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JOURNAL
August 2008
A GOOD READ
I don’t know why, but for many of us, during the dog days of summer, our thoughts turn to reading, a time to relax on the beach or under a tree and become engrossed in a story for a couple of hours. I actually find mid-winter to be a good time to curl up with a book also.
Because I’m a writer and teacher, I’m often asked what I’m reading. I think most people want to know what is out there that is new and good. Honestly, I have no idea. I will occasionally read a contemporary novel, but most of the time I’m still trying to catch up on all the classics--a great exercise that is neverending. And great literature--the kind of book that can challenge your thinking or even change your life in some way--deserves to be read more than once.
I tell my students that they are every bit as intelligent as the generations of students that came before them. But, because of the instant gratification of iPhones and websites and news tickers that give us blurbs about the day’s events, today we get our information in many little doses. The downside of that is that we have lost our attention span; we can’t focus on anything for more than a minute. When we lose focus, we lose the ability to think critically. We hear one line of a political speech and decide “Yeah, I like him,” and leave it at that. We’re too busy to probe more deeply.
Good, focused reading helps us to think critically.
Every summer, I try to take on a mammoth reading project. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes not. One year, I never managed to finish Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” but I’m determined to one day.
This year, I read Anthony Trollope’s “The Way We Live Now,” an 800-page satirical novel about modern life . . . in the 1870s. Talk about a great soap opera! Every character has an angle to try to gain money or position. The virtues of love and art are eclipsed by the values of social standing and publicity. The reason this is great literature is because you realize right away that, although written 130 years ago, it still speaks to us today. It is still the way we live now.
So, without further ado, I present my top ten books in all of classic literature, from way back through World War II, in approximate order of publication.
The Odyssey -- Homer: There is so much going on here, it’s amazing it was written centuries before Christ. It’s an adventure about finding home and what that means, and the characters (the women are quite liberated too) are unforgettable.
As You Like It -- Shakespeare: Well, of course we love “Hamlet” and “Macbeth” and “King Lear,” but this one is his bridge play, written at the end of his comic years and before the big tragedies just around the corner. It’s a lot of fun in the forest of Arden, but there are shades of trouble in the world brewing. Jaques is a shade of Hamlet. And yes, the bard is as fun to read as to watch.
Hard Times -- Charles Dickens: One of his shorter novels, but my favorites. Nobody paints such a vivid world and such memorable characters while also offering commentary on the ills of the world within the confines of creative narrative.
The Way We Live Now -- Anthony Trollope: See above.
The Mill on the Floss -- George Eliot: The greatest female novelist of all. Many consider her “Middlemarch” to be the greatest English novel of all, but I prefer this earlier one. Unforgettable.
Tess of the d’Urbervilles -- Thomas Hardy: I love all of Hardy, but this is my favorite.
Crime and Punishment -- Fyodor Dostoevsky: Not exactly a light summer read, but deep psychological portrait of the criminal mind.
Huckleberry Finn -- Mark Twain: Yes, sheer entertainment but Twain was also a great social commentator and satirist between the lines.
An American Tragedy -- Theodore Dreiser: A great American novel from the early 20th Century.
Sons and Lovers -- D.H. Lawrence: Nobody is as psychological as Lawrence and he is ahead of his time probing the creepy relationship between mother and son and lovers.
A Streetcar Named Desire -- Tennessee Williams: He is our Shakespeare. The language is beautiful, the theme of reality vs. artifice rendered in a very memorable way.
The Man Who Loved Children -- Christina Stead: Her one-hit wonder. Nobody who reads this will ever forget it.
East of Eden -- John Steinbeck: Great story-telling.
Their Eyes Were Watching God -- Zora Neale Hurston: One woman’s incredible journey toward self-fulfillment.
Were you counting? OK, so it was 13!
If there were some notable titles missing, I can only say that there are still many big titles I haven’t read, to my shame: Ulysses and Moby Dick, for two!
In a future blog, I’ll give my favorite readings from post-World War II. The modern era!
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KevScoHall@Verizon.net