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What are you reading?

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For pleasure...
Joyce - Ulysses (phwoar....)
Coleridge - Selected poems (James Reeves edition)
Arnold - Selected poetry & prose
Sartre - Existentialism & Humanism
Schreiber - An introduction to literary criticism

For college...
Chaucer - The General Prologue
Shakespeare - Measure For Measure

The Illiad is amazing. Haven't read The Oddysey though (I guess I should...considering all the allusions to it in Ulysses). However, I am currently reading the politics exam question in front of me.

Reply 41

EnglishDude

Has anybody read "The Cement Garden" by McEwan yet; it's extremely disturbing! Put me off reading any of his work.

Reply 42

Tyler Durden

EnglishDude

Has anybody read "The Cement Garden" by McEwan yet; it's extremely disturbing! Put me off reading any of his work.

No, it's my next one of his to read. I've read Atonement, Enduring Love, The Child in Time and Saturday (and his short stories) and I can honestly say they're all very, very good - especially the first two listed - so I wouldn't discount him based on The Cement Garden.

Reply 43

C is for Crumpet

englishstudent

I wouldnt speak to soon. It is VERY odd...lots of incest etc...but then again, some of his short stories are quite bizarre and if they didnt disturb you, perhaps the Cement Garden wont either!

Reply 44

etherised

Oddly enough, The Cement Garden was the first McEwan I read. I must have been 13, 14. I'm not really sure why my mum chose to suggest that one first. Then again (and it seems odd now), I guess a lot of his now more-famous books hadn't been published then. I remember liking it (in as much as you can like that sort of book) - but I don't think it made me want to read more.

There's another book with a really similar plot - the same thing with the cement/concrete, I think. But, ah, I can't remember which, now.

Reply 45

Profesh

Currently: Frank Herbert's seminal Dune.

Reply 46

Kittennffc

Seamus Deane - Reading In The Dark
Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights

Still can't finish Jane Eyre, grr being ill!

Reply 47

Elusive Moose

Mother Courage and Her Children- Brecht, for German coursework.

A million and one books on the Spanish Civil War (eveeeeeel History Personal Project... Write up in 10 days. Erlack!)

Hamlet for English

Reply 48

Tyler Durden

C is for Crumpet

I wouldnt speak to soon. It is VERY odd...lots of incest etc...but then again, some of his short stories are quite bizarre and if they didnt disturb you, perhaps the Cement Garden wont either!

I didn't actually pass comment on The Cement Garden (having not read it). Anyway, "disturbing" elements make up a fundamental aspect of the books I've read... not disturbing for their own sake mind you. I think he's a great author, his prose is eminently readable and the stories themselves are always entertaining and thought-provoking. I would recommend Atonement to anyone before they consider writing him off for good. Or if you want something more typical of his other work then go for Enduring Love.

Reply 49

silence

those reading homer might as well have a look at virgil (aeneid). i personally (o what tautology) prefer it, but each to their own.

Reply 50

etherised

Oh, the Aeneid totally kicks the Odyssey's ass. Although, I only ever really like the first six books.

Reply 51

RawJoh1

Currently I'm reading quite a lot.

For college: Anthony Fletcher - The Outbreak of the English Civil War
Pauline Gregg - Charles I
Robert Ashton - The English Civil War: Conservatism & Revolution
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good & Evil
John Stuart Mill - On Liberty

For Fun:
Ayn Rand - The Fountainhead
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
Ray Monk - Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius
Stephen Jay Gould - The Hedgehog, the Fox and the Magister's Pox: Minding and mending the misconceived gap between the Humanities and the Sciences

Reply 52

silence

yeh, it does turn a bit... well, different (such a poor choice of woring but i'll elaborate) after book 6. the underworld is so pivotal in quite a few ways: the order in which he seems people who have departed in the underworld is in reverse chronoligical order to which they died on earth. it's almost as if you could get a suitable closure, in terms of emotion, to the plot at the end of book 6. but yeh, it turns all miliatary, tribal and other stuff. the first six books are, though, the most... domestic perhaps. and that's always good fun.

