'I Went to a Public School' and other random musings.

[Sue Duhnym]

I went to a public high school. I was a science geek. I hated english classes, though I did well in the ones I DID take. There was no "required reading" during the summers. I took a literature class in college, but it focused on short stories and plays.

Consequently, I haven't read any of the classics...no Pride and Prejudice, no Wuthering Heights, no Moby Dick. I haven't read Ulysses, Anna Karenina or Crime and Punishment. I've missed out on David Copperfield, ...Huckleberry Finn and Oliver Twist!

I read voraciously so there's no reason I shouldn't, couldn't, HAVEN'T read the 'classics'! I've made it my mission to start, create my own little required reading summer.

So where shall I start? I need a top 10 list of novels and I look to the TMs to help me pick them out. Help a deprived girl out!




Random Stuff

I got a toe ring. Not one of those el cheapo adjustable ones, but an honest to goodness "They had to fit my toe" one. For some reason, it makes me feel wicked sexy.
Apparently, I have freakishly skinny toes.
I've been thinking of getting a tattoo on the small of my back, possibly something to honor my daughter. Do you think that's a weird place for a tribute to ToddlerNym?
Do you think it's weird to get a tattoo when I'm in the process of having one lasered off?
Catherine Zeta-Jones is a stunningly beautiful woman but what's up with her not smiling on magazine covers?
I really, really like that new song by Lifehouse. It's called Hanging by a Moment and you can hear it here: http://www.lifehousemusic.com/lh_music.html
And check out the lead singer, YUM!
I also am intensly amused by the song Hey Pretty by Poe. You can listen to it here: http://www.screamradio.net/poe/Poe%20-%20Hey%20Pretty%20(Just%20Another%20Drive%20Remix)/
Remember that this is all copyrighted material!


Thank you for your time.

[Watermelon Man]

Sue dear,

I am not sure if you are missing on a whole lot by not having read the classics, since they have been covered in different versions so many times that when you read them they sound kind of hackneyed!

Sorry, I don't have any published work of literature yet, so I will have to stick to recommending you works by Woody Alen and Boris Vian. (anything by these guys)

[Eve]

There ARE no "must-read" classics, it all depends on your personal taste. I cannot abide James Joyce, Mark Twain or Ernest Hemingway, myself. And I adore Thackeray, Jane Austin, Dickens, Tolstoy. it even changes from year to year—when I was in my 20s, I loved P.G. Woodhouse and F. Scott Fitzgerald. When I tried to reread them recently, I found them both too mannered and twee.

Y'know what to do? Do you have a good, well-stocked library nearby? Just dive into the shelves and browse. Read the blurbs, the first page or a page at random, and find what sounds interesting to you (some days I'm in the mood for Heavy Russion Lit; others, for a light drawing-room comedy). I have discovered lots of authors this way I otherwise never would have heard of: Booth Tarkington, Eliz. Gaskall, Anthony Trollope, Edgar Saltus.

Random Stuff

• The toe ring sounds great—what's it look like?
• Be wary of tattoos . . . there are other ways to "honor" the kiddo.
• Ever notice Catherine Zeta-Jones talks like Elmer Fudd?
• Being an Old Fogey, I have never heard of ANY of thes musicians.

[DynoSaur]

Well...the books I had to read that I actually liked, somewhat:

Go Down, Moses - William Faulkner.
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Other stuff I had to read that you might like better than I did:

A Farewell to Arms - Hemingway
My Antonia - Willa Cather
Great Expectations - Dickens
Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton

Quick anecdote about Ethan Frome...while discussing symbolism in class one day, we got to a scene in the novel where Ethan's wife had put a pickle dish up on a shelf in the closet. Out teacher was attempting to convince us that this was a metaphor for the lack of sex between Ethan and Mrs. Frome. One friend of mine was continuously not understanding how the two were related...

Whereupon, another friend says, in one of the classic lines ever: "Well, think about it - where do you stick your pickle?"

And, as a bit of advice - only get into reading the classics if you really want to read them. Reading them because you think you should is a good way to have a bunch of books that you won't read around. Trust me on this :)

[Ukulele Ike]

Don't listen to those guys! Reading fine literature is HARD WORK! Pleasure doesn't some into it at all! And personal taste? HAH! You'll read what I TELL YOU.

Now, go read THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH, Joyce's FINNEGAN'S WAKE, Wu Ch'eng-En's JOURNEY TO THE WEST, Faulkner's ABSALOM, ABSALOM, Gogol's DEAD SOULS, Hardy's THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE, Goethe's FAUST, Stendhal's THE RED AND THE BLACK, Eliot's MIDDLEMARCH, and Nabokov's PALE FIRE. Then write me a 20-page paper on each. Then go and stand in the corner.

Nice toe ring, BTW.

[slortar]

Read through the Kalevala and Dante's Divine Comedy.

Delve into Russian underground writers (Bulgakov's Master and Margarita would be a good start).

Read Moby Dick. Thrill to the excitement of Upton Sinclair's Jungle. Read through some Swift. Any will do. Modest Proposal and Gulliver's Travels are probably the place to start--probably the most amusing, too.

[deb2world]

1) Waiting for the Barbarians J. M. Coetzee
2) The Scarlett Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
3) To Kill a Mocking Bird Harper Lee
4) The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien
5) The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway
6) Call of the Wild Jack London
7) A tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith
8) Alice In Wonderland Lewis Carroll
9) Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy Douglas Adams
10) The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera
Extra credit
Little Women Louisa May Alcott
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
Catch-22 Joseph L. Heller


Nice toe ring.

I'd not go for the tatoo as a tribute to ToddlerNym; think of when she get to about 8 and older and notices it, she will be embarrassed. Take lots of pictures and put them into a scrapbook, she will know you love her and it is something she can show her friends.

Have fun reading some of the classics. I know I did.

[Medea's Child]

Kipling's Jungle Book. (and/or his short stories. My personal faorites are "The Butterfly Who Stamped" and "Without Benefit of Clergy". Quick warning, the man was a big, fat racist so some of his stories have undertones that make me blanch. Its under control for the most part, but just a few of those lines are wild.)

Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and Taming of the Shrew.

If you like thinking and symbolism try Beowolf and then the more modern re-write from the point of view of the monster, Grendel (I can't remember the author)

Let me echo A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and The Scarlet Letter. But I found Faust to be long and boring. (I have the patience of a two year old. I read books I like. I like a lot of so called 'classics'. Which gets me into trouble when I hit stuff like Faust or Moby Dick. *yawn* But hey, go for it.)

[Ukulele Ike]

MOBY-DICK isn't boring! I learned all kinds of cool stuff from it, like how to cook a whale steak, and what ambergris is, and proper flaying technique! If it was BORING, I woulda told Sue to read it!

Sorry about the above post, Sue...I was feeling a little giddy.

Have you considered reading a book about reading books?

Kenneth Rexroth's* CLASSICS REVISITED and MORE CLASSICS REVISITED are, er, classics. So is Henry Miller's** THE BOOKS IN MY LIFE. Also very good, if a tad more bourgeois, is Clifton Fadiman's*** THE NEW LIFETIME READING PLAN.

All three of these guys really make your mouth water for Thucydides, Rabelais, Cervantes, and Flaubert.




* Famous San Francisco poet, godfather to the Beat Movement
** Famous dirty-book writer
*** Famous Book of the Month Club guy

[Sue Duhnym]

From Eve:• The toe ring sounds great—what's it look like?
• Ever notice Catherine Zeta-Jones talks like Elmer Fudd?


It's actually two narrow (1/16"?) gold bands on either side of a wider silver band. No twists or turns, just simple polished bands

By GOD, she does!! No matter, she's still a stunner.

I just can't figure out why she goes for that "sexy" half-smile thing. It looks like she's internally debating if being part of Hollywood royalty is worth having to see Michael Douglas' wrinkly butt every day.

[Sue Duhnym]

Originally posted by Ukulele Ike
Don't listen to those guys! Reading fine literature is HARD WORK! Pleasure doesn't some into it at all! And personal taste? HAH! You'll read what I TELL YOU.

Somehow, I don't trust you.

and Nabokov's PALE FIRE.

Wow, awesome goalie and a writer too!

I don't expect any of it to be fluff, I expect some difficult reading. The point is that they're considered classics for a reason and if high-schoolers can do it, so can this 30yo mother.

You think I should start with Faust or would my brain implode?

[StephenG]

It was John Gardner who wrote Grendel (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679723110/qid=990492633/sr=1-1/ref=sc_b_1/107-8392921-4106949), and I've also heard good things about it. It's somewhere on my list of things to read...

I'm on the cynical school which says that most classics are classic only because people are too afraid to say they don't like/understand them, or just haven't read them.

That being said, I like all of the Shakespeare and Twain I've read (probably about half of each), I'm back and forth on Dickens and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and I can't stand Jane Austen. (Sorry, Eve. I've read Emma and Sense and Sensibility, and it's just no use.) I've read lots of others, which I may remember to post later.

