5 books you'd take on a desert island (from GoodReads)

[leveldeaded]

shakespeare complete works

OED unabridged

i ching

the CS Lewis Space Trilogy (yes, it's all in one book)

Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar

Comments

Brautigan

[abigfatslob]

In one of the lit classes I took at Kenyon, we had to pick an American writer to do a final paper on. I picked Brautigan and, seeing everything through my History major lenses, rendered what I thought was a brilliant thesis that his novels were commentaries on the American experience from colonialism through the 60s. Taking them in sequence, I argued, each novel to be a metaphorical examination of succeeding epochs in American history

Re: Brautigan

[leveldeaded]

Well, "Bravo," the English Department. I suspect that professor must have massive insecurities about his own talent. That burns me, though, that he let you pick any author and then just bullied you about your choice. I mean, I could pick Margaret Wise Brown, obviously not talentless, but the scope of her work is certainly a little limited, and would I get criticized for that?

If he wanted you to pick authors HE liked, a list of options would have been the best choice.

I got incredibly lucky with my 1st year english prof. in fact, I'm just lucky, in general.

thanks for the kind thoughts.