# Great Literature for College Freshmen **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 8, 2013, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467 "2013-11-08T23:48:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/1 "2013-11-08T23:48:19Z")
I am looking for some great novels, poems and essays that college freshmen would find inspiring and intriguing. And that they won’t have read in high school. I am hoping to provide these students with a range of material, not just contemporary or ‘classic’, challenge their preconceptions without being so difficult they give up. I expect the students to be eager and of reasonable intelligence, but not necessarily super-self-motivated or widely read. I have some ideas, but I’d love to hear what the collective wisdom of the dope has to say. Also, if anyone has thoughts on the difficulty level, given these parameters, of the following: ‘The Second Coming’ (Yeats) The stories of Saki The Merchant of Venice (kids aren’t likely to have read this in high school, are they?)\* The Man who was Thursday (Chesterton) Scoop (E. Waugh) \*I am also going to do some drama, but I’ve mostly got that part of the syllabus set. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/2 "2013-11-08T23:53:01Z")
The Magus by John Fowles The Red and the Black by Stendhal The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace Disgrace by JM Coetzee ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/3 "2013-11-09T00:36:34Z")
OK, I looked and saw that you were in the UK. And your examples are all UK. And none of them are post-WWII. Does that mean you want to keep to those parameters or are looking for material from other times and places? (I also have no idea what might get taught in a British high school.) ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/4 "2013-11-09T02:05:25Z")
Whoops, I should update my location. I’m in Chicago now. I’m open to all English-language lit, from all times. I didn’t even notice my examples were all UK! ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/5 "2013-11-09T02:09:49Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > The Magus by John Fowles > The Red and the Black by Stendhal > The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace > Disgrace by JM Coetzee Great suggestions! I thought about Disgrace. I’m not sure about it, because it is just too depressing… I could barely get through it myself. The Magus is great, but it might be a bit long. Do you think it better than The French Lieutenant’s Woman for this age group? Also long, of course… I don’t want do a translated novel for this course, just for simplicity’s sake. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/6 "2013-11-09T02:20:16Z")
The Magus is much better vs. FLW for the age group - it wrestles with personal hypocrisy and deciding what’s true (kinda like Stendhal), with a bit of fantastic mystery to it. Disgrace is the best-crafted book I’ve read in 20 years - simple words building up a rich, multi-layered exploration of individual and South African identity. If you haven’t read The Broom of the System, you really should. Freshman would love it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/7 "2013-11-09T03:46:55Z")
Some odd random thoughts. Chinua Achebe, _Things Fall Apart_. Simple and straightforward, but the great book of African literature. Salman Rushdie, _Midnight’s Children_. More complex but another story of people and a country coming of age. Alan Sillitoe’s story, “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.” More coming of age. So is Mark Haddon’s _The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time_. All are unusual approaches to the theme, but should be relatable without talking down to teens. I wonder a bit about \*Scoop \* and Chesterton for that reason. That whole world is so alien today that I don’t think they would have the background to fathom it. I did a lot of such reading as a freshman that went straight over my head and I hated it. ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/8 "2013-11-09T04:01:59Z")
Thanks! I appreciate the feedback. More suggestions welcome. I understand your point about Scoop and Chesterton, tho I think TMWWTh is more of a fable than anything… ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/9 "2013-11-09T04:06:41Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Chinua Achebe, _Things Fall Apart_. Simple and straightforward, but the great book of African literature. This book is the one single book out of all my forced reading that has stuck with me, haunted me, and educated me for the past 20 years since I read it. I’ve never read it again, but it feels like a part of me. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/10 "2013-11-09T04:43:05Z")
Voltaire: Candide A fun read and the book isn’t taught in high schools. I read it first as college sophomore. I’m 20 years past college and I still have a copy in my bookshelves that I read from time to time. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/11 "2013-11-09T08:36:29Z")
> [@DaphneBlack](#): > > ‘The Second Coming’ (Yeats) > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Chinua Achebe, _Things Fall Apart_. Simple and straightforward, but the great book of African literature. Heh. Intentional, Exapno? I read _the Magus_ I think as a freshman or sophomore. It resonated at the time. Note that there is a revised edition as well, probably the “normal” one you’d find. Better than FLW, although I understand the movies were the opposite. Not as much in my worldview at the time. Read _the Man Who Was Thursday_ a little later. The metaphysical ending was over my head. You can also play the first _Deus Ex_ to get snippets of it. :dubious: And if you ask me, if you didn’t in high school, read _the Catcher in the Rye_, so you can get advice on how _not_ to behave if you’re feeling lost. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/12 "2013-11-09T10:46:18Z")
> [@DaphneBlack](#): > > The Merchant of Venice (kids aren’t likely to have read this in high school, are they?) I guess it would depend on the school and its curriculum. _The Merchant of Venice_ was taught in my high school, for example. Others that might challenge a first-year college student? My first thought is Aldous Huxley’s _Brave New World_, which portrays a dystopian future. It is great that today’s young people can be anything they choose–but how would they like to have their futures, up to and including their intelligence, determined for them, before they are even born? And how would they react? Huxley gives us one example in John the Savage, but how would your students react if they were John? My second thought would be Margaret Atwood’s _The Handmaid’s Tale_. Another dystopian future, but this time, we’re looking at what can happen if one ideology takes over. Given today’s issues (Obamacare, gun control, etc.), and the polarization of opinions on those issues, can the students see what could result if public discourse and dissent is not allowed, and that certain opinions and behaviours are made illegal? ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/13 "2013-11-09T10:53:31Z")
By far the most readable of Fowles’s books, and I love them all, is his first [The Collector](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collector). It isn’t well known, is relatively brief and, like his other better known works contains a fantastic storytelling device. ---
**Author:** ![Carmady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f04885/32.png) [@Carmady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carmady)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/14 "2013-11-09T11:40:32Z")
Catch-22. I don’t think it is read nearly as often in High School as, say, 1984 or Animal Farm, and it is great fun as well as thought-provoking. For a choice which is less likely to have been read, The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino. I like your pick of TMWWTh. I first read it in the library in college and couldn’t stop myself from laughing out loud (at the part about the beard). A little embarrassing. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/15 "2013-11-09T14:51:04Z")
Okay, I know you said no translations – but what about Herman Hesse’s _Magister Ludi_? It made a hell of an impact on me when I was about that age. (And an equally profound impact on me when I read it again 15 years later, at the time that I left academia, but that’s a whole different story.) ---
**Author:** ![MickNickMaggies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/59ef9b/32.png) [@MickNickMaggies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MickNickMaggies)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/16 "2013-11-09T16:13:07Z")
**The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner** by James Hogg. Stunningly modern for a book written in 1824. One of my favourites and I can’t recommend it enough. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/17 "2013-11-09T16:41:05Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Heh. Intentional, Exapno? No. Funny, though. It was simply the first book I thought of. A classic that meets all the specifications. It was even first written in English. > [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > By far the most readable of Fowles’s books, and I love them all, is his first [The Collector](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collector). It isn’t well known, is relatively brief and, like his other better known works contains a fantastic storytelling device. _The Collector_ is one of the creepiest books I ever read. Teaching it even after 50 years could get you run out of town on a rail. Speaking of age, I keep being surprised at time flying by. I was going to suggest for short fiction that you go directly to [You’ve Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held Them in Awe](http://www.amazon.com/Youve-Got-Read-This-Contemporary/dp/0060982020/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383968142&sr=8-1&keywords=you%27ve+got+to+read+this), the anthology I consider the jewel of them all. But it turns out to be 20 years old and out of print. Sill in print is Robert Coover’s _Pricksongs & Descants_. Fed it to them as a dessert at the end of the course and watch their little minds be blown at what the possibilities of fiction are. (And it’s great for the snotty, know-it-all wannabe writers, who’ll think they can do this and fail miserably until they get it out of their system. 😛 ) ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/18 "2013-11-09T18:35:30Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > I guess it would depend on the school and its curriculum. _The Merchant of Venice_ was taught in my high school, for example. > > Others that might challenge a first-year college student? > > My first thought is Aldous Huxley’s _Brave New World_, which portrays a dystopian future. It is great that today’s young people can be anything they choose–but how would they like to have their futures, up to and including their intelligence, determined for them, before they are even born? And how would they react? Huxley gives us one example in John the Savage, but how would your students react if they were John? I really like this suggestion. I read BNW when I was a little younger and I didn’t get much out of it, but 18 seems like a good age to confront these questions, and others raised by the book. Is Animal Farm too tied into historical context to have a similar effect? I am thinking about assigning an essay, at least, of Orwell’s. ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/19 "2013-11-09T18:41:22Z")
‘Things Fall Apart’ is another great suggestion, with ‘The second Coming’ or not! (That poem seems to have inspired a lot of titles!) Any poetical recs? I want to do poetry with a very light touch, short is good. But mindblowing is best. Any short-stories that can have this kind of impact? I am more willing to find these in translation. Is Raymond Carver read at all? I love the idea of Coover, but I think that might be a bit advanced for this crowd… ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467/20 "2013-11-09T22:31:42Z")
I’m going to suggest a novella, “The Mountains of Mourning” by Lois McMaster Bujold. It’s a science fiction mystery with a lot to say about justice and prejudice. I believe it’s available as an e-book. Also, the novel **Bellwether** by Connie Willis. It’s about decisions. It’s also fun, and people might like a change of pace. I like Saki’s stories too, especially “The Open Window.” You said you’ve chosen the drama–may I ask which plays, other than _The Merchant of Venice_? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literature-for-college-freshmen/673467.md?page=2)