What Every Child Should Read
Dan Clore
The UK's Royal Society of Literature recently asked authors
such as J.K. Rowling to list their top-ten books that every
schoolchild should read. The Society, through some strange
oversight, failed to include me among their invitation. So I
decided to make a list anyway.
Even though they say the list is for "children", they
actually seem to have wanted lists for students up through
graduation from the equivalent of the U.S.'s highschool.
Apuleius, _The Golden Ass_ (can't forget the classics!)
Charles Baudelaire, _The Flowers of Evil_ (preferably in the
original, but we'll let a translation do instead)
William Blake, selection of best work (_Songs of Innocence
and Experience_, _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_, etc.)
Jorge Luis Borges, selection of best stories and essays
William Burroughs, _Naked Lunch_ (but prepped by reading
_Junky_ first, as it includes a straightforward description
of the milieu and a glossary of the slang)
Phillip K. Dick, _The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch_ (or
another of his best novels, such as _Ubik_ or _A Scanner
Darkly_)
H.P. Lovecraft, selection of the best stories
Edgar Allan Poe, selection of the best stories and poems
Edmund Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_ (in the Longman's
annotated edition)
J.R.R. Tolkien, _The Hobbit_ (no need to include _The Lord
of the Rings_, as any student who doesn't go on to read the
trilogy on their own is hopeless)
Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea, _The Illuminatus! Trilogy_
(That's more than ten, but I'm not removing any of them.)
I run a tough school, but I had read everything on the list
by the appropriate age, so it can't be *too* hard.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1587154838/thedanclorenecro/
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
icarp...@aol.com
annotated edition)
Do you have an ISBN #?
Matt
westprog
"Dan Clore" <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote in message
news:43EF1C24...@columbia-center.org...
Well, if it's going to be _every_ child, why go easy on them?
Finnegans Wake, James Joyce.
The Divine Comedy, Dante. Not a translation, obviously.
The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer.
Proust, obviously.
De Sade - too hard to pick, better make it the complete works.
And there should be some Helen Oxenbury as well.
J/
Dan Clore
058209951X
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1587154838/thedanclorenecro/
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
Matt Ruff
>
> The Divine Comedy, Dante.
European children will need to read this one soon, before it's banned by
the EU for its offensive depiction of the prophet Mohammad.
-- M. Ruff
The Kilted Yaksman
To that I would add:
Orson Scott Card, _Ender's Game_
Frank Herbert, _Dune_
"Reality" is the only word in the language that should always be used in quotes.
Francis A. Miniter
Europeans seem to be standing strong on free speech, unlike Bush who waffled in
the press conference following his meeting Thursday, February 8, 2006, with King
Abdullah of Jordan: "We believe in a free press, but also recognize that with
freedom comes responsibilities."
Francis A. Miniter
Sean O'Hara
declared:
> Matt Ruff wrote:
>
>> European children will need to read this one soon, before it's banned
>> by the EU for its offensive depiction of the prophet Mohammad.
>>
> waffled in the press conference following his meeting Thursday, February
> 8, 2006, with King Abdullah of Jordan: "We believe in a free press, but
> also recognize that with freedom comes responsibilities."
>
Unless he starts talking about enforced responsibility, I don't see
the waffle. You're free to say whatever you want, but only complete
idiots actually do.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
Faye: I tell ya, instead of being alone in a group, it's better to
have real solitude all by yourself.
-Cowboy Bebop
Sean O'Hara
Hmm, what books might one day be considered offensive towards
Muslims -- either actually offensive the way certain Lovecraft
stories are, or perceived so by idiots the way Huck Finn is?
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- "We Ambuscade the A-rabs".
The Satanic Verses -- Duh.
The Chronicles of Narnia -- We all know who the Calormenes and Tash
represent.
King Horn -- Medieval English romance about a prince whose kingdom
is conquered by foreign invaders. The original version probably
involved Vikings, but the manuscript we have today was updated
around the time of the Crusades to make the baddies Muslims.
The Faerie Queene -- It's been a while since I read that, but I seem
to recall that Spenser took some time away from trashing the
Catholics to include some barbs towards Islam.
Tamburlaine the Great -- Oh, wait, too late.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1887902,00.html
Manuscript Found in Saragossa -- Promiscuous Muslim sisters who have
threeways with unwary travelers in Spain before turning into corpses.
Robinson Crusoe, etc. -- Just think about all those old books where
Muslims are referred to as Mohammedans, implying they worship the
Prophet.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
Doctor: Never be certain of anything; it's a sign of weakness.
-Doctor Who
Francis A. Miniter
> In the Year of the Dog, the Great and Powerful Francis A. Miniter declared:
>
>> Matt Ruff wrote:
>>
>>> European children will need to read this one soon, before it's banned
>>> by the EU for its offensive depiction of the prophet Mohammad.
>>>
>> Europeans seem to be standing strong on free speech, unlike Bush who
>> waffled in the press conference following his meeting Thursday,
>> February 8, 2006, with King Abdullah of Jordan: "We believe in a free
>> press, but also recognize that with freedom comes responsibilities."
>>
>
> Unless he starts talking about enforced responsibility, I don't see the
> waffle. You're free to say whatever you want, but only complete idiots
> actually do.
>
How many times have we seen the US Government go down this path? Hollywood?
Sports and drug testing? Stock Market?
Steps:
1. The industry has responsibilities.
2. We will try self-regulation.
3. Self-regulation is not working.
4 . Congress needs to intervene.
All start with a declaration that the industry has responsibilities.
Francis A. Miniter
Alan Hope
>So I
>decided to make a list anyway.
The purpose of these lists is to allow the respondent to show off the
books he claims to have read by age ten or whatever, and Dan doesn't
disappoint. After puffing up his chest with his ludicrously pompous
list, he goes on to state:
>I run a tough school, but I had read everything on the list
>by the appropriate age, so it can't be *too* hard.
Just to push the point home.
Got it, Dan. You were a very clever little boy. Happy now?
--
AH
Al Smith
> such as J.K. Rowling to list their top-ten books that every
> schoolchild should read. The Society, through some strange
> oversight, failed to include me among their invitation. So I
> decided to make a list anyway.
Did the lists ever get posted anywhere?
Sam Culotta
"Francis A. Miniter" <min...@attglobalZZ.net> wrote in message
news:43ef78b2$1@kcnews01...
5. Industry resents government regulation.
>
> Francis A. Miniter
Paul Ilechko
> "Francis A. Miniter" <min...@attglobalZZ.net> wrote in message
> news:43ef78b2$1@kcnews01...
>>How many times have we seen the US Government go down this path?
>>Hollywood? Sports and drug testing? Stock Market?
>>
>>Steps:
>>
>>1. The industry has responsibilities.
>>2. We will try self-regulation.
>>3. Self-regulation is not working.
>>4 . Congress needs to intervene.
>>
>>All start with a declaration that the industry has responsibilities.
>>
>
> Don't forget :
> 5. Industry resents government regulation.
Except:
6. When they can get government to pay for something
Dan Clore
> Dan Clore goes:
>>So I decided to make a list anyway.
>
> The purpose of these lists is to allow the respondent to show off the
> books he claims to have read by age ten or whatever,
As I pointed out, the upper age seemed to be the equivalent
of American highschool graduation. So I figured 18 or so.
> and Dan doesn't
> disappoint. After puffing up his chest with his ludicrously pompous
> list, he goes on to state:
>
>>I run a tough school, but I had read everything on the list
>>by the appropriate age, so it can't be *too* hard.
>
> Just to push the point home.
>
> Got it, Dan. You were a very clever little boy. Happy now?
I don't think I was such a little boy when I was 18.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1587154838/thedanclorenecro/
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
Gene Ward Smith
Alan Hope wrote:
> The purpose of these lists is to allow the respondent to show off the
> books he claims to have read by age ten or whatever, and Dan doesn't
> disappoint.
I thought the purpose was to post a list that you knew could not
possibly get by the school board.
lal_truckee
>
> The UK's Royal Society of Literature recently asked authors
> such as J.K. Rowling to list their top-ten books that every
> schoolchild should read.
I can do without Rowling's input, but would still like to peruse the
results.
Since you are posting to comment on their effort, I assume you know
where they published the results. So: Where are the lists?
alanm...@yahoo.com
Of your list, I've read only the Tolkien books, several Poe stories,
and book 1 of Spencer's "The Faerie Queene" which I forced myself
through only after reading "The Compleat Enchanter" by Pratt and de
Camp. If de Camp, a very intelligent writer, found "Faerie Queene"
tedious reading, how can you expect high school students to enjoy it?
There are thousands of great books, not all of them to any one
person's tatse. Looking back on grade school and high school, I think
English classes would have been a lot more enjoyable if there had been
a wider choice by students on just what authors to read.
We were required to read Bronte's "Jane Eyre" in 12th grade. As I
recall, most of the girls found it quite enjoyable, while we boys could
barely keep our eyes open while forcing ourselves to read the book.
The big problem is, a significant fraction of high school students
are functionally illiterate. I'd start students on something light,
like Carl Barks "Uncle Scrooge" comics. Once you get students able to
read, and to enjoy reading AN"YTHING, you've won the battle on
illiteracy.
Of course, there's also the question of "Cultural Literacy". My wife
and I certainly didn't rely on the schools to teach our children. We
went out and bought E.D. Hirsch's books,
which are a good start for parents of 1st to 6th grade children.
