- Joined
- Monday February 15, 2016
- Location
- Oviedo, Spain
Not sure if it's still required reading. Back in the late 80's my son had to read it in his Honors English class and I think he thought it was okay at the time. Neither her nor there, Nick likes just likes books and when on to get a PHD in Greek Literature.I'm glad to be one among many philistines then William. Is Moby Dick still commonly required reading in the US? I think it has pretty much disappeared from UK syllabuses. Although I couldn't say for sure.
In 2011 Nathaniel Philbrick, a Pulitzer Prize finalist in history, wrote a book titled Why Read Moby-Dick and refers to Moby Dick as an American bible. Don't know anybody who finished that book either.
Agreed. Style over substance in many instances. Thought Catch 22 was clever as hell but never could bring myself to finish it. Was once at a World Federalist dinner where the guest speaker, Heller, read a passage from Catch 22, immediately after the meal, that describes in graphic detail the part when one of the heroes was shoot in the stomach and his flight jacket was opened, revealing his exposed guts. Several women leaped out of their seats and raced to the toilet rooms, hurling their roasted chicken as they fled. I thought it was funny but my friends scolded me for missing Heller's anti-war message.Ha ha - for 'American Bible' - we could also read it as the "great American Novel?' A category of literature I've always had a problem with. Nothing to do with the authors' nationality - I would point out - more the style. There are great American novels - just great novels really? Kerouac changed my life - literally - with 'On the Road,' - 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,' by Tom Wolfe also. John Irving worked for me too. I've read 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,' more times than any other book. None of these books - for example - to my mind - are bloated. They crackle with radical, vibrant ideas - concisely delivered. I can't stomach Hemingway or Norman Mailer by the same token. Joseph Heller - 'Catch 22,' was a work of genius but it kind of tails off after that for me. Gore Vidal - a bit too clever for everybody elses good? I'm probably going to get my head in my hands for expressing these opinions - but there are only the three of us reading this? You wonder - with the 'Great American novel,' whether the authors felt the pull to fill up the massive continent they were the inheritors of - the blank spaces - not blank to the locals granted - with words? Inventing a continental sized culture anew - from their European inheritance - which they weren't that keen to acknowledge? Just my thoughts. Each to their own.
Ancient or modern Greek? Each - equally impressive - I'm just interested.
Yours - I.
@Barry Giddens
Don't know if you have ever read A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole? It was published by Walker Percy 11 years after Toole's suicide and became somewhat of a cult classic. This is a funny book that got the dead author a Pulitzer.
Nick's undergraduate degree was in Linguistics and wrote his final paper on something about the history of Indo-European languages. For some reason he decided to change fields and went on to studied Classics, writing his dissertation on wit combat in Greek Literature: a sure ticket to a fabulous fast-track career at Goldman Sachs. He now teaches Classics and German at a small Mid-Western college.
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