5 weeks for Moby Dick? I'm currently coming up on 5 months and only 2/3 of the way through. It's like some weirdly enjoyable form of self flagellation that requires recovery time after every chapter.
Ha! That’s so true, Peter. I thought I was being generous due to the word count, as well as noticing the audiobook was only 26 hours—which would be 3 weeks at the 9hrs per week I had laid out. But I didn’t take into account the recovery time.
Sorry if I seemed to poo poo audiobooks, Greg; I actually enjoy them very much—although I listen to popcorn “fun” reads, mainly. I find that reading a physical book is a far deeper, more memorable experience, that’s all.
I so appreciate the recommendation of Reynolds reading Melville—I will definitely check that out!
I can’t bring myself to start Moby Dick. We were introduced to Billy Budd in ninth grade honors English many years ago. It made me want to drop the class.
I can completely understand that. Melville’s language is very, very dense, and many struggle with it. (Myself included, in a younger day.) If ever it calls to you, though, I’d definitely say the effort is worth the reward.
Very fascinating curriculum experiment! Just a note so you can fix it - Emily Bronte is the writer of Wuthering Heights, not Charlotte (Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre, Villete, and Shirley, while Anne, the best one, wrote Agnes Grey and the sublime Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which is the one I would personally choose for my romantic novellist :) )
Curious about what prompted the change! I have not read Wuthering Heights, as I'm not the biggest fan of the Bronte vibe I've gotten from Jane Eyre (I do like that one, but not nearly as much as a lot of people seem to).
So I’ve read Wuthering Heights and can vouch that it’s good (like you, it’s not really my thing, but I recognize what it does well.) I was torn between that and Jane Eyre, so did a little research and couldn’t find a definitive answer on which represents the era and the Bronte “vibe,” as you call it, so I just went with what I knew.
I have to admit I am not versed in Ann Bronte, so you’ve given me something to dig deeper into. Thank you!
Wish I had a more clever, intelligent answer than “because,” but there it is. lol
Fair! I think both dig deep into the "Romantic" era and delve into the construction of the Byronic hero. What I like about Anne Bronte's book in Tenant of Wildfell Hall particularly is that it also has a Byronic hero, but he's contrasted with a man of character and integrity!
if you were close by, I would lend you my copy! One of my proudest internet accomplishments was leading a book club where I convinced about 5-10 gals to read Tenant and most of them loved it!
I just started the audiobook of Tenant of Wildfell Hall because of your comment- it already has me laughing out loud, so thank you! It wasn’t on my radar
I’m confused. The plan you laid out called for about 100,000 words a week but the schedule that you gave is about 100,000 words a month. What did I miss?
Did I? I was a bit fuzzy with the math, I’ll admit—sometimes pushing that limit, sometimes coming well under it, but I didn’t think it was as low as 25k a week?
what is the point of the canon? if the only way of making a definitive list is to remove anything that doesn’t centre Britain or the US, I don’t think it’s a particularly useful exercise. It’s certainly not I would really question what makes something a classic, and why we have lists like this, why we read. doesn’t it make you a little uncomfortable to admit that not having diverse voices is the only way to make a list like this, and then continue to make the list?
“doesn’t it make you a little uncomfortable to admit that not having diverse voices is the only way to make a list like this, and then continue to make the list?”
Not in the least, Luci. I did not purposefully leave off “diverse voices,” just as I didn’t purposefully add them. I chose works on the basis of aesthetic merit alone, proudly and staunchly. These are what hands-down classics of our Western culture I could fit into 12 months of reading. Period.
Year two should just be arguing - respectfully - about all of the books that everyone who participated in year one think you left out (or just advocating for the "choose one" titles that you covered. My list would be different than yours around the edges, but I love the sentiment and the thrust of it.
Year three should be the best post-WW2 novels and the glories of the 21st century. I'd write you that list of you were willing to be kind and accept that a passing grade would be getting about 25-30% right, with the real fun being found in arguing about the other 75-80%.
