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Vol. 38, No. 18 |
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1-23-2008 Booktalk, 1/24/08
“In Search of Lost Time” by Marcel Proust
As ambitious a journey as “The Divine Comedy,” with a comparably astounding finale, but without Dante’s deistic amplification.
“Orlando Furioso” by Ludovico Ariosto Early magic realism, with a likable hero teamed up with an irrepressible female warrior. These are the original flying martial artists.
“Jonah’s Gourd Vine” by Zora Neale HurstonA re-invention of English; the language is virtually Shakespearean.
“The Violent Bear It Away” by Flannery O’ConnorO’Connor runs a harrow through the soul of the Bible Belt.
“New World A’Coming: Inside Black America” by Roi Ottley Great, fresh commentator on 1940s America.
Who is your favorite character in literature? The Count of Monte Cristo — the ultimate avenger of male melodrama.
What is the last book you’ve bought? “Chris Marker” by Nora M. Alter, in the Contemporary Film Directors series from the University of Illinois Press.
What’s your “guilty pleasure” — a book you love but don’t often talk about because it’s not “serious” literature? This is probably a cheat — “Seraph on the Suwanee;” it’s considered a white-pandering, commercial cop-out by Zora Neale Hurston, but it got to me.
What book would you most want your kids to read? Anything by Lois Lenski, e.g., “Shoo Fly Girl,” “Texas Tomboy” or “Bayou Suzette.” Lenski immersed herself in the lives of American sub-cultural families, then fictionalized them without romanticism. In “Shoo Fly Girl” we grow up Amish for a few months; I read it just before the recent shootings in Holmes County.
What would you want them NOT to read? “On the Genealogy of Morality” by Friedrich Nietzsche. Wait ’til they grow up.
What classic novel was a disappointment to you? “The Mill on the Floss” by George Eliot. I can’t stick the asinine brother, and thus, the interesting but doting sister loses standing.
If you were to ban one book, what would it be and why? The “King James Bible.” It aestheticises western culture by euphemizing western history. Literal translations are fine — they return the “testicles” (“stones” in the King James) and the petty war-lord, Yahweh (“the Lord” in the King James) to the gruesome story.
What magazines do you subscribe to and why? Cineaste, for coverage of alternative cinema such as documentary, international, and independent film; Film Quarterly for general film coverage; Anthology Film Archives Calendar for very alternative film programs.
Booktalk is a literary column that appears regularly in onCampus, featuring an Ohio State staff or faculty member with significant literary accomplishments. To nominate someone for a future column, e-mail harris.587@osu.edu.
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Ron Green