- A. McIntire.
Sean O'Hara
declared:
> Dan Clore wrote:
>
>>Apuleius, _The Golden Ass_ (can't forget the classics!)
>>Charles Baudelaire, _The Flowers of Evil_ (preferably in the
>>original, but we'll let a translation do instead)
>>William Blake, selection of best work (_Songs of Innocence
>>and Experience_, _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_, etc.)
>>Jorge Luis Borges, selection of best stories and essays
>>William Burroughs, _Naked Lunch_ (but prepped by reading
>>_Junky_ first, as it includes a straightforward description
>>of the milieu and a glossary of the slang)
>>Phillip K. Dick, _The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch_ (or
>>another of his best novels, such as _Ubik_ or _A Scanner
>>Darkly_)
>>H.P. Lovecraft, selection of the best stories
>>Edgar Allan Poe, selection of the best stories and poems
>>Edmund Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_ (in the Longman's
>>annotated edition)
>>J.R.R. Tolkien, _The Hobbit_ (no need to include _The Lord
>>of the Rings_, as any student who doesn't go on to read the
>>trilogy on their own is hopeless)
>>Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea, _The Illuminatus! Trilogy_
>>
>>(That's more than ten, but I'm not removing any of them.)
>>
>>I run a tough school, but I had read everything on the list
>>by the appropriate age, so it can't be *too* hard.
>>
> and book 1 of Spencer's "The Faerie Queene" which I forced myself
> through only after reading "The Compleat Enchanter" by Pratt and de
> Camp. If de Camp, a very intelligent writer, found "Faerie Queene"
> tedious reading, how can you expect high school students to enjoy it?
>
What does being an intelligent writer have to do with him being a
good judge of literature?
Come on, isn't this epic fantasy at its best:
But full of fire and greedy hardiment,
The youthfull knight could not for ought be staide,
But forth vnto the darksome hole he went,
And looked in: his glistring armor made
A litle glooming light, much like a shade,
By which he saw the vgly monster plaine,
Halfe like a serpent horribly displaide,
But th'other halfe did womans shape retaine,
Most lothsom, filthie, foule, and full of vile disdaine.
And as she lay vpon the durtie ground,
Her huge long taile her den all ouerspred,
Yet was in knots and many boughtes vpwound,
Pointed with mortall sting. Of her there bred
A thousand yong ones, which she dayly fed,
Sucking vpon her poisonous dugs, each one
Of sundry shapes, yet all ill fauored:
Soone as that vncouth light vpon them shone,
Into her mouth they crept, and suddain all were gone.
(And how can anyone who's graduated high school (or the Aussie,
Canuckian, or British equivalent) not've read Blake?)
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at
least one woman.
-Honore de Balzac
neil h
The results were in the RSL magazine, but there's an article about it on
the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4665328.stm and
the lists are on the Guardian website :
http://books.guardian.co.uk/childrenslibrary/story/0,,1698794,00.html
Google is your friend ... :-)
--
neil h.
"You live and learn. At any rate, you live." - Douglas Adams
Animal Crossing : Satsuma in Dogwood 064 485 635 776
cynick
>>>So I decided to make a list anyway.
>>
>> The purpose of these lists is to allow the respondent to show off the
>> books he claims to have read by age ten or whatever,
>
> As I pointed out, the upper age seemed to be the equivalent of American
> highschool graduation. So I figured 18 or so.
Yep, the quoted articles say "before leaving school", so in the UK that can
be either 16 *or* 18.
William December Starr
cl...@columbia-center.org said:
> Apuleius, _The Golden Ass_ (can't forget the classics!)
Whyever not?
[ *assorted stuff that no human being would ever read voluntarily
deleted* ]
> Phillip K. Dick, _The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch_ (or
> another of his best novels, such as _Ubik_ or _A Scanner Darkly_)
As far as I've been able to tell, there is no reason to ever read
anything by Philip K. Dick. Especially _A Scanner Darkly_.
> H.P. Lovecraft, selection of the best stories
> Edgar Allan Poe, selection of the best stories and poems
> Edmund Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_ (in the Longman's
> annotated edition)
> J.R.R. Tolkien, _The Hobbit_ (no need to include _The Lord
> of the Rings_, as any student who doesn't go on to read the
> trilogy on their own is hopeless)
> Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea, _The Illuminatus! Trilogy_
Lovecraft and Poe are readable but they're a long, long way away
from "should" reading. The Spenser, why? _The Hobbit_ is mostly
harmless but there's no _need_ to read it, and I won't dignify the
Illuminatus with a comment.
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
William December Starr
Paul Ilechko <noSPaM_pile...@patmedia.net> said:
>> Don't forget :
>> 5. Industry resents government regulation.
>
> Except:
>
> 6. When they can get government to pay for something
or 7. Except when they can use the regulation as a shield from
lawsuits. "(But the FDA said it was okay to use cyanide and
strychnine as food coloring, so you can't sue us, nyah!")
Jack Campin - bogus address
> The UK's Royal Society of Literature recently asked authors
> such as J.K. Rowling to list their top-ten books that every
> schoolchild should read. The Society, through some strange
> oversight, failed to include me among their invitation. So I
> decided to make a list anyway.
I have no problem with most of Dan's list, but for these two:
> Edmund Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_ (in the Longman's
> annotated edition)
There is a book (co-authored by Brigid Brophy, I think) called
"Works of English Literature We Could Do Without" in which this
one gets rather convincingly rubbished. I don't think that even
in its own time the point of the thing was for people to *read*
it - the idea was that English literature now had a bloody great
literary monument making a political point that a lot of the
English ruling class wanted to see established, it was enough for
it to exist.
> Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea, _The Illuminatus! Trilogy_
Repulsively pretentious middlebrow kitsch, the "Da Vinci Code"
of its time. If something emerging from the 1970s American
college-student culture is really obligatory, anything by Vonnegut
would be better. Hell, even "The Dice Man" was better. I can't
think of many books that were a worse waste of reading time.
The book that did more than anything else to get me interested
in poetry was Geoffrey Grigson's anthology "The Cherry Tree".
I think it's been out of print for years. Its illustrations were
amazing, taken from the "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili" (recently
popularized in a historical thriller - "The Rule of Four"?)
============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
<http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557
William December Starr
Sean O'Hara <sean...@gmail.com> said:
> Come on, isn't this epic fantasy at its best:
>
> But full of fire and greedy hardiment,
> The youthfull knight could not for ought be staide,
> But forth vnto the darksome hole he went,
> And looked in: his glistring armor made
> A litle glooming light, much like a shade,
> By which he saw the vgly monster plaine,
> Halfe like a serpent horribly displaide,
> But th'other halfe did womans shape retaine,
> Most lothsom, filthie, foule, and full of vile disdaine.
>
> And as she lay vpon the durtie ground,
> Her huge long taile her den all ouerspred,
> Yet was in knots and many boughtes vpwound,
> Pointed with mortall sting. Of her there bred
> A thousand yong ones, which she dayly fed,
> Sucking vpon her poisonous dugs, each one
> Of sundry shapes, yet all ill fauored:
> Soone as that vncouth light vpon them shone,
> Into her mouth they crept, and suddain all were gone.
Now that's just plain unreadable. Let me know when someone
translates it into (1) English and (2) prose.
John
"The Kilted Yaksman" <no...@here.com> wrote in message
news:ggjuu1lci89a4obki...@4ax.com...
Orwell's '1984'. It's very instructive.
lal_truckee
> lal_truckee wrote:
>> I can do without Rowling's input, but would still like to peruse the
>> results.
>>CLIP
>
> The results were in the RSL magazine, but there's an article about it on
> the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4665328.stm and
> the lists are on the Guardian website :
> http://books.guardian.co.uk/childrenslibrary/story/0,,1698794,00.html
Thanks. Proceeding to the Guardian's site I find Poet laureate Andrew
Motion's list.
The Odyssey Homer
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
Hamlet William Shakespeare
Paradise Lost John Milton
Lyrical Ballads Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
Portrait of a Lady Henry James
Ulysses James Joyce
The Waste Land TS Eliot
Anybody who wants children to read Paradise Lost and Ulysses is alright
with me. Carry on regardless, you Brits...
Nancy Lebovitz
westprog <west...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Well, if it's going to be _every_ child, why go easy on them?
>
>Finnegans Wake, James Joyce.
>The Divine Comedy, Dante. Not a translation, obviously.
>The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer.
>Proust, obviously.
>De Sade - too hard to pick, better make it the complete works.
>
>And there should be some Helen Oxenbury as well.
OBSF: "The Primary Education of the Camiroi" by R.A. Lafferty.
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
http://livejournal.com/users/nancylebov
My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".
Nancy Lebovitz
Sean O'Hara <sean...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Hmm, what books might one day be considered offensive towards
>Muslims -- either actually offensive the way certain Lovecraft
>stories are, or perceived so by idiots the way Huck Finn is?
>
>
And quite a lot of G.K. Chesterton.
Dan Clore
> Of your list, I've read only the Tolkien books, several Poe stories,
> and book 1 of Spencer's "The Faerie Queene" which I forced myself
> through only after reading "The Compleat Enchanter" by Pratt and de
> Camp. If de Camp, a very intelligent writer, found "Faerie Queene"
> tedious reading, how can you expect high school students to enjoy it?
