I just finished The Life of Pi. I thought it was interesting, but I'm still sort of puzzling over what I thought of the ending.

Hil, I read Life of Pi last Fall and am still mulling over the ending. Both scenarios seem plausible but I find that I really want to believe the tiger story; however, the part about the toxic island is what puts that story into question for me. The other, more mundane story is much less satisfying to me, but seems more believeable.

Granted, I don't think it's a very good high school book (or it certainly wasn't for me). I get what the teacher was trying to do by pairing it with Walden, but it just struck me as so twee and smug (and hippy dippy).

And yet, still liked it better than ETHAN FROME.

I liked having my wisdom teeth pulled better than Ethan Frome.

I liked back surgery more than Ethan Frome.

Megan, that's it exactly. I want to believe the tiger story. And I'm thinking maybe that was the point.

I liked breaking a bone in my hand better than Ethan Frome. In fact, the only experiences in my life that I liked less than Ethan Frome were a ruptured ovarian cyst, moving and chemotherapy.

So the question is, why do all the schools make us read it??

Also, I want to have a talk with the first person who put Bartleby the Scrivener into the curriculum.

I'm currently reading Hard Times, and sometimes I forget in Dickens's customary frothiness and overdone-ness that he can sometimes luck himself into great hushed pointful prose. The introduction would have me believe that because Hard Times is so short, it's got a lot more of said pointful prose; unfortunately so far this means there are also no characters I particularly like. Maybe Louisa Bounderby, except she desperately needs to murder her husband (or run away with some factory worker) and I don't think Dickens will allow her a happy ending if she does.

Then again, book called Hard Times.

I read EF in highschool, I don't remember hating it , and now I don't remember anything about it, except there was a man, a woman and it was winter.

So the question is, why do all the schools make us read it??

Misery loves company?

Also, I want to have a talk with the first person who put Bartleby the Scrivener into the curriculum.

Hm, I rather like old Bartleby, but I always read and enjoyed that as a precursor to Camus and the like.

Bartleby makes me laugh out of sheer frustration, in that What About Bob? kind of way.

I remember reading Hard Times in high school, and I might even still have it on my shelves, but Dickens is such hard slogging for me.

Is Hard Times the one where one of the character's father is The Aged P? And he (Aged P) is hard of hearing, so the son rigged up a system of little signs that would pop out of the stonework around the fireplace? Or is that another Dickens?