I can't remember enough of My Antonia to comment on it. I don't remember responding to it strongly (at age 12), though.

Great Expectations. I think it has grown in richness over the years, for me. I read it at age 14, and also saw a British miniseries about it that was very faithful. (John Rhys-Davies as Joe Gargery -- gave me a perfect bead on his character.) When I was 14, I found the ending very annoying, because it did not seem to resolve a single thing about the Pip/Snot-nosed Girl interaction. (The 1940s movie version has a VERY dramatic ending, which is very emotionally satisfying, but flies in the face of the book.)

I can't think about the whole of the book and have it hang together. So, that's a criticism. Then again, so many little parts of the story jump out at me -- Jaggers washing his hands after every law-case; Jaggers's clark and his vast, unreflective love for his Aged P.; poor Joe Gargery and his battered dignity; Miss Havisham hobbling about the house in a rotting image of her life from 30 years previous.

Actually I think the weakest part of it all is the Pip/Magwitch interaction, and even then there's some frisson there (especially their first meeting); it just doesn't pan out in a way that feels strong to me.

Literature includes plays.

True, but I read some fucking obscure ones. Or obscure fucking ones. Or both.

Anyway - David Hare's The Secret Rapture. Hatehatehatehatehate. Fucking hate. (Huh. Apparently there was a British film done of the play. Still fucking hate.) The main protagonist (Isobel) is such a milksop, the protagonist's boyfriend is lucky to eke out half a dimenson, and the undercurrent of misogyny that I felt all the way through finally becomes the main current at the end. t whitefont Isobel is this sort of saintly woman whose life is going to shit: her father has just died, her sister is an "eeeeevil" Tory politician, and her stepmother (who is Isobel's age) is sliding off the edge of sanity. Her boyfriend is devoted but ends up freakishly obsessing when she breaks up with him so she can devote her attention to her family, and then he ends up killing her. t /whitefont Isobel is almost certainly a Cordelia-figure, but Hare completely failed to capture the inner fire that makes Cordelia a believable human being. And the fucking ending. Oooooh, made me mad. Ooooh. Grrr.

good to know Kat, maybe I'll just return it and not finish it. I assume that doing that with "non-smart" books is ok.

I'd like to re-read A Tale of Two Cities someday. I remember liking it better than anything we read in AP English other than Shakespeare, but I read it while I was recovering from chicken pox, which apparently fried enough of my brain cells that I can no longer remember why I liked it.

ita is me. Also, kind of missed the Faulkner and Hemingway meetings, apart from some short stories(Which it occurs to me, is one subset of fiction where I've spent a lot of time, trying to learn to write them and stuff.)

When I'm reading Great Expectations, I'm always surprised by how funny and lively it is

Yes! There are some really amusing bits.

I enjoyed Tale of Two Cities, but reading Great Expectations was like being poked repeatedly with an annoying sharp stick.

Also, kind of missed the Faulkner and Hemingway meetings

Heh. Their writing styles are so diametrically opposed -- Faulkner's page-long sentences vs. Hemingway's 3-word sentences -- that maybe if you put them in a blender, you'd get something you liked. Faulkingway. Hemingner.

I love Hemingway, and it's because of his terse sentences, and his descriptions that seem all surface at first but then aren't surface-y at all. (Plus all the booze.)

When I was 14, I found the ending very annoying, because it did not seem to resolve a single thing about the Pip/Snot-nosed Girl interaction.

Oh! Nutty, have you read the original ending? My copy has it. If you want me to look it up when I get home, remind me later, but if I recall correctly, it's a more bittersweet. Like, Estella's leaving in a carriage, and Pip goes and talks to her, and they kind of accept that there's something there but nothing will come of it, and then she leaves. Or something.

Also, kind of missed the Faulkner and Hemingway meetings

I'd just like to repeat, for Steph's benefit, that Quentin Compson is my homeboy.

I'd like to re-read A Tale of Two Cities someday

Oh! It's so much fun! (If you don't hate Dickens in the first place.) There are all these hilarious bits, like stout Miss Pross and her loyalty to the heroine. I liked Miss Pross a lot. It's one of those books that I took with me to a foreign country, and read over and over, because I kept discovering new things about it. One time, you can read it as a romantic adventure; another, as a melodrama about loneliness and belonging; a third time, as a treatise about the personal and the political...

Actually it was Two Cities that reminded me that Dickens did have a way with dramatic description -- the crowd in St. Denis, slurping up the spilled wine; the mob at the end, chasing after anyone they can tear apart; silent, malevolent Mme. Debarge and her ominous knitting. Sometimes Dickens makes me roll my eyes with his Oh-so-convenient plotting, but his description can absolutely sing.