Well, when I was thirteen or fourteen, I came to _The Faerie
Queene_ via _The Compleat Enchanter_, and while the Pratt
and de Camp is enjoyable fluff, _The Faerie Queene_ is the
real stuff. I've read through the entire thing several
times, and parts of it many more. Maybe I'm just a whole lot
smarter than de Camp--
> There are thousands of great books, not all of them to any one
> person's tatse. Looking back on grade school and high school, I think
> English classes would have been a lot more enjoyable if there had been
> a wider choice by students on just what authors to read.
> We were required to read Bronte's "Jane Eyre" in 12th grade. As I
> recall, most of the girls found it quite enjoyable, while we boys could
> barely keep our eyes open while forcing ourselves to read the book.
Actually, I quite agree with that sentiment, though I found
_Jane Eyre_ very good myself.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1587154838/thedanclorenecro/
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
Howard Brazee
<noSPaM_pile...@patmedia.net> wrote:
>> Don't forget :
>> 5. Industry resents government regulation.
>
>Except:
>
>6. When they can get government to pay for something
Which makes me wonder why industry isn't lobbying for socialized
medicine - to make them competitive with foreign companies which don't
have health insurance as a big cost of hiring people.
Dan Clore
> "Dan Clore" <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote in message
> news:43EF1C24...@columbia-center.org...
>
> Finnegans Wake, James Joyce.
> The Divine Comedy, Dante. Not a translation, obviously.
> The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer.
> Proust, obviously.
> De Sade - too hard to pick, better make it the complete works.
_Philosophy in the Bedroom_, to be read outloud in class
with students assigned parts.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1587154838/thedanclorenecro/
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
htd
Why lobby when you can just relocate?
sean penguin
Jack Campin - bogus address wrote:
> > Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea, _The Illuminatus! Trilogy_
>
> Repulsively pretentious middlebrow kitsch, the "Da Vinci Code"
> of its time. If something emerging from the 1970s American
> college-student culture is really obligatory, anything by Vonnegut
> would be better. Hell, even "The Dice Man" was better. I can't
> think of many books that were a worse waste of reading time.
>
But it's FUNNY!
Al Smith
>>> such as J.K. Rowling to list their top-ten books that every
>>> schoolchild should read.
>>
>>
>> I can do without Rowling's input, but would still like to peruse the results.
>>
>> Since you are posting to comment on their effort, I assume you know where they published the results. So: Where are the lists?
>
>
> The results were in the RSL magazine, but there's an article about it on the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4665328.stm and the lists are on the Guardian website : http://books.guardian.co.uk/childrenslibrary/story/0,,1698794,00.html
>
> Google is your friend ... :-)
Here's three of the lists, at any rate. Google may be our friend,
but a real pal would cut and paste the information into the group.
Pretty crappy selections, in my opinion. I'm sure a lot of English
school children are going to sit down and read James Joyce's
"Ulysses" -- right after they finish Homer's "Odyssey." But maybe
they'll take a break in between and read Milton's "Paradise Lost"
as a pick-me-up.
Reading lists
JK Rowling
Author of the Harry Potter series
Wuthering Heights Emily BrontÄ—
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl
Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
David Copperfield Charles Dickens
Hamlet William Shakespeare
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
Animal Farm George Orwell
The Tale of Two Bad Mice Beatrix Potter
The Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
Catch-22 Joseph Heller
Philip Pullman
Author of the His Dark Materials trilogy
Finn Family Moomintroll Tove Jansson
Emil and the Detectives Erich Kästner
The Magic Pudding Norman Lindsay
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Where the Wild Things Are Maurice Sendak
The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens (or other good anonymous ballads)
First Book of Samuel, Chapter 17 (the story of David and Goliath)
Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare
A good collection of myths and legends
A good collection of fairytales
Andrew Motion
Poet laureate
The Odyssey Homer
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
Hamlet William Shakespeare
Paradise Lost John Milton
Lyrical Ballads Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
Jane Eyre Charlotte BrontÄ—
Al Smith
>> person's tatse. Looking back on grade school and high school, I think
>> English classes would have been a lot more enjoyable if there had been
>> a wider choice by students on just what authors to read.
>> We were required to read Bronte's "Jane Eyre" in 12th grade. As I
>> recall, most of the girls found it quite enjoyable, while we boys could
>> barely keep our eyes open while forcing ourselves to read the book.
>
>
> Actually, I quite agree with that sentiment, though I found _Jane Eyre_ very good myself.
I read both "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" when I was around
8 years old. I enjoyed "Jane Eyre" greatly, but did not like
"Wuthering Heights" very much -- the characters were too
unsympathetic. There isn't a single likable character in
"Wuthering Heights." They're all bastards.
unglued
Francis A. Miniter wrote:
> Matt Ruff wrote:
>
> > westprog wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> The Divine Comedy, Dante.
> >
> >
> > European children will need to read this one soon, before it's banned by
> > the EU for its offensive depiction of the prophet Mohammad.
> >
>
>
> Europeans seem to be standing strong on free speech, unlike Bush who waffled in
> the press conference following his meeting Thursday, February 8, 2006, with King
> Abdullah of Jordan: "We believe in a free press, but also recognize that with
> freedom comes responsibilities."
"Europeans" are a mixed bag, I should think there is some frenzied
footwork going on behind the curtains. Here in Sweden the state just
forced an ISP to pull the plug on a right wing web site which published
the, now infamous, Mohammad charicatures.
Seemingly at the behest of the secret police no less.
>
>
> Francis A. Miniter
Gerry Quinn
says...
> Matt Ruff wrote:
>
> > European children will need to read this one soon, before it's banned by
> > the EU for its offensive depiction of the prophet Mohammad.
>
> the press conference following his meeting Thursday, February 8, 2006, with King
> Abdullah of Jordan: "We believe in a free press, but also recognize that with
> freedom comes responsibilities."
That seems a rather reasonable observation.
Our (Irish) president told the Saudis this weekend that the Irish
people abhored the publication of the cartoons. (By and large, Irish
people have mixed feelings which certainly do not extend to a
collective abhorrence.)
I'd give her a pass on this one, though. It was the diplomatic thing
to say.
- Gerry Quinn
sean penguin
William December Starr wrote:
> As far as I've been able to tell, there is no reason to ever read
> anything by Philip K. Dick. Especially _A Scanner Darkly_.
> and I won't dignify the
> Illuminatus with a comment.
>
You're really missing out on the Philip K Dick. Many, many reasons to
read his work.
I never realised the Illuminatus books were so reviled. What did they
do, burn down an orphanage or something?
BS
> do, burn down an orphanage or something?
Nothing a few hours in the Mad Dog lock-up couldn't cure...
BS
SF, CA
westprog
"Al Smith" <inv...@address.com> wrote in message
news:l2XHf.29208$VV4.2...@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
> >>> The UK's Royal Society of Literature recently asked authors
> >>> such as J.K. Rowling to list their top-ten books that every
> >>> schoolchild should read.
> >>
> >>
> >> I can do without Rowling's input, but would still like to peruse the
results.
> >>
> >> Since you are posting to comment on their effort, I assume you know
where they published the results. So: Where are the lists?
> >
> >
> > The results were in the RSL magazine, but there's an article about it on
the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4665328.stm and the
lists are on the Guardian website :
http://books.guardian.co.uk/childrenslibrary/story/0,,1698794,00.html
> >
> > Google is your friend ... :-)
>
>
> Here's three of the lists, at any rate. Google may be our friend,
> but a real pal would cut and paste the information into the group.
> Pretty crappy selections, in my opinion. I'm sure a lot of English
> school children are going to sit down and read James Joyce's
> "Ulysses" -- right after they finish Homer's "Odyssey." But maybe
> they'll take a break in between and read Milton's "Paradise Lost"
> as a pick-me-up.
And it's supposed to be a list that _all_ children should read? I'm not
ready for Ulysses yet, or Paradise Lost.
> Reading lists
>
> JK Rowling
> Author of the Harry Potter series
>
> Wuthering Heights Emily BrontÄ—
> Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl
> Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
> David Copperfield Charles Dickens
> Hamlet William Shakespeare
> To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
> Animal Farm George Orwell
> The Tale of Two Bad Mice Beatrix Potter
> The Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
> Catch-22 Joseph Heller
Not too far removed from the capabilities of a well educated child, but it
smacks a little of the exam course.
> Philip Pullman
> Author of the His Dark Materials trilogy
>
> Finn Family Moomintroll Tove Jansson
> Emil and the Detectives Erich Kästner
> The Magic Pudding Norman Lindsay
> The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Samuel Taylor Coleridge
> Where the Wild Things Are Maurice Sendak
> The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens (or other good anonymous ballads)
> First Book of Samuel, Chapter 17 (the story of David and Goliath)
> Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare
> A good collection of myths and legends
> A good collection of fairytales
This is actually a good list. The Ancient Mariner is a bit demanding, but
it's a good, scary story. Romeo and Juliet is well within the grasp on an
intelligent teenager - and it certainly speaks to them more than most
Shakespeare. The choice of Moomins, Emil and Pudding are inspired.
> Andrew Motion
> Poet laureate
>
> The Odyssey Homer
> Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
> Hamlet William Shakespeare
> Paradise Lost John Milton
> Lyrical Ballads Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
> Jane Eyre Charlotte BrontÄ—
> Great Expectations Charles Dickens
> Portrait of a Lady Henry James
> Ulysses James Joyce
> The Waste Land TS Eliot
This list is clearly nonsense, and I would imagine intended to be so. Either
it's a joke or Motion has no idea what children in real life want to read,
or could read in practice. Only Hamlet, Great Expectations and Jane Eyre are
remote possibilities.
