I think I approach 'literary criticm' in an odd way-- I was an undergraduate Literature major, and about 1/2 way through I really discovered that what I loved about literature was not necessarily the language-- but what the literature of a time told me about it's people and how that compared to today's worldview.

Yeah. We did integrated studies, so lit was tied in with myth was tied in with history and politics. It meant that the one time I had a class where things weren't integrated, I was bored stiff.

Which is probably why I'm the Surfacing weirdo, because Dani's point:

To me that's why Surfacing will not be the canonical Atwood book; because she was consciously trying to write the Great Canadian Novel it's not universal enough.

while probably correct as to why it will be something like Cat's Eye instead, is exactly *why* I would put it in. Though for those of you at home, if you must read one Atwood, make it Lady Oracle, which is her most entertaining novel.

I'm hoping you don't pattern your life too closely on his....

Don't worry. I've already outlived him, anyway.

As I've noted before, the damn thing opens with a bunch of dead puppies strung over the back of a chair. Dead puppies! That'll catch your attention.

Whoa! How'd I miss the dead puppies? *looks* I can't find the bloody dead puppies. I mean, there's the living dogs with mean dispositions, but no dead puppies.

The overwhelming image from Beloved that sticks with me a so profoundly disturbing is the image of a black man in a bit (like a horses bit).

For me, it's the cow-fucking.

P-C has inspired me to give Faulkner another go, which is something that up until two days ago I would've sworn on a stack of the collected sacred texts of every culture on the planet I'd never, never do.

*beams* Awesome. I'm so inspirational. If you do Sound and the Fury, I do suggest having Cliffs Notes handy, but I was able to make sense out of Absalom, Absalom! using only the chronology and genealogy in the back. Then again, I was also four years older. I'm not sure what Faulkner is less impenetrable than those two.

I'm ashamed to admit that Handmaid's Tale is the only Atwood I've ever read, and now I feel very urgently that I need more;

JZ is me, except I've always been meaning to read more, although yes, it now feels far more urgent.

Polter, my lamb, your long quote from Faulkner crystalized a character development point I'd been having with a long fic I'm working on and gave me the key for why the character is going to do what that character is going to do.

Yay! I'm glad to have helped you. I love that passage so much, because I identify with it so strongly. I love the imagery of all people being connected like that, such that anything we do can affect someone else, and then the wish to leave a mark on the world in stone, something permanent and undying.

I'm on Chapter 8 of Wuthering Heights now, and it's actually rather interesting how it resembles Absalom, Absalom! somewhat. You have the young male protagonist being told the story of a complicated family by an older woman.

I liked reading Sound and the Fury without the Cliffs Notes. I'd read some other stream-of-consciousness books with Cliffs Notes or similar, and it made me feel like I always had to keep checking over there whenever I didn't get something. With SatF, I just kept reading, and felt much more like I was really getting Benjy and seeing everything through his eyes. (Of course, I was reading this in a class with a really great teacher, so I knew that, if something really didn't make sense, I could ask about it and discuss it later.)

Meara....

I read the latter right after reading 1984, and I liked 1984 better, though I understand they're two different books.

I read BNW right after 1984, or tried to. I found 1984 so depressing, I couldn't get more than about three pages into it before I had to give up and go read a Garfield collection. Still haven't picked it back up.

Tangentially - I did read a non-fiction book by Neil Postman called Amusing Ourselves to Death, about how TV is causing the destruction of society. In the introduction he talked about how everyone had been afraid of 1984 becomming a reality, when that was never really a danger - we'd seen fascism and its ilk, and were on guard now. What we were in serious danger of succumbing to was the willing blissful idiocy of BNW.

I didn't entirely agree with his premise, but found it to be an intruiging book anyway.

(I just recently reread Red Mars, and was left with the same impression -- the characters are believable and well-drawn, but they're not in charge.)

Yes! I still haven't finished Blue Mars, but the first two books are so sweeping and vast. The books have some great set-piece scenes, too - Green Mars features the fall of a space elevator cable.

I can't believe there's no one in here to squee with me over the antique KSM. 1893 people!!!

I'll squee over it, Heather! SQUEEE!!! You should still post those scans.

(Sean (K), if you see this, this is what amused me about my compliment to you in GWW)

Now it all makes sense.

BTW- Whenever Sean is around, I have mentioned your Hamlet theory last night at the bar and several of the patrons would like to know where they sign up to make out with you.

t packs bags to move to Texas

I found 1984 so depressing, I couldn't get more than about three pages into it before I had to give up and go read a Garfield collection. Still haven't picked it back up.

Brave New World is far less depressing, for the most part, and is much funnier. Until the last third or so, and the final image is quite the downer.

Brave New World is far less depressing, for the most part, and is much funnier. Until the last third or so, and the final image is quite the downer.

Oh yeah. Visualizing that last paragraph still gives me the chills.

World building, world painting -- Salman Rushdie does that for me, very well.

I need to read some Rushdie. I have no explanation for why I haven't except that I tend to get lost in bookstores.

Scanner is broken, but I just took a couple of pics. Lemme put them up.

1893 King Solomon's Mines

It may be an earlier edition- there's a dedication on the last page - (something Jones) from his S.S. teacher- 1893

The quote on the front says "May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus, the Phoenician, or whoever it was that invented books."- Thos Carlyle

The books have some great set-piece scenes, too - Green Mars features the fall of a space elevator cable.

Unless they rebuild it, that's in Red Mars. (I went to the Strand today looking for the other two, which I haven't read yet, but they weren't there. For a store with 8 miles of books, their sci-fi section is kind of sad. Lots of William Shatner books, and at least two copies of the LXG novelization, no Kim Stanley Robinson at all.)

I did find Singularity Sky, which I'd forgotten I was looking for, and Clouds End, which I picked up because people had been talking up Sean Stewart in this thread. Also a reprint of the 1903 Good Housekeeping Everyday Cookbook and a book called Cookoff! about competitive cooking.