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yellowtractor
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« on: May 26, 2011, 08:54:49 PM » |
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You know the ones I'm talking about. Great works everyone thinks everyone--or everyone educated--should have already read, preferably a long time ago. Or major works in your field you've somehow let slip by, even though you can name-check them everywhere from cocktail parties to scholarly bibliographies.
This thread is a confessional. Tell us what you should have read but didn't.
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i think is good for every one only the think is that we will always scares about that. |
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systeme_d_
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« Reply #1 on: May 26, 2011, 08:58:38 PM » |
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I confess to only having skimmed Moby Dick when I was in high school. Melville lost the 14-year-old Système-D with his first extended description of whaling ships or whaling techniques or whatever.
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« Last Edit: May 26, 2011, 08:58:56 PM by systeme_d_ »
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Systeme_D is right. <rah rah RESEARCH!> |
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betty_p
Pissed off and wistful
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 1,924
Ooh! Piece o' candy.
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« Reply #2 on: May 26, 2011, 09:40:49 PM » |
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Remembrance of Things Past. All I know is that there're some madeleines involved. Apparently the smell of them triggers some s***.
Systeme D: Try it again. When the cetology gets too much, skip ahead, and then go back later.
I don't love a lot of 19th c. AmLit, but Moby Dick is truly worth reading.
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But I'm not bitter.
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systeme_d_
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« Reply #3 on: May 26, 2011, 09:45:19 PM » |
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Oops. I also forgot to read Remembrance of Things Past.
Someday I'll try Moby Dick again, Betty_p. I hated brussels sprouts when I was 14, and now I love them, so...
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« Last Edit: May 26, 2011, 09:45:40 PM by systeme_d_ »
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Systeme_D is right. <rah rah RESEARCH!> |
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dr_alcott
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« Reply #4 on: May 26, 2011, 09:46:24 PM » |
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Ulysses, all the way through. Maybe this summer?
Anything by Kafka--or Proust, now that Betty P mentions it.
(Aren't we supposed to feel better after we confess?)
Systeme D, I had to force myself to finish Moby Dick, although I preferred not to.
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I am an insanely elegant, super classy poor white, for the record.
I love everyone here!
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systeme_d_
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« Reply #5 on: May 26, 2011, 09:47:31 PM » |
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Systeme D, I had to force myself to finish Moby Dick, although I preferred not to.
Finally, something I did read! Bartleby the Scrivener! |
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Systeme_D is right. <rah rah RESEARCH!> |
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betty_p
Pissed off and wistful
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 1,924
Ooh! Piece o' candy.
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« Reply #6 on: May 26, 2011, 09:52:34 PM » |
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Well, now that Systeme D brings up the Brussels sprouts...I'm this close to 48, and I still hate Brussels sprouts.
And it's unlikely that I'm going to spend my summer reading Proust.
But Dr. Alcott, I'm thinking of putting Ulysses on a syllabus for fall semester. Maybe we could read it together this summer?
I won't take it personally if you ignore that suggestion.
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But I'm not bitter.
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ellaminnow
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« Reply #7 on: May 26, 2011, 10:00:09 PM » |
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I've never read anything by George Eliot. I have an uncracked copy of Middlemarch on my office shelf. It kinda embarrasses me.
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Some people wear their heart up on their sleeve. I wear mine underneath my right pant leg, strapped to my boot.
~Ani DiFranco
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dr_alcott
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« Reply #8 on: May 26, 2011, 10:04:27 PM » |
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But Dr. Alcott, I'm thinking of putting Ulysses on a syllabus for fall semester. Maybe we could read it together this summer?
I won't take it personally if you ignore that suggestion.
Oooh, that's very tempting! The only way I made it through Infinite Jest two summers ago was because of a virtual book club called Infinite Summer. I was just thinking earlier today (honestly!) that something like that would be great for Ulysses. Has there ever been a Fora Bookclub? On preview: Ella, I remember loving Middlemarch. But that was twenty years ago . . . |
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I am an insanely elegant, super classy poor white, for the record.
I love everyone here!
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spectacle
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« Reply #9 on: May 26, 2011, 10:11:34 PM » |
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Wow, Remembrance of Things Past, Moby Dick and Ulysses are my big three List of Shame.
Infinite Jest is on my list for this summer, but it was on last summer's list, too, so... *sigh*
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I think this thread is going well. Don't you think this thread is going well?
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betty_p
Pissed off and wistful
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 1,924
Ooh! Piece o' candy.
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« Reply #10 on: May 26, 2011, 10:22:54 PM » |
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Oooh, that's very tempting! The only way I made it through Infinite Jest two summers ago was because of a virtual book club called Infinite Summer. I was just thinking earlier today (honestly!) that something like that would be great for Ulysses. Has there ever been a Fora Bookclub? Love this idea! I don't recall a book club thread, but even if there is one, I think we should start a new one for Ulysses. I do seem to recall that there was a Ulysses thread in the relatively recent past, but it was mostly inhabited by haters. Any modernist/Joyce scholars out there who would like to guide us? If I don't hear, I'll start a thread tomorrow night. |
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But I'm not bitter.
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prytania3
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« Reply #11 on: May 26, 2011, 10:24:14 PM » |
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Wow, Remembrance of Things Past, Moby Dick and Ulysses are my big three List of Shame.
I've read them all. I'm a big Moby Dick fan. Ulysses I didn't enjoy--except for the S&M part, but I read it to see why it was important. I see why it was important. Actually a lot of Remembrance of Things Past is quite riveting, but there are sections (that go on for hundreds of pages) that really are a snooze. As for the madeleines--they are at the very end... I loved Middlemarch. I can't think of any book that I'm embarrassed not to have read. There are plenty that I'm embarrassed that I did read. |
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Clowns, I tell you. Clowns.
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betty_p
Pissed off and wistful
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 1,924
Ooh! Piece o' candy.
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« Reply #12 on: May 26, 2011, 10:41:27 PM » |
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I can't think of any book that I'm embarrassed not to have read. There are plenty that I'm embarrassed that I did read.
Can't agree with the first sentence, but I have to chime with the second. That's its own thread, though. Go ahead, somebody: start it. |
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But I'm not bitter.
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larryc
Hu hatin'
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 18,288
Eschew the hu.
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« Reply #13 on: May 26, 2011, 10:47:46 PM » |
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The Faerie Queen. Pilgrims Progress.
And I have read virtually no contemporary literature.
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oldadjunct
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« Reply #14 on: May 27, 2011, 12:04:48 AM » |
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The Faerie Queen. Pilgrims Progress.
And I have read virtually no contemporary literature.
I don't thing we can "read" The Faerie Queen any more so much as study it, the language and tropes are increasingly unavailable to us. It was the Ulysses or Moby Dick even in it's time. But it certainly has its rewards, though they come with much work. Pilgrims Progress, on the other hand, is much more accessible; and well worth your time as an American historian even if the early colonial period is not your area. Think of it as the ur "Young Goodman Brown." |
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Fiction is baseball; Rhetoric is football.
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