A Jane Austen Challenge!
Jul. 17th, 2017 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreamsA friend on Facebook issued the following challenge.
Tomorrow is the bicentenary of the death of Jane Austen. To mark this occasion, I'm issuing a literary challenge. Jane is well known for her satirical novels on how women had to depend on marriage to provide security and social standing, and providing a commentary on Society. So, if you could go back to the beginning of 1817 and meet Jane, what books from the last 200 years would you give her, to help her understand the society you come from?
The rules are: you are only allowed fiction (although historical fiction is allowed) and you have a limit of 10 books (Jane only has 6 months, she is unwell, and she is trying to write "Sanditon").
So here's my selection. I'm sure you can do better:
Not necessarily in the order she should read them but how about:
1. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
2. Small Island by Andrea Levy
3. Paddington by Michael Bond
4. Just William by Richmal Compton
5. All Quiet on the Western Front by Eric Maria Remarque
6. Das Boot by Lothar Gunther Buchheim
7. Gridlock by Ben Elton
8. The No: 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
9. Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin
10. London by Edward Rutherford
I'm thinking - kid's books didn't exist in Jane's time, so I think a couple of my faves should be in the list. I chose those two because I think both contain a kind of commentary on their time and on our society.
There are two war novels in there to show her the horror of our World Wars, and both are from the 'enemy' point of view too, which I think is an interesting angle. I threw in a detective book (the Ian Rankin) because it's a genre that might interest her, and the others are samplers to show different aspects of different modern (or modernish) life. Then she can read London to see a whole timeline from prehistory to modernity.
Book boom!
Tomorrow is the bicentenary of the death of Jane Austen. To mark this occasion, I'm issuing a literary challenge. Jane is well known for her satirical novels on how women had to depend on marriage to provide security and social standing, and providing a commentary on Society. So, if you could go back to the beginning of 1817 and meet Jane, what books from the last 200 years would you give her, to help her understand the society you come from?
The rules are: you are only allowed fiction (although historical fiction is allowed) and you have a limit of 10 books (Jane only has 6 months, she is unwell, and she is trying to write "Sanditon").
So here's my selection. I'm sure you can do better:
Not necessarily in the order she should read them but how about:
1. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
2. Small Island by Andrea Levy
3. Paddington by Michael Bond
4. Just William by Richmal Compton
5. All Quiet on the Western Front by Eric Maria Remarque
6. Das Boot by Lothar Gunther Buchheim
7. Gridlock by Ben Elton
8. The No: 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
9. Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin
10. London by Edward Rutherford
I'm thinking - kid's books didn't exist in Jane's time, so I think a couple of my faves should be in the list. I chose those two because I think both contain a kind of commentary on their time and on our society.
There are two war novels in there to show her the horror of our World Wars, and both are from the 'enemy' point of view too, which I think is an interesting angle. I threw in a detective book (the Ian Rankin) because it's a genre that might interest her, and the others are samplers to show different aspects of different modern (or modernish) life. Then she can read London to see a whole timeline from prehistory to modernity.
Book boom!
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no subject
Date: 2017-07-17 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-18 08:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-18 03:04 pm (UTC)Fiction, right? The Outsiders, On the Road, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are the first that come to mind!
no subject
Date: 2017-07-18 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-19 11:42 am (UTC)