Read to form a reading list
BOOK: THE MARRIAGE PLOT (2011) BY JEFFERY EUGENIDES (1960-)
SYNOPSIS: This book traces the lives of three students graduating from Brown University in 1982. Madeleine Hanna, is a pretty and smart, yet uncertain English graduate; Leonard Bankhead, her sometime boyfriend is brilliant, brooding, charismatic but poor; and religiously inclined Mitchell Grammaticus, who yearns in alternation for Madeleine and God.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU: Loads of literary references:
All three protagonists are interesting fictional characters, who introduce you to other, real people based on their circumstances, mindsets and career choices. While Leonard’s “list” combines his two preoccupations – genetics and psychosis, Mitchell’s life will introduce you to several religious characters, sects and texts. English graduate Madeline, who connects the various situations in her life – both pleasurable and trying — to the writings she’s come across has the longest, and, to me, most interesting, catalogue of references.
Check out this excerpt that had me running for a pencil:
To start with, look at all the books. There were her Edith Wharton novels, arranged not by title but date of publication; there was the complete Modern Library set of Henry James, a gift from her father on her twenty-first birthday; there were the dog-eared paperbacks assigned in her college courses, a lot of Dickens, a smidgen of Trollope, along with good helpings of Austen, George Eliot, and the redoubtable Brontë sisters. There were a whole lot of black-andwhite New Directions paperbacks, mostly poetry by people like HD or Denise Levertov. There were the Colette novels she read on the sly. There was the first edition of Couples, belonging to her mother, which Madeleine had surreptitiously dipped into back in sixth grade and which she was using now to provide textual support in her English honors thesis on the marriage plot.
BOOK: THE SACRED DIARY OF THE WERE WOLF (2005) BY VICTOR PELVIN (1962-) TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY ANDREW BROMFIELD IN 2008
SYNOPSIS: This book examines contemporary Russia through the eyes of A Hu-Li, a 2,000-year-old Taoist were-fox who impersonates a fifteen-year-old sex worker. Her experiences are standard for an ancient were-fox until she meets Alexander, a high-ranking Russian intelligence officer, who happens to be a werewolf! The two share a whirlwind romance, and argue about religion, death, truth and the like until they both claim to be the super-werewolf, a were-creature who has attained the highest order of self-improvement—moksha, in a way.
SYNOPSIS: This book traces the lives of three students graduating from Brown University in 1982. Madeleine Hanna, is a pretty and smart, yet uncertain English graduate; Leonard Bankhead, her sometime boyfriend is brilliant, brooding, charismatic but poor; and religiously inclined Mitchell Grammaticus, who yearns in alternation for Madeleine and God.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU: Loads of literary references:
All three protagonists are interesting fictional characters, who introduce you to other, real people based on their circumstances, mindsets and career choices. While Leonard’s “list” combines his two preoccupations – genetics and psychosis, Mitchell’s life will introduce you to several religious characters, sects and texts. English graduate Madeline, who connects the various situations in her life – both pleasurable and trying — to the writings she’s come across has the longest, and, to me, most interesting, catalogue of references.
Check out this excerpt that had me running for a pencil:
To start with, look at all the books. There were her Edith Wharton novels, arranged not by title but date of publication; there was the complete Modern Library set of Henry James, a gift from her father on her twenty-first birthday; there were the dog-eared paperbacks assigned in her college courses, a lot of Dickens, a smidgen of Trollope, along with good helpings of Austen, George Eliot, and the redoubtable Brontë sisters. There were a whole lot of black-andwhite New Directions paperbacks, mostly poetry by people like HD or Denise Levertov. There were the Colette novels she read on the sly. There was the first edition of Couples, belonging to her mother, which Madeleine had surreptitiously dipped into back in sixth grade and which she was using now to provide textual support in her English honors thesis on the marriage plot.
BOOK: THE SACRED DIARY OF THE WERE WOLF (2005) BY VICTOR PELVIN (1962-) TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY ANDREW BROMFIELD IN 2008
SYNOPSIS: This book examines contemporary Russia through the eyes of A Hu-Li, a 2,000-year-old Taoist were-fox who impersonates a fifteen-year-old sex worker. Her experiences are standard for an ancient were-fox until she meets Alexander, a high-ranking Russian intelligence officer, who happens to be a werewolf! The two share a whirlwind romance, and argue about religion, death, truth and the like until they both claim to be the super-werewolf, a were-creature who has attained the highest order of self-improvement—moksha, in a way.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU: Loads of philosophy
references: Known for his dark humour, Pelevin combines satire, history and science fiction — a strange but interesting blend — to discuss life in the post-Soviet era.
From the Tao philosophy and Han dynasty to Vladimir Nabokov and Nikolai Gogol, the book describes, and even suggests alternate, hidden meanings to various schools of thought and writing.
Check out this excerpt that had me running to Google:
My name, A-Hu-Li, is actually very beautiful in Chinese, and has nothing to do with its obscene meaning in the Russian language. I was given the name at a time when the phrase didn’t exist in the Russian language, because the Russian language itself didn’t even exist yet. Who could ever have imagined in those times that some day my noble surname would become an obscene word?
Ludwig Wittgenstein once said that names are the only things that exist in the world. Maybe that’s true, but the problem is that as time passes by, names do not remain the same - even if they don’t change. We foxes were not born in the same way as people. We are descended from a heavenly stone and are distantly related to the king of apes, Sun Wukong himself.
I have not made such a significant mark in history as others of my
kind. But even so, I am mentioned in one of the greatest works of world
literature, and you can even read about me if you like. To do that, you
have to go to the bookshop and buy the book Anecdotes of Spirits and
Immortals, written by Gan Bao, and find the story of how the governor of
Sih during the late Han period searched for the commander of his
guards, who had fled.
references: Known for his dark humour, Pelevin combines satire, history and science fiction — a strange but interesting blend — to discuss life in the post-Soviet era.
From the Tao philosophy and Han dynasty to Vladimir Nabokov and Nikolai Gogol, the book describes, and even suggests alternate, hidden meanings to various schools of thought and writing.
Check out this excerpt that had me running to Google:
My name, A-Hu-Li, is actually very beautiful in Chinese, and has nothing to do with its obscene meaning in the Russian language. I was given the name at a time when the phrase didn’t exist in the Russian language, because the Russian language itself didn’t even exist yet. Who could ever have imagined in those times that some day my noble surname would become an obscene word?
Ludwig Wittgenstein once said that names are the only things that exist in the world. Maybe that’s true, but the problem is that as time passes by, names do not remain the same - even if they don’t change. We foxes were not born in the same way as people. We are descended from a heavenly stone and are distantly related to the king of apes, Sun Wukong himself.
I have not made such a significant mark in history as others of my
kind. But even so, I am mentioned in one of the greatest works of world
literature, and you can even read about me if you like. To do that, you
have to go to the bookshop and buy the book Anecdotes of Spirits and
Immortals, written by Gan Bao, and find the story of how the governor of
Sih during the late Han period searched for the commander of his
guards, who had fled.
great information,nice blog
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