In a similar vein to Ike's suggestion, I'd try picking up a copy of one the Norton Guides to Literature - they're big, heavy, and expensive, but worth it. I used one in each of my highschool English courses, and the amount of literature those things pack in is incredible. They have excerpts of major novels (in the genre / time period / locale for which they're written), and representative pieces of each author's body of shorter work. In other words, it's like a survey course with a 2000-page textbook. :D

[south333]

If I were you, I wouldn't read Moby Dick, unless that is your into really really long stories about whales. (You know whats really scary? I read that book for FUN!) The one book I would recommend (Another classic that I read just for fun, which is actually scary now that I look back on it) is A Tale Of Two Cities. Its a little confusing the first or even second time you read it, but if you read it like 3 times you get to understand it, or you can read it really really slow. The reason I had a hard time "getting it" was because it jumps around a little bit. Besides that, its a really good book and someone gets their head chopped off!!
To Kill A Mockingbird isn't a bad book, but if you have to explain every part of it you don't like it anymore TRUST ME! Great Expectations isn't bad, none of Charles Dickens' books are.
Don't limit yourself to just the classics, if your in the mood for reading, visit your library :).

[Sue Duhnym]

Originally posted by deb2world
7) A tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith

That's a classic? Sheesh, I read that when I was 12. Maybe I'm not such a doofus after all.

...she will be embarrassed...[/QUOTE]

Yup. It isn't such a good idea. Maybe I'll just get a regular old tattoo there.

[StephenG]

Just to break up my responses:

Congrats on the toe ring. It sounds wicked cool, but I'd have to see it to verify the sexiness. ;)

I have Freakishly-Long ToesTM, if that makes you feel better. I think they're appropriately svelte.

Removing and adding tattos concurrently does sound a little bizarre, but if it works for you... better ask ToddlerNym what she thinks now, before it's too late. ;)

I also really enjoy the Poe song, but the video (http://www.polishchick.com/features/video.shtml) wasn't downloading yesterday. :pout:

[Preview's taking too long, I'm just gonna submit and hope for the best. Sorry in advance, folks!]

[Sue Duhnym]

Originally posted by Ukulele Ike

** Famous dirty-book writer

C'mon Ike, you really think I don't know who Henry Miller is? ;)

So what is ambergris anyway?

[Totoro]

Hey Pretty is such a good song. I am delighted in your choice of music.

[Sue Duhnym]

Originally posted by Totoro
Hey Pretty is such a good song. I am delighted in your choice of music.

Thank you. I've been walking around singing it for days.

ToddlerNym has taken to saying, "Stop sing-ging Mommy."

[Cajun Man]

Originally posted by Sue Duhnym
So what is ambergris anyway?Simply speaking, it's whale vomit . . . used in perfumery as a fixative.

[Dark Lord Davidson]

Gratz on the toe ring, those things ARE devilishly sexy..

I don't know where you're located, but Hanging by a Moment is totally played out here, in Connecticut...I cringe whenever I hear it now. :)

Hey Pretty has a semidecent chorus, but I can't stand the spoken lyrics in the rest of it..just doesn't appeal to me, I'm sorry to say.

Read Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury...it's one of the most fantastic books I've ever read and can be considered as a "classic".

:D

[Doobieous]

I went to a public high school. I was a science geek. I hated english classes, though I did well in the ones I DID take. There was no "required reading" during the summers. I took a literature class in college, but it focused on short stories and plays.

Consequently, I haven't read any of the classics...

I went to a public HS, and I didnt read any of those "classics" either. They just never seemed to appeal to me (and yes, the English classes I took were college prep).



I got a toe ring. Not one of those el cheapo adjustable ones, but an honest to goodness "They had to fit my toe" one. For some reason, it makes me feel wicked sexy.

Neet. I expect to see it the next time I see you :).


I've been thinking of getting a tattoo on the small of my back, possibly something to honor my daughter. Do you think that's a weird place for a tribute to ToddlerNym?

-Do you think it's weird to get a tattoo when I'm in the process of having one lasered off?


Nope, i dont think that's a weird place. A weird place would be say, your forehead. And no, it's not weird to get one while you're getting one lasered off. Just means you probably werent thinking deeply about the one you're removing :D.


I also am intensly amused by the song Hey Pretty by Poe. You can listen to it here: http://www.screamradio.net/poe/Poe%20-%20Hey%20Pretty%20(Just%20Another%20Drive%20Remix)/


I absolutely love Poe. I have a copy of "Haunted" (yes, i AM going to buy the actual CD.....i just need more cash-money). My favorite song from that album is probably "Amazed" (which i'm listening to as I type). But, Hey Pretty is a good song. Another one I really like is 5 1/s hallway, and also "If You Were Here" (reminds me of my friend who passed away). She's just a good artist all around. Good shit.


with you there's no easy answer it's true
you change the equation I add up to
and all of the things that I thought I knew
you turn it around

I'm amazed
when push comes to shove
what i'd give to you
everything

*sigh*
I'm amazed..

[Doobieous]

Originally posted by Doobieous
Another one I really like is 5 1/s hallway

whoops.......should be "5 1/2 Minute Hallway"

[A Friend of the Devil]

Classics is kind of a broad term, and I have weird tastes anyway, but here goes:

For humor, satire and black satire: The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, Huckleberry Finn, all by Mark Twain. Gulliver's Travels by Swift (it aint the kid story that you think it is) Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

For Sci-Fi: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, by Heinlein. The Mote In God's Eye, Lucifer's Hammer by Nivens and Pournelle. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton.

Straight Classics: Moby Dick, or the Whale by Herman Melville. One of my all time favorites. Don Quixote by Cervantes (can be a heavy read).

Mysteries: The Sign of Four, The Valley of Fear, The Hound of the Baskervilles, all part of the Sacred Holmes Canon by Arthur Conan Doyle. The rest of Holmes isn't bad either. Poe's detective stories, G. K. Chesterton, Ellery Queen.

Miscellaneous: The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill, King Rat by James Clavell, The Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner.


Also, check out the other book threads in the files. There have been quite a few and some really good recommendations, too.

[Rilchiam]

Do you have to smile for a photo? I didn't smile for my HS graduation photo. Thirteen years on, I can still look at it without cringing.

Will there come a time when Tolkien is assigned reading in high school or college? It only took about a generation and a half for Shortstop in the Rye, or whatever it is.

[Little Nemo]

Now, go read THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH, Joyce's FINNEGAN'S WAKE, Wu Ch'eng-En's JOURNEY TO THE WEST, Faulkner's ABSALOM, ABSALOM, Gogol's DEAD SOULS, Hardy's THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE, Goethe's FAUST, Stendhal's THE RED AND THE BLACK, Eliot's MIDDLEMARCH, and Nabokov's PALE FIRE. Then write me a 20-page paper on each. Then go and stand in the corner.

And of course to really appreciate these classics, you'll have to read them in their original languages.

On other issues:

If you're planning to get a new tattoo and remove an old one, wouldn't it be simpler just to move the one you've got to the new location? Just a thought.

[SkeptiJess]

Classics: I recommend anything by Mark Twain and anything by Jane Austen. Start with Tom Sawyer and Persuasion 'cuz they're my favorites. It's also amusing to bracket these authors together because Mark Twain really hated Jane Austen and had several typically nasty and very amusing things to say about her books.

Random stuff: I would also like a tattoo in the small of my back and am toying with the idea of making such a tattoo my personal "lose 15 pounds" reward. However, I've heard that a tattoo in that spot really hurts. Maybe we should go together and egg each other on. Assuming that I actually lose the 15 pounds, of course.

[TheNerd]

Originally posted by Dark Lord Davidson
Hey Pretty has a semidecent chorus, but I can't stand the spoken lyrics in the rest of it..just doesn't appeal to me, I'm sorry to say.


The version of Hey Pretty on Haunted doesn't have the spoken word. In fact, the spoken word part is an excerpt from her brother's book "House of Leaves". The whole album is tied in with it, most notably the songs "House of Leaves" and "5 1/2 minute hallway". I'm reading the book now, and it's pretty darn good, if very very weird. I also got them both to sign it when they came to town.
Haunted is also a concept album. It's a conversation between Poe and her dead father, through samples of tapes he made and she found after his death. It's her way of finally making peace with him.

Oh, and congrats on the toe-ring Sue. I too have long-skinny toes, but no plans for any rings on them. :)

As to classics, I don't like any of them that I've been told to read, so I can't recommend any to you.

[LilCutie]

Originally posted by DynoSaur


Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald




I've read these two books. I read Brave New World my 10th grade year, and The Great Gatsby this year (Junior) Great Gatsby was wonderful. Brave New World was good and odd, but kept your attention. Another good book that we read last year was Alas Babylon SO I also recommend that one :)

Jenny*

[Eve]

I can only repeat my advice of above: tastes vary wildly. Go to a library and find what YOU like.

I, for instance, adore Dickens, Austen, Tiffany Thayer, Booth Tarkington, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Others hate 'em. Dopers here have recommended Twain, Swift, Joseph Heller, Melville—all of whom roll right off my knife. They aren't bad writers—just not my cuppa tea.

So don't worry about what you SHOULD be reading, or you'll waste a lot of precious time ploughing through some book you hate. Go exploring and find authors YOU like.

[rundogrun]

I dunno...am I the only one here voting for Twain? Less thought involved (don't need to reread to understand), yet still well written, a "ripping yarn" so to speak. Besides, he has enough short stories that you can sample and decide if you like his style before tackling, say, Huck Finn.

As for your other musings...toe rings are always great. And add me to the "pro" list for the tattoo...any tattoo in the small of the back is good for an instant erection!

[Sue Duhnym]

Originally posted by Dark Lord Davidson
I don't know where you're located, but Hanging by a Moment is totally played out here...[quote]

I live in San Jose. Admittedly, I listen to mostly children's music so may have missed it for awhile. It's pretty cookie-cutter, but I like it for now. It's one of those songs that makes me wanna twirl around in the grass barefoot.

[quote]Hey Pretty has a semidecent chorus, but I can't stand the spoken lyrics in the rest of it

I think the spoken lyrics are what make it work. You've got this sort of naive guy talking about a wild-woman and then Poe comes in singing in her super-sexy, sorta devillish voice. I think it works beautifully.

I'm stunned that they come from her brother's book yet fit so well.

Read Fahrenheit 451

There's hope for me yet. I've read that AND Catch 22!

[plnnr]

<Digging in his pocket, plnnr pulls out two pennies> Here's my two cents:

Like you I thought that maybe I had missed out by not reading many of the "classics" of world literature. My solution - I went to a book store and bought an anthology and read through that. The works were by the writers widely regarded as the "greats" and it gave me a flavor of each of their styles. If someone in particular appealed to me I went to the library and started reading more of their work. If someone didn't really appeal to me I figured that I had at least been exposed to their work. If you feel like you absolutely have to read Moby Dick, just because its supposed to be a classic of Western literature, you probably aren't going to enjoy it as much as if you weren't doing it out of a sense of responsibility. To find new writers I'll go the the "New Fiction" section of the library and play "Writer's Roulette." I pick a book purely by random and stand there and read the first few pages. If I like it, I check it out and read it. If the book I pick is by someone I've already read, I put that book back and pick again.

People I've been reading heavily during the past year include Gore Dival (both his fiction and United States, his collected essays) and H. L. Mencken. Both have a very jaundiced view of humanity (Vidal much less so than Mencken)but both also have a wonderful way with language.

As to your other musings - I think well-tanned feet, with a good pedicure, in a pair of nice thong sandals, are one of the joys of summer. Add a toe ring and I'm liable to...well, I don't know what I'm liable to do. But it isn't a fetish or anything. I figure if a woman has enough self-awareness to take good care of her feet she's got to be into keeping all the other pieces and parts of herself in top shape, too (including her brain - maybe she reads Mencken?). Besides, a well-placed kiss on a woman's instep is a sure fire way to get the ball rolling.

Just got my first tattoo in the small of my back. It isn't my daughter's name, but my zodiac sign.

I'll never look at Elmer Fudd the same way again. I wonder if he has tanned feet, a good pedicure, and a toe ring?

Can't add anything about the music musings - I did just buy a remastered CD of Count Basie's "April in Paris" that will knock your socks off. Nothing swings like a big 15 piece band.

Have a great summer, Sue. And don't forget to throw in a little Sidney Sheldon for reading by the pool. Nothing says summer like some suntan lotion, a cold drink, and a trashy novel.

Here's a couple more pennies, I think I went over .02.

[Doobieous]

Originally posted by TheNerd

Haunted is also a concept album. It's a conversation between Poe and her dead father, through samples of tapes he made and she found after his death. It's her way of finally making peace with him.

The other day, when I was searching for lyrics from "Haunted" I came across this page:
http://members.fortunecity.com/fakeplastic/lyrics/poe-haunted_p.html

It has all of the spoken parts of the album written out, and helps to see the conversation in the album. Even though I have the album, it's easier to understand with it all written out.

[DynoSaur]

And, if you're in a real hurry to have read the classics, try here:

http://www.rinkworks.com/bookaminute/classics.shtml