Books, Books, Books - Reading is FUNdamental

[notcasesensitive]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I thought about it, but reviews were not entirely kind.

2. But I'll probably give it a go at some point.

I'm going on a long vacation next week and expect to have lots of time to sit on a beach and read books. Suggestions? It's a good time to tackle something big.

I just started reading A God In Ruins, Kate Atkinson's follow-up to Life After Life (which I loved). The new one doesn't use the same device (retelling the same story with new outcomes over and over again) but sticks with the same family. I love her writing, so I think I'll love this one too, but I'll report back...

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

One of the writers on Bookriot says the greatest tragedy of To Kill a Mockingbird is that it is necessary: white Americans only believe in racism as told through white eyes.

So now we know Finch himself is deeply racist. Time to go read Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

One of the writers on Bookriot says the greatest tragedy of To Kill a Mockingbird is that it is necessary: white Americans only believe in racism as told through white eyes.

So now we know Finch himself is deeply racist. Time to go read Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison?

Art is art, how is any novel necessary? And America learned of racism in the south through television camera eyes, not a novel about an incident in the 1920s.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Art is art, how is any novel necessary? And America learned of racism in the south through television camera eyes, not a novel about an incident in the 1920s.

I think there are no shortage of white kids for whom TKAM is a seminal intellectual confrontation with racism. The book has done a lot of good in this world, which is the sense I think she meant "necessary" in - a book that was needed because of problems we have as a culture.

I think the new book sounds interesting, and it doesn't surprise me Finch is a racist at all from the first book. I've pre-ordered the audio book version to listen to on a long drive. But I thought the post I referenced raised an interesting question: is it better to have that intellectual confrontation with racism through a Native Son or Invisible Man (both of which also strike me as better books from a literary perspective) rather than a TKAM?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I think there are no shortage of white kids for whom TKAM is a seminal intellectual confrontation with racism. The book has done a lot of good in this world, which is the sense I think she meant "necessary" in - a book that was needed because of problems we have as a culture.

I think the new book sounds interesting, and it doesn't surprise me Finch is a racist at all from the first book. I've pre-ordered the audio book version to listen to on a long drive. But I thought the post I referenced raised an interesting question: is it better to have that intellectual confrontation with racism through a Native Son or Invisible Man (both of which also strike me as better books from a literary perspective) rather than a TKAM?

One can read them all can't one?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by notcasesensitive

2. But I'll probably give it a go at some point.

I just started reading A God In Ruins, Kate Atkinson's follow-up to Life After Life (which I loved). The new one doesn't use the same device (retelling the same story with new outcomes over and over again) but sticks with the same family. I love her writing, so I think I'll love this one too, but I'll report back...

Ms. Slothrop brought that with her on the vacation, but never opened it. I'd like to read it too, having enjoyed other Atkinson stuff.

In the event, I decided to read the Odyssey, and I really enjoyed it. I read the Fagles translation. Before I read it, I read a little book called The World of Odysseus, about what one can or can't draw from the Odyssey about Greek history, and after I finished I read a terrific book called Homeric Moments, which pointed out a lot of things I had missed. The whole package was a lot of fun (and highly appropriate if one is looking at the Aegean).

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I think the new book sounds interesting, and it doesn't surprise me Finch is a racist at all from the first book. I've pre-ordered the audio book version to listen to on a long drive. But I thought the post I referenced raised an interesting question: is it better to have that intellectual confrontation with racism through a Native Son or Invisible Man (both of which also strike me as better books from a literary perspective) rather than a TKAM?

I loved Invisible Man, but it's more difficult book than TKAM is, so less accessible to many of the people who read the latter.

I haven't read any Toni Morrison, but maybe she belongs on your list with Wright and Ellison?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

How to tell you're reading a gothic novel.