Kizz asked for the booklist for my British Novel class, and as this is the class I’ll be using the blog for once or twice a week, I thought I’d post it. We’ll be blowing through these books about one a week as well as our other assignments. This is a Block One course, which means it’s double time and finishes at mid-term.
James Joyce and A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man.
Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway
E.M. Forster’s A Passage To India
D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover
Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust
Graham Green’s Brighton Rock
Flann O’Brien’s At-Swim-Two-Birds
Have you read any of them? Did you read them because you were in a class and had to or of your own volition? Did you have any struggles with comprehension, boredom, vocabulary, writing style? Were you engaged by the novel? Which one, if any, on this list incite an “Ohhhhhhh that was sooooo goood” response out of you? Why?
I’m getting through Joyce. Determined is my word of the day. I’m also convinced that if I were in Dublin, and just a little drunk, and perhaps throwing leg at some hairy Irishman, this might read faster. . .
buuuuuuuuut that’s just my opinion.
Misti Ridiculous 
There’s no Dickens? What the hell? Didn’t he basically invent the Brit novel, or the novel in general?
I think I was supposed to read Portrait in school at some point. Didn’t make it, or did but didn’t retain any of it. Boredom, voice seemed to be the troubles.
Read Mrs. Dalloway after I read and saw The Hours and loved it and wanted to know the source material. It wasn’t my favorite ever but it was engaging and I’m glad I read it. And I still love The Hours.
Never read Lady Chatterly but Lawrence’s Sons & Lovers is one of the few books I’ve ever failed to finish. I’ve tried 3 or 4 times and I just can’t do it. It’s fine and then…just no. Same thing with The Scarlet Letter. I never get to chapter 4. It’s all fine and then Chapter 4, Pearl, and I’m done.
LikeLike
British Novel 1900-1940
LikeLike
I thought I’d posted the dates we were working with previously. my bad!
LikeLike
I looked at A Handful when I was putting books away.
I have read Lady Chatterley’s. It wasn’t Anne Rice erotica… but it was for the time it was published very racy.
I liked the story… common man, uncommon woman. To me it was interesting because it was controversial….a long way away from Jude Deveraux. But led the way.
A Passage to India… always on the list. And I’ve never read Graham Greene but again always wondered.
LikeLike
Well, I’ll be reading them all so we can get an overview!
LikeLike
I did my Brit Lit III project on Joyce & Portrait. Yeah….I don’t remember a lick of it.
Except maybe I focused on the Icarus myth. Maybe.
LikeLike
HA! You’re probably not the only one. It’s been a lotta years since undergrad days. I told Taryn yesterday re: GRE test, I wouldn’t have a freakin CLUE how to even begin an algebra problem. I freeze up at brackets and letters mixed with numbers.
Ugh.
LikeLike
I haven’t read any of those, but I did start watching the BBC series “Lady Chatterly’s Lover”. It’s terrible.
I would like to read Passage to India though. I’m putting that on my list.
LikeLike
I attempted both Ulysses and Portrait when we were in one of Anne’s classes and got no where. I tried again when I started teaching, but was not focused and got frustrated. I am determined to read Campell’s book on unlocking Joyce though and trying it all again.
I have never heard of the last of the books, but the rest are on my list. I have this list and every year I attempt at least one. Some I loved and some I hated and put down unfinished. I will be curious to see what you think about these.
LikeLike