Pat Conroy question
Gail Nevins
For escape reading, I enjoy Pat Conroy's work. His last
_Prince of Tides_ while a "big" and intense novel, I suspect in some
regards auttobiograpical, came out in 1986. Therefore, I've been
expecting another book from him for some time now but have seen or
heard nothing. Anyone have any information on this. Also, have
his books been discussed on this lisy in the past? If so, that means
I can get those discussions through archives? Patience, I'm new at
netting but really enjoy this particular group. Great books has
influenced me to read some I might not otherwise have made time for.
Thanks all. Just plain Gail
Brad Gadberry
Gail--
Just curious: are Conroy's books "just escape" reading for you,
or are they more substantive. I ask because in a class on novels
I taught last year, about half way into it we decided that the
dice were rather loaded on some of the questions our discussions
were shaped around because I had selected all canonical
book--Mill on the Floss, Portrait of the Artist, etc. We decided
we needed to do a "regular book" as well. We talked about
various possibilities and I ended up ordering Prince of Tides.
We never did come to closure on whether the "great" books were
qualitatively different than our token "regular" book. Several
people in the class argued strongly for reading Prince of Tides
as just as much a "great book" as Mill on the Floss et al. As a
Conroy reader, what would you say?
Brad Gadberry
University of Virginia
bra...@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU
Eileen M. Vlcek
Brad, inasmuch as I do not read Conroy's work any more, having found Prince of
Tides to be overblown and unbelieveable to the point where I found every charac
ter exasperating, this addresses a much larger issue, to me, of "great book"
versus "regular" book, an issue which has no easy answers. But I am greatly in
favor of reading contemporary authors in classes, books which have not become
part of the canon and may not ever do so, but what exactly does this mean?
Is that such a lofty aspiration of a book, of an author? And must everything
be categorized- for this is to diminish it or give it perhaps an unwarranted
reputation. Eileen
Elise Earthman
> *** Reply to note of 10/07/93 17:49
> ...this addresses a much larger issue, to me, of "great book"
> versus "regular" book, an issue which has no easy answers. But I am greatly
> in favor of reading contemporary authors in classes, books which have not
> become part of the canon and may not ever do so, but what exactly does
> this mean? Is that such a lofty aspiration of a book, of an author? And
> must everything be categorized- for this is to diminish it or give it
> perhaps an unwarranted reputation. Eileen
I don't know that I can distinguish between a "great" book and a "regular"
book--well, I can, in a very personal way. A "great" book is one that has
stood the test of time and that is generally accepted by whoever accepts
these things and is taught regularly and is the kind of book that if
you're an English professor and you haven't read it, you don't tell anyone
because they'll look at you funny. A "regular" book to me--which I think
of as contemporary literary fiction--is a current or recent book that's
really good, that I get an aesthetic buzz off of while reading, that I
think I might use in a classroom because I'm pretty sure I can get three
good days of discussion out of it, and that I believe the students will be
pleased to be reading instead of/along with those other "great" books
they're always expected to read. And I'll add a third category: a
"bathtub" book is one that I hope will be a ripping good yarn, that will
keep me turning the pages, that I'll probably never go back to again once
I know the twists and turns of the plot, and that I don't really care if I
drop into the water while soaking my weary bones.
I think that what goes into each category is (except for the "great"
books, and of course there are endless arguments there too) very personal,
and if you're talking about the classroom, I might relegate Clive Barnes
to the bathtub category, while someone else would be able to get three or
even four days of good class discussion out of him. I'd use Clive Barnes,
though, if I thought there was a way, through him, to get students to like
some great book I wanted them to know.
Elise
Brad Gadberry
I'm aware that the way I brought up the greatbook/regularbook
distinction is problematic and even reductive. I suspected
someone would jump on it, and sure enough....
In all honesty, I do believe there's a good way to distinguish
Literature-with-a-Capital-L: simply, literary texts are those we
agree to consider in all their complexity, regardless of whether
this takes us beyond/outside the text's intended purpose
(instruct, entertain, etc.) or beyond/outside what the author
intended. Literary texts are those we agree to consider in all
their complexity. The agreement is neither permanent nor
unanimous; canonical works are those which we regard with some
consensus. The phone book is not usually considered literature,
but it is--by my definition--literature for Avital Ronnell as she
writes _The Phone Book_, and it's literature for others so long
as she wins a hearing and keeps readers turning her pages.
Brad Gadberry
bra...@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU