Nine essential American novels: what's on your list?

[kokotg]

I know reading lists are a pretty popular topic around these parts, but since I love reading lists and can talk about them forever...I thought I'd start this thread with a slight twist for those who share my reading list mania. I was looking through my bookshelves the other day and came across a giant anthology/textbook of American literature that I picked up somewhere or other years ago. It's called American Literature: The Makers and the Making. I've held on to it for many years and through several long-distance moves because two of its editors are Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren (the other is R.W.B. Lewis), and I tend to trust their opinions on literature more than those of the average textbook editor. I'm not sure if it's intended as a high school or college text. The book is nearly 2000 pages of short stories, poems, essays, and occasional excerpts from novels...but it was a list of recommended novels in the introduction that caught my eye when I was looking through it the other day.

 

Of the American novels written before the Second World War, there are, we decided, nine necessary to a basic knowledge of American literature--though this is not to say that all nine can always be read in a single course. The novels are:

 

the Scarlet Letter, by Hawthorne

Moby-Dick, by Melville

One of the several masterpieces by Henry James (Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, the Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Twain

the Red Badge of Courage, by Crane

An American Tragedy, by Dreiser

The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald

The Sun Also Rises or A Farewell to Arms, by Hemingway

One of the several masterpieces by Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!)

 

Then they give a list of other novels that they also consider important, but not quite important enough to make the list, which I'm not going to type out.

 

I thought the list was interesting particularly in light of the thread on canon formation the other day. This is a list from 1973. How does it compare to similar lists today? How did it compare to similar lists of its day? The first thing that strikes me is that all the books are by white men. Overall, I like it, though honestly it wouldn't have occurred to me to put Henry James or Crane or Dreiser in my top 9, but I don't know if that's because they've fallen somewhat out of favor in academia as a whole or just because they happened not to play a huge role in my own education (although I did read The American in grad school and, I'm pretty sure, at least parts of Sister Carrie in high school, so it may be that they did play a role yet completely failed to make an impression on me).

 

If I were making my own list (and I guess I will be in a few years), I might leave most of this intact, but sub in Invisible Man, something by Edith Wharton, and then maybe Their Eyes Were Watching God or Delta Wedding. If we expanded it to after WWII I might add in RPW's own All the King's Men and maybe something by Toni Morrison. But mostly I'm glad I still have awhile to think about it :)

 

And you?

Edited September 14, 2010 by kokotg
because I know Edith Wharton didn't write Their Eyes Were Watching God or Delta Wedding

[Lori D.]

Hmmm... We just did American Lit. last year, and I had to narrow down a mega list to a manageable sized list. We ended up doing a lot of short stories, rather than 9 novels -- that enabled us to focus on the structure of the short story -- but also allowed us to cover more authors. :tongue_smilie:

 

 

Authors I would make sure were included in the don't miss American Lit list for high school (accessible, interesting/engaging, worldview themes, or captures the time in which it was written):

 

- Washington Irving (short story: "Rip Van Winkle")

- Nathaniel Hawthorne (novel: Scarlet Letter; OR -- short story "Minister's Black Veil" OR "Young Goodman Brown")

- Edgar Allen Poe (short story; AND poem: "The Raven")

- Mark Twain (novel: Huckleberry Finn; possibly a short work, too)

- Bret Harte (short story: "Luck of Roaring Camp", or other)

- Ambrose Bierce (short story: "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge")

- Stephen Crane (short stories: "Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" AND "The Open Boat"; OR novel: Red Badge of Courage)

- Jack London (novel: Call of the Wild)

- O. Henry (short story)

- Thornton Wilder (play: Our Town)

- F. Scott Fitzgerald (novel: The Great Gatsby)

- Langston Hughes (short story: "Thank You Ma'am")

- James Thurber (short story: "The Catbird Seat")

- John Steinbeck (novella: The Pearl -- I'd save Grapes of Wrath for college/adult)

- Ernest Hemingway (novella: The Old Man and the Sea)

- Harper Lee (novel: To Kill a Mockingbird)

- Ray Bradbury (novel: Farenheit 451)

- Walter Miller (novel: A Canticle for Leibowitz)

- Shirley Jackson (short story: "The Lottery")

- Lorainne Hansberry (play: Raisin in the Sun)

- Flannery O'Conner (short story: "A Good Man is Hard to Find")

- Margaret Craven (novella: I Heard the Owl Call My Name)

- Ursula LeGuin (novel: The Tombs of Atuan -- OR -- Left Hand of Darkness)

 

 

I would save authors such as Herman Melville, Henry James, Katherine Porter, Edith Wharton, William Faulkner, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, etc. for college/adult.

