– once again, see the skimmed/Cliff Notes Humanites method.
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph - Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
* Homer - The Iliad
- I’ve remember friends performing a middle school production of this.
Homer - The Odyssey
- The
TV movie was good too (even if
Armand Assante came off as a jerk).
Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- Another Great Illustrated classic exposure, though I’ve gone out of my way never to see the Disney version.
Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll's House
James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw
- In a story of a governess versus demons, the final score is a draw.
Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
- Another mandatory reading requirement, but one I never complained about.
Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
– Once again, see the great illustrated classic version, and later an abridged version for middle schoolers
Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - One Hundred Years of Solitude
- I’ve never read the book, but I recognize him from the
Moxy Früvous song.
Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
- This was actually my very first Great Illustrated Classic.
Miller, Arthur - The Crucible
Morrison, Toni - Beloved
O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find
O'Neill, Eugene - Long Day's Journey into Night
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
- This is the book that proved that animals are almost as bad as humans.
*Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
- Saw the movie in English class one. Took three days. Had no complaints either.
Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar
Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales
- Love the Tell Tale Heart. I love to throw furniture too, but that’s another story.
Proust, Marcel - Swann's Way
Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49
*Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front
- I own it and have been meaning to read it.
* Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
– I never read it, but I saw the
Wishbone episode and the movie
Roxanne.
Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep
*Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
– I read chapter one when I bought it last Thanksgiving. Haven’t got back around to it.
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
- Can we say, “Required reading for all high schoolers everywhere?”
Shakespeare, William - Macbeth
- Can we say, “Ditto.”
Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night's Dream
- This one seems to have slipped through the cracks. My regrets to the Bard.
Shakespeare, William – The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
- I won’t comment. I have a comment. I just know I shouldn’t share it.
*Shaw, George Bernard – Pygmalion
– I’m through three of the five acts. Give me a few more days.
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles – Antigone
– I was also in a bad grade school production of this. We had a person drop out at the last minute, meaning our star actor played the title role AND another character, making Antigone appear to go mad one act earlier than usual.
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
- The tragic tale of a man who loved his mother.
Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
- A Great Illustrated Classic text that was further expanded by the Muppets.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom's Cabin
Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels
-
Ted Danson’s best work.
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- The adventures of a cynic who becomes an optimist.
Voltaire - Candide
- The adventures of an optimist who becomes a cynic.
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five
Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass
– 1855 Edition, for he only had about half a dozen different versions.
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
* Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie
- I had a copy, but I permanently lent it to my sister.
Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard - Native Son
Comment on the listed texts, titles that should have been included, and more, if you wish.
Or don’t. I don’t care.
'read_any_good_books_lately'
