Do You Love Literature?

Hmmm - I love that one - 'tis more spare than his usual style - as is "Hard Times".

But the ones I really love are "Dombey and Son", "Bleak House", "David Copperfield" (for its wonderful evocation, shared with "Great Expectations", of childhood) - "Pickwick" I have read - that is all I will say - and "Nicholas Nickleby" and "Our Mutual Friend" are the two which, for some reason, I am unable to get through.

All have their wonderful moments - for which I am prepared to ignore such horrors as Agnes pointing upwards and Little Nell.

Dickens seems to me not quite a grown-up novelist compared to his contemporaries George Eliot, Thackeray, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky. There is something childish about the way Dickens conceives characters and situations which makes his work thrilling to young readers but, perhaps, less satisfying to the mature. GREAT EXPECTATIONS is more mature than most Dickens novels because the hero's character is shown in a clear, dispassionate light. But I may revise my opinion after I read more of his novels.

I think you are being a bit hard on poor old Dickens, as one who was brought up on him at school.

Dickens transformed methods of publishing fiction and changed the possibilities of authorship for his peers and successors. He was a brilliant entrepreneur as well as an artist, driven by painful memories of what it was like to be poor and by the excitement of making money through his own efforts.

His novels were snapped up as soon as they were published by the public who adored him. Publication in parts and magazine serialisation was pioneered by Dickens and became the standard form for the initial publication of novels in the Victorian age.

"Our Mutual Friend" is terffic. Such characters, and a powerful theme re wealth and its sources...

Perhaps I better read it then.

Speaking of being affected by an account of death in a novel, one that stopped me dead in my tracks was in 'My Antonia." Antonia, along with her mother, father, and brother had come to a farm they had bought on the great plains. In Bohemia the father had been a musician and a quiet man of refinement. Here they were enduring a miserable first winter in a home that was little more than a sod house. He endured it as long as he could and then committed suicide. It was a awful scene, and when the neighbor boy, who was Antonia's friend came over to see her, she turned to him in her sadness and said, "Oh, Jimmy, what you think of my lovely papa?" I'm not sure what there is about that line, but it gets to me every time I think of it.

Hazlitt, Willa Cather is one of the greatest American writers ever! Nobody has ever surpassed her fine and delicate art in masterpieces like A LOST LADY, MY MORTAL ENEMY, THE PROFESSOR'S HOUSE, and SHADOWS ON THE ROCK. She is truly a giant. Ever her "bad" books like ONE OF OURS (about WWI) are well worth reading. I am so happy you mentioned her on this thread--I never know if anyone is still reading Cather.

Literature lovers, I'd love to see you over here:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=116765#116765

Ah, yes, Willa Cather. A favorite.

Hiama, I don't think Dickens pioneered serial publication of novels. I'm pretty sure it was the rule before he came on the scene.

As far as his memories of being poor, there again you had better check the details. Dickens did not come from a poor family. His father was financially ruined when he was quite young, which led to his BRIEF employment in the famous "blacking factory," but Dickens was not from the lower class. More like the middle or lower middle class.

Thanks Larry for clearing that up.

We all have such different tastes, I think that's what I like about this place.

I was brought up on a diet of classics, Dickens, Shakespeare being de rigeur. We also read Austen, George Eliot-I loved Silas Marner,
Robert Louis Stevenson, george Bernard Shaw, Henry James, Dh Lawrence etc

Like lightwizard my range is quite wide and I confess to reading Clavell, Ludlum, Jack Higgins, all the Tolkien books including Tree and Leaf-delightful, never really got into Rushdie, may give him a try, Umberco Eco-not an easy read.

As a budding undergraduate I also read most of the Nicholas Freeling books, has anyone else here read them ?

His Van der Valk stories got made into a TV series which ran for a couple of years in the UK.

One of my all time favourites is Mark Helprin's A Winter's Tale.

I look forward to hearing more from the assembled throng before too long !

Assembled throng reporting in as requested!

I also love the classics - and am shamefully poorly read in really modern literature. I also read "good trash". To be honest, I find my deep emotional engagement with real people in traumatic and difficult circumstances, which is a multiple daily event in my job, sort of fills the need that might otherwise, I think, be filled by literature. This may seem an odd concept - but I find it to be so.