For the sake of transparency, I would say that Pynchon, DeLillo, Munro (women are allowed to be problematic too), Egan, DFW, Saunders, Kushner, Moore, Davis, and Zadie Smith would be represented and I would probably also agonize over including Moody, Rushdie and Murakami before ultimately cutting them. But if you asked me again tomorrow I might have five other names/books.
Ha! I love your year 2 and 3 ideas…although I left so much out of year 1 that I could easily fill both years by just filling in the chasm-wide gaps.
Either way, your embracing the argument over what’s in and left out is really wonderful: those discussions would be enlightening, wouldn’t they? I’d be interested in just sitting back and listening to you and others who appear to know so much about post-WWII / 21st century lit have a go at figuring it out, as I tend to read books a century (or two, or three, or four…) old. Now that I think about it, I’d advocate you do a post on this and get it going! I’d love to read that.
Thanks so much for the comment, Eric—I appreciate the thoughts!
Well good luck. Never discourage a person from reading anything that appeals to them. I suspect many would find taking your list in reverse easier; or perhaps simply mixing up the timeline to shift between the more straight forward and the more distant. I can read an Austen and later novels in a week. Paradise Lost? I would want the 4 weeks for that.
Ha! You spied those, eh? Yes, this has been a 25 year project to build a collection. Ebay is great for it—although it’s very telling that most I buy have never even been cracked open. Obviously, most people buy them to look nice on their shelf. And they do—but I read them. Nothing like reading from a beautiful book :)
This pairs beautifully with your excellent piece on the canon of Western literature. I too feel perennially under-read, despite having done most of a Master’s degree in English Literature at UBC in the days before the canon was truly laid to rest there. Since I naturally tend to read that which is easier and more engaging, I am deeply grateful for the canon, as my chosen educational path naturally forced me to read those harder-to-read classics which most truthfully expose the complex reality of human nature: in fact, I would say that my English Lit studies were as important for preparing me to be a priest as my seminary education.
On the question raised here of reading through the canon, I would add a recommendation that my old English Lit textbook, “Adventures in English Literature”, that I worked through in Grade 12 could serve as an admirable guide for exposing oneself to a representative sampling of the English part of the Western Canon, assuming it’s still available (which it must at least be in used bookstores). My father, who taught high school English for most of his teaching career, used to say that that was one course that he would gladly teach for free if anyone ever asked him to!
I, too am thankful I was forced to read the longer, tougher books back in college—even high school, as in the 80s everyone still had to plow through Dickens, Harper Lee, the Odyssey, multiple Shakespeare plays, and more. (Ah, the good old days.) I hated them at the time, but in hindsight I’m 100% convinced without that, I would never have headed down the path that ultimately led me to teach—and of course, to love great literature!
I am not familiar with the textbook you mentioned—I wonder if it’s a Canadian work? Here in the States, the Norton Anthology was the old standby for surveys of English, American, and other literary Canons. However, that “snippet” I mentioned in my last article regarding my son’s college experience was due in large part to Norton “opening up” their textbook’s selection to include many, many obscure (and lackluster) poets and writers. The company obviously “went woke” in order to appease modern college profs; a smart business move, but another dagger in the heart of classical education.
Yes, quite probably a Canadian text. I’ll look it up and get back to you on that! Sadly, the text and the course have both been largely de-emphasized, if not outright discontinued here, though I did get a chance to teach it briefly!
And yes, the old version of the Norton anthology, that I also have in my library, was also something I thought could be recommended, along these same lines. Alas for our society that these things can only be found in used bookstores these days!
I’m both pleased and discouraged at what I’ve read out of this… the stuff that I’ve bought and added to my list largely lining up makes me happy.
I’ll save it to give me some ideas as to what to pick on my next list. Life has been very busy these past couple years, but this year my “new years resolutions” as much as I actually do them are related to studying American history more fully, and getting back into reading more often—classics especially.
I haven’t given a good focus to American government and history since college and HS, and classic lit for almost as long, about 10 years.
