"Daisy Miller" by Henry James (126 pages)
Henry James's classic novella probes the social and emotional
complications that follow the overly familiar but
innocent behavior of Daisy Miller, a newly rich
American traveling in Switzerland and Rome. It is one
of those recommended at the back of "Reading Lolita
in Tehran" and mentioned within the
story as well with Daisy being a character the book club/students admired who has the courage to be herself despite the strict standards imposed by society.
"Point Counter Point" by Aldous Huxley (432 pages)
First published in 1928, Huxley's satiric view of
intellectual life in the '20s is populated with
characters based on such celebrities of the time as D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, as well
as Huxley himself. A major work of the 20th century
and a monument of literary modernism.
Along with Brave New World (written a few years later),
Point Counter Point is Huxley's most concentrated attack
on the scientific attitude and its effect on modern culture.
==Suggestions from Alice==
"Poor Folk" by Dostoevsky (approx 150 pages depending on translation)
published in 1846, is Dostoevsky's first novel, it was a major success. The novel occupies a
position of particular interest and importance
in both the history of Russian literature and
Dostoevsky's work as a whole.
It is written in the form of letters between a middle aged
man and a girl/young woman. Both are very poor, simple folk.
"..high degree of pathos, poverty and suffering make this a
heart wrenching read. Add ... high literary skill and
you have a real classic."
"The Crucible" by Arthur Miller (176 pages)
Pulitzer prize winning author.
This play is being performed by the Houston Alley
Theatre in February 2005. It shows a community which
ignites and burns with accusations of witchcraft,
mass hysteria and retribution. Set in the small
town of Salem Massachusetts in 1692, it explores
the struggle of one man with his conscience, and
his eventual purification.
==Suggestions from Connie==
"Optimist's Daughter" by Eudora Welty(192 pages)
Welty won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in
1969 for this novella her most celebrated work
of fiction. In keeping with the characteristics of Southern writers such as William Faulker and
Flannery O'Connor, Welty manages to include
conflicts between true and false love, old money and white trash, and even progressive politics and
the Ku Klux Klan in a story about coming home to
a vanishing world.
"Absolom, Absolom" (1936) by Faulkner (313 pages)
Often proclaimed Faulkner's greatest masterpiece, ...
tells the story of Thomas Sutpen, the son of a poor
white in western Virginia who has a grand "design,
" and the effect his actions have on future
generations in Yoknapatawpha County...The novel
is written in dense, often intricate prose...
it offers one of Faulkner's most compelling
explorations of race, gender, and the burdens of the past.
==Suggestions from Sheila==
"Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides (544 pages)
Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
It's a book filled with history and family and
assimilation, including how all of us sometimes
feel out of the mainstream of life and must find our place to fit in.
The main character is a hermaphrodite who was raised
as a girl until he was a teenager when it was
discovered that he was genetically a boy. "The originality of Eugenides's novel lies
in the brilliance with which he enters into his
protagonist's mind and body..." —Sunday Times
Two short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri from
"Interpreter of Maladies" short story collection
Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
"Lahiri is an engaging writer and handles dialogue
very well. Her writing style is straightforward,
solid and narrative driven" --Booksense
"Lahiri's characters suffer on an intimate level
the dislocation and disruption brought on by India's
tumultuous political history" --Publisher's Weekly
a. "Interpreter of Maladies" by Lahiri
(short story by that same name)(27 pages)
b. TBD - second story from same collection. Sheila
will specify later. (less than 27 pages)
