I fell in love with Steinbeck in high school.

Maud Newton recently had something on her blog about how hard it is to revisit Steinbeck later in life. And I'm afraid that's true for me. As much as I admire the guy's life and aspirations, I don't think I'd like his writing as much now as I did in high school.

And you're dead on about Huck Finn. That's a book for adults pretending to be a book for children.

I read the scarlett letter in high school. Honestly,there was no way for me to get it then.

I read that in high school too, and I think I liked it because I could focus on the mystery of who the father was.

Old man and the sea is a book I try and discourage high school students from reading. I think I'd get it now,but in high school,once again I didn't have the life experience.

Yeah, I think I started reading that in junior high one day and stopped pretty quickly. Bo-ring! t /Homer>

I don't get it either. I need some kernel of -- not necessarily hope, or redemption -- illumination. I can't explain it better than that, to my chagrin.

that's where Joy came from .

I can go there with a contemporary 'fun' book. I loved the movie, liked the book - Bridget Jone's diary. I tried the second book -and gave up after the first 20 pages. - She was doing the same dance again, and hadn't figured it out. A waste of my time. It was missing whatever that element is that makes something worth my time.

I really need to read A Tale of Two Cities again. I remember loving it more than anything else we read in AP English senior year with the possible exception of Macbeth, but I read it in a hurry as I was recovering from chicken pox, and now I barely remember it.

I feel no urge whatsoever to revisit The Red Badge of Courage or anything by Steinbeck, however.

I don't know about Connie but I never had fights about James Joyce in kindergarten.

David, please don't dance on my last nerve. I know you know my Bite Your Head Off face.

illumination

Yes, this! Something achieved! The bleak situation may not change, but something in the internal landscape has improved. Maybe it just a sense of improved self-worth, of essential humanity, more peace with the cosmos. Though I dislike the idea that it's OK to be stuck in poverty because you'll get your reward in heaven and you'll be doubly blessed etc. I've seen that used too often in history as an excuse to leave the downtrodden in their trodden-upon state.

I'm not sure I've anything I would call unrelentingly bleak. Maybe The Stranger ? I don't remember much of it, though.

FWIW, my mom just finished re-reading East of Eden for one of the book clubs at her store--it was the first time in probably thirty or forty years that she'd cracked the cover--and she said she was shocked at how extremely good and transporting and shocking it was; she hadn't necessarily expected it to be diminished on re-reading, but she definitely hadn't expected to be more bowled over by it on this read.

I have a huge sentimental love for Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. I have no idea if they're Good and Lasting Literature, but they have so vivid a sense of their time and place, and they taste of small California coastal town. Even having no more knowledge of the setting than as a decades-later slightly northern neighbor, I recognize what he's writing about so strongly it almost hurts, in a good way.

I love bleakness, and I'm not sure I can explain why. There is some comfort in seeing the worst of my own experiences, or those of the people I know who've suffered most, echoed in a gifted writer's voice; in knowing that someone knows in their bones what that suffering is, and was able to make something vivid and eloquent of it.

There's some comfort in having someone speak the worst of it--the darkest, bitterest, most nihilistic passages in Hamlet say no more (though they say it so much better) than I've ever whispered to myself at 3 a.m. some nights. I'm not the only person to think those thoughts; I may be a horrible despairing freak, but at least I'm not alone in it.

There's some comfort in that bleakness being contained in a piece of fiction; every page I turn is my choice, every paragraph I read is by my conscious, deliberate assent. It's not real life; I am in total control of what I see and know.

Of course, my favorite piece of literature in all the world is a dizzyingly joyful piece of fluff, so what the fuck do I know anyway.

at least I'm not alone in it

Catharsis, I hadn't thought of that. Excellent point.

Maud Newton recently had something on her blog about how hard it is to revisit Steinbeck later in life. And I'm afraid that's true for me. As much as I admire the guy's life and aspirations, I don't think I'd like his writing as much now as I did in high school.

Having just re-read some before my trip up the coast, I have to say I didn't. One of the reasons we went to Monterey on a family trip to California in high school was my love of all things Steinbeck. Somehow, the magic of his writing is totally lost on me now. But then again I'm not a fan of much of what I've read from that era, so maybe it's that.

I really need to read A Tale of Two Cities again. I remember loving it more than anything else we read in AP English senior year with the possible exception of Macbeth, but I read it in a hurry as I was recovering from chicken pox, and now I barely remember it.

I just borrowed this from a friend and keep starting and stopping it. It's just not grabbing me. Nor is "The Charterhouse of Parma". Maybe I'm regressing, since I'm having no trouble with the Little House books!