Smart children are reading anyway, and don't need lists.
J/
Al Smith
>>> Poet laureate
>>>
>>> The Odyssey Homer
>>> Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
>>> Hamlet William Shakespeare
>>> Paradise Lost John Milton
>>> Lyrical Ballads Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
>>> Jane Eyre Charlotte BrontÄ—
>>> Great Expectations Charles Dickens
>>> Portrait of a Lady Henry James
>>> Ulysses James Joyce
>>> The Waste Land TS Eliot
>
>
> This list is clearly nonsense, and I would imagine intended to be so. Either
> it's a joke or Motion has no idea what children in real life want to read,
> or could read in practice. Only Hamlet, Great Expectations and Jane Eyre are
> remote possibilities.
Hee. Yeah, the old poet laureate should have thrown in some
nonfiction to mix things up. Maybe "Das Capital" by Marx and
Newton's "Principia."
I mean, honestly, how many people have read Joyce's "Ulysses" all
the way through? Probably fewer than have read "Remembrance of
Things Past" by Proust. I can just imagine how well the average
modern sixth-grader would relate to Henry James's "Portrait of a
Lady."
westprog
> >>Andrew Motion
> >>> Poet laureate
Nothing wrong with stretching people a little, but giving them stuff on a
list that they undoubtedly will never even open is a pointless exercise. Not
one child in a thousand would cope with a reading list like that. It's just
Motion listing his ten Most Important Books.
J/
Sean O'Hara
Starr declared:
There's not a single word in there that's not used in modern
English. The spelling's obviously from a pre-dictionary era and
uncorrected, but I've seen worse on Usenet.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
Doctor: You can't be a successful criminal with a *dishonest* face.
-Doctor Who
Bruce Scott TOK
>>>
>>>1. The industry has responsibilities.
>>>2. We will try self-regulation.
>>>3. Self-regulation is not working.
>>>4 . Congress needs to intervene.
>>>
>>>All start with a declaration that the industry has responsibilities.
>>>
>>
>> Don't forget :
>> 5. Industry resents government regulation.
>
>Except:
>
>6. When they can get government to pay for something
But:
7. Then they write the approrpate laws with their own lawyers
--
ciao,
Bruce
drift wave turbulence: http://www.rzg.mpg.de/~bds/
Sean O'Hara
address declared:
> Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>
>> Edmund Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_ (in the Longman's annotated
>> edition)
>
> There is a book (co-authored by Brigid Brophy, I think) called
> "Works of English Literature We Could Do Without" in which this
> one gets rather convincingly rubbished. I don't think that even
> in its own time the point of the thing was for people to *read*
> it - the idea was that English literature now had a bloody great
> literary monument making a political point that a lot of the
> English ruling class wanted to see established, it was enough for
> it to exist.
>
You could make the same argument about The Aeneid and Roman
literature. And it'd be equally rubbish.
Admittedly The Faerie Queene can be quite ponderous if you're
reading it for a class and have to figure out the allegorical
meaning of Britomart and Redcrosse, but the tale itself is quite fun.
>> Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea, _The Illuminatus! Trilogy_
>
> Repulsively pretentious middlebrow kitsch, the "Da Vinci Code" of
> its time.
Only in the vaguest terms of plot. The Da Vinci Code is nothing but
a pot-boiler with a conspiracy cribbed from Holy Blood, Holy Grail,
whereas The Illuminatus! is a bunch of crazy, fun ideas crammed into
a kitchen sink.
> If something emerging from the 1970s American
> college-student culture is really obligatory, anything by
> Vonnegut would be better.
Only if you live in a bizarro universe where Vonnegut wrote
something other than crap.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
I hate breaking up into discussion groups, feel-good movies about
the mentally disabled, and the entire oeuvre of Barbra Streisand.
-Jonah Goldberg
Howard Brazee
>> Which makes me wonder why industry isn't lobbying for socialized
>> medicine - to make them competitive with foreign companies which don't
>> have health insurance as a big cost of hiring people.
>
>Why lobby when you can just relocate?
They spend fortunes on lobbying now. They will do whatever they
think gives them the biggest return on the investment.
It would be hard for United Airlines (which recently accused health
care costs for being a large reason for its bankruptcy) to relocate.
Randy Money
>
> I read both "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" when I was around 8
> years old. I enjoyed "Jane Eyre" greatly, but did not like "Wuthering
> Heights" very much -- the characters were too unsympathetic. There isn't
> a single likable character in "Wuthering Heights." They're all bastards.
I think that's what I liked. Of course, I didn't read it until my early
30s, so that probably made a considerable difference in outlook.
Randy M.
Jack Campin - bogus address
But not very. "At Swim-Two-Birds", "The Good Soldier Svejk",
Rabelais and almost anything by Mark Twain are all funnier.
Victoria L.
Absolutely. Very readable. And remember, Spenser was purposely
writing to sound archaic. Even so, it's clearly more easily read than
Chaucer (though Chaucer's really not too difficult himself once you get
a bit of the hang of it).
The list of 10 books every child should read is sort of silly.
Obviously, I think, by the time you graduate high school (or the
equivalent), one should have read at least a little Chaucer, a little
Shakespeare, and ideally a little Milton. Then at least one or two
Romantic poets, several British Victorian novels, a Twain and a
Hawthorne probably, and at least a couple modern novels. And dip into
some contemporary genre fiction as well. From there, go with your
interests. But every teacher and every student is going to have
different tastes.
Victoria
Gene Ward Smith
Victoria L. wrote:
> Absolutely. Very readable. And remember, Spenser was purposely
> writing to sound archaic.
Which is why it's called modern English. You can call it early modern
English if you want to
bitch about the differences.
Al Smith
>
>
> I think that's what I liked. Of course, I didn't read it until my early 30s, so that probably made a considerable difference in outlook.
>
> Randy M.
I know what you mean. "Wuthering Heights" requires a more mature
outlook on life than "Jane Eyre."
Joan in GB-W
I'm quite impressed that you read "Jane Eyre" at 8 years of age. I can't
remember when I read it the first time, but I know it wasn't at that age.
Now my granddaughter, age 7, is in first grade and she is sent to third
grade for her reading lesson. That sounds good to me. I know she is in no
way ready for "Jane Eyre." And I doubt that she will be for a handful of
years.
Joan
John W. Kennedy
(Nit: Spenser was writing in Modern English, despite his deliberate
archaizing.)
"Hardiment", "darksome", "glistering", "glooming", "overspread",
"upwound", and "dugs" are scarcely used in present-day English, and
"stayed" and "mortal" are used here in senses that are now obsolete. I
also don't know what to make of "boughtes", although I suspect it to be
an alternative form of "bights", which survives today only in sailor's
jargon.
Nevertheless, I quite agree that it's almost entirely readable.
--
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
-- Charles Williams. "Judgement at Chelmsford"
Al Smith
I started reading early. "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" were
the first real "adult" novels I read. We had that set of the two
books with the nice woodcuts in them -- very spooky looking to a
kid. The scene near the beginning of "Jane Eyre" where Jane is
locked in the bedroom by herself, and imagines that she sees
ghosts, was particularly effective on my imagination. I spent a
lot of time looking up words in the dictionary. LOL. I still like
Charlotte Bronte's use of language more than any other writer,
with a few exceptions such as Shelley and Milton.
icarp...@aol.com
Matt
Oliver Hardy
> Sean O'Hara wrote:
>> In the Year of the Dog, the Great and Powerful William December Starr
>> declared:
>>> In article <459rtaF...@individual.net>, Sean O'Hara
>>> <sean...@gmail.com> said:
>>>
>>>> Come on, isn't this epic fantasy at its best:
>>>>
>>>> But full of fire and greedy hardiment,
>>>> The youthfull knight could not for ought be staide, But forth vnto
>>>> the darksome hole he went, And looked in: his glistring armor made
>>>> A litle glooming light, much like a shade, By which he saw the vgly
>>>> monster plaine, Halfe like a serpent horribly displaide, But
>>>> th'other halfe did womans shape retaine,
>>>> Most lothsom, filthie, foule, and full of vile disdaine.
>>>>
>>>> And as she lay vpon the durtie ground,
>>>> Her huge long taile her den all ouerspred, Yet was in knots and
>>>> many boughtes vpwound, Pointed with mortall sting. Of her there
>>>> bred A thousand yong ones, which she dayly fed, Sucking vpon her
>>>> poisonous dugs, each one Of sundry shapes, yet all ill fauored:
>>>> Soone as that vncouth light vpon them shone,
>>>> Into her mouth they crept, and suddain all were gone.
>>>
>>>
>>> Now that's just plain unreadable. Let me know when someone translates
>>> it into (1) English and (2) prose.
Chaucer must drive you crazy.
>>>
>>>
>> There's not a single word in there that's not used in modern English.
>
> (Nit: Spenser was writing in Modern English, despite his deliberate
> archaizing.)
>
> "Hardiment", "darksome", "glistering", "glooming", "overspread",
> "upwound", and "dugs" are scarcely used in present-day English, and
> "stayed" and "mortal" are used here in senses that are now obsolete. I
> also don't know what to make of "boughtes", although I suspect it to be an
> alternative form of "bights", which survives today only in sailor's
> jargon.
