Need North American novels that are not depressing!!

[ma23peas]

Alright, I'm writing up my course description for this Fall's writing classes...in the past we've covered Poe, Dickens, Shelley, C.S. Lewis, Cather, Coleridge, Hemingway and others.

 

This coming Fall I want to do an in depth study of North American authors...we generally cover 6 books together as a class and they read 4 additional books (off a recommended list) on their own...the students will mostly be 11th and 12th graders..not a time you want to be utterly depressed! Am I missing some great works that are uplifting/encouraging???

 

Here is what I have so far:

Absalom, Absalom (Faulkner)

Alias Grace (Atwood)

All the King's Men (Warren)

Billy Budd (Melville)

Catch 22 (Heller)

The Great Gatsby (fitzgerald, but many have read this one so it may be on the additional reads list)

 

Any comments on

An Enemy of the People (Ibsen)

The Glass Menagerie (Williams)

Native Son (Wright)

Invisible Man (Ellison- I loved this book but trying to pick b/w this or Native Son which I have not read)

Portrait of the Artist as a YOung man (Joyce)

The Awakening (Chopin)

Short Stories by Twain

 

I'm just not seeing a lot of 'inspiring' encouraging reads here...loads of angst, philosophical musings...help!!

[regentrude]

People will differ on this one, but I personally found Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath rather uplifting because it portrays human tenacity in the face of adversity. (I know some people find the book depressing).

Of Faulkner's books, I found Light in August not as dark and difficult as others.

 

The Short Stories by Twain are wonderful and often humorous.

Glass Menagerie I found rather depressing.

Ibsen is Norwegian and Joyce is Irish, not exactly North American.

 

What about Thornton Wilder? The Bridge of San Luis Rey? One of my favorites is The Eighth Day, which I consider a hopeful, uplifting book.

And Hemingway? As a teenager, I loved For whom the bell tolls. (I also find it easier to read than the much shorter Old Man and the Sea.)

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Alright, I'm writing up my course description for this Fall's writing classes...in the past we've covered Poe, Dickens, Shelley, C.S. Lewis, Cather, Coleridge, Hemingway and others.

 

This coming Fall I want to do an in depth study of North American authors...we generally cover 6 books together as a class and they read 4 additional books (off a recommended list) on their own...the students will mostly be 11th and 12th graders..not a time you want to be utterly depressed! Am I missing some great works that are uplifting/encouraging???

 

Here is what I have so far:

Absalom, Absalom (Faulkner)

Alias Grace (Atwood)

All the King's Men (Warren)

Billy Budd (Melville)

Catch 22 (Heller)

The Great Gatsby (fitzgerald, but many have read this one so it may be on the additional reads list)

 

Any comments on

An Enemy of the People (Ibsen)

The Glass Menagerie (Williams)

Native Son (Wright)

Invisible Man (Ellison- I loved this book but trying to pick b/w this or Native Son which I have not read)

Portrait of the Artist as a YOung man (Joyce)

The Awakening (Chopin)

Short Stories by Twain

 

I'm just not seeing a lot of 'inspiring' encouraging reads here...loads of angst, philosophical musings...help!!

 

Cannery Row - Steinbeck

Starship Troopers - Heinlein

[ma23peas]

People will differ on this one, but I personally found Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath rather uplifting because it portrays human tenacity in the face of adversity. (I know some people find the book depressing).

Of Faulkner's books, I found Light in August not as dark and difficult as others.

 

The Short Stories by Twain are wonderful and often humorous.

Glass Menagerie I found rather depressing.

Ibsen is Norwegian and Joyce is Irish, not exactly North American.

 

What about Thornton Wilder? The Bridge of San Luis Rey? One of my favorites is The Eighth Day, which I consider a hopeful, uplifting book.

And Hemingway? As a teenager, I loved For whom the bell tolls. (I also find it easier to read than the much shorter Old Man and the Sea.)

 

Ooh thanks! I realized Joyce and Ibsen...I was copying the top books most often mentioned in AP English exams...those two came up and I could not remember where they were from, same with Conrad "Heart of Darkness"...I would like to tackle that some time but he's not North American either! Forgot about Thornton Wilder...Have not read The Eighth Day...Did not like Grapes of Wrath whatsoever...sorry, I fall in the depressing part of readers on that one! ;) Same with Ethan Frome...ugh!

