My friend and I (both early 20s) were discussing more recent novels that have become required reading in school, like The Road by Cormac McCarthy or The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. But with new books becoming standards for grade school studies, are there any books that have fallen to the wayside or are generally not taught at all anymore? What are some books that you all had to read for school that you're surprised are not taught anymore? submitted by /u/KissMyBassoon [visit reddit] [comments ..read more

I can’t tell if I’m crazy or not but it feels as if the books and the first movie, as far as 80’s movies go, were as good as they get. The novel however feels like something that people try and fail to copy everyday. I don’t know if it counts as literary discussion, but what kind of books give that same feeling? I hesitate to give it the literary insult of “edgy”, when it is one of the original edgy pieces that set the standard. I just don’t feel that a lot of pieces have that hardcore maturity, and it makes sense as the literary world isn’t going to be full of those types of minds. (PS do yo ..read more

I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Ha ..read more

been sharing this w everyone ik because it’s helped me think through the Alice Munro situation … or at least feel a little more clarity submitted by /u/Stunning_Steak_8400 [visit reddit] [comments ..read more

Pennsylvanian Yankee here! I’m a big Washington Irving fan and his sense of place within the Hudson Valley and the larger northern/mid-Atlantic United States. Beyond Irving, however, I’ve struggled to find an author who writes about Northern culture/society as Faulkner brilliantly has about the American South. Faulkner is obviously a legend, so I’d hate to try to compare anyone to him, but is there an author who has established his or her self as a “Faulkner of the North,” per se? submitted by /u/kuiil_001 [visit reddit] [comments ..read more

anyone know any examples of bad poems by good poets? and i mean really bad, like poems that were never even published (so from their archives/drafts, things like that) or where i would find such poems? and by “good poets” i mean ones that would be taught in schools, older ones. i’m especially a fan of modernist poetry but i’ll take what i can get! thanks! submitted by /u/OldHags [visit reddit] [comments ..read more

I want to preface this by saying I like a lot of authors, hell I even love them. But there is a difference between a story and something that holds divine providence… My analysis : …and I feel that Lovecrafts stories are just that. The originality, the poeticism, hell the titles. There is nothing so notorious in the literary world to the knowledgeable eye. I believe that it would take miracle after miracle in some profound eldritch prophetic system of universal events to make what he made. I mean the man impacts what has to be half of all fiction today. So my fellow critics what are some auth ..read more

After the Phaeacians help Odysseus home, Poseidon, who is angry at Odysseus, becomes enraged and turns the Phaeacian ship into stone. Poseidon then “covers the island with a mountain.” This makes sense in isolation, but not when you consider the Odyssey as a story about xenia. Homer's Odyssey repeatedly rewards and punishes its characters for good and bad xenia (guest-host hospitality): Cyclops: bad xenia, punished Suitors: bad xenia, punished Paris (Illiad): bad xenia, punished Telemachus: good xenia, rewarded Calypso: good/forced xenia, (at least not punished) Nestor: good xenia, presumabl ..read more

Who has read Beijing Coma, Waiting, or his short stories? I think some of his writings read like prose poetry. I just wept with Beijing Coma. Granted, I was experiencing mental distress, but reading is my escape submitted by /u/YourCSLatina [visit reddit] [comments ..read more

I have always been told that “Godot” means “God”. I find it a natural and obvious interpretation given that the Absurd is ruling the entire play and the concept of waiting for someone that never arrives (God in that case) is undoubtedly suitable. In addition to that, Beckett was raised as an Anglican but later embraced agnosticism; another point in favor of the “Godot means God” interpretation. Everything seemed fine until I recently found out that Beckett himself told the English actor Ralph Richardson that “if by Godot I had meant God I would [have] said God, and not Godot. This seemed to d ..read more