Hi folks. Some of you might recognize me from making excellent posts all over the forum. Sometimes when I'm not bringing new perspectives to the forum, I read books. Real literature. Timeless classics. Name a classic that you heard people have to read if they major in pre-waitering, English Lit, and I've read it. But there's nowhere on this forum to discuss such works of art, these literary pieces, these books.
Perhaps its because I'm what my old grandmammy Callie called me in my youth: an old soul. Or perhaps it's cause no one ever floated the idea. Let's find out.
I say let's start a CP book club and our first book will be The Unvanquished by William Faulkner. Reply if you're down.
I grew up in a town without many literate, let alone literary, friends. Might CP have any intellectual giants like me?
Order your copy of The Unvanquished now cause I'm liable to start this club with no support, much like Nathan Bedford Forrest didn't need or wait for support before charging a weak Union line. [Reply]
Pass, really? I suppose I could get into that. You mean John Dos Passos of course.
Originally Posted by :
John Roderigo Dos Passos (/dɒsˈpæsəs, -sɒs/;[1][2] January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his U.S.A. trilogy.
Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as a young man, visiting Europe and southwest Asia, where he learned about literature, art, and architecture. During World War I, he was an ambulance driver for the American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps in Paris and Italy, before joining the United States Army Medical Corps as a private.[3]
In 1920, his first novel, One Man's Initiation: 1917, was published, and in 1925, his novel Manhattan Transfer became a commercial success. His U.S.A. trilogy, which consists of the novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936), was ranked by the Modern Library in 1998 as 23rd of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
I like the enthusiasm JR but I'm not so into socialists. The Unvanquished remains the top nominated work of literature to be debated upon. [Reply]
Originally Posted by listopencil:
Only if you agree to never have any Faulkner in the book club.
Jesus Christ man. You're telling Peter North he can shoot a porno but he can't blow a load here. But I'm down.
The new nomination is Ambrose Bierce's Civil War Short Stories. Each short story will merit much discussion. You will like Bierce because he fought for the north. He also said that novels were a waste of time because the best of them were just short stories with a ton of padding. Bierce could spin a yarn, sir.
Current nominee: "The Civil War Stories of Ambrose Bierce", written by, you guessed it, Ambrose Bierce. A dirty Yankee, but a helluva writer. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Vladimir_Kyrilytch:
Jesus Christ man. You're telling Peter North he can shoot a porno but he can't blow a load here. But I'm down.
The new nomination is Ambrose Bierce's Civil War Short Stories. Each short story will merit much discussion. You will like Bierce because he fought for the north. He also said that novels were a waste of time because the best of them were just short stories with a ton of padding. Bierce could spin a yarn, sir.
Current nominee: "The Civil War Stories of Ambrose Bierce", written by, you guessed it, Ambrose Bierce. A dirty Yankee, but a helluva writer.
Not interested in anything a Yankee has to say about the War Of Northern Aggression. [Reply]
Originally Posted by listopencil:
Not interested in anything a Yankee has to say about the War Of Northern Aggression.
It wasn't even that. There was once a very important document in American lore that stated that governments govern by the consent of the people. The people in a large part of the globe did not give their consent any longer.
So the response was burn them to the ground. Right. Yay Lincoln.
New nominee: The Civil War: A Trilogy by Shelby Foote. I'll forewarn you though, the trilogy is over 2,500 pages long. I still nominate The Unvanquished but since our Vice President has outlawed Faulkner, how about.....Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson? [Reply]
Maybe this will change some of your minds: with books, at no time at all does the story get interrupted for commercials. No commercials at all.
At no time in the tale will there be an interruption for '80 for Brady' previews or some other distasteful thing.
How about Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea? It's about an old man out at sea, trying to catch a big marlin. I think he gets stranded out there though and it becomes a tale of survival! It's so short, it's not considered a novel, but a novella. Very exciting stuff. [Reply]
You're a retired schoolteacher IIRC. You should be listing dozens of options. What was your favorite book to teach? Was it Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage? Or was it Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath?
You don't need me to tell you what Steinbeck said in his Nobel Prize speech, Mr. MN. But I will anyway. He said "Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed."
He also said: "Humanity has been passing through a gray and desolate time of confusion. My great predecessor, William Faulkner, speaking here, referred to it as a tragedy of universal fear so long sustained that there were no longer problems of the spirit, so that only the human heart in conflict with itself seemed worth writing about."
The interesting thing there is that Steinback hastened to refer to Faulkner, not the other way around. Cause Faulkner was the Mahomes of literature and everyone knew it! [Reply]