 

I would include some poetry: Bradstreet; Wheatly; Dickinson; Emerson; Whitman; Longfellow; Frost; Hughes; etc.

 

 

Serious contenders for a "must read" list for high school:

- Life of Douglass (Frederick Douglass) -- autobiography

- Up From Slavery (Booker T. Washington) -- autobiography

- To Be a Slave (Julius Lester, ed.) -- biographical excerpts

- Story of My Life (Helen Keller) -- autobiography

- My Antonia (Willa Cather) -- novel

- Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Hurston) -- novel

- some wartime correspondence pieces by Ernie Pyle

- The Chosen (Chaim Potok) -- novel

- Black Like Me (John Griffin) -- autobiography

- Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan) -- novel

Edited September 14, 2010 by Lori D.

[regentrude]

I am missing Steinbeck. I would definitely count Grapes of Wrath as one of the nine most important novels.

[kokotg]

I am missing Steinbeck. I would definitely count Grapes of Wrath as one of the nine most important novels.

 

Grapes of Wrath is on their secondary list. So which of those books would you drop in favor of Grapes of Wrath?

 

Lori--there's tons and tons of poetry and short stories in the book...this was their list of novels that should be covered but that they didn't have room to include. Which makes me wonder how much they think it IS possible/advisable to cover in a year-long course....if they have 1800 pages of poetry and short stories PLUS nine novels!

[Hunter]

I adore short lists and discussions on them :-) Life is short. What is most important and why?

 

I would enjoy reading more in this thread, if people have more to add. And similar lists for World and British lit and maybe a list for adult self-learners.

[regentrude]

Grapes of Wrath is on their secondary list. So which of those books would you drop in favor of Grapes of Wrath?

 

...Which makes me wonder how much they think it IS possible/advisable to cover in a year-long course....if they have 1800 pages of poetry and short stories PLUS nine novels!

 

I admit that I have not read Henry James... he would not have made my list simply because I don't know enough about him (I can be totally wrong; please keep in mind that I did not grow up in a English speaking country and my literary education centered on our native literature).

 

How much to cover.. that is always iffy. A lot depends on whether the student is a fast reader or not. We studied Steinbeck last year and it took my 12 y/o DD only ten hours to read Grapes of Wrath (and she even liked it)... but I know there are people who struggle with it for weeks.

I tend to take those lists as suggestions... there is no single "must read" book - there will always be some that are equally important. I like to pick what I find interesting :)

[kokotg]

It hit me last night as I was falling asleep (I almost had to get up and come downstairs to post :lol:) that Invisible Man is post WWII as well, so that may be why it doesn't make the list (Native Son is on the secondary list; I tend to associate the two because I read them in the same class in college, and I'm always surprised when people pick Native Son over Invisible Man for lists like this).

 

Now that I've had a break from italicizing, I'll go ahead and put their secondary list, too. I don't think that it, overall, holds up as well as the first list--which is kind of what I said in the other thread--that I think there's a fairly stable "first tier" of American lit, but that the second tier is more subject to cultural trends.

 

The Leatherstocking Cycle, by Cooper

Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Stowe

The Rise of Silas Lapham or A Hazard of New Fortunes, by Howells

Main Street or Babbitt, by Lewis

Look Homeward, Angel or Of Time and the River, Wolfe

U.S.A. by Dos Passos

Miss Lonelyhearts or The Day of the Locust, by West

Studs Lonigan, by Farrell

The Grapes of Wrath, by Steinbeck

Native Son, by Wright

 

these are, according to the editors, "other novels with which, for a variety of reasons, we think the student should have more than a passing acquaintance." There are a couple on there I've never even heard of. And still no Edith Wharton or Willa Cather (or Eudora Welty, but, much as I love Delta Wedding, she can be covered pretty well with short stories).

[Jane in NC]

Your lists are dating me. I attended high school and undergrad in the '70's and would say that indeed most of these books were either assigned or were recommended reading.

 

I'll admit that I had never even heard of Their Eyes were Watching God until perhaps the '90's although we did read Native Son.

 

Perhaps the post WWI American Expatriate writers were venerated at the time which is why one sees Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Dos Passos on the list. The USA Trilogy by Dos Passos is absolutely one of my favorite books (or set of three books) but I don't know if anyone reads it anymore. The Day of the Locust is another book that I certainly enjoyed reading in my student days.

 

The original list of nine does contain several books that I would choose without a second thought: Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick, Huck Finn and Gatsby. Need to think about the other five.

 

Noting that Robert Penn Warren was editor, we see that All the King's Men was not included on either list. Perhaps this modesty should be overlooked.

[Robin in DFW]

that are sub-par compared to their earlier written counterparts.

 

My dd21 had to read so many books in ps hs that, when I looked them over for my dd17, appeared to be senseless trash. There were several that were on the school's reading list that were not worth the paper they were printed on.

 

We all enjoy the older classics around here...well, not old-old, but probably pre 50's or 60's. There is just something more eloquent and cerebral about those older books that current authors just don't bring to the table. I know they write to appeal to the modern world, but something gets lost in those recent works.

 

I would categorize much of the current literature as twaddle.

Edited September 14, 2010 by Robin in DFW

[kokotg]

Noting that Robert Penn Warren was editor, we see that All the King's Men was not included on either list. Perhaps this modesty should be overlooked.

 

I agree! But it was post WWII so it didn't meet the criteria they set for the list. There are a number of his poems in the anthology.

[Hunter]

Why pre WW2?

[kokotg]

Why pre WW2?

 

Dunno. I guess they were just looking for a cut-off date and WWII was as good a choice as any...this is close to 40 years ago, so anything post WWII would still have been relatively recent--I would guess they wanted to choose books old enough to have already passed a sort of longevity test.

[Hunter]

Was Old Man and the Sea post WW2? I think I would substitute that for the other Hemingway novels, listed.

[8filltheheart]

Well, my list for my dd this yr has a few overlaps. This is the list I generated for her:

 

*italics for reading selected sections only, bolded for longer works read in entirety

 

Crucible (Arthur Miller) (I know it is out of order chronologically as written, but a good time period storyline wise to start with)

 

*Of Plymouth Plantation (William Bradford)

 

* "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (Jonathan Edwards)

 

*Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

 

Raven, Pit & the Pendulum, Fall of the House of Usher, Masque of Red Death, Tell Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado(Poe)

 

"Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (Washington Irving)

 

Scarlett Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

 

"Rappacini's Daughter" and "Birthmark" (NH)

 

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Harriet Stowe)

 

*Walden (Thoreau)

 

Moby Dick (Melville) (We will read Rime of the Ancient Mariner prior to MD even though it is British b/c of the allusions)

 

various poems by Emily Dickinson

 

*Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass

 

"O Captain! My Captain!" "Where Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" (Walt Whitman)

 

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)

Red Badge of Courage (Stephan Crane)

Call of the Wild, "To Build a Fire" (Jack London)

 

"Gift of the Magi" (O Henry)

 

Death Comes for the Archbishop (Willa Cather)

 

Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemmingway)

 

The Lottery (Shirley Jackson)

The Glass Menagerie (Tennessee Williams)

The Chosen (Chaim Potok)

 

Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

 

either Cat's Cradle or Slaughterhouse Five (Vonnegut)

 

If we get off schedule and I have to drop one, it will be UTC. I included it for historical value, not literary.

[Lori D.]

Well, that's what took me ALL of last summer -- the slow whittling down process to get our American Lit. year down to a realistic amount of material, PLUS getting a balance of novel/short story/poetry, PLUS trying to include female and minority authors... :tongue_smilie:

 

 

I see that it is because they were going with pre-WW2 works, BUT they're certainly missing THE BIGGEST high school work of all: To Kill a Mockingbird (which is, incidently, written by a woman).

 

I did include some women in our list:

poets: Anne Bradstreet, Phyllis Wheatley, Emily Dickinson

short stories: 3 by Flannery O'Connor; "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson; and 1 by Ursula LeGuin

play: Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" -- we watched this rather than read it; wonderful play!

novella: Margaret Craven's "I Heard the Owl Call My Name" (which also includes Canadian Native people's points of view)

 

We had done Mockingbird in a previous year, or else it would definitely have been on our Amer. Lit. list. We'd also done LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy earlier. Don't know what is a reasonable amount for others, but for our American Lit., here's what we ended up doing and approximately how much of the year was spent on it (we alternated the novels, poetry, and short stories):

 

20 weeks = 4 novels (Scarlet Letter; Huck Finn; Call of the Wild; Great Gatsby)

5 weeks = 3 novellas (Billy Budd; The Pearl; Old Man and the Sea)

6 weeks = 20 short stories (about 3 per week)

1 week = essay and biography excerpts

3 weeks of poetry = covered about 10 poets

1 week = 2 plays (WATCHED/discussed) (Our Town; Raisin in the Sun)

 

We do most of our lit. aloud, so depending on the type size/spacing we tend to read/discuss about 10-15 pages per day, 4 days a week -- usually averages out to about 50 pages per week for a novel. Poetry and short stories are far shorter, so I'd guess the total pages read in the year was no more than 1200-1400 pages.

 

 

BEST of luck with your own American Lit.! Warmest regards, Lori D.

[Spy Car]

The lists are pretty good, especially if you limit the list to "novels" rAther than American literature generally.

 

I would personally pick Sister Carrie over An American Tragedy (in a close call), and be inclined toward Elmer Gantry over Babbitt and Main Street. There is no doubt in my mind that Abasalom, Abasolam! is Faulkner's master-work (and one of my very favorite novels), but it is a more difficult read than the others, so it depends if one is make in a high school list or an adult list.

 

Moby Dick, naturally.

 

I think I'd take For Whom the Bell Tolls as my Hemingway pick. Grapes of Wrath.

 

I'd bump Gatsby to the secondary list if it were based on personal affinity to the work, but might survive on the basis of cultural literacy. I'd rather have Native Son.

 

McTeague by Frank Norris is woefully under appreciated both on its merits and its influence on the modern American novel. Dos Passos, Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop, Wiseblood by Flannery O'Connor, Nathaniel West's Day of the Locusts would all be strong contenders.

 

I'll kick myself tomorrow for leaving someone out...but it's late and I'm fading.

 

Bill

[Mrs Mungo]

Lori D's list is really good.

 

But if I had to make a list with nine *essential* American novels?

 

In no particular order (I'm going to cheat a little):

 

1. Uncle Tom's Cabin or Huck Finn

 

2. Fahrenheit 451

 

3. The Jungle

 

4. The Scarlet Letter *or* something by Cooper (probably Last of the Mohicans, I'm sure this crowd would hate Moll Flanders)

 

5. The Good Earth *or* The Sound and the Fury (I'd go with the former if you skipped Uncle Tom) *or* The Sun Also Rises if you really cannot take Faulkner (I understand)

 

6. Grapes of Wrath

 

7. You need a post-modernist, most people in the book-hating thread seemed to hate most of them. Is Invisible Man innocuous enough? Personally, I'd choose Catcher in the Rye or Lolita.

 

8. On the Road

 

9. To Kill a Mockingbird

 

10. Slaughterhouse Five

 

11. Beloved

 

So, I have 11, I couldn't quite make it down to 9, sorry. I didn't chose books that are my favorites, I chose books that told an important story to tell, and/or books that had a direct impact on the culture.

 

Fwiw, eldest is currently reading Daisy Miller as her "fun" read. I hope to knock out a lot of books through fun reading over the next four years. ;)

Edited September 15, 2010 by Mrs Mungo

[Hunter]

Were 9 novels picked, because there are 9 months in the public school year?

 

Now that I'm self educating, I'm not locked into set time periods, but when I was, I always preferred short well thought out lists as a spine with room to add, as my children showed interest in something.

 

9 novels is a LOT when discussing a high school credit, and trying to fit it in with rigorous maths, classical languages, a lab science, and writing, never mind logic, religious training, and everything else. And then throw in a case of the flu and Aunt Mabel's hip surgery :-0

 

When I was in school in the 80s, I think we only tackled 3-4 novels a year in high school and they tended to be short ones. My children took World Lit through American school using just a textbook I think and I'm not sure what they took in college, but they definitely didn't read more than 9 novels in a semester!

 

The younger child was so busy devouring church history, Shakespeare and the Loeb Classics, and the older child working, that neither spent much time reading American Literature. But because of their extensive history backgrounds and reading the KJV Bible (and listening to it on audio tape) both have done well in college and in life.

[kokotg]

There is no doubt in my mind that Abasalom, Abasolam! is Faulkner's master-work (and one of my very favorite novels), but it is a more difficult read than the others, so it depends if one is make in a high school list or an adult list.

 

 

 

It seems like As I Lay Dying is the Faulkner most taught in high school, probably as much because it's short as because it's accessible. I think most high schoolers could handle (and probably enjoy) The Sound and the Fury. I'd only do Absalom, Absalom! with a particularly advanced and literarily (I made that word up) inclined high schooler...or maybe just because I can't stand the thought of my kids ending up never reading it at all ;)

[kokotg]

Were 9 novels picked, because there are 9 months in the public school year?

 

 

 

I'm not really sure. Nine is kind of an odd number, isn't it. The more I read through the notes, the more I'm inclined to think the book was intended as a college text (it doesn't seem to specify one way or the other). They do say you wouldn't necessarily teach all the books in a single course. My guess is these were just the books they could agree on for inclusion on the list and it happened to be nine...but really I don't know.

[kokotg]

 

 

I see that it is because they were going with pre-WW2 works, BUT they're certainly missing THE BIGGEST high school work of all: To Kill a Mockingbird (which is, incidently, written by a woman).

 

 

 

I read Mockingbird in middle school, and I tend to still look at it as a middle school book--sort of a gentle introduction to symbolism.

 

Reading back through your post about choosing what to read....oh dear, I'm going to have so much trouble narrowing down American lit! Fortunately, I'm not nearly so attached to any other country's lit, so I can make nice, reasonable, unbiased lists for everything else :D

[Spy Car]

It seems like As I Lay Dying is the Faulkner most taught in high school, probably as much because it's short as because it's accessible. I think most high schoolers could handle (and probably enjoy) The Sound and the Fury. I'd only do Absalom, Absalom! with a particularly advanced and literarily (I made that word up) inclined high schooler...or maybe just because I can't stand the thought of my kids ending up never reading it at all ;)

 

I remember starting this novel 3 or 4 times, and while enjoying the masterful writing, I kept scratching my head thinking there must be something wrong with my reading comprehension skills. So I'd start over, and the same thing happened again and again.

 

Finally I just pushed on and discovered the novel is a bit like a merry-go-round where pieces of the puzzle (to badly mix metaphors) fall into place worth every rotation of the wheel.

 

As you say is a difficult novel, and one for advanced readers, but what a masterpiece of literature.

 

Bill

[Corraleno]

I may end up doing US History over 2 years, covering the 20th century in the second year. I would love to see what everyone would choose as the "top ten" for 20th century American lit.

 

Jackie

[kokotg]

I may end up doing US History over 2 years, covering the 20th century in the second year. I would love to see what everyone would choose as the "top ten" for 20th century American lit.

 

Jackie

 

If we're talking just novels, my list might look something like this:

 

*an Edith Wharton (maybe House of Mirth or Ethan Frome...I've actually only read HOM and Summer, but Summer isn't one of her better known works and, IMO, it's kind of creepy)

*a Faulkner (for HS probably The Sound and the Fury, possibly Light in August--I'd need to re-read it)

*Willa Cather (this is where most people seem to recommend Death Comes for the Archbishop; I haven't read it; I've read My Antonia and The Professor's House, and I think either of those would be good)

*The Great Gatsby

*A Farewell to Arms or The Sun Also Rises

*Welty's Delta Wedding

*Invisible Man

*Their Eyes Were Watching God

*All the King's Men

*Song of Solomon or Beloved

 

...I thought I had more room...I'm pretty pre-1960 loaded. Maybe a Vonnegut? One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Philip Roth (uhh, perhaps not for high school. Not Portnoy's Complaint, anyway, not if I have to discuss it with my own kid). Jean Toomer's Cane almost made the list, too, though it's not exactly a novel--it just screams Modernism so loudly.

 

If it's everything, I'd put in a few Welty short stories. Also stories by Katherine Anne Porter, Peter Taylor, and Flannery O' Connor. Maybe A Raisin in the Sun, a Tennesee Williams, and Death of a Salesman. Poems by T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Robert Penn Warren, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Gertrude Stein, (can I sneak Auden in here?), Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, ...really I'd probably stick all the Agrarians in there, because I like them.

 

Yeah, I love making lists.

[Caroline]

I remember reading McTeague in high school, along with many other books mentioned. McTeague is so powerful, but yet so awful. I remember it so vividly, and once again feel sick. However, I never hear anyone mention it. (except my sister who had all the same English teachers I did.)

 

The lists are pretty good, especially if you limit the list to "novels" rAther than American literature generally.

 

I would personally pick Sister Carrie over An American Tragedy (in a close call), and be inclined toward Elmer Gantry over Babbitt and Main Street. There is no doubt in my mind that Abasalom, Abasolam! is Faulkner's master-work (and one of my very favorite novels), but it is a more difficult read than the others, so it depends if one is make in a high school list or an adult list.

 

Moby Dick, naturally.

 

I think I'd take For Whom the Bell Tolls as my Hemingway pick. Grapes of Wrath.

 

I'd bump Gatsby to the secondary list if it were based on personal affinity to the work, but might survive on the basis of cultural literacy. I'd rather have Native Son.

 

McTeague by Frank Norris is woefully under appreciated both on its merits and its influence on the modern American novel. Dos Passos, Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop, Wiseblood by Flannery O'Connor, Nathaniel West's Day of the Locusts would all be strong contenders.

 

I'll kick myself tomorrow for leaving someone out...but it's late and I'm fading.

 

Bill

[kokotg]

I remember reading McTeague in high school, along with many other books mentioned. McTeague is so powerful, but yet so awful. I remember it so vividly, and once again feel sick. However, I never hear anyone mention it. (except my sister who had all the same English teachers I did.)

 

I read it in grad school; I don't think I'd even heard of it before that. Mostly I just remember finding it terribly unpleasant. That and the big tooth :D

[Spy Car]

Philip Roth (uhh, perhaps not for high school. Not Portnoy's Complaint, anyway, not if I have to discuss it with my own kid).

 

Yea, uh, I read Portnoy's Complaint in Junior High. Was no one paying attention??? :D

 

I love your list BTW, especially with the addition of the non-novels. Alone among them Toni Morrison is the only writer I couldn't get into, but otherwise you've got some of my favorite writers and works.

 

Have you read any of the epic-poems by Robinson Jeffers? If you can handle a person like Ezra Pound I think you might really love Jeffers (another literary giant who has been all but erased from history). He was really a great talent, a little warped (or maybe a lot warped :tongue_smilie:) but one classically trained and powerfully gifted. Very famous in the 20s and 30s but you say his name now and people say: Who?

 

Worth discovering!

 

Bill

[Spy Car]

I remember reading McTeague in high school, along with many other books mentioned. McTeague is so powerful, but yet so awful. I remember it so vividly, and once again feel sick. However, I never hear anyone mention it. (except my sister who had all the same English teachers I did.)

 

I'm pleased I could help resuscitate your memories of reading McTeague :D

 

Bill (who thinks the green smilie is rather fitting in this instance)

[Caroline]

 

Have you read any of the epic-poems by Robinson Jeffers? If you can handle a person like Ezra Pound I think you might really love Jeffers (another literary giant who has been all but erased from history). He was really a great talent, a little warped (or maybe a lot warped :tongue_smilie:) but one classically trained and powerfully gifted. Very famous in the 20s and 30s but you say his name now and people say: Who?

 

Worth discovering!

 

Bill

 

My elementary school was named after Robinson Jeffers, but I have never read any of his work. My sister visited his home last year when she was in California. Anyway, would you please suggest somewhere to start with Robinson Jeffers to this alum of Jeffers Hill Elementary School?

[Paisley Hedgehog]

..

[Spy Car]

My elementary school was named after Robinson Jeffers, but I have never read any of his work. My sister visited his home last year when she was in California. Anyway, would you please suggest somewhere to start with Robinson Jeffers to this alum of Jeffers Hill Elementary School?

 

I was going to suggest this question is a bit like asking a person where to start with Shakespeare, but since Jeffers Hill Elementary School is located on Tamar Dr and "Tamar" was his first "break-through" poetry book (Tamar and Other Poems) I would start there.

 

I have Tim Hunt's 3 volume* hardcover edition of "The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers" published by Stanford University Press. For me this is a treasure-trove of master work. Literature of the very highest order.

 

The problem with reading Jeffers is that he wrote long epic-poems (that read almost like novels) and shorter verse. While the short poems are not to be under-estimated, it is the epic poems that really grab hold of the soul (and bash one about a bit). It is the short poems that get anthologized (makes sense due to their brevity) in books like "Selected Poems" or are heavily selected for "nature themes" (ignoring anything "unpleasant") in Sierra Club books and the like. It's "Jeffers", but it's not.

 

So you may have to seek out library editions and used. Liveright re-published a good number of his works (in the collected form of their original release which typically included one or two long form poems and shorter works) in the later 8 (things like "The Women at Point Sur and Other Poems." but I believe they are OoP.

 

If memory serves Tim Hunt produced a one-volume "Selected Poetry" as a condensed version of "The Collected Poetry series....

 

OK, forget "memory"...here is a link to Google books:

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=n_UytKkgbbMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=tim+hunt+jeffers+selected&source=bl&ots=karNzoFPFm&sig=H99XqIB9ikkTE4uJOmS6ic2a-MM&hl=en&ei=TjWSTNOFEYjUtQPJpv2_Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

You can read a great portion (but not all) of Tamar or preview other works, and get a "feel" for whether Jeffers appeals.

 

Fair warning, Jeffers (for all his education and erudition) was kind of a sick man. There is often an element of sexual perversity in his work, and he got crankier and more "inhumanist" as he aged. The sometimes dark themes combined with his powerful writing style may make the ill-feelings you had after reading McTeague pale in comparison. I GIVE YOU FAIR WARNING.

 

A few favorites:

 

Thurso's Landing

The Loving Shepherdess

The Women at Point Sur (an especially favorite--but dark--work)

Medea (freely adapted from Euripides' play)

 

Be careful. If you like these, Jeffers can suck you in and eat at your mind.

 

Bill (long-winded, and as addicted to hyphens as Robinson Jeffers :tongue_smilie:)

 

 

*Actually there is a 4th volume of miscellaneous materials that don't own.

[kokotg]

Yea, uh, I read Portnoy's Complaint in Junior High. Was no one paying attention??? :D

 

I suspect my boys will manage to find Portnoy's Complaint on their own. Maybe I'll unschool Philip Roth when they're older....strew the books around the living room and see what happens. ;)

 

Have you read any of the epic-poems by Robinson Jeffers?

 

I've heard of him but don't recall having read anything by him....I'll check him out!

[Corraleno]

I have the small paperback volume of his Selected Poems. You can use the Look Inside feature to read the first few poems. The sample pages stop on the page right before the Roan Stallion — a powerful poem, but not for those easily offended.

 

Jackie

[Spy Car]

I have the small paperback volume of his Selected Poems. You can use the Look Inside feature to read the first few poems. The sample pages stop on the page right before the Roan Stallion — a powerful poem, but not for those easily offended.

 

Jackie

 

Unfortunately (from my perspective) if people are familiar with Jeffers they only know him though this volume. It is not that these aren't descent short poems, they are, but they just don't represent the power of his epic works, aside from the intermediate length work you mention, The Roan Stallion, which is a very (very) naughty work ;)

 

Bill

[Caroline]

I have the small paperback volume of his Selected Poems. You can use the Look Inside feature to read the first few poems. The sample pages stop on the page right before the Roan Stallion — a powerful poem, but not for those easily offended.

 

Jackie

 

Now that I have read the table of contents, I realize I have read some Jeffers. I will try one of his longer works when I get caught up with the AP English class at my school. (I teach math but read what the English classes are reading.)