Resolutions

[ladywhisp]

As an English Lit student, I've quickly found that I'm lacking any real background in 'classic' literature. Luckily, it doesn't matter all that much, but I would like to get more of a grounding in modern literature - 20th and 21st century writing

Comments

[rays_jazz]

wow

that's like saying: i've never tried food. what's good?

you'll get a hundred-million different perspectives in response

but, well, i don't know. TIME magazine put out a list of the top 100 books of the last century and it was pretty good for an outline, and for TIME... heh.

so look for that, i'm sure it's online somewhere.

[ladywhisp]

It's good to get a hundred different perspectives - only a few books appeal to each person, so it's good to hear a whole range of views and reactions.
Thanks for the pointer, though.

[penlo_deuph]

Umberto Eco is worth a look, as he uses a lot of classical imagery etc in his writing. If you want some good American writing, try Walter Mosley, both fiction and non-fiction. Just because he's my favourite writer :-)

English lit degrees are like that, you suddenly realise that even though you've read more than about 95% of the population, you haven't quite read as much as you feel you should have! And it's always the feeling that you haven't read enough classics. Not much you can do about that other than take classics as a course (5pm lectures put me off!), but reading some Greek tragedy and a bit of Dante and Plato would be helpful. But that's just my tuppence worth. I did my degree at Edinburgh, where knowlege of the classical stuff was very useful for pretty much all the honours courses.

[ladywhisp]

That's great to know, thanks. I'm doing combined honours with creative writing, so I'm trying to over-read where I can, so that if I want, I can go on to a straight Eng Lit masters.