I hear you, Connor—there’s never a lack for both catching up and getting a grip, is there? :)
Nonfiction is my black hole. I only read about 2-3 history or biography books a year, plus maybe one theology book—and I wish I did more. There’s just so many things to read!
Thank you for this! I unfortunately relate only too much- so many books, so little time! Might you suggest a replacement for Moby Dick? I just finished it recently.
I hope you liked Moby-Dick… it’s a challenging one, but the language, the themes, the symbolism! So wonderful.
If you are going to give this a go, I would simply replace Melville with one of the “choose your own adventure” books—-in an ideal world someone would read them all, so maybe you can knock out one or two more?
Absolutely amazing list! Theres SO many amazing books out there and it is so worthwhile to read a lot of them, and yet it is so hard just to get started sometimes...I think this list will be incredibly helpful for so many people! If I had a lot of free time these days I'd definitely follow this list through, it is very well done
It does put into perspective how crazy my advanced literature class is... We have to read one book per week, more if they are shorter, so it usually averages out at 550pages/week. My teacher is not letting us have an easy time of it that's for sure
Whew, Viktor, it sounds like you’re on a crazy reading pace as it is! I’m sure you’ll thank you teacher for this someday, but it must be really stressful now. Reminds me of college.
5 weeks for Moby Dick? I'm currently coming up on 5 months and only 2/3 of the way through. It's like some weirdly enjoyable form of self flagellation that requires recovery time after every chapter.
Ha! That’s so true, Peter. I thought I was being generous due to the word count, as well as noticing the audiobook was only 26 hours—which would be 3 weeks at the 9hrs per week I had laid out. But I didn’t take into account the recovery time.
I know you don't like audio books, but there is a version of Moby Dick read by Burt Reynolds that really brings you into the work.
Sorry if I seemed to poo poo audiobooks, Greg; I actually enjoy them very much—although I listen to popcorn “fun” reads, mainly. I find that reading a physical book is a far deeper, more memorable experience, that’s all.
I so appreciate the recommendation of Reynolds reading Melville—I will definitely check that out!
I can’t bring myself to start Moby Dick. We were introduced to Billy Budd in ninth grade honors English many years ago. It made me want to drop the class.
I can completely understand that. Melville’s language is very, very dense, and many struggle with it. (Myself included, in a younger day.) If ever it calls to you, though, I’d definitely say the effort is worth the reward.
Thanks so much for commenting.
Very apt description.
Very fascinating curriculum experiment! Just a note so you can fix it - Emily Bronte is the writer of Wuthering Heights, not Charlotte (Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre, Villete, and Shirley, while Anne, the best one, wrote Agnes Grey and the sublime Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which is the one I would personally choose for my romantic novellist :) )
Oof—thanks for catching that, Ian! I had Jane Eyre on the original list and changed it—but forgot to change Brontes!
Curious about what prompted the change! I have not read Wuthering Heights, as I'm not the biggest fan of the Bronte vibe I've gotten from Jane Eyre (I do like that one, but not nearly as much as a lot of people seem to).
So I’ve read Wuthering Heights and can vouch that it’s good (like you, it’s not really my thing, but I recognize what it does well.) I was torn between that and Jane Eyre, so did a little research and couldn’t find a definitive answer on which represents the era and the Bronte “vibe,” as you call it, so I just went with what I knew.
I have to admit I am not versed in Ann Bronte, so you’ve given me something to dig deeper into. Thank you!
Wish I had a more clever, intelligent answer than “because,” but there it is. lol
Fair! I think both dig deep into the "Romantic" era and delve into the construction of the Byronic hero. What I like about Anne Bronte's book in Tenant of Wildfell Hall particularly is that it also has a Byronic hero, but he's contrasted with a man of character and integrity!
Sounds like Tenant needs to be added to my TBR list (Thank you—and curse you :)
if you were close by, I would lend you my copy! One of my proudest internet accomplishments was leading a book club where I convinced about 5-10 gals to read Tenant and most of them loved it!
I agree Anne is the best one!
Spread the Anne Bronte love across the world!
