7.0252 Rs: Unrequired Reading (3/87)
Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 19 Oct 1993 21:26:59 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 7, No. 0252. Tuesday, 19 Oct 1993.
(1) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 17:57:08 -0600 (CST) (33 lines)
From: HOKE ROBINSON <ROBINSONH@MEMSTVX1.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 7.0235 Unrequired Reading List -- Univ at Buffalo
(2) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 18:06:41 BST (8 lines)
From: A.K.Henry@exeter.ac.uk
Subject: Re: 7.0235 Unrequired Reading List -- Univ at Buffalo
(3) Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 11:19:52 -0800 (46 lines)
From: blspahr@garnet.berkeley.edu
Subject: Unrequired Reading List
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 17:57:08 -0600 (CST)
From: HOKE ROBINSON <ROBINSONH@MEMSTVX1.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 7.0235 Unrequired Reading List -- Univ at Buffalo
The list is nice. Some of the entries I've gotten a great deal out of
myself (in particular, Catch-22), and I could add more (Raymond Chandler,
for instance).
But it misses the point of a canon. The question is not, "What's
fun to read, enjoyable, even meaningful and relevant?" but, "What does
an educated person need to _have read_, whether it's fun or not? What
will you need to have read, 5, 20, 50 years from now?" Many of the
books on this list are already beginning to fade, and will be forgotten
in 10 or 20 years. Look back 20 or so: Khalin Gibran or "Zen and the
Art" may have been more fun to read, but would you trade your ability
to recognize themes such as "Who shall guard the guardians?", "He doth
protest too much," "The life of man: solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and
short," "Man was born free, yet everywhere he is in chains," "You have
nothing to lose but your chains," to _have read_ "Zen"?
If you think this list is more relevant to "today," remember that
today's students will presumably live some 40-50 years after graduation,
and that this education will have to last them that time. Then figure
what the staying power of these contemporary works is likely to be. How?
Again, go back a few decades and look at the books that occupied the same
place then that these do now, and see how they've held up.
I hated Thomas Mann's _Magic Mountain_, and enjoyed "Trout Fishing,"
but I'd have missed very little not reading "Trout Fishing," and
_Magic Mountain_ has enriched me.
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with recreational or "light-
weight" reading, just as there's nothing wrong with partying. But reading
light-weight stuff _instead of_ the classics is like partying _instead of_
going to your lectures: more fun now, but ultimately a waste of a good
education.
-- Hoke Robinson
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------20----
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 18:06:41 BST
From: A.K.Henry@exeter.ac.uk
Subject: Re: 7.0235 Unrequired Reading List -- Univ at Buffalo (1/396)
What a lovely thing to offer us: thank you!
Avril Henry
Univ. Exeter, UK
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Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 11:19:52 -0800
From: blspahr@garnet.berkeley.edu
Subject: Unrequired Reading List
Inspired by the Univ. at Buffalo, Undergrad. College List of Unrequired
Reading, I was reminded of Grad. School teaching assistant days, when some
of our students at Yale asked us for summer reading, the implication being
that they wanted something "interesting," the reading of which they could
justify by claiming its importance (or at least by the fact that it had
been recommended by "their teachers"). The late Cecil Wood (Jim Marchand
will remember him) and I compiled a list of what we called "The Damnedest
Books." Today it will no doubt show the generation gap, but such wonderful
books should not be forgotten. I reproduce what memory brings back:
Beerbohm, Max: Zuleika Dobson (the most beautiful of all beautiful women).
Butler, Ellis Parker: Pigs is Pigs -- a beautiful oldie (l906) that should
not be forgotten; reissued by Dover.
Chevalier, Gabriel: Clochemerle (and its sequel Clochemerle Babylon), the
first of which has been produced as a not-so-good movie.
Douglas, Norman: Southwind.
Field, Eugene: Echoes from a Sabine Farm. If you like poetry and/or are a
frustrated classicist--a translation of Horace into the same sort of slangy
language that he himself wrote.
Karig, Walter: Zotz.
Munro, H.H.: The short stories of Saki--try "Sredni Vashtar," and you will
be hooked for the rest (in Modern Library series).
Romains, Jules: Les Copains (translated as 'The Boys in the Back Room")--
supposedly written at daily snits while its author was commuting by train,
it is the story of a group of amiable drunks who conceive a hatred of a
little village which they find on the map.
Sterne, Laurence: Tristram Shandy--don't be discouraged by the fact that it
is a classic--it is still one of the funniest books ever written.
Wylie, Elinor: The Venetian Glass Nephew.
Sorry, that is all my ancient memory can bring up. I would be glad to hear
of other "damnedest books." Blake Lee Spahr (blspahr@garnet.berkeley.edu.)