The Denial of Death

Posted on April 27, 2012 by TimD

Books have the power to inspire and make people feel like they can accomplish things. People read stories of heroism and of brave souls accomplishing huge things against tremendous odds. Books both fictional and non-fictional can help us learn how better to cope with where we are going while highlighting where we have come from. Books it seems are a powerful medium.

That is, unless nothing is truly powerful and life itself or human civilization as we have constructed it is simply a front built to help us avoid the reality that in fact we are all constantly plummeting towards our collective demise. Mortality is the only thing that matters maybe, and anything else is just a way to avoid that fact.

This is the major thrust of the 1973 psychology and philosophy tomb The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, a winner of the Pulitzer for General Non-Fiction in 1974. The book dissects depression, heroism and our collective sense of meaning in life. It is an emotionally heavy read that could leave a reader rethinking their lives in either hyper positive or hyper negative terms.

The book has been referenced by Bill Clinton and Woody Allen in the film Annie Hall. It has also recently been a frequent topic of conversation on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast. It’s classic literature in a strange scary way. Can you handle it?

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No Fear Shakespeare

Posted on April 17, 2012 by MattC

Last year I had seen Shakespeare in the Park with two of my friends. I had a fantastic time and so did they. After the show had ended and I had asked my two friends what they thought, one declared, “I had no idea what the Hell they were saying but it was awesome.” We all had a good chuckle over it. I realized though just how complicated Shakespeare can be to understand for some people. That’s why I suggest No Fear Shakespeare for any and all people who want to read the plays but just can’t bring themselves to suffer through it.

What this classic literature series does is provide a modern take on the original text through modern English translation and imagery. You get to compare the text side-by-side to familiarize yourself with it. Whoever said older literature is painful clearly did not realize that the themes are eternal, it’s just that the way we speak evolves.

By training yourself to understand former English, you open yourself up to a whole culture-worth of history. It is well worth the attempt and you might as well make it as painless as possible. Get your copies of these books online or at the store and enjoy some Shakespearean masterpieces.

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The Anime Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Posted on April 17, 2012 by TimD

As I have explored on this blog before I am something of a dolt. Sure I can spin a sentence in a favorable direction and in conversation I can act like I know a lot of junk about literature but in general I have not actually read much of it.

When I was a kid from the age of about 6 to the age of about 12 I am fairly certain that I wrote 8 book reports about The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Now, this is already a blemish on my permanent life record but it gets worse. You see when I was a kid I would wake up an hour early to watch television before school. I loved television and HBO played Fraggle Rock at 6AM. At 6:30AM the network played a clever animated series from Japan that very specifically and accurately told the stories from each chapter of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Classic literature in cartoon form, sign me up!

This is all to say that, even though I wrote several book reports on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer I never actually read the thing. Sure I skimmed it for pertinent quotes and really I feel like I know the book intimately but in the end my experience with it is not particularly literary.

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The Original Winnie The Pooh

Posted on April 11, 2012 by MattC

Before Disney took these characters and made them beloved household names, A. A. Milne had a classic literature book series for children. His lead character, Winnie-the-Pooh (yes, hyphenated) also known as Pooh Bear was first introduced in 1924 in a poem from the verse book When We Were Young. Two years later, circa 1926, he finally starred in his very own self-titled book and in 1928 came a sequel, The House at Pooh Corner. The last original major work featuring Pooh Bear was 1927′s Now We Are Six, another poetry collection featuring him.

Disney took these little adventures and transformed him into a lovable cartoon character from several movie incarnations and a television series. Most notably the A. A. Milne characters are known for The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh (1977), a collection of the Disney featurettes Winnie The Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968) and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974).

If you’re at all interested in finding an in-between book series for kids getting old enough to read along with you, these are great. They feature well-known characters but they are also modern classic books.

 

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Will The Hunger Games Become A Classic?

Posted on April 2, 2012 by MattC

When a book series hits it big it is very hard to tell whether or not it is a passing fad or if it has the driving force to be added to the classic literature canon. It will take years before we can officially dub it something like that. With The Hunger Games trilogy, I see potential.

Given that these books are written for young adults I would like to point out there have been plenty of modern classics readable for youth that target a much wider audience– The Outsiders and To Kill A Mockingbird for example.  These books may not be dystopian but they surely were meant to educate youth about the corruption in society.

The Hunger Games books may be modern but they discuss some serious issues– the increase in media violence, race relations, government corruption, and the frivolity in the education system. While many of these are subplots, they add weight to the validity of the text and its worth in literary culture. They are also more relevant to the younger generation’s experiences than some older novels. They are perfect for classes with literature analysis.

Although it’s too early to tell I think it is safe to say that these books will be remembered by at least those in this century. May the odds be ever in their favor.

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Utopia and Dystopia: A Quick Review

Posted on March 26, 2012 by MattC

Utopian and dystopian classic literature is commonly used for satire and societal critique. Ambiguity and irony are common modes of syntax for novels in this fashion.