Reply 53

bluerose

zigguratted

Oh, the Aeneid totally kicks the Odyssey's ass. Although, I only ever really like the first six books.

Definitely agree, I much prefer the aeneid, but our classics class (all five of us!) is split down the middle between the odyssey and the aeneid. All the war listings in the later books does become a tad tedious though :redface:

Reply 54

silence

right now, i'm (re)reading women beware women.

Reply 55

EnglishDude

Has anybody read any of Paulo Coelho's work; it's amazing. The Alchemist is one of his finest as it reflects upon the journey of life and whether it is dictated from above. Also, Veronika Decides to Die is a good novel, despite the bleak title as it is essentially an example of the carpe dieum mentality as someone is told they have little time to live, but there is a good twist....

Reply 56

joolux05

zigguratted

Oh, the Aeneid totally kicks the Odyssey's ass. Although, I only ever really like the first six books.

how romantic of you :biggrin:

the later books are I think really important to consider, as these are the books that would've interested the Roman reader more.... the beginnings of their city.
I've recently changed my mind on what I thought was Virgil's blatant pro-Augustan sentiments after listening to what happened in the years surrounding the publication of the Aeneid, i.e. **** happened.

re: comparison to modern literature; of course it can, I think some of the emotion is lost to be honest in the text, I find it hard to relate to Classical Greek sentiments and albeit stock-epithets are cute, they are annoying. I can't stand the Iliad. I could bitch about the big 3 (epics) all day, yet still love them a bit. I think its petty to divide epic away from modern literature (or any other period) because of how m/l stems from it.
in conclusion, go books. :smile:

- child in time, seriously powerful book.

Reply 57

C is for Crumpet

englishstudent

I agree Atonement is an excellent book, as is Enduring Love. I just get the feeling when I read some of his earlier work that he is aiming specifically to shock the reader. Atonement and Enduring Love, I feel, show how he has matured as a writer. They may even, if Saturday was anything to go by, show him at his peak. Personally, I found the book unbearably pompous and practically unreadable.

Reply 58

Tyler Durden

C is for Crumpet

Saturday isn't his best novel, I agree. That said, I think he felt (quite understandably given the topical feel of some of his earlier work) that he had to write something very genuinely contemporary and "relevant" to the current political climate. Do you not perhaps think you're judging the novel as pompous when in fact the middle-class, comfortable and - yes - "pompous" nature of Henry Perowne (and family) would be a fairer judgement?

A lot of McEwan's books seem to deal with a conflict of some sort or another; Jed's obsession in Enduring Love which wreaks havok for Clarissa and Joe's relationship, Cecilia and Robbie's separation thanks to Bryony (Atonement), the effect of the loss of a daughter on a man's mind and relationships (The Child in Time) etc. All these are serious issues which change the characters's lives permenantly on one level or another - certainly the immense sadness I felt at the end of Atonement, for example, was due to the horrendous effect of the sudden passage of time in the narrative and the the feeling that opportunity had been wasted and all Bryony had left to do was die peacefully.

So going back to my defence of Saturday... The 24 hour time-frame means that it's hard to get any sense of perspective and thus there isn't much sense that the Perowne's family life is at any real longterm risk from Baxter. Yet I don't think the book fails because of this, although it makes it quite different to his other novels. The subtle underlying dealings with questions of war and terrorism are clever and thought-provoking and act as a literary foil to the pace of having all the action in one day. Perowne, although smugly middle-class and well off, is a well written character. There are some nice "set pieces" too - notably the poetry-can-save-your-life scene at the end and the meeting with the Prime Minister. Both are a bit improbable, but frankly the former is tense and the latter very amusing and this comes from good writing. It's not his best, but it's still better than most fiction today and, although it's contemporary, I think it will stand the test of time thanks to its more universal elements (father and son relationships, city life, war, etc).