 

I just can not believe I have missed those great funny authors (hence, why we're doing loads of Twain short stories)...now I"m recalling a story, maybe it was a short story?

 

It was about a man that things never went well for, comedy of errors, he would imagine a world? I can not remember that book! But I remember it being fairly humorous...the ...life of ...?

 

AH! THe Secret Life of Walter Mitty? THurber...maybe I'll add that one, too...keep 'em coming! Goiong to go check out the Eighth Day!

[ma23peas]

I think I'll add Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat...any more??

[Matryoshka]

Walden by Thoreau

Something by Emerson (can't forget those Transcendentalists!)

 

O! Pioneers or My Antonia by Willa Cather

[cathmom]

NOOO to the Awakening! I hated that book!

 

I recently discovered the short stories of Sarah Orne Jewett, and I really like them! She was a New England author and she is not depressing.

[SheWhoWaits]

My son got me Gilead by Marilynne Robinson for my birthday. Though she's a living author, I'd definitely consider her a great literary writer. Gilead did win the Pulitzer Prize. Anyway, it's a wonderful uplifting novel about a dying pastor writing his memories down for his son. Very beautifully written. Try it. I think it'd be great for an American lit course.

[lauracolumbus]

Not that it's probably worth much, but I LOATHED Billy Budd. Moby Dick was only a bit more tolerable with Cliff Notes.

 

Laura

[Joan in GE]

NOOO to the Awakening!

 

I agree - found it so empty...

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Alright, I'm writing up my course description for this Fall's writing classes...in the past we've covered Poe, Dickens, Shelley, C.S. Lewis, Cather, Coleridge, Hemingway and others.

 

This coming Fall I want to do an in depth study of North American authors...we generally cover 6 books together as a class and they read 4 additional books (off a recommended list) on their own...the students will mostly be 11th and 12th graders..not a time you want to be utterly depressed! Am I missing some great works that are uplifting/encouraging???

 

Here is what I have so far:

Absalom, Absalom (Faulkner)

Alias Grace (Atwood)

All the King's Men (Warren)

Billy Budd (Melville)

Catch 22 (Heller)

The Great Gatsby (fitzgerald, but many have read this one so it may be on the additional reads list)

 

Any comments on

An Enemy of the People (Ibsen)

The Glass Menagerie (Williams)

Native Son (Wright)

Invisible Man (Ellison- I loved this book but trying to pick b/w this or Native Son which I have not read)

Portrait of the Artist as a YOung man (Joyce)

The Awakening (Chopin)

Short Stories by Twain

 

I'm just not seeing a lot of 'inspiring' encouraging reads here...loads of angst, philosophical musings...help!!

 

How about some of the literature of the sea? It's often dramatic and poignant, but not what I'd call terminally negative and depressing (ok, except for maybe Melville, whom I somehow avoided all through an English degree and my time in the Navy).

 

The Caine Mutiny by Wouk (the book is only about half of the novel) is very good.

 

The Cruel Sea and Three Corvettes have been highly recommended to me by my more literate Navy friends.

[Muttichen]

Can you do something modern? Peace Like a River by Leif Enger is uplifting! I've seen it on AP Lit reading lists.

[Kirsten in MO]

How about:

 

Willa Cather My Antonio

O Pioneers

[Halftime Hope]

O Pioneers! was not encouraging or uplifting. I read it this summer, and the entire family ends up disaffected with one another, the brothers don't respect the sister although it was her intelligence that kept the farm afloat, and the younger generation either meets tragedy or is, at best, unremarkable.

 

Bah, humbug.

 

 

ETA: Sorry, Sebastian, I meant this to go under the thread, not under your post.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Valerie(TX)

[Halftime Hope]

Alright, I'm writing up my course description for this Fall's writing classes...in the past we've covered Poe, Dickens, Shelley, C.S. Lewis, Cather, Coleridge, Hemingway and others.

 

This coming Fall I want to do an in depth study of North American authors...we generally cover 6 books together as a class and they read 4 additional books (off a recommended list) on their own...the students will mostly be 11th and 12th graders..not a time you want to be utterly depressed! Am I missing some great works that are uplifting/encouraging???

 

Here is what I have so far:

Absalom, Absalom (Faulkner)

Alias Grace (Atwood)

All the King's Men (Warren)

Billy Budd (Melville)

Catch 22 (Heller)

The Great Gatsby (fitzgerald, but many have read this one so it may be on the additional reads list)

 

Any comments on

An Enemy of the People (Ibsen)

The Glass Menagerie (Williams)

Native Son (Wright)

Invisible Man (Ellison- I loved this book but trying to pick b/w this or Native Son which I have not read)

Portrait of the Artist as a YOung man (Joyce)

The Awakening (Chopin)

Short Stories by Twain

 

I'm just not seeing a lot of 'inspiring' encouraging reads here...loads of angst, philosophical musings...help!!

 

My students just finished The Scarlet Letter, and most of them seemed to enjoy it, although getting started was rough for them. (For some reason, this is not a very literary bunch--I've been surprised, because we had been part of a support group that was quite lit-erate. ; ) ) This group seems to be more lit light, but I digress.

 

We are working on Huckleberry Finn, and they are really enjoying his shorter satirical and humorous pieces alongside it, especially "The Late Benjamin Franklin," which produced lots of chuckles (we were reading aloud in class) since we had read The Autobiography of BF earlier in the year.

 

I don't know what my co-teacher has planned for the weeks we will spend on the Harlem Renaissance, but I'm looking forward to The Moon is Down (Steinbeck) and especially to discussing it in the context of current events.

 

I'm also looking forward to Fahrenheit 451, which I thought was ultimately very positive, as he discovers a whole group of people working to preserve knowledge.

 

These might be a bit light for you. ??

[J-rap]

My kids absolutely LOVED Last of the Mohicans, although I guess it is a little depressing... There's also a great movie that you could watch after reading the book. (It's a little graphic in places, but you could forward past those if you choose.)

[Laurie4b]

When I taught American Lit, my kids noticed the difference right away as soon as we crossed into 20th century literature: gloom and doom. Almost anything written prior to that will be uplifting.

 

The Souls of Black Folk, the collection of essays by WEBDubois is an important work and you could select just a couple essays. The one on Booker T. Washington is widely read. There is one on the merits of a classical education and another called the Black Belt that is insightful for conditions in the south after the Civil War. Native Son is a very angry book. Raisin the Sun is more redeeming. I also think the Autobiography of Malcolm X is an important book to read.

 

Joy Luck Club is a good book and an authentic look into first generation/second generation Chinese immigrant culture.

 

The Outsiders is just a fun read. I believe it's the bestselling young adult book of all time or something like that. My kids loved it especially after the rest of the depressing 20th century books they'd read that year (we divided American lit into two courses--one with lit before and up to Civil War and one after.)

 

To Kill a Mockingbird is uplifting. It is sometimes read in middle school, but is a very respectable book to read in high school.

 

Breaking Through by Jimenez is a a series of autobiographical sketches from a Mexican migrant teenager's point of view.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

O Pioneers! was not encouraging or uplifting. I read it this summer, and the entire family ends up disaffected with one another, the brothers don't respect the sister although it was her intelligence that kept the farm afloat, and the younger generation either meets tragedy or is, at best, unremarkable.

 

Bah, humbug.

 

 

ETA: Sorry, Sebastian, I meant this to go under the thread, not under your post.

 

Oh no problem. I do that all the time.

 

Have you read My Antonia? I've never read Cather and sort of have Antonia and Pioneers on my to do list.

[Lori D.]

This coming Fall I want to do an in depth study of North American authors...Am I missing some great works that are uplifting/encouraging???

 

 

 

re: the first half of your list

 

- Great Gatsby

An unexpected pleasure! We all thought we'd hate it for the "lost generation" theme of despair, but the writing is so lovely, it was a delight! (Yes, not a "happy" book, but it was also easier to deal with because the characters all so clearly CHOOSE to be unhappy -- it's not that the world itself is hopeless.)

 

- Instead of Billy Budd, you might try the much shorter Bartleby the Scrivener

It borders on the absurd; and being shorter, it will reduce the torture of Melville. ;) (I have to say, *I* really enjoyed and admired Melville's writing and from my much older perspective could appreciate what he was doing this time around, when doing Billy Budd with DSs -- but they hated all of his long rambling, and it would have been better to do the much shorter story.)

 

- Instead of Absalom, you might try something shorter

"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..." -- post excerpt by Kokotg, from a past thread on American Literature

 

 

re: the second half of your list

Not familiar with any of these works -- just noting that Ibsen and Joyce are NOT North American.

 

 

Here is a past thread on light/for fun American works. Below are some ideas of less heavy works. I left off Hemingway and Poe since you have already done them. Cheers! :) Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

 

short stories:

- Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Irving) -- atmospheric; some humor

- Rip Van Winkle (Irving) -- adventure; twist

- Luck of Roaring Camp (Harte) -- humor; poignant

- Story without an End (Twain) -- hilarious

- Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (Crane) -- humor; poignant

- Gift of the Magi; Ransom of Red Chief (Henry) -- humor

- Lady or the Tiger (Stockton) -- ultimate cliffhanger

- The Most Dangerous Game (Connell) -- adventure

- Thank You Ma'am (Hughes) -- humor; poignant

- The Catbird Seat (Thurber) -- humor

- Revelation (O'Connor) -- "Southern Grotesque"; black humor, with truth revealed

 

 

plays -- watch them rather than read them -- plays are meant for performance and viewing!

- Our Town

- You Can't Take It With You

- A Raisin in the Sun

- West Side Story

- Twelve Angry Men

- Sunday in the Park with George

 

 

novella:

- I Heard the Owl Call My Name (Craven)

a young priest who does not know he is terminally ill comes to serve a small Native Canadian village in the 1960s; lovely, and although a poignant ending, ultimately positive; some humor along the way

 

 

novel:

- House of Seven Gables (Hawthorne)

- Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain)

- Call of the Wild (London)

- To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)

- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain)

we read in conjunction with the young adult novel, "The Day They Came to Arrest the Book", about all the different points of view when a town wants to ban the book of Huck Finn -- VERY enjoyable!

 

 

ethnic American novels:

- Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hurston)

- The Chosen (Potok) -- I found this to be interesting, but at the price of a VERY slow-moving slog; others say they loved this when they were teens

- The Joy Luck Club (Tam)

 

 

don't forget classic fantasy and sci-fi literature by N. Americans:

- Earthsea trilogy (Wizard of Earthsea; Tombs of Atuan; Farthest Shore) by LeGuin

- The Giver (Lowry)

- Farenheit 451 (Bradbury)

- The Martian Chronicles (Bradbury)

- A Canticle for Leibowitz (Miller) -- and then read Anathem by Stephenson; lots of interesting comparisons

 

 

BEST of luck, whatever you go with! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Lori D.
added info

[ma23peas]

Great lists!!!! We are doing My Antonia by Cather this month..I have an unusually gifted literary class..more than half have read most of the books I would go to "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Scarlet Letter", "Moby Dick", "Call of the Wild"...pretty much all those on the Sonlight lists! HA! I think many of their moms bought all the reading lists and the kids read them! :)

 

One year I will do an indepth Shakespeare study, just not in the mood for it next year! :tongue_smilie:

 

I will have to rethink Absalom, Absalom, The Sound and the Fury is an option, everyone has avoided 20th century writers for the most part...that is why I am trying to find good ones so that they will not think it so dark and gloomy. Several are reading Fahrenheit 451 (I loved this book) this Spring as their elective book..I actually considered "Their Eyes Were Watching God" but I am uneasy with the content...physical abuse, multiple marriages...I am just trying to find uplifting and encouraging stories...without all the misery...is there not a Jane Austen of American birth? :)

 

GREAT list for the short stories!! I am having them buy 50 Classic American Short Stories...I can not find a list of what is in the book, but three or four were mentioned on a review and I have high hopes it might include some of those mentioned!

 

I have not studied a single play in my 2 years of teaching...just limited time really, we only meet for 1.5 hours weekly and plays are so much better received if you have the time to read portions aloud in class, will have to try one soon! I think I'll just dedicate my son's senior year to plays/prose! :)

 

Most of my class have read Last of the Mohicans but I do not think they know the one by Jimenez (I don't even know it! :)) I'm looking for those titles that prolific readers can pop off the top of their heads as being uplifting...so few in this particular century! Thanks!!!

 

Thanks so much everyone! Great ideas, they're really inspiring me!!

[ma23peas]

My son got me Gilead by Marilynne Robinson for my birthday. Though she's a living author, I'd definitely consider her a great literary writer. Gilead did win the Pulitzer Prize. Anyway, it's a wonderful uplifting novel about a dying pastor writing his memories down for his son. Very beautifully written. Try it. I think it'd be great for an American lit course.

 

This will be a great book to add!! Thank you!!

Tara