I'm with Phoenix, let's discuss Suess!
I think we should discuss John Knowles.
Oh come on. You're playing with me, right?
A Separate Peace. The greatest novel ever written.
Really? I can't tell if you're messing with me. If you haven't read it, I urge you to go get a copy right now.
I'm not messing with you, honest. I vaguely recognize the name, but not the book title.
John Steinbeck wrote some of my alltime favorite books. Grapes of Wrath, Wayward Bus, Of Mice and Men. I don't care for his short stories and didn't care for Travels with Charley or East of Eden. Grapes of Wrath is a masterpiece. I first watched the movie a few times and then read the book. I have since watched the film several more times.
Anybody read his "The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights"? If you think White's "Camelot" was pap (rhymes with crap), and favor modern English, it could be for you.
I loved the "Wayward Bus", which just goes to show that it's not important that any thing happen - it's more in the telling.
kickycan wrote:A Separate Peace. The greatest novel ever written.
I think this book was required reading in 10th grade. It supplanted The Catcher In The Rye.
I remember it well Kicky.
All my youngsterhood and Steinbecks books. In high school, I read "...Charley" as a work that had no point , much like "easy Rider" was not really a great movie.
However, everything else of Steinbecks, Ive read and re read, including his take on King ARthur.
I became a "sort-of-" scholar( in the way that only kids can learn evry boring inconsequential event of the life of their favorite baseball player) of Doc Ricketts and Steinbeck in their carousing that was documented quite well in Sweet Thursday and cannery Row and Sea of Cortez.
I am disappointed at Phoenix's disdain of Steinbeck. I will remember this rude behavior when , sometime soon, I do a "FULL FRONTAL NINJA TRASH" of one of her threads.
I read Sea of Cortez, East of Eden, and Grapes of Wrath, all long ago. Liked all of them, especially Grapes of Wrath.
On a visit with some friends to the Monterey area a decade ago, I accompanied them to visit other friends who owned a house Steinbeck had lived in at some point. Had a glass of wine there with them all; kind of a nice memory.
Greyfan wrote:I listened to an audiobook version of Tortilla Flat; very enjoyable. But I wonder if its portrayal of shiftless, drunken paesanos would even be publishable today...
According to that eminently forgetable memoir,
Travels with Charley, Steinbeck nearly got beat up by some paesanos when he returned to Monterey in his dotage and the paesanos realized who he was. He took a quick powder from the bar they were all in. It's still a very funny and, actually, sympathetic book.
I barely remember "Of Mice and Men", but I remember liking it. That's the only Steinbeck book I've ever read.
So which one is his best?
mmmm, John Malkovich... (in Of Mice and Men). <right? now i'm starting to self-doubt myself. wait a minute, that's nonsense. of course 'myself' if it's 'self-doubt', duh. i should stop talking with myself...>
No, don't. I think it's cute. Carry on...