When being invited to explore the depths and expanse of human experience and "innerness" by a good novel, for instance, I find myself feeling that I have done that with a number of people today, and will tomorrow, and the next day and so on.

I know that, if I have a reasonable holiday - or if a work calls intensely - I will be back to reading serious stuff - otherwise, who needs any more of it!

Poetry, now, is beginning to call more insistently...

Now Poetry is a passion of mine.

Have you come across Anne Sexton's work, taking what you say about your job, this may not be the best of poets to dip into.

If you are feeling Ok and have not had a hassle-rich day I would heartily recommend her to you. I also write a bit myself and have put up a few of my efforts on other threads.

I shall look, Hiama! And I have been introduced to Anne Sexton's work on Abuzz - I shall buy her when I am numerate again!

Do you mean solvent ?

Here is one of mine , would welcome your thoughts :-

The Washing

He articulates with opaque and vague phrases
using complex words galvanised by blacksmiths like
wood and charcoal and flame
however his arm has been broken
and whilst the city rocks itself to sleep
he pours himself a long cool drink from antiquity
he dons a life-jacket and wishes he was the sea
and not some nameless
bar-fly in a ship called anytown,
anyplace, anywhere.
He puts on the cloak of invisibility and flies
to a place where strangers do not care to meet.
It is at this place that he finds himself,
bidden to meet the frailties of his youth
which he does and so he turns to the one
good woman in his life,
he hopes she remembered
to turn off the washing machine.

My Gawd, I love this thread. I read every single response. Unfortunately, I no longer live in a world of books as I once did. I now prefer short stories and poetry. To me, if a work of art hits an individual between the eyes, then it can be considered "great".

Someone here mentioned Ring Lardner, and I recall having read a short story by him titled "How Beautiful are thy Feet with Shoes". I still remember that tale with absolute clarity. To me, that is the hallmark of true writing.

Larry, the only observation that I would make concerning your responses here, is the one in which you said " Somebody has way too much time on their hands." I have never quite understood that idiom and I am not being sarcastic. As a matter of fact, I enjoy being challenged, but it has nothing to do with "Time on my Hands" (great ballad, incidentally) I would truly love to hear you explicate Eliot's "Wasteland".

Good morning all!

Hiama - i did, and I am mulling...

hiama, your poems are always rather esoteric, but I am always stimulated by them. Questions:

Who is the "he" of your poem?

Does your last line and the title mean that a woman's place is in the washing machine?

Quite unexpected, that last line, but I'm certain that is what you wanted it to be. I do sense a little cynicism.

Yes, I know just what you mean. As an English major who was also interested in reading current fiction, I would spend vast chunks of the day reading and reading and reading. Required reading, recreational reading -- SO glad I was an English major, even if my degree is fairly useless, employment-wise.

I've had to adjust since having a kid from my preferred method of reading a book, which is sit down, open book, start reading, take occasional stumbling-while-reading breaks for food et al, finish reading, close book, sleep. This is by far my favorite method for reading books, unless they are prohibitively long. (I spent a very happy week reading "A Suitable Boy" and not doing much else.) This is of course impossible these days, and my appreciation of books really suffers. I lose threads, miss allusions, forget lesser characters' names, even. I expect I'll have to go through a short-story spot until the sozlet's older, with occasional forays into books I can't resist. (To the library for "Middlesex" today!)

Oh and dlowan I know just exactly precisely what you mean about spending enough emotional time in other people's turmoil that seeking out such "escape" is not particularly attractive.

I do most of my reading at night, before I fall asleep. It is a good time for me because the house is quiet, the phone doesn't ring, and I can concentrate. I agree with Sozobe that the best way to read a novel is straight through in one sitting if possible, but that isn't possible for most of us.

Sooz and Larry,

We must all rely on our collective memories to be able to judge for ourselves what is healthy and rewarding. Poetry is infusing, books are a quick study in life, but to me, a powerful short story is a masterpiece in accomplishment in that it often combines all these elements into a compressed history. and more importantly, it's a quick study.