This genre was first identified by Sir Thomas More in his 1516 work Utopia. This novel is often described as satirical because the perfections and flaws in the undiscovered land of Utopia parallel that of English society at the time in which it was written.

Since then we’ve had utopian literature and its supposed antithesis, dystopia, though referring to dystopian literature as a direct opposite is inaccurate. Both genres actually share the same purpose: to critique contemporary society. They just use different approaches one form shows the ideal while the other shows the nightmare.

The most recent famous novels to be added to this canon and tradition are The Hunger Games and its sequels. But there is a long list of novels that set the precedent.

Some of the more popular works include Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Many of these feature society in a future setting, showing both the positives and negatives of the history that led to the current condition of the society’s citizens.

It looks as though this genre is prepared for a revival. We have the perfect culture climate to breed these ideas, with the fear of a dying planet and continual war declarations.

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Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Posted on March 19, 2012 by MattC

People may forget that before the days of True Blood and Twilight vampires were considered scary creatures of the night with unusually purple and pale tinted skin. they were able to transform into different animals (the most common being a bat) and they could climb up walls like Spider-Man. Yes, that is in the original novel. Jonathan Harker sees the ghastly creature climbing up the castle walls and into the confines of his safe  quarters.

The novel itself is very interesting, considering this particular piece of classic literature written in 1897 by an Irish novelist and short story writer not only discusses women’s rights and sexuality, it basically admits that the movement was beginning. The only downside is that its religious overtones cancel out any potential fr it to be considered feminist. Depending on interpretation it could even be considered anti-feminist (but you would have to overlook the fact that Mina Harker is the strongest character in the novel and ultimately the one who saves the day.

As it stands the only director that grasped the point of this book and adapted it into a feature film is Francis Ford Coppola and even his movie has its flaws.

Hopefully those who have not read Bram Stoker will pick this classic novel up and remember the days before vampires were friendly love interests.

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A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words, Or More: The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Posted on March 12, 2012 by MattC

Way before the days of Kodak were the glory days of portrait artists. If you were so inclined to sit long hours upon a stool, staring off into space then you had the pleasure of owning a picture of yourself. And just as you might hate getting a caricature done of yourself at the local fair, Dorian Gray despised his portrait and what it represented: the least favorable aspects of himself.

After wishing he would never age and lose his beautiful youth, he began to live life large. The consequences were to imbrue his soul with sins and darkness, which became expressed in the portrait his friend painted as old age and decomposition. I think I’d take several Botox injections any day over this catastrophe of a devil’s pact but that’s just me, besides the fact that those luxuries didn’t exist back then.

This is a very passionate and flowery piece of literature, tinged with a shocking eroticism for the time. It’s amazing Ireland published this at all. Leave it to Oscar Wilde to push the envelope with classic literature.

They say beauty fades, but when it comes to the written word and classic novels, that is far from true. They age quite well.

 

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Me Vs. Intellectualism And Thomas Pynchon

Posted on March 7, 2012 by TimD

Part of me, most of me, has always wanted to be smart while still putting forth an air of blue collar down and dirty charm. I have mostly somehow failed at both of these things. My love of French films and obscure music has made the blue collar guy in me look like a bit of a prissy pants while my complete lack of focus has made being well read quite difficult to imbibe necessary classic literature. My recent reading has been but one book written by a friend of mine who is a comedian, A Bad Idea I’m About To Do by Chris Gethard. It is decidedly low brow.

That said my desk is adorned with a lot of noble attempts to look smart. In particular my interest in obscurity and experimentation in film and music has me wishing I had the patience and mental capacity to read the work of noted experimental novelist Thomas Pynchon. I have one of his largest and most recent books Against The Day in hardcover and a softcover copy of The Crying of Lot 49, purchased for me by an ex-girlfriend sympathetic to my intellectual struggle. Every now and again I will pick up one of these books hoping that by simply holding it my intellectual capabilities will be increased. When I do this I feel nothing but disappointment and failure. Fun stuff.

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Judge a Book By It’s Cover…Sometimes

Posted on February 21, 2012 by kristing

I was in a bookstore not so very long ago looking for something to read. I was in the mood for a classic novel, you know, something to check off of my classic book list. What I found instead was anything but Pride and Prejudice. It was The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear.

Normally, I would leave a book like this alone and wouldn’t even pick it off the shelf, but it was bright yellow with a huge blue bear surrounded by small pirates. My interest was piqued. No, this wasn’t Pride and Prejudice, it wasn’t even Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it was better. I bought it and even though the book was a whopping 704 pages, I went through it over the course of the next few day. I couldn’t put it down.

I can’t tell you enough how much I loved this book and I would never have even thought to pick it up if it hadn’t been for the eye-catching cover art.

So yes, you can sometimes judge a book by it’s cover. I wouldn’t recommend doing it all the time, but in this case, it really paid off.

Do you have any stories like this? Tell me in the comments section!

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