I just started the audiobook of Tenant of Wildfell Hall because of your comment- it already has me laughing out loud, so thank you! It wasn’t on my radar
I'm so glad! Tenant of Wildfell Hall is unusual for a Bronte novel in having a lot of great humor - but it's just as Romantic and romantic :D
I’m confused. The plan you laid out called for about 100,000 words a week but the schedule that you gave is about 100,000 words a month. What did I miss?
Did I? I was a bit fuzzy with the math, I’ll admit—sometimes pushing that limit, sometimes coming well under it, but I didn’t think it was as low as 25k a week?
what is the point of the canon? if the only way of making a definitive list is to remove anything that doesn’t centre Britain or the US, I don’t think it’s a particularly useful exercise. It’s certainly not I would really question what makes something a classic, and why we have lists like this, why we read. doesn’t it make you a little uncomfortable to admit that not having diverse voices is the only way to make a list like this, and then continue to make the list?
“doesn’t it make you a little uncomfortable to admit that not having diverse voices is the only way to make a list like this, and then continue to make the list?”
Not in the least, Luci. I did not purposefully leave off “diverse voices,” just as I didn’t purposefully add them. I chose works on the basis of aesthetic merit alone, proudly and staunchly. These are what hands-down classics of our Western culture I could fit into 12 months of reading. Period.
Appreciate the discourse, Luci.
Year two should just be arguing - respectfully - about all of the books that everyone who participated in year one think you left out (or just advocating for the "choose one" titles that you covered. My list would be different than yours around the edges, but I love the sentiment and the thrust of it.
Year three should be the best post-WW2 novels and the glories of the 21st century. I'd write you that list of you were willing to be kind and accept that a passing grade would be getting about 25-30% right, with the real fun being found in arguing about the other 75-80%.
For the sake of transparency, I would say that Pynchon, DeLillo, Munro (women are allowed to be problematic too), Egan, DFW, Saunders, Kushner, Moore, Davis, and Zadie Smith would be represented and I would probably also agonize over including Moody, Rushdie and Murakami before ultimately cutting them. But if you asked me again tomorrow I might have five other names/books.
Ha! I love your year 2 and 3 ideas…although I left so much out of year 1 that I could easily fill both years by just filling in the chasm-wide gaps.
Either way, your embracing the argument over what’s in and left out is really wonderful: those discussions would be enlightening, wouldn’t they? I’d be interested in just sitting back and listening to you and others who appear to know so much about post-WWII / 21st century lit have a go at figuring it out, as I tend to read books a century (or two, or three, or four…) old. Now that I think about it, I’d advocate you do a post on this and get it going! I’d love to read that.
Thanks so much for the comment, Eric—I appreciate the thoughts!
Hommer, iliad
Sophocles, Antigone
J.Steinbeck, Mice and Men
M.Kundera, unbearable lightness of being
Completely agree on the first three. All were in my original (too long) list, and it was painful to cut them!
It seems strange to argue that Homer is not suited to a listening medium.
lol—after publishing I realized that was the implication, but I certainly did not mean to discount the greatest live-poetry reader ever. :)
Well good luck. Never discourage a person from reading anything that appeals to them. I suspect many would find taking your list in reverse easier; or perhaps simply mixing up the timeline to shift between the more straight forward and the more distant. I can read an Austen and later novels in a week. Paradise Lost? I would want the 4 weeks for that.
That's such a great suggestion, Conor!
Let me help and take all those Easton Press editions off your hands
Ha! You spied those, eh? Yes, this has been a 25 year project to build a collection. Ebay is great for it—although it’s very telling that most I buy have never even been cracked open. Obviously, most people buy them to look nice on their shelf. And they do—but I read them. Nothing like reading from a beautiful book :)
This pairs beautifully with your excellent piece on the canon of Western literature. I too feel perennially under-read, despite having done most of a Master’s degree in English Literature at UBC in the days before the canon was truly laid to rest there. Since I naturally tend to read that which is easier and more engaging, I am deeply grateful for the canon, as my chosen educational path naturally forced me to read those harder-to-read classics which most truthfully expose the complex reality of human nature: in fact, I would say that my English Lit studies were as important for preparing me to be a priest as my seminary education.