>
> Nevertheless, I quite agree that it's almost entirely readable.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This message was posted via one or more anonymous remailing services.
The original sender is unknown. Any address shown in the From header
is unverified.
Al Smith
>
> Matt
I used to reread it every couple of years. I've probably read it
half a dozen times.
r.r...@thevine.net
wrote:
>
>"Al Smith" <inv...@address.com> wrote in message
>news:l2XHf.29208$VV4.2...@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
>> Andrew Motion
>> Poet laureate
>>
>> The Odyssey Homer
>> Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
>> Hamlet William Shakespeare
>> Paradise Lost John Milton
>> Lyrical Ballads Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
>> Jane Eyre Charlotte BrontÄ—
>> Great Expectations Charles Dickens
>> Portrait of a Lady Henry James
>> Ulysses James Joyce
>> The Waste Land TS Eliot
>
>This list is clearly nonsense, and I would imagine intended to be so. Either
>it's a joke or Motion has no idea what children in real life want to read,
>or could read in practice. Only Hamlet, Great Expectations and Jane Eyre are
>remote possibilities.
>
Really? I've read the Odyssey (translated, of course), Don Quixote
(abridged, but not enough!), Hamlet, and The Waste Land. I've read
other books by Dickens, other books by Joyce, and keep telling myself
that I should read Jane Eyre at some point. So it's not terribly
unlikely that children could read these books, especially if we are
stretching the age out to 18.
Rebecca
David Goldfarb
<r.r...@thevine.net> wrote:
>I've read
>other books by Dickens, other books by Joyce, and keep telling myself
>that I should read Jane Eyre at some point.
I read _Jane Eyre_ as preparation for Fforde's _The Eyre Affair_, and
found myself really pleasantly surprised at how entertaining a book
it was in its own right. My current position on the two is that Fforde's
book can be read on its own -- but it has massive spoilers for Bronte's,
which should be read first so as not to be spoiled.
Which is to say: Yes, do go read _Jane Eyre_.
--
David Goldfarb |"Sunset over Houma. The rains have stopped.
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | Clouds like plugs of bloodied cotton wool dab
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | ineffectually at the slashed wrists of the sky."
| -- Alan Moore
Al Smith
>>>other books by Dickens, other books by Joyce, and keep telling myself
>>>that I should read Jane Eyre at some point.
>
>
> I read _Jane Eyre_ as preparation for Fforde's _The Eyre Affair_, and
> found myself really pleasantly surprised at how entertaining a book
> it was in its own right. My current position on the two is that Fforde's
> book can be read on its own -- but it has massive spoilers for Bronte's,
> which should be read first so as not to be spoiled.
>
> Which is to say: Yes, do go read _Jane Eyre_.
It's a lot more entertaining than "Don Quixote," that's for sure.
Aaron Vanek
screen, a cel phone text message, or the TV Guide TV station is a
victory in my mind.
-----------------
Aaron Vanek
Buy my movies at: http://www.lurkerfilms.com
Reviews of my last movie:
http://www.flipsidemovies.com/yellowsign.html
http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=reviews&Id=4472
"Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information
Purification Directives.
We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure
ideology. Where each worker
may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths.
Our Unification of
Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We
are one people, with
one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to
death and we will bury
them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!"
--spoken text of Apple Macintosh "1984" Super Bowl Commercial
Gene Ward Smith
Al Smith wrote:
> It's a lot more entertaining than "Don Quixote," that's for sure.
Wait till the movie version with all the CG special effects.
htn963
Dan Clore wrote:
> Alan Hope wrote:
> > Dan Clore goes:
>
> >>So I decided to make a list anyway.
> >
> > The purpose of these lists is to allow the respondent to show off the
> > books he claims to have read by age ten or whatever,
>
> As I pointed out, the upper age seemed to be the equivalent
> of American highschool graduation. So I figured 18 or so.
Uh huh, and you'd blithely let *any* child up to 18 read _The
Flowers of Evil_, which contains references to prostitutes, venereal
diseases, and necrophilia practically every other page? (Hey, not that
any poetry lover wouldn't enjoy a dip in Baudelaire to spice up the
generallly maudlin genre now and then, but I'd think twice before
letting any pre-teen read it.) I agree with A. Hope: your list is
deliberately self-puffing and provocative. Well done, troll.
BTW, I finished _Ulysses_ when I was 18, so neener neener.
--
Ht
Walker
English children are often exposed to Jane Eyre, Great Expectations and
Hamlet at comprehensive schools anyway (I was). I vaguely recall a
bowdlerized version of The Odyssey at primary school too.
I'm not sure children should be reading what they *want* to read at
school, but Motion's list does seem a bit intense. Consider the prose
of Joyce and James and the poetry of Milton for example. Even the
drawn-out sentences of Bronte and Dickens might be a struggle for
today's kids.
--
Walker Moore
http://arty.me.uk
westprog
<r.r...@thevine.net> wrote in message
news:hiq2v1ltpi9qo0njk...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 15:23:03 -0000, "westprog" <west...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Al Smith" <inv...@address.com> wrote in message
> >news:l2XHf.29208$VV4.2...@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
>
> >> Andrew Motion
> >> Poet laureate
> >>
> >> The Odyssey Homer
> >> Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
> >> Hamlet William Shakespeare
> >> Paradise Lost John Milton
> >> Lyrical Ballads Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
> >> Great Expectations Charles Dickens
> >> Portrait of a Lady Henry James
> >> Ulysses James Joyce
> >> The Waste Land TS Eliot
> >This list is clearly nonsense, and I would imagine intended to be so.
Either
> >it's a joke or Motion has no idea what children in real life want to
read,
> >or could read in practice. Only Hamlet, Great Expectations and Jane Eyre
are
> >remote possibilities.
> Really? I've read the Odyssey (translated, of course), Don Quixote
> (abridged, but not enough!), Hamlet, and The Waste Land. I've read
> other books by Dickens, other books by Joyce, and keep telling myself
> that I should read Jane Eyre at some point. So it's not terribly
> unlikely that children could read these books, especially if we are
> stretching the age out to 18.
It's quite possible that some quite rare children might read some of the
above by age 18. To read all of them would be very, very unusual. And this
is supposed to be a list that _all_ children should read. Children of all
educational standards.
Did you read a translation of the Odyssey, or a retelling? An abridged Don
Quixote is far from being Don Quixote. And I'm pds that the other Joyce you
read wasn't Finnegans Wake. A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man would be
quite a suitable choice, as would Dubliners. Ulysses is for very serious
readers. A Portrait Of A Lady would be a perfect book to persuade most young
people to avoid reading any novel ever again.
Why not choose a list that has books that are well written and entertaining?
How many jokes were in the above list? Why not P.G. Wodehouse, or Conan
Doyle?
J/
Walker
Ali Smith is my favourite contemporary author. ;)
> I started reading early. "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" were the
> first real "adult" novels I read. We had that set of the two books with
> the nice woodcuts in them -- very spooky looking to a kid. The scene
> near the beginning of "Jane Eyre" where Jane is locked in the bedroom by
> herself, and imagines that she sees ghosts, was particularly effective
> on my imagination. I spent a lot of time looking up words in the
> dictionary. LOL.
It is very vivid and captivating isn't it? Lots of horribly clichéd
devices within, like the light on the hill deux ex machina, but it's
certainly an enjoyable read.
> I still like Charlotte Bronte's use of language more
> than any other writer, with a few exceptions such as Shelley and Milton.
Wasn't she dyslexic...or just noted for her appalling grammar by a
teacher? ISTR reading something like that in a grammar guide. And yet
her prose is beautiful. Emily was the true genius of the family of
course. :)
M J Carley
>English children are often exposed to Jane Eyre, Great Expectations
>and Hamlet at comprehensive schools anyway (I was). I vaguely recall
>a bowdlerized version of The Odyssey at primary school too.
I had to read (in Ireland) the Merchant of Venice (by 14) and Hamlet
(by 16) plus Huckleberry Finn, Persuasion, Yeats, Clarke, MacNeice,
Eliot, Milton, Shakespeare (sonnets), Frank O'Connor, ...
I voluntarily read Solzhenitsyn at primary school because One Day in
the Life of Ivan Denisovitch was on the shelf at home and I'd read
anything that was available.
--
Differenza fra il rivoluzionaro e il cialtrone. Il rivoluzionario
rompe l'orologio e invece di presentarsi alle nove si presenta alle
nove meno cinque. Il cialtrone rompe l'orologio e si alza alle undici.
Home page: http://people.bath.ac.uk/ensmjc/
Sean O'Hara
> Dan Clore wrote:
>
>>As I pointed out, the upper age seemed to be the equivalent
>>of American highschool graduation. So I figured 18 or so.
>
>
> Uh huh, and you'd blithely let *any* child up to 18 read _The
> Flowers of Evil_, which contains references to prostitutes, venereal
> diseases, and necrophilia practically every other page?
Do you equally object to Poe and Eliot, who actually are taught in
high school classes? And do you suppose lessons on Wilde leave out
biographical details?
> (Hey, not that
> any poetry lover wouldn't enjoy a dip in Baudelaire to spice up the
> generallly maudlin genre now and then, but I'd think twice before
> letting any pre-teen read it.)
Since when are 18 year olds preteens?
