An allegory is a story which works on two levels: it has its literal meaning, as given in the text, but also conceals another, hidden, interpretation, often along moral, spiritual or political grounds. To investigate this genre, I'm going to start Week 4's literary banquet with The Faerie Queene, one of the longest poems in the English language, written by Elizabeth I-sponsored Edmund Spenser over a period of six years; thanks to the Queen's patronage, this epic became the poet's most famous work. Literally, it's about some knights and their examination of virtues, but allegorically, it seems to be about, well, just about everything! Mostly, I hear that it critiques the Tudor dynasty, whilst finding the time to criticise the Scottish royal family, leading to its ban in Scotland! If you've already read it, feel free to try Golding's terrifying Lord of the Flies or Orwell's superb out-and-out allegory Animal Farm.
The Edwardian era only lasted for nine years, but spawned its own unique artistic identity, influenced by the fashions of continental Europe; in particular, human rights and technology were beginning to become influential themes of literