If they haven’t read 1984 yet, they really should. They should also read carefully the excerpts from Goldstein’s book within the novel, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, and how it relates to the recent NSA revelations.
I second other posters who have suggested Atwood or Coetzee (not necessarily Disgrace; Coetzee is not exactly an uplifting author, but Disgrace certainly stands out as being particularly bleak. I’d recommend Waiting for the Barbarians.
Grapes of Wrath. I loved it when I was a Freshman.
Oh wait…you said inspiring…
how about Franny and Zooey and Raise High The Roofbeams, and Seymour An Introduction by J.D. Salinger. Lesser-known of his 4 books, but Holden Caulfield was merely a warm-up for the Glass family…
FWIW, some colleges and universities have adopted the practice of having all incoming freshman read a particular book, so they’ll have something in common to discus when they get to campus. (The college I went to started this not long after I graduated, so I have no personal experience with it.) Here’s an article on the phenomenon, and here’s one publisher’s list of “suggested titles for college common book programs as part of the Freshman First Year Experience.” Some of the books are novels, but there are also non-fiction of various genres on the list.
It’s bleak, but perfectly crafted - it works all the way to the last sentence. It’s short and speaks to White Male Entitlement relative to women, classes, races and analogously to the situation in South Africa - all important cultural and historical issues that a group of college freshman should be ready to chew on. I say that as a White Male who understands the implicit message for folks like me…
It’s a clear, multi-layered, accessible book for grown-ups.
Oh, and I also strongly recommend Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety. Brilliantly written, wise.
I have my freshmen read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. They find it thought-provoking, once they get past the talking gorilla.
D.H. Lawrence’s The Rocking Horse Winner has stuck with me for years. Short stories have an advantage of you can get through lots of them over the term, and expose them to a lot of writers and styles - or alternatively, several good examples of a single writer.
That’s what I think, too, and what I hope to do. And I love “Rocking Horse Winner”. I always think it is Saki, too.
The Hustler by Walter Tevis - have 'em read the book and then show them the movie. Someone just posted in an old thread about Hammett vs. Chandler* and I mentioned The Hustler in that, which reminded me of it.
Here is a thread I started when I read the book which lays out my case for it:
Great, easy, fast book that has a LOT to discuss and write about - especially for freshman coming of age and wondering what it means to be a grown-up.
and then you get to see a Paul Newman classic; what’s not to love?
*If you are open to this type of hard-boiled, classically American writing, then Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest doesn’t get any better - it is the basis for all of the modern interpretations of the “One day, a stranger came to our troubled town” storyline, e.g., Kurosawa, Clint Eastwood…
The other advantage of short stories is that it sounds like you are teaching “ordinary” college freshmen. Maybe above community college level, but no one who aspired to get into Yale (at least, not even with a vague amount of reasonableness). Probably a state college sort of thing?
They aren’t likely to be great readers. Getting through a short story and then discussing it is going to be far more realistic than expecting them to get through Anna Karenina. If they get behind, they skip that story and move on (obviously, it might affect their grade, but they CAN move on) - they don’t get lost in “the midterm is coming and I have to read 400 pages of Thomas Hardy!”
And I pulled out my anthology from college because of this thread to give to my 14 year old daughter.
Not sure if you’d necessarily call it great literature, but how about The Harrad Experiment? As long as you make sure to say it’s a period piece about the (early) 1970’s the students might find it interesting to see what might have been. Plus it will keep their attention…
nm
I am kind of curious as to which kind of freshmen this is for - when I went to high school in the 90’s in the US I’d already had a lot of these title assigned.
Try ***Death Comes for the Archbishop ***by Willa Cather
These are not Yale-aspirers. Which is part of why I ask for help, since the undergrads I’ve taught so far have been of a much higher standard than what I am, apparently, to expect here.
The Hustler would be great. Hemingway’s short stories are good and obvious, too - Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber would blow their minds in a good way.
Are they remedial at all? I have a girl friend who teaches remedial English at a community college. Which is a darn hard (and yet rewarding) task. If they are remedial, I can ask her for suggestions. She teaches a lot of popular literature, because the students she is teaching, getting them to READ is the key, who cares if they are getting through Hemingway. If she can get them through The Hunger Games its a win - some of them have never managed to complete a novel before they arrive in her care.
Its funny because her oldest is a Sophomore in high school and just had to read The Scarlett Letter - a book none of her college students would be able to get through. (Frankly, she has high suspicions most of his class got through it on Cliff Notes. And she said “if he’d come to me, I’d have led him to the Cliff Notes.” Really there is no reason to teach high school sophomores to hate literature.)
*Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig is good for college age students, as is Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.Also Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas *is good at that age.