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Thread: WHat book to read for class to do a criticism?

  1. #1
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    WHat book to read for class to do a criticism?

    I am completely out of ideas at the moment.
    I am a senior in high school, and I am forced by my teacher to choose from a list of "Accelerated Reader" tests, meaning not every book is available to me to read, and furthering this problem, not every book in my library has criticism available.
    Anyhow, this year I have read A Farewell to Arms, All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Sound and the Fury. My favorite of these would most definitely be the Faulkner. Other books that are considered "classic" I've read in the past include Fahrenheit 451, 1984, The Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World, Crime and Punishment, Huck Finn, The Bell Jar, The Bluest Eye, A Clockwork Orange, The Stranger/Fall/Plague, The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath, Lolita, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Slaughterhouse Five.

    I realize a few of those aren't necessarily "classic", but they're popular books that have criticism.

    So with this in mind, could someone please suggest to me a popular, but interesting, book with substantial criticism, either in book form or online?
    Thank you! =)

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    okokok
    Last edited by ClickForth; 10-31-2008 at 05:26 PM.

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    Yeah love Pale Fire buuut it isn't on this lame AR thingy :P

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    Pièce de Résistance Scheherazade's Avatar
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    How about Watership Down?
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    Asa Nisi Masa mayneverhave's Avatar
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    I'm glad you liked The Sound and the Fury, it's one of my favorites, but most people don't take the type to read it.

    Try Dostoevsky's the Brothers Karamazov. I'm reading it right now and I prefer it to Crime and Punishment (though the latter is great).

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    I was thinking about Brothers Karamazov to be honest, since I do have the P&V translation on my bookshelf, and got about 300 pages in and didn't finish it.
    (Ugh yeah I got 100 pages into Toni Morrison's Beloved before I realized I hated it, damn shame too because I loved The Bluest Eye.)
    But yeah, do you think I could actually read like 900, 1000 pages by January? Haha.
    IF I could, it would totally be fitting for the holiday season :P

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    Lady of Smilies Nightshade's Avatar
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    Maggret Attwoods a Handmaids Tale... did that for school keeps with your recurring dystopian theme...

    What was the name of that book thats supposedly caused the american civil war? Harriet Beecher Stowe.
    Personally I always like to choose the obscurer titles, I wrote a critisim on Pamela or virtue rewarded by Samuel Richardson, and the critisim of that was intresting particually inlight of historical context attitudes to the book and effects of publication etc.

    Lady Chatterly, by lawrence would be another intresting one I bet because of the maddness that went on arouund its publicatioon and I do know that the trial made amusing reading when I was researching banned books and 'sensitive' booksd last year.
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  8. #8
    Jealous Optimist Dori's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SirJazzHands View Post
    I am completely out of ideas at the moment.
    I am a senior in high school, and I am forced by my teacher to choose from a list of "Accelerated Reader" tests, meaning not every book is available to me to read, and furthering this problem, not every book in my library has criticism available.
    Anyhow, this year I have read A Farewell to Arms, All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Sound and the Fury. My favorite of these would most definitely be the Faulkner. Other books that are considered "classic" I've read in the past include Fahrenheit 451, 1984, The Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World, Crime and Punishment, Huck Finn, The Bell Jar, The Bluest Eye, A Clockwork Orange, The Stranger/Fall/Plague, The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath, Lolita, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Slaughterhouse Five.

    I realize a few of those aren't necessarily "classic", but they're popular books that have criticism.

    So with this in mind, could someone please suggest to me a popular, but interesting, book with substantial criticism, either in book form or online?
    Thank you! =)
    Quote Originally Posted by SirJazzHands View Post
    I was thinking about Brothers Karamazov to be honest, since I do have the P&V translation on my bookshelf, and got about 300 pages in and didn't finish it.
    (Ugh yeah I got 100 pages into Toni Morrison's Beloved before I realized I hated it, damn shame too because I loved The Bluest Eye.)
    But yeah, do you think I could actually read like 900, 1000 pages by January? Haha.
    IF I could, it would totally be fitting for the holiday season :P
    I would recommend the Barnes and Nobles classics edition if you're going to buy it. For $10, you get the Constance Garnett translation with Endnotes, an Introduction by Maire Jaanus (Professor of English at Barnard College), and Comments and Questions. There is a little bit of criticism (from The Nation) within the Comments. Oh, and this version is only 702 pages.

    edit: I seem to have neglected the fact that you already own it. Perhaps someone else will find some use of my recommendation.
    Last edited by Dori; 12-19-2007 at 05:11 PM.
    com-pas-sion (n.) [ME. & OFr. <LL. (Ec.) compassio, sympathy < compassus, pp. of compati, to feel pity < L. com-, together + pali, to suffer] sorrow for the sufferings or trouble of another or others, accompanied by an urge to help; deep sympathy; pity

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