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
Twice is tragedy. Thrice is comedy.
westprog
"M J Carley" <ens...@bath.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:IuoDKo.56...@bath.ac.uk...
> In the referenced article, Walker <walker...@gmail.com> writes:
> >English children are often exposed to Jane Eyre, Great Expectations
> >and Hamlet at comprehensive schools anyway (I was). I vaguely recall
> >a bowdlerized version of The Odyssey at primary school too.
> I had to read (in Ireland) the Merchant of Venice (by 14) and Hamlet
> (by 16) plus Huckleberry Finn, Persuasion, Yeats, Clarke, MacNeice,
> Eliot, Milton, Shakespeare (sonnets), Frank O'Connor, ...
> I voluntarily read Solzhenitsyn at primary school because One Day in
> the Life of Ivan Denisovitch was on the shelf at home and I'd read
> anything that was available.
Bear in mind that this is a newsgroup with the avowed purpose of discussing
written works of literature. It would be surprising if the typical person
here wasn't above average in reading history. A list designed for everyone
should at least take cognisance of the person who will never read a single
book throughout their adult life.
J/
Walker
> In the referenced article, Walker <walker...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>>English children are often exposed to Jane Eyre, Great Expectations
>>and Hamlet at comprehensive schools anyway (I was). I vaguely recall
>>a bowdlerized version of The Odyssey at primary school too.
>
> I had to read (in Ireland) the Merchant of Venice (by 14) and Hamlet
> (by 16) plus Huckleberry Finn, Persuasion, Yeats, Clarke, MacNeice,
> Eliot, Milton, Shakespeare (sonnets), Frank O'Connor, ...
I sometimes feel like murdering my family for leaving that country
before I was born. Now is one of those times.
One thing I'll never forgive my high school governors for (and it was a
good school by local standards) is their complete ignorance of poetry.
I'm amazed it was even possible to get a GCSE in English Literature (in
1988) without it.
Gerry Quinn
inv...@address.com says...
I found them both excellent. The Don Quixote I read was a recent
translation by Edith Grossman (I think) - I suspect the quality of the
translation may have much to do with it.
- Gerry Quinn
westprog
"Walker" <walker...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:xpGdnc3TE_t...@pipex.net...
> >>English children are often exposed to Jane Eyre, Great Expectations
> >>and Hamlet at comprehensive schools anyway (I was). I vaguely recall
> >>a bowdlerized version of The Odyssey at primary school too.
> > I had to read (in Ireland) the Merchant of Venice (by 14) and Hamlet
> > (by 16) plus Huckleberry Finn, Persuasion, Yeats, Clarke, MacNeice,
> > Eliot, Milton, Shakespeare (sonnets), Frank O'Connor, ...
> I sometimes feel like murdering my family for leaving that country
> before I was born. Now is one of those times.
You would have had to learn Irish though.
> One thing I'll never forgive my high school governors for (and it was a
> good school by local standards) is their complete ignorance of poetry.
> I'm amazed it was even possible to get a GCSE in English Literature (in
> 1988) without it.
Bear in mind that the two systems are somewhat different. The Irish
equivalent of A-levels is the Leaving Certificate. It's normal to do a lot
more subjects. Thus nearly all students would study English Literature in
Sixth Form, but since they'd all be doing quite a few more subjects, they
won't be doing it to the same depth. I'm trying to remember whether A-level
English needed poetry.
J/
Dan Clore
> Dan Clore wrote:
>>Alan Hope wrote:
>>>Dan Clore goes:
>>>>So I decided to make a list anyway.
>>>
>>>The purpose of these lists is to allow the respondent to show off the
>>>books he claims to have read by age ten or whatever,
>>
>>As I pointed out, the upper age seemed to be the equivalent
>>of American highschool graduation. So I figured 18 or so.
>
> Uh huh, and you'd blithely let *any* child up to 18 read _The
> Flowers of Evil_, which contains references to prostitutes, venereal
> diseases, and necrophilia practically every other page? (Hey, not that
> any poetry lover wouldn't enjoy a dip in Baudelaire to spice up the
> generallly maudlin genre now and then, but I'd think twice before
> letting any pre-teen read it.)
Any self-respecting teen-ager listens to music with lyrics
on those same themes all the time. Might as well have them
read something with real aesthetic value that concerns their
favorite topics. And it gives good background in culture.
> I agree with A. Hope: your list is
> deliberately self-puffing and provocative. Well done, troll.
>
> BTW, I finished _Ulysses_ when I was 18, so neener neener.
I was seventeen and had gone on to _Finnegans Wake_.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1587154838/thedanclorenecro/
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
sean penguin
works of fiction by a certain age. To obtain one, please send vast
amounts of money to me via paypal.
Dan Clore
Several of the items you list still appear in current
usage--"dugs", certainly, while "darksome", "stayed", and
"mortal" all appear in current fantasy diction. And surely
most of the words' meanings can be inferred easily enough
from their roots--"hardiment", "darksome", "glooming",
"overspread", "upwound". And "glistering" doesn't strike me
as a hard word to guess the meaning of. ("boughtes" is an
archaic word for the coils of a serpent.)
In any case, I specified the Longman's annotated edition,
where the copious notes should take care of any trouble with
the vocabulary.
M J Carley
>
>"M J Carley" <ens...@bath.ac.uk> wrote in message
>news:IuoDKo.56...@bath.ac.uk...
>> I had to read (in Ireland) the Merchant of Venice (by 14) and Hamlet
>> (by 16) plus Huckleberry Finn, Persuasion, Yeats, Clarke, MacNeice,
>> Eliot, Milton, Shakespeare (sonnets), Frank O'Connor, ...
>Bear in mind that this is a newsgroup with the avowed purpose of
>discussing written works of literature. It would be surprising if the
>typical person here wasn't above average in reading history. A list
>designed for everyone should at least take cognisance of the person
>who will never read a single book throughout their adult life.
Exactly: people who would not otherwise have read much were obliged to
read some serious literature. Some of them found they liked it.
M J Carley
>news:xpGdnc3TE_t...@pipex.net...
>> One thing I'll never forgive my high school governors for (and it was a
>> good school by local standards) is their complete ignorance of poetry.
>> I'm amazed it was even possible to get a GCSE in English Literature (in
>> 1988) without it.
>Bear in mind that the two systems are somewhat different. The Irish
>equivalent of A-levels is the Leaving Certificate. It's normal to do
>a lot more subjects.
But I studied Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice) and some serious
poetry and prose for the Intermediate Certificate (now replaced by
the Junior Cert) which is roughly the equivalent of GCSE.
>Thus nearly all students would study English Literature in Sixth
>Form, but since they'd all be doing quite a few more subjects, they
>won't be doing it to the same depth.
Actually, UCAS (the universities admission service) did a comparison
of the Leaving Certificate and A-Levels and found that they were
comparable.
Alan Hope
The Grossman translation is sprightly and gay, but let's face it, the
book is a sow's ear. You keep thinking, when is it going to get
started? I'm with Martin Amis: "While clearly an impregnable
masterpiece, Don Quixote suffers from one fairly serious flaw - that
of outright unreadability."
--
AH
Walker
>>before I was born. Now is one of those times.
>
> You would have had to learn Irish though.
Well that would have been my nationality had they not left. :)
> Bear in mind that the two systems are somewhat different. The Irish
> equivalent of A-levels is the Leaving Certificate. It's normal to do a lot
> more subjects. Thus nearly all students would study English Literature in
> Sixth Form, but since they'd all be doing quite a few more subjects, they
> won't be doing it to the same depth. I'm trying to remember whether A-level
> English needed poetry.
It did when I was at college, although I notice the GCSE and A-Level
syllabi seem to have swapped modules and set texts since then. Chaucer
and The War Poets form part of the set GCSE texts now, whereas I
definitely studied them at A-Level (sixteen years ago).
I guess Andrew Motion's emphasis on poetry isn't so imperative after all.
Randy Money
> <r.r...@thevine.net> wrote in message
> news:hiq2v1ltpi9qo0njk...@4ax.com...
>
>>On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 15:23:03 -0000, "westprog" <west...@hotmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Al Smith" <inv...@address.com> wrote in message
>>>news:l2XHf.29208$VV4.2...@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
>>
>>>>Andrew Motion
>>>>Poet laureate
>>>>
>>>>The Odyssey Homer
>>>>Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
>>>>Hamlet William Shakespeare
>>>>Paradise Lost John Milton
>>>>Lyrical Ballads Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
>>>>Great Expectations Charles Dickens
>>>>Portrait of a Lady Henry James
>>>>Ulysses James Joyce
>>>>The Waste Land TS Eliot
>>>
>
[...]
> It's quite possible that some quite rare children might read some of the
> above by age 18. To read all of them would be very, very unusual. And this
> is supposed to be a list that _all_ children should read. Children of all
> educational standards.
>
> Did you read a translation of the Odyssey, or a retelling? An abridged Don
> Quixote is far from being Don Quixote. And I'm pds that the other Joyce you
> read wasn't Finnegans Wake. A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man would be
> quite a suitable choice, as would Dubliners. Ulysses is for very serious
> readers.
And _Dubliners_ has the added bonus of ending with "The Dead," a ghost
story without a ghost, and arguably the finest novella written in the
English language.
> A Portrait Of A Lady would be a perfect book to persuade most young
> people to avoid reading any novel ever again.
