also provides valuable insights into understanding poetry.
David Lodge, The Art of Fiction (1992). Lodge, an important postmodern British novelist and
critic, wrote the essays in this collection in a newspaper column. They’re fascinating, brief, easy to
comprehend, and filled with really fine illustrative examples.
Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Another important reference book. If you want to
know something about poetry, look in here.
Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer (2006). Excellent recommendations on what and how to
read for aspiring writers—and readers who would understand them.
Master Class
If you want to put together the total reading experience, here you go. These works will give you a
chance to use all your newfound skills and come up with inventive and insightful ways of seeing them.
Once you learn what these four novels can teach you, you won’t need more advice. There’s nothing
exclusive to these four, by the way. Any of perhaps a hundred novels, long poems, and plays could let
you apply the whole panoply of newly acquired skills. I just happen to love these.
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861). Life, death, love, hate, dashed hopes, revenge,
bitterness, redemption, suffering, graveyards, fens, scary lawyers, criminals, crazy old women,
cadaverous wedding cakes. This book has everything except spontaneous human combustion (that’s in
Bleak House—really). Now, how can you not read it?
James Joyce, Ulysses (1922). Don’t get me started. First, the obvious: Ulysses is not for beginners.
When you feel you’ve become a graduate reader, go there. My undergraduates get through it, but they
struggle, even with a good deal of help. Hey, it’s difficult. On the other hand, I feel, as do a lot of
folks, that it’s the most rewarding read there is.
Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1970). This novel should have a label:
“Warning: Symbolism spoken here.” One character survives both the firing squad and a suicide
attempt, and he fathers seventeen sons by seventeen women, all the sons bearing his name and all
killed by his enemies on a single night. Do you think that means something?
Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon (1977). I’ve said so much throughout this book, there’s really
nothing left, except read it.
Acknowledgments
I
T IS IMPOSSIBLE
to thank individually all the students who have had a hand in creating this book, and
yet it couldn’t have come into being without them. Their constant prompting, doubting, questioning,
answering, suggesting, and responding drove me to figure out most of the ideas and observations that
have gone into these essays. Their patience with my wacky notions is often astonishing, their
willingness to try on difficult ideas and perplexing works gratifying. For every routine comment or
piercing query, every bright idea or dull-eyed stare, every wisecrack of theirs or groan at one of
mine, every laugh or snarl, every statement praising or dismissing a literary work, I am profoundly
grateful. They never let me rest or become complacent. Several students in particular have had a hand
in the development of this book, and I wish to single them out for special thanks. Monica Mann’s
smart-aleck comment pointed out to me that I have quite a number of little aphorisms about literature,
although even then it took several years for me to see the possibilities in the “Quotations of Chairman
Tom,” as she called them. Mary Ann Halboth has listened to and commented on much of what became
the material of this study, often pushing my ideas well beyond my initial conceptions. Kelly Tobeler
and Diane Saylor agreed to be guinea pigs for certain experiments and offered insightful, amazing
interpretations of the Katherine Mansfield story; their contributions made my final chapter
immeasurably better.
I am deeply indebted to numerous colleagues for their assistance, insight, encouragement, and
patience. I especially wish to thank Professors Frederic Svoboda, Stephen Bernstein, Mary Jo
Kietzman, and Jan Furman, who read drafts, provided ideas and information, listened to my
complaints and obsessions, and offered support and wisdom. Their intelligence, good humor, and
generosity have made my efforts lighter and the product greatly improved. To have such brilliant and
dedicated colleagues is a genuine gift. They make me sound much smarter than I am. The errors,
however, are purely my own.
To my agent, Faith Hamlin, and my editor at HarperCollins throughout this revision, Michael
Signorelli, many thanks for their belief in the work, as well as for their many constructive criticisms
and suggestions.
As ever, I wish to thank my family for their support, patience, and love. My sons Robert and
Nathan read chapters, contributed interpretations, and gave me firsthand insights into the student mind.
My wife, Brenda, took care of worldly and mundane tasks and made it possible for me to lose myself
in the writing. To all three I offer my immense gratitude and love.
And finally I wish to thank my muse. After all these years of reading and writing, I still don’t
understand where inspiration comes from, but I am profoundly grateful that it keeps coming.
Index
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your
e-book reader’s search tools.
Aaron’s Rod (Lawrence), 178
Absalom, Absalom! (Faulkner), 45, 91–92, 102
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain), 6, 27, 88, 110–11, 172–73
The Aeneid (Virgil), 65–66, 292
Aeschylus, 92
African American writing, 6
“After Apple Picking” (Frost), 113, 187–88
aha! factor, 28–29, 199
AIDS, 228–230
Albee, Edward, 251
Alexandria Quartet (Durrell), 155, 177–78, 206, 227–28
Alice in Wonderland (Carroll), 25, 29, 54, 58
allegory, 95, 105
Allen, Woody, 33
Animal Farm (Orwell), 105
Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 96, 169
Apollonius Rhodius, 67
“Araby” (Joyce), 44–45, 211–12
archetypes, 198–200
The Argonautica (Apollonius Rhodius), 67
Aristophanes, 37
Aristotle, 89
“The Arrow of Heaven” (Chesterton), 255–56
“Ash-Wednesday” (Eliot), 47
Aspects of the Novel (Forster), 84–85
Astor, Mary, 145
Auden, W. H., 62, 63, 172, 180–81, 186–87
Austen, Jane, 88
authorial violence, 97
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 212–13
Bakhtin, Mikhail, 197
Baldwin, James, 49, 50, 233–34, 235–37
Balthazar (Durrell), 155
baptism/rebirth, 160–170
“Barn Burning” (Faulkner), 101
Barnes, Djuna, 157
Barry, Dave, 194
Barry, Rick, 196
Barth, John, 57, 195
Barthes, Roland, 297
Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 36
Beach Boys, 186
Bean Trees (Kingsolver), 175
Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles (Vizenor), 60
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