The Western Lit Survival Kit

By -
The Western Lit Survival Kit: an Irreverent Guide to the Classics, from Homer to Faulkner, by Sandra Newman

I'm a sucker for guides to great literature, and also Sandra Newman is hilarious.  I didn't quite mean to actually read this book instead of Dracula (which I am reading, and it's good, but less easy to carry around), but it's so funny that I zipped right through it.  Almost every page had something that gave me the giggles and made me look around for someone to collar and read a bit aloud to.

This guide to the Western Canon is what you should give to your friend who has to learn something about the classics and doesn't want to.  I would give it to my husband if he suddenly found himself in that situation.  Or you can give it to your literary friend with a sense of humor.  Newman is pretty caustic much of the time, and reverent never.  Like Western lit itself, things are not always squeaky-clean.

A sample bit, on Balzac: "As a writer, Balzac started as a hack, producing nine abysmal pulp novels under pseudonyms.  He also started various businesses, all of them failures, but never lost faith that he would someday be rich and famous.  Then, one day, he had an idea for a series of novels which would give an encyclopedic account of human society.  Thrilled, he ran to his sister's house to announce, "I'm about to become a genius!"  Some of our readers may have brothers like this and feel a little weary at hearing it again.  However, as never ever happens with your brother, Balzac was totally right."


I really am reading Dracula, though--I've been in the mood to work on my challenges some more after a month or so off.  I got a pile of Greek plays from the public library.  And, inspired by the Classics Club check-in post, I finally finished my list, which I don't think I can realistically plan on finishing but what the heck.  Today I picked out some books from it for summer reading, and I'm hoping to get a lot of good books in once school is over (next week, yay!).

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 18, 2012 at 11:28 AM

    ARG! Our library doesn't have a copy. This looks so up my alley though. Hmmm . . . I may have to request they buy it.
    =Christina Joy=

    ReplyDelete
  2. Adriana@ClassicalQuestMay 18, 2012 at 11:58 AM

    My library doesn't have a copy either. Darn. I had a sample sent to my Kindle though. Thanks Jean!

    ReplyDelete
  3. JeanMay 18, 2012 at 12:29 PM

    It's a pretty new book, so tell your library you want it and you'll have a good chance.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMay 19, 2012 at 1:53 PM

    Perfect. I need to read this. It sounds just perfect!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the source of the s
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he defeats or avoids th
Read more