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[urthstripe]

What book should Urth read?

[Varin]

I voted Mary Shelley's Frankenstein because that's what I read for my English IV AP class. How do I remember that considering my senior AP class was over 10 years ago? Well, because the paper just happened to be out on my desk because I found it awhile back while going through old papers

The novel can be intrepreted countless ways, following through on multiple themes. My interpretation pursued the idea that Victor Frankenstein was a schizophrenic (not a person with a multiple personality as many people think the term means) and it is probably the best academic paper I've ever written.

there's my .02

[addlepated]

I voted The Handmaid's Tale - out of all the books on your list, it's the one I've read several times for pleasure, not academics. I also read Frankenstein a few times just because I wanted to.

P.S. Cliff's Noted on The Stranger - listen to The Cure's "Killing an Arab".

[Ehsan]

I voted The Stranger, just because it had 1 vote and the rest had 2.. so I wanted to make them all have equal votes to confuse you more

[Phaedra]

[RobMagus]

Why would you NOT read Frankenstein?

[Phaedra]

[chippy]

crime and punishment gets my vote - its actually a really good read - (dont confuse it with war and peace, and dont be put off by the russian names)

[yanka]

[Phaedra]

[Marrec]

This may be the wrong time to vote, but I did vote for Crime and Punishment. Dostoevskiy may be dark and at times longwinded, but Crime and Punishment is surely worth a read if only because of Raskolnikov. One of my favorite characters of all time.

That said, don't neglect your need to read Frankenstein and The Stranger. Just read Crime and Punishment first.

Edit: Just to add my own two cents to yanka's point (spurred on by a mention of Kafka) Pushkin, at least to me, is a hilarious writer only because of his irony, but loved as he may be by the Russian people, we don't love him as much because we know that he just isn't as good as Dostoevskiy or Tolstoy. And Kafka rocks too. *cough* Edit again: So does Nabokov for that matter.

[chippy]

ahh, i meant that people often use "war and peace" (in several movies, jokes, sitcoms etc) to mean a lengthy book to read (and often taken on holiday, and never read!) and so I've come across that people associate that when i talk about Crime and Punishment too - hence my warning, it wasnt a comparison of the writing.

Im sure its a good book, however, i've not read any Tolstoy, but i do love Dostoevsky. I'm reading Brothers Karamazov 2 at the moment.

No idea why westerners prefer D to T, probably mainly because the writers dont come from their country, and so have a different approach to them?
But again, im dumb when it comes to books, and i find that the more you talk about a book, or the more you recommend a good book to a friend, the less it makes an impact? Thank god for simple polls on forums

[yanka]

[Marrec]

Yarg! I've said to much and warped yanka's fragile little mind. Erm, what I meant to say is that we THINK they are better than Pushkin. Yeh. That doesn't make it true. Even if it is true.

[Ozy_y2k]

I voted for the Graham Greene for several reasons:

(1) NO ONE in high school AP English has ever heard of, never mind actually READ, Greene...they usually don't spring him on you till college. In fact unless you watched THE QUIET AMERICAN with Brendan Fraser when it came out a few years ago I doubt you've heard of Greene at all. So just THINK of the opportunities you will have to bluster your way through several essays and papers that few if any of your fellow stoodents could "call" you on.

(2) Anti-colonialist, yo. No writer on this list is QUITE as relevant as Greene is, to today's political situation.

(3) "Fun With Dick And Jane" was not an option listed on the poll.