On the question raised here of reading through the canon, I would add a recommendation that my old English Lit textbook, “Adventures in English Literature”, that I worked through in Grade 12 could serve as an admirable guide for exposing oneself to a representative sampling of the English part of the Western Canon, assuming it’s still available (which it must at least be in used bookstores). My father, who taught high school English for most of his teaching career, used to say that that was one course that he would gladly teach for free if anyone ever asked him to!
Thank you, Father.
I, too am thankful I was forced to read the longer, tougher books back in college—even high school, as in the 80s everyone still had to plow through Dickens, Harper Lee, the Odyssey, multiple Shakespeare plays, and more. (Ah, the good old days.) I hated them at the time, but in hindsight I’m 100% convinced without that, I would never have headed down the path that ultimately led me to teach—and of course, to love great literature!
I am not familiar with the textbook you mentioned—I wonder if it’s a Canadian work? Here in the States, the Norton Anthology was the old standby for surveys of English, American, and other literary Canons. However, that “snippet” I mentioned in my last article regarding my son’s college experience was due in large part to Norton “opening up” their textbook’s selection to include many, many obscure (and lackluster) poets and writers. The company obviously “went woke” in order to appease modern college profs; a smart business move, but another dagger in the heart of classical education.
Yes, quite probably a Canadian text. I’ll look it up and get back to you on that! Sadly, the text and the course have both been largely de-emphasized, if not outright discontinued here, though I did get a chance to teach it briefly!
And yes, the old version of the Norton anthology, that I also have in my library, was also something I thought could be recommended, along these same lines. Alas for our society that these things can only be found in used bookstores these days!
I’m both pleased and discouraged at what I’ve read out of this… the stuff that I’ve bought and added to my list largely lining up makes me happy.
I’ll save it to give me some ideas as to what to pick on my next list. Life has been very busy these past couple years, but this year my “new years resolutions” as much as I actually do them are related to studying American history more fully, and getting back into reading more often—classics especially.
I haven’t given a good focus to American government and history since college and HS, and classic lit for almost as long, about 10 years.
I hear you, Connor—there’s never a lack for both catching up and getting a grip, is there? :)
Nonfiction is my black hole. I only read about 2-3 history or biography books a year, plus maybe one theology book—and I wish I did more. There’s just so many things to read!
Any reading list that ends with anything by Cormac McCarthy (let alone Blood Meridian) has my stamp of approval
Nice! I, too, am a McCarthy fan.
God speed. Sounds a full time job to me! It think I'll stick to my literary fiction! 😂
Thank you for this! I unfortunately relate only too much- so many books, so little time! Might you suggest a replacement for Moby Dick? I just finished it recently.
Also, your Eaton Press library is beautiful!
Thank you for giving the list a look-see!
I hope you liked Moby-Dick… it’s a challenging one, but the language, the themes, the symbolism! So wonderful.
If you are going to give this a go, I would simply replace Melville with one of the “choose your own adventure” books—-in an ideal world someone would read them all, so maybe you can knock out one or two more?
Thanks so much for commenting :)
Absolutely amazing list! Theres SO many amazing books out there and it is so worthwhile to read a lot of them, and yet it is so hard just to get started sometimes...I think this list will be incredibly helpful for so many people! If I had a lot of free time these days I'd definitely follow this list through, it is very well done
It does put into perspective how crazy my advanced literature class is... We have to read one book per week, more if they are shorter, so it usually averages out at 550pages/week. My teacher is not letting us have an easy time of it that's for sure
Whew, Viktor, it sounds like you’re on a crazy reading pace as it is! I’m sure you’ll thank you teacher for this someday, but it must be really stressful now. Reminds me of college.
Good luck, my friend, and happy reading!
https://danielmurphykennedy.substack.com/p/literary-excellence
I’ll try at least two or three. Yikes!
lol. Yikes is right… :)