I think, if one must introduce the young to Henry James, his short
novels and novellas are best: _The Bostonians_, "Turn of the Screw,"
"Washington Square." ("Daisy Miller" would also work as an entry into
discussing the clockworks of a story -- it's a bit flawed, I think, and
a good teacher could make those flaws interesting to discuss.)
> Why not choose a list that has books that are well written and entertaining?
> How many jokes were in the above list? Why not P.G. Wodehouse, or Conan
> Doyle?
>
> J/
What I've read by Wodehouse is awfully light; Doyle, too, at least the
Holmes and Challenger stories -- though _The Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes_, or stories therefrom, might open up interesting discussion on
the structure of the short story.
I'd suggest something like James Thurber's _My Life and Hard Times_ for
humor with some texture, and Dashiell Hammett's _The Maltese Falcon_ for
a mystery with some literary punch. (Though I'll admit Hammett may not
have been as good a writer as Doyle on a sentence-by-sentence level,
Falcon is structurally stronger than anything of the Holmes novels
except _The Hound of the Baskervilles_, but has an emotional impact at
the end that Doyle's novel can't match.) Both books have the advantage
of being short, which means no student who dislikes it would be tortured
for as long as s/he would by, say, _The Portrait of a Lady_.
Randy M.
Al Smith
>> (abridged, but not enough!), Hamlet, and The Waste Land. I've read
>> other books by Dickens, other books by Joyce, and keep telling myself
>> that I should read Jane Eyre at some point. So it's not terribly
>> unlikely that children could read these books, especially if we are
>> stretching the age out to 18.
>
>
> English children are often exposed to Jane Eyre, Great Expectations and Hamlet at comprehensive schools anyway (I was). I vaguely recall a bowdlerized version of The Odyssey at primary school too.
Homer's "Odyssy" is really not a difficult book. It's a fast-paced
story, and much shorter than the "Illiad." I found the "Odyssey"
entertaining, but the "Illiad" was slow going -- good in parts,
but it dragged.
Gerry Quinn
not.al...@mail.com says...
> >> > Which is to say: Yes, do go read _Jane Eyre_.
>
> >> It's a lot more entertaining than "Don Quixote," that's for sure.
>
> >I found them both excellent. The Don Quixote I read was a recent
> >translation by Edith Grossman (I think) - I suspect the quality of the
> >translation may have much to do with it.
>
> The Grossman translation is sprightly and gay, but let's face it, the
> book is a sow's ear. You keep thinking, when is it going to get
> started? I'm with Martin Amis: "While clearly an impregnable
> masterpiece, Don Quixote suffers from one fairly serious flaw - that
> of outright unreadability."
Well, I disagree - I really enjoyed it. Sure, it takes its time, but
it's full of diverting episodes. As for Amis, HE was better when his
books were short and compact - the rot started with _Money_!
- Gerry Quinn
Al Smith
I almost wrote a Master's Thesis on the juvenalia of the Bronte
Sisters. I've read all their work. I've read biographies of their
lives. So I guess I'm a Bronte fan boy.
Emily is the genius, for certain. "Wuthering Heights" is superior,
as a work of art, to any other Bronte novel. Not as readable, or
as entertaining, but superior. I prefer Charlotte's prose to
Emily's. Anne tends to get slighted, but her novels are quite
good, in my opinion. They are not so good as those of her big
sister, Charlotte, who tends to overshadow her, but they are
better than the average successful woman's novel of the period.
All the sisters believed that their erring brother, Branwell, was
a greater artist than any of them, but poor Branwell -- he had no
staying power. He tried to sell a few articles to "Blackwell's"
and got rejected, and he just gave up. Then he was going to be a
painter -- his portrait of his sisters hangs in the Royal Gallery
(I believe it is) in London. I saw it years ago while visiting
London. It's quite badly damaged, as though it was treated as a
thing of no value for a long time. His painting never came to
anything, either. Whether Branwell might have amounted to anything
had he lived longer, who knows? I doubt it. He had talent, but
talent isn't enough for a writer. You also need a thick skin and
an absolute determination to keep writing in the face of all setbacks.
Al Smith
>>>translation by Edith Grossman (I think) - I suspect the quality of the
>>>translation may have much to do with it.
>
>
> The Grossman translation is sprightly and gay, but let's face it, the
> book is a sow's ear. You keep thinking, when is it going to get
> started? I'm with Martin Amis: "While clearly an impregnable
> masterpiece, Don Quixote suffers from one fairly serious flaw - that
> of outright unreadability."
Ha, good one for Amis. His comment might be applied to a number of
masterpieces of literature.
r.r...@thevine.net
Groups trimmed.
Well, when I was in high school I had to read _Steppenwolf_ (which
includes some sort of sexual relationship, for some reason I'm
thinking homosexual, but it turns out it's all happening in the
protag's head, so I guess that's ok), "The Wild Swans" (about a woman
being sexually molested on a train), and _The Sound and the Fury_,
which describes someone's self-castration. I also had to read _All
Quiet on the Western Front_ (excellent book, and should be on the
list), which describes the horrors of war, especially trench war, in
some detail. I can still remember the bit about crawling into the
coffins that had been unearthed by artillery for protection. I'm not
sure why reading about violence and death is considered better than
reading about prostitutes and venereal disease.
Rebecca
r.r...@thevine.net
wrote:
Why? Reading is a good thing, and more people should do it. To say,
in essence, that they are too dumb to enjoy these sorts of things, so
here's the "easy" stuff for them, is to do them a grave disservice.
People who are told that they can achieve do, people who are told that
things are beyond their ability don't bother to try, and thus don't
wind up stretching and growing.
Rebecca
Alan Hope
>Medals are now available for those that need them for reading certain
>works of fiction by a certain age. To obtain one, please send vast
>amounts of money to me via paypal.
I'm afraid I'm one of those who fails to see what's so great about an
eight-year-old reading Jane Eyre. While I've no doubt many children
could, I can't think of one eight-year-old who should. Aren't there
enough books around that were intended for eight-year-olds? All right,
it's good to stretch a child, but then give her something intended for
nine- or ten-year-olds. Not bloody Jane Eyre.
Children don't benefit from that sort of hothouse-flower treatment,
whatever pushy parents think. You ought to let them find their own
way.
Here's my list of required reading for children up to 18:
By the age of ten: ten books, of your own choice, from the appropriate
age section of the library.
By the age of eleven: eleven more books as above.
By the age of twelve: twelve more books as above.
And so on to age 18. Books may be poetry or prose, fiction or
non-fiction. Excludes encyclopedias, set textbooks. Each book counts
once and once only. Read your fill of comic books by all means, but
they don't count towards your quota.
No reading lists will be given out, but suggestions are available on
demand.
The end.
No need to dictate to them. If they need to be told to read, tell them
once, then tell them twice, and after that you're wasting your time:
they're never going to get to Paradise Lost, ever.
And if they don't need to be told to read, as someone pointed out,
then step back and let them get on with it.
--
AH
Gene Ward Smith
Gerry Quinn wrote:
> Well, I disagree - I really enjoyed it. Sure, it takes its time, but
> it's full of diverting episodes. As for Amis, HE was better when his
> books were short and compact - the rot started with _Money_!
Anyway, there are abrigments to be had if you want them. DQ, like Moby
Dick, can be boiled down to a lot fewer words.
Gene Ward Smith
Sean O'Hara wrote:
> Do you equally object to Poe and Eliot, who actually are taught in
> high school classes? And do you suppose lessons on Wilde leave out
> biographical details?
When I was in high school, Walt Whitman was heterosexual. This
surprised me, since I'd read Leaves of Grass. I learned years later
that all those illegitimate children were simply a fabrication of
Whitman's. The only historical character whom it was suggested in any
of my classes might have been homosexual, and this includes Oscar
Wilde, was Hitler, who wasn't. Such were the Sixties.
westprog
> In the referenced article, "westprog" <west...@hotmail.com> writes:
> >
> >"Walker" <walker...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> >news:xpGdnc3TE_t...@pipex.net...
>
> >> One thing I'll never forgive my high school governors for (and it was a
> >> good school by local standards) is their complete ignorance of poetry.
> >> I'm amazed it was even possible to get a GCSE in English Literature (in
> >> 1988) without it.
>
> >Bear in mind that the two systems are somewhat different. The Irish
> >equivalent of A-levels is the Leaving Certificate. It's normal to do
> >a lot more subjects.
> But I studied Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice) and some serious
> poetry and prose for the Intermediate Certificate (now replaced by
> the Junior Cert) which is roughly the equivalent of GCSE.
It is, AFAIK. The systems don't operate significantly differently until
sixth form. N.B. I did Henry V for O-level - but Pride And Prejudice was
dropped in favour of Gulliver's Travels. (Class of boys...)
> >Thus nearly all students would study English Literature in Sixth
> >Form, but since they'd all be doing quite a few more subjects, they
> >won't be doing it to the same depth.
>
> Actually, UCAS (the universities admission service) did a comparison
> of the Leaving Certificate and A-Levels and found that they were
> comparable.
It's some time since my A-levels, but I doubt that's true across the board.
For a start, the Irish do more subjects - six or seven, typically. The
overall educational standard might be comparable, but if English students
are only doing three or four subjects, then they are either doing more on
each subject, or not working as hard overall.
J/
westprog
...
> >>I sometimes feel like murdering my family for leaving that country
> >>before I was born. Now is one of those times.
> > You would have had to learn Irish though.
> Well that would have been my nationality had they not left. :)
Play football well enough and you still will be.
> > Bear in mind that the two systems are somewhat different. The Irish
> > equivalent of A-levels is the Leaving Certificate. It's normal to do a
lot
> > more subjects. Thus nearly all students would study English Literature
in
> > Sixth Form, but since they'd all be doing quite a few more subjects,
they
> > won't be doing it to the same depth. I'm trying to remember whether
A-level
> > English needed poetry.
> It did when I was at college, although I notice the GCSE and A-Level
> syllabi seem to have swapped modules and set texts since then. Chaucer
> and The War Poets form part of the set GCSE texts now, whereas I
> definitely studied them at A-Level (sixteen years ago).
I did The Nun's Priest's Tale for O-level.
> I guess Andrew Motion's emphasis on poetry isn't so imperative after all.
The Romantics, Peter Ackroyd's recent series, focussed on the
Wordsworth/Coleridge collaboration. I wouldn't quarrel with it necessarily,
but a broader anthology might be better.
J/
westprog
"Randy Money" <rbm...@spamblock.syr.edu> wrote in message
news:43F1F948...@spamblock.syr.edu...
> westprog wrote:
> > <r.r...@thevine.net> wrote in message
> > news:hiq2v1ltpi9qo0njk...@4ax.com...
> >
> >>On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 15:23:03 -0000, "westprog" <west...@hotmail.com>
> >>wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>"Al Smith" <inv...@address.com> wrote in message
> >>>news:l2XHf.29208$VV4.2...@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
> >>
> >>>>Andrew Motion
> >>>>Poet laureate
> >>>>
> >>>>The Odyssey Homer
> >>>>Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
> >>>>Hamlet William Shakespeare
> >>>>Paradise Lost John Milton
> >>>>Lyrical Ballads Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
> >>>>Great Expectations Charles Dickens
> >>>>Portrait of a Lady Henry James
> >>>>Ulysses James Joyce
> >>>>The Waste Land TS Eliot
> >>>
> >
>
> [...]
>
> > It's quite possible that some quite rare children might read some of the
> > above by age 18. To read all of them would be very, very unusual. And
this
> > is supposed to be a list that _all_ children should read. Children of
all
> > educational standards.
> > Did you read a translation of the Odyssey, or a retelling? An abridged
Don
> > Quixote is far from being Don Quixote. And I'm pds that the other Joyce
you
> > read wasn't Finnegans Wake. A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man
would be
> > quite a suitable choice, as would Dubliners. Ulysses is for very serious
> > readers.
> And _Dubliners_ has the added bonus of ending with "The Dead," a ghost
> story without a ghost, and arguably the finest novella written in the
> English language.
Short stories are a good idea for readers with short attention spans.
> > A Portrait Of A Lady would be a perfect book to persuade most young
> > people to avoid reading any novel ever again.
> I think, if one must introduce the young to Henry James, his short
> novels and novellas are best: _The Bostonians_, "Turn of the Screw,"
> "Washington Square." ("Daisy Miller" would also work as an entry into
> discussing the clockworks of a story -- it's a bit flawed, I think, and
> a good teacher could make those flaws interesting to discuss.)
Trouble is, these stories have to work with the bad teachers as well.
> > Why not choose a list that has books that are well written and
entertaining?
> > How many jokes were in the above list? Why not P.G. Wodehouse, or Conan
> > Doyle?
> What I've read by Wodehouse is awfully light; Doyle, too, at least the
> Holmes and Challenger stories -- though _The Adventures of Sherlock
> Holmes_, or stories therefrom, might open up interesting discussion on
> the structure of the short story.
I'd regard the lightness and easiness of the prose as a major plus for a
universal text. And Wodehouse could write well, as well as amusingly.
> I'd suggest something like James Thurber's _My Life and Hard Times_ for
> humor with some texture, and Dashiell Hammett's _The Maltese Falcon_ for
> a mystery with some literary punch. (Though I'll admit Hammett may not
> have been as good a writer as Doyle on a sentence-by-sentence level,
> Falcon is structurally stronger than anything of the Holmes novels
> except _The Hound of the Baskervilles_, but has an emotional impact at
> the end that Doyle's novel can't match.)
The Holmes novels generally don't work. Baskerville has a gothic feel which
rescues the detective story.
>Both books have the advantage
> of being short, which means no student who dislikes it would be tortured
> for as long as s/he would by, say, _The Portrait of a Lady_.
In fact, the reluctant student would spend quite a bit longer than they
would on Henry.
J/
westprog
Stephen Leacock is good on Homer.
J/
westprog
<r.r...@thevine.net> wrote in message
news:d9v3v1d8doeb5j5s3...@4ax.com...
But people who are told to do something right outside their capacity get the
idea that it's something impossible. As it is, schools manage to deter
millions of children from regarding reading as something to be enjoyed.
J/
Alan Hope
>Emily is the genius, for certain. "Wuthering Heights" is superior,
>as a work of art, to any other Bronte novel. Not as readable, or
>as entertaining, but superior. I prefer Charlotte's prose to
>Emily's. Anne tends to get slighted, but her novels are quite
>good, in my opinion. They are not so good as those of her big
>sister, Charlotte, who tends to overshadow her, but they are
>better than the average successful woman's novel of the period.
Sorry, I think Tenant can stand up there with anything her sisters
did. It deals with big themes, the biggest of them being universal
redemption, and involves an intriguing set of characters, which is
more than can be said for Wuthering Heights. It also has quite an
innovative structure. At one point I figured out I was reading a
narrative within a narrative within the main narrative. I wonder why
it's so comparatively neglected.
Agnes Grey is a naive work, but Anne has the gift of getting in and
out as quickly as her story requires. She doesn't keep you hanging
about long after the point has been made, as CB does in Villette, for
example. Reading Villette was like calling one of those premium-price
telephone numbers where they do everything they can to keep you
hanging on so the bill mounts up.
Are there no other Anne Bronte supporters out there?
--
AH
M J Carley
>"M J Carley" <ens...@bath.ac.uk> wrote in message
>news:IuoI25.DJ...@bath.ac.uk...
>> Actually, UCAS (the universities admission service) did a comparison
>> of the Leaving Certificate and A-Levels and found that they were
>> comparable.
>It's some time since my A-levels, but I doubt that's true across the
>board.
They looked at English, Maths and Chemistry and found them comparable.
>For a start, the Irish do more subjects - six or seven, typically.
Seven.
>The overall educational standard might be comparable, but if English
>students are only doing three or four subjects, then they are either
>doing more on each subject, or not working as hard overall.
The UCAS study said that A-level English would have about 270 contact
hours while the Leaving Cert would have about 225 so they're not doing
twice as much work. The level of work was found to be about the same.
Walker
>>> Really? I've read the Odyssey (translated, of course), Don Quixote
>>> (abridged, but not enough!), Hamlet, and The Waste Land. I've read
>>> other books by Dickens, other books by Joyce, and keep telling myself
>>> that I should read Jane Eyre at some point. So it's not terribly
>>> unlikely that children could read these books, especially if we are
>>> stretching the age out to 18.
>> English children are often exposed to Jane Eyre, Great Expectations
>> and Hamlet at comprehensive schools anyway (I was). I vaguely recall
>> a bowdlerized version of The Odyssey at primary school too.
>
> Homer's "Odyssy" is really not a difficult book.
It really depends on the translation. Try George Chapman's gorgeous,
sinewy rendering at the age of eight and you'll have a coronary. Some
well-read adults even struggle with it.
Walker
> Sorry, I think Tenant can stand up there with anything her sisters
> did. It deals with big themes, the biggest of them being universal
> redemption, and involves an intriguing set of characters, which is
> more than can be said for Wuthering Heights. It also has quite an
> innovative structure. At one point I figured out I was reading a
> narrative within a narrative within the main narrative.
The Matryoshka structure, innovated by dear Emily with Wuthering Heights.
> Are there no other Anne Bronte supporters out there?
Tenant clearly needs to be on the RAB book club reading list. I could
do with an excuse to read it myself.
John Schilling
>
>Sean O'Hara wrote:
>
>> In the Year of the Dog, the Great and Powerful Francis A. Miniter declared:
>>
>>> Matt Ruff wrote:
>>>
>>>> European children will need to read this one soon, before it's banned
>>>> by the EU for its offensive depiction of the prophet Mohammad.
>>>>
>>> Europeans seem to be standing strong on free speech, unlike Bush who
>>> waffled in the press conference following his meeting Thursday,
>>> February 8, 2006, with King Abdullah of Jordan: "We believe in a free
>>> press, but also recognize that with freedom comes responsibilities."
>> Unless he starts talking about enforced responsibility, I don't see the
>> waffle. You're free to say whatever you want, but only complete idiots
>> actually do.
>How many times have we seen the US Government go down this path? Hollywood?
>Sports and drug testing? Stock Market?
>Steps:
> 1. The industry has responsibilities.
> 2. We will try self-regulation.
> 3. Self-regulation is not working.
> 4 . Congress needs to intervene.
>All start with a declaration that the industry has responsibilities.
Is this a prediction that the United States Government is going to be
passing laws prohibiting newspapers from publishing materials offensive
to Moslems or other religious groups?
If so, please confirm that explicitly and specify the timeframe in which
you expect such regulations to be imposed. That way, we can mark your
words and ridicule you when it doesn't in fact happen.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
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