Diane's comments (member since Jun 24, 2008)

Diane's comments from the Constant Reader group.

Me, too. I first read it my senior year in high school (the teacher was trying to get us intrigued by Hamlet and added this to the syllabus) and it blew my mind. I've been reading, watching, and directing Stoppard ever since. My favorite is probably Arcadia but just about everything he's written is worth it. Incredible!!

Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Meet King Lear was actually the original one-act version of the play. I believe it has been published in one of the many Stoppard collections (at least I think I've read it somewhere ..) Stoppard is incredible - his plays work best on stage, I think, because they are so fast and complex (I remember trying to watch Hapgood after flying the red-eye and had to go back again just to make *some* sense of it!) Always inventive and sometimes heartbreaking in his humor (as with Arcadia.

It's fine that a story carries on into adulthood (Alias Grace really only examines her adolescence in hindsight). In fact, I'm trying to shift the bar a little - there is already a course in Children's Literature which focuses on childhood. I'm thinking of 11/12 as the start of puberty (defined, in the case of Potter and Marjane Sartrapi, by emotional and/or political awakening), and youth is a state of mind, really.

Regarding the boys vs. girls thing, I'm trying to spread it evenly between the two. Last time we had some fascinating conversations about high-school experiences that were honest and forthright. Even though there were only three young men in the course, they held their own and were very interested in stories featuring young women.

Thanks!

Your suggestion of Finn gives me an idea: since we're restricted in terms of how many books we can include on the syllabus (I feel like a bit of a fogey when I remember back to my freshman year and going from Beowulf through the 17th century in one term!), I may create a "Recommended Further Reading" list for those who get excited about the themes we raise in class. Thanks!

I think it's a bit strange, but it is an English lit. course ... as opposed to comp. lit. or a "studies" course. For example, when one of my fellow PhD/sessionals suggested teaching Crime and Punishment for a similar course called "The Rebel", he was told that he couldn't use it. But I think The Diary of Anne Frank would be a good choice. It ultimately depends on how much of a stickler my teaching advisor is for the canon. They do like us to focus on British/American/Canadian wherever possible.
Thanks!

Hello all,
I will be teaching a first-year course in Winter term called "Youth and Adolescence". In the UW course catalog it is described thus: "Studies the portrayal of young protagonists as they respond to the mores of adult society; their own physical, mental, and psychological development; and the expectations placed upon them by themselves and by others." I taught the course last winter, using these texts: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, This Side of Paradise, Persepolis, Donnie Darko (film), Alias Grace, and Arcadia. As you can see, I was going for breadth of genre as well as that tease factor of trying to show students (none of whom have yet declared a major) that literature is dynamic and its appeal individual.

Of course, Potter was a hit - we spent most of the rest of the term bandying about the term "youthful exceptionalism" - as were Persepolis and Alias Grace. But I was surprised that they couldn't get past Blaine's arrogance in Paradise to recognize their own situation, or past Stoppard's mental gymnastics to see the fleeting, stunning beauty and humour of Arcadia.

So in putting together this year's syllabus, I thought I'd ask for input from all of you. The restrictions are that it must be literature in English (I stretched the rules by including Persepolis but got away with it) and should lean toward the canon if not necessarily be a part of it. I'm willing to include a classic like Huckleberry Finn (this is Canada, and the book isn't so widely read in secondary school here anymore), but I'd really like to avoid Catcher in the Rye. Considering that Alias Grace runs to 600 pages, the other 4-5 books need to be a bit leaner, and should each focus on some theme pertaining to youth and adolescence (e.g., first love, the psyche, alienation, consequences, relationship to society, etc.)

I look forward to your suggestions!

I particularly like this:

I, the head, am the only subject
of this picture.
You, Sir, are furniture.
Get stuffed.

It feels like a direct challenge to Lacan and all that frustratingly dismissive "gaze" and "lack" bollocks (excuse my Middle English) that makes me so frustrated with psychoanalytic literary criticism.

Go Margaret!!! (and the Atwood portrait by Corbett is fantastic. SO much better than the one they have hanging at University of Toronto in the Frye building - THAT is gawdawful!)

I'd suggest the Heaney as well, (there's an audio recording read by Heaney, too). Really beautiful. But if you can find it, you might be interested in the Tolkien translation. Might be hard to find, but worth it!

Ever since 9th grade English vocabulary I've had a thing for "lugubrious." "Moribund" and "unctuous", too, but there's something so gooey and Vincent Price-like about lugubrious ... Don't let it be said that a public-school education is without merit. Of course, I can probably count on one hand the times I've used lugubrious in a sentence that had nothing to do with favorite words ....

Waterloo is known for three things: Oktoberfest, farmer's markets, and RIM (creator of the Blackberry, which was actually developed out of University of Waterloo). So there's lots of beer, fresh vegetables, a vibrant Mennonite community and ... techies. But Toronto is 60 miles away, and we're 1/2 hour from the Stratford Festival. And there are books wherever one goes! ;)

Hello!
This looks like a fantastic group. I'm rather new to GoodReads, but have been looking for something like The Constant Reader for a long while. My reading tastes run from the eclectic to the bizarre (although they make sense to me). I'm a doctoral candidate in English literature (specializing in medieval/renaissance drama) at the University of Waterloo in Canada; my day-reading is mostly theory and literary/cultural analysis, plus teaching-prep.

Long ago I was given great advice - before bed every night, no matter how much "work" reading I've done during the day, I should read a book that has no relation to my research. That advice has kept me grounded in loving books while many of my fellow graduate students become cynical and disheartened.

I look forward to some spirited discourse, and if you don't mind I may on occasion ask for book advice as I develop course syllabi (e.g., I'm prepping a course in "Youth and Adolescence" for the winter term.)

Thanks for what is evidently a work of love and incredible enthusiasm! Cheers to all and happy summer!