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American Literature/choice
Message from valentina44 posted on 11-06-2012 at 22:47:11
Hello!
I would like to read the essential works in American literature this summer but I don't know which ones to pick!
Ideally, 20 or 25 novels (or short stories and poetry) would be great. If you know the ones I have to read absolutely, please let me know!
Thank you for your answers
Valentina
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Edited by lucile83 on 12-06-2012 08:18
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Edited by lucile83 on 15-06-2012 21:15
Message from valentina44 posted on 11-06-2012 at 22:47:11
Hello!
I would like to read the essential works in American literature this summer but I don't know which ones to pick!
Ideally, 20 or 25 novels (or short stories and poetry) would be great. If you know the ones I have to read absolutely, please let me know!
Thank you for your answers
Valentina
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Edited by lucile83 on 12-06-2012 08:18
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Edited by lucile83 on 15-06-2012 21:15
Re: American Literature/choice by bluestar, posted on 12-06-2012 at 10:56:33
Hello,
You could have a look at: the Collected Stories of Ernest Hemingway, The Sound and the Fury,(William Faulkner), Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (by Mark Twain), A Boy's Will (poems by Robert Frost), The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne), The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck), Long Day's Journey into Night (Eugene O'Neill), The Catcher in the Rye (J.D.Salinger), Noon Wine (Katherine Anne Porter), The Adventures of Augie March (Saul Bellow), The Turn of the Screw (Henry James), Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson), the Stories of O Henry, The Stories of Ring Lardner.....
There should be enough there to keep you going for a while...
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Edited by bluestar on 12-06-2012 13:22
Re: American Literature/choice by valentina44, posted on 12-06-2012 at 22:10:24
Thank you very much! I will be sure to read all of these books!
Re: American Literature/choice by stammer, posted on 14-06-2012 at 01:04:49
Hello,
One of my favourites of American literature is 'The Scarlet Letter' by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The preface is awful, so skip it, and the language is sometimes quite archaic but it's a really great novel.
Re: American Literature/choice by rosebud44, posted on 14-06-2012 at 15:44:34
I do like a short story writer Raymond Carver and John Dos Passos (Manhattan transfer and the USA trilogy) too but I think that it will be for another year!
Re: American Literature/choice by rogermue, posted on 14-06-2012 at 18:28:20
You shouldn't forget Hemingway - For whom the bell tolls. In connection with the film it is quite an experience.
And I would suggest two children's books:
- Alice in Wonderland
- The Wind in the Willows
Re: American Literature/choice by lucile83, posted on 14-06-2012 at 18:40:34
Hello rogermue,
It is asked for American literature.
- Alice in Wonderland is from an English writer, Lewis Carroll
- The Wind in the Willows is from a Scottish writer, Kenneth Grahame
Re: American Literature/choice by rogermue, posted on 14-06-2012 at 19:54:24
Oh yes, you are right. Sorry. Instead I would suggest a theatre play by Tennessee Williams - A Streetcar named Desire.
Re: American Literature/choice by rogermue, posted on 15-06-2012 at 08:56:08
Another title to consider is Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852. Older literature describing the miserable situation of black slaves and very sentimental but a very famous novel and an important time-document of American history.
I think the book is online and you can simply read some famous passages.
I remember a famous passage about a young slave woman running away and coming to a big river in winter. The crossing is very dangerous but she is so desperate that she dares the crossing.
Re: American Literature/choice by rogermue, posted on 15-06-2012 at 09:10:12
John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
A small booklet about the life of two young men wandering about the country looking for work. One of them is a bear of a man but mentally he is a child. He is not dangerous but sometimes he does silly things if the other man doesn't pay attention.
A famous story and a little masterwork of Steinbeck that is very impressive.
Another famous and big novel of Steinbeck is East of Eden.
And I would recommend Pearl S. Buck, Mother Earth, 1931, a novel about China. A wonderful book.
Re: American Literature/choice by rogermue, posted on 15-06-2012 at 09:32:27
Another good title: James A. Michener - Sayonara. A short novel of about 200 pages. US soldiers in Japan in World War II,
the problem of intermarriages. Book was made into a successful film.
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Edited by rogermue on 15-06-2012 09:33
Re: American Literature/choice by rogermue, posted on 15-06-2012 at 20:00:20
Another interesting American author is Jack London. I think you should have read one of the two novels
- Call of the Wild
- White Fang
In both novels the central figure is a dog or a wolf and the novels are set in Alaska during the gold rush time.
Both novels are very thrilling and impressive.
I don't know what genres you prefer - whether fantasy or science fiction is interesting for you. If so I could give some further information.
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Edited by rogermue on 15-06-2012 20:04
Re: American Literature/choice by rogermue, posted on 15-06-2012 at 20:12:41
An absolute must-read is Dan Brown's thriller The Da Vinci Code, 2003.
Re: American Literature/choice by lucile83, posted on 15-06-2012 at 21:14:45
Hello,
I think valentina can read a lot of books now, and become an expert in American literature
Re: American Literature/choice by violet91, posted on 15-06-2012 at 21:20:43
Hello , All these suggestions must be interesting. Yet, American literature should start with Edgar Allan Poe 's short stories ( Tales of mystery and imagination' : at your age, you are supposed to know ' The Goldbug' , ' The murders in the Rue Morgue' , 'The tell-tale heart' ,' The stolen letter' (once you've started, you never stop)... and the great poem ' The Raven') . You will be fascinated by those stories and amazed by the influence or correspondence of them onto and with French literature : Musset ' La nuit de Décembre' (poe and Musset never met!) ; Baudelaire, Mallarmé , Maupassant ...and so on.
V.Woolf ( English) , Eugene O' Neil ( Irish) , Henry James (English) are great authors, for sure , but not American ones.
I'd definitely advise you to read some of the short stories by Ray Bradbury in different collections : ' October country' is really thrilling.
'Of mice and men'( T. Williams) IS a masterpiece , no doubt, and the film adapted from it ( John Malkovitch starring) is wonder.
......apart from Hemingway, Faulkner, Dos Passos and many American writers quoted ( you should love Salinger and relate him to Boris Vian's 'L'écume des jours') ...and many of them are to be studied in literature curriculum if you specialise later and go to University.
Even if he is not American , Keith Waterhouse ( English) might interest you much with his ' Billy Liar'. Young people love it.
Have a nice summer reading many of the books recommended above by the members. The list is far from being over , if it were possible!...
