Ahhh.. . .more novels!
I'm back at school and I love what it's doing for my bookshelves--loads of novels, who would've thought that school could be this much fun?!
So it's Tolstoy & Dostoevsky after all--and we start off with Tolstoy's The Sebastopol Sketches.
American Novel 1850-1950 actually misses out on my two favorites (Nabokov and Hemingway), but the reading list is pretty good and we're starting with Moby Dick (which I've never read). I'll spare my readers the nitty gritty of my other classes--though I'm sure I'll refer to them as the semester progresses--whether in delight or despair I cannot yet tell. So now I'm reading Tolstoy, Melville, and Franzen all at once.
So it's Tolstoy & Dostoevsky after all--and we start off with Tolstoy's The Sebastopol Sketches.
American Novel 1850-1950 actually misses out on my two favorites (Nabokov and Hemingway), but the reading list is pretty good and we're starting with Moby Dick (which I've never read). I'll spare my readers the nitty gritty of my other classes--though I'm sure I'll refer to them as the semester progresses--whether in delight or despair I cannot yet tell. So now I'm reading Tolstoy, Melville, and Franzen all at once.
posted by shoshana at 1:57 AM
12 Comments:
Moby Dick is high on my list of "books I don't admit to not having read at dinner parties". I'm planning to rectify the situation sometime this year. There is, however, a very amusing countervailing view here.
hb
well now you are scaring me (not that i hadn't suspected this to be the case all along). i suppose i can do what i did with paradise regained last semester: basically didn't read the book. but i've decided to become a more conscientious student. now i dont know if that's possible, but i'd like to try.
did you see the previously untranslated nabakov story printed in the new yorker about a month or so ago?
i did see it but did not read it. fellow nabokov fan? what a name chatul einayim.
can't say i read much of him but the atlantic monthly did have a very interesting piece on him in a recent issue, drawing parallels between his writing and life-- it seemed pretty convincing that his pedophili(a/e/c?) characters were drawn from events and struggles in his life. he seems to be getting much coverage as of recent any idea why?
btw u like the name?:)
Wow. Read the Hagiwara review and I suddenly feel good for having never enjoyed the book. Wonder what my Lit. teachers would say if I tried to tell them all of that.
lolita celebrated it's 50th recently. maybe that's why? i think people are discovering his artistic genius. . i don't really know though.
p.s. i do like the name chatul enayim,though wouldn't it make more sense the other way, as in "einei chatul"?
thanks mordy. everyonehere's been very encouraging. it'll take tremendous amount of self-motivation for me to get thru moby dick, i see:)
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200512/lolita
i was just curious how much a stir Reading Lolita in Tehran could've actually caused in Iran, considering it, i assume, is not uncommon for a grown Iranian to marry a twelve year old--point to ponder.
good point, chatul. . .
I agree Chatuleinayim! Nafisi may have been a bit cynical using 'Lolita' in the title of her book - afterall, she touches more on Nabokov's 'Invitation to a Beheading'. I bet she figured on her title drawing attention.
Still, I thought 'Reading Lolita...' was a superb picture of life in Iran for the educated middle class. And the relevancy to Iranians was clear when someone in her bookclub drew a bitter parallel between the mullah's depriving them of their liberty, and Humbert robbing Lolita of her childhood.
Btw, I think the Hagiwara review is wonderfully biting, but lots of people seem to love Moby Dick...
I haven't read Nafisi's book but from what I've gathered, you're spot on here about the cynicism, hb. About moby dick, the only person (my professor aside) I've run into who speaks well of moby dick is an engineering major who spends most of her time trying to prove to the world the supremacy of the sciences over the arts/humanities. so we'll see. . .i need to have it done in less than two weeks--
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