Q's Views

I've always wanted a blog. Yippee, look at me. I don't believe you'll find much about my personal life all that interesting. I know I don't. But about a year ago I got this ridiculous idea. I was immensely dissatisfied with my reading habits -- all over the map from mysteries to classics to fantasy to crap. And usually in that order. I wanted something singular to focus on and for some odd reason I picked the USA trilogy by John Dos Passos.
Here's the punchline, I haven't read it yet.
What I thought was necessary (for some reason that I'll never be able to explain) is that I needed a background in realism, naturalism, and the American authors that immediately preceded Dos Passos. So I started filling a shelf full of books that in my twisted mind would lay the necessary foundation to preparing myself to read USA.
So here's a list of what I've read so far:
The Magnificent Ambersons (Booth Tarkington) loved it
The Jungle (Upton Sinclair) hated it
The Rise of Silas Lapham (William Dean Howells) liked it
A Modern Instance (Howells) okay
The Portrait of a Lady (Henry James) liked it
The Wings of the Dove (James) hated it
The Ambassadors (James) liked it a lot)
Pudd'nhead Wilson (Mark Twain) Enjoyed it.
The House of Mirth (Edith Wharton) Enjoyed it.
The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton) liked it
The Octopus (Frank Norris) loved it
I'm currently working my way through McTeague by Norris.
Here's the thing though, I keep buying books and postioning them on the shelf in relationship to USA. The distance seems to grow farther rather than nearer. Here's the list of what currently stands between McTeague and the trilogy:
King Coal (Upton Sinclair) had to read something else from his muckraking career
Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane) figured I'd need break after Sinclair
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (Crane)
Sister Carrie (Theodore Drieser)
Main Street (Sinclair Lewis)
Babbitt (Lewis)
This Side of Paradise (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
The Beautiful and the Damned (Fitzgerald)
And finally we reach Dos Passos. And I reserve the right to add to the books in front of it.
As I read these novels, I wanted to create a journal that I could record my thoughts and reactions to these works. My hope is that folks start to follow along and share their reactions to the novels as well. I've tried to pick some fights through the forums for the author or the works, but I haven't as yet stimulated the kinds of dialog I'd like to have.
Yippee!!