grotesques, more magical realism and some thoughts on romance...

Poe; Marquez, Allende, Borges; and ... (see all I'm coming up with for the last is a cautionary tale about Cassie Edwards...)

eta: not that you really asked my opinion, or probably wanted it...

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya is great for magical realism. I assume you already have something by Gabriel García Márquez and/or Isabel Allende?

Susan's tag has earwormed me with the Enya version.

Is that a good or a bad thing for you?

My choir is singing it this Sunday, and I've found practicing it comforting since hearing my mom's latest diagnosis.

AP english sounds a lot more interesting than when I was in school. Rocking horse Winner, To Esme with Love and Squalor, and Heart of Darkness.

A Hundred Years of Solitude as the core reading. Then they can pick between an undecided Angela Carter book, Midnight's Children, The Famished Road, Life of Pi and maybe something else. If I can think of something else. eta Bless Me Ultima is a good choice!

For romance, I'm either going to teach Possession by AS Byatt (thus cramming more poetry in!) or....or....or.... I guess it depends on how generous my definition of Romance is. I guess I could do Jane Austen. Maybe some heroic work. The Aeneid?

under Grotesque I have a core reading of Picture of Dorian Gray and Jekyll and Hyde and then choices of Frankenstein, Metamorphosis and...? Geek Love! Which I think would totally get me in trouble and the book freaked me out, but might be a fun secondary choice that students can make.

Pride and Prejudice would be great for romance (and I have both recent versions on DVD if you want to borrow them to use in class at all). Some of Shakespeare would work in that category, too.

Yeah. I'm starting the year with King Lear. And I thought I might do one of his comedies at the end of the year. I might need another play that is not Shakespeare.

I love Pride and Prejudice but don't know that it needs to be taught (by taught I mean read with assistance, if that makes sense). I am looking at a model of a core title for genre study and then students picking secondary novels. Possession is such a great multilayered book and it works as a nice transition from magical realism. And it's tough and best read with some support.

t unhelpful

You could bore them to tears with an actual romance like King Arthur.

t /unhelpful

Nope. Because king arthur would bore ME to tears. I might do Gawain and the Green Knight though.

I'm still married to going tragedy, irony, grotesque, magical realism, romance, comedy. I might through satire in with irony, but maybe not.

But is P&P really a romance? I think of it as a marriage comedy, but maybe I'm overthinking it.

Hmm. What about a gothic romance like Wuthering Heights?