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!

I've never been grabbed by A Tale of Two Cities -- it's the canon's very own Shyamalan for me. Hey, guess the surprise twist ending!!one! It feels gimmicky to me, and the social/political stuff that Dickens at his best manages to make feel more immediate than a 140-year distance has any right to allow are the shallowest black hat/white hat stuff.

On the other hand, there's a whole lot of Dickens that I completely adore -- in particular the great monster 900-page late novels Dombey , Bleak House , and Our Mutual Friend. (The order switches, with BH usually in the lead until I pick up OMF again). All of those manage the whole scope from commentary to characters to just... damn.

I read The Old Man in the Sea when I was in 6th grade, because my mother really liked it. (Her other favorites include Ayn Rand, James Baldwin, and Henry Miller, and Silhouette Romance Novels). I have never, ever hated something more. Except maybe the Red Pny or the Pearl. I don't think I could ever read it.

I have a tendancy to see hope in things that other people find bleak, although I am not sure why or if I am maybe even misreading things. I read Kate Chopin's Awakenings, which ends with a woman committing suicide by swimming into the ocean and thought the woman took a swim, was reborn and came out of the sea to live a long and happy life. Boy was I embarrassed in class!