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Post by kunuma on Jun 18, 2013 19:43:42 GMT 1
Being up to my eyes, well in fact way over my head in a literature course at present, and finding it fascinating how differently people view things that I thought were 'set in stone' how about we go all up market and have a reading circle now and again on something v e r y s e r i o u s - such as Jane Austen, L M Alcott, - or even , dare I say it , poetry? (I'm a sucker for the Romantics!)
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Post by Claire on Jun 18, 2013 20:56:58 GMT 1
Lol talk about great minds - just look at my last post on the reading challenge thread kunuma ;D
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Post by kunuma on Jun 18, 2013 21:19:22 GMT 1
Lol talk about great minds - just look at my last post on the reading challenge thread kunuma ;D LOL Well of course, we both possess GREAT literary minds!! ;D
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Post by Claire on Jun 21, 2013 12:08:43 GMT 1
I'd suggest a Wilkie Collins book - great melodramatic fun and also he was so ahead of his time (he was contemporary with Dickens). His women characters were certainly not the swooning pathetic type but were up for anything. (He was also anti-vivisection in a time when animals had just about zero rights)
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Post by kunuma on Jun 21, 2013 17:22:57 GMT 1
I don't think I know him, will have to go google him. I'm up to my neck in reading Dracula still (pun intended!) it takes Forever to read a book online and it Isn't remotely restful.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2013 18:11:50 GMT 1
Oh dear I'm too thick for this one I have read a bit of Jane Austen which I enjoyed but that's about my limit.
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Post by Claire on Jun 21, 2013 22:35:24 GMT 1
Don't put yourself down Rosie! Anyhow Wilkie Collins isn't exactly highbrow, in fact you probably couldn't call it 'great literature' at all.
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Post by foxglove on Jun 28, 2013 14:03:33 GMT 1
Rosie, I'm sure you'd enjoy Wilkie Collins; he and Dickens wrote in the form of serialisations that were intended to be gripping page turners (apparently people were in a frenzy waiting for installments of The Woman In White).
I like the Russian classics myself; all that consumptive hysteria, Moscow rain and failed shootings! My favourite literary authors are Conrad, Hardy and Woolf. I re-read a lot of DH Lawrence last year and enjoyed the revisit.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2013 14:36:21 GMT 1
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Post by Claire on Jun 28, 2013 15:24:27 GMT 1
Collins is a lot less 'literary' and more fast paced than Dickens. I just love his heroines who go around climbing walls to get into rooms to snoop about and all sorts of other antics. They are about as far removed from the stereotypical fainting Victorian maiden as you can get. Yes the serials he and Dickens wrote were like the TV series everyone watches and talks about today! Jane Austen is very easy reading as well. For poetry I'd suggest Philip Larkin, very down to earth indeed but still quite profound. (Quite a few swear words tho so not for easily offended) He even wrote a poem about how real life isn't as good as what you read about in books! So true!
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Post by rallycairn on Jun 28, 2013 22:07:58 GMT 1
So, when's our Wilkie Collins group read???
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Post by tintin on Jun 28, 2013 22:27:40 GMT 1
Word of warning Wilkie Collins's books are HUGE
I'm not at all a literary person, but Joseph Conrad "Heart of Darkness" is very good, a kind of reverse manual on how not to do everything
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Post by Claire on Jun 28, 2013 22:38:18 GMT 1
Actually there are some shorter Wilkie Collins ones and also some short stories - but the best ones are quite long.
Quite a fun read also is Joseph Andrews (or indeed the more well known Tom Jones but JA is my fav) by Henry Fielding. Totally farcical, bed-hopping, outrageous characters - a definite precursor of the Carry on Film. I think that people who don't read 'literature' because they don't think they are clever enough (which is usually not true anyhow) or because they have been put off it by dreary school lessons are missing out on a lot of great reading. Its not all stodgy stuff!
Maybe we should do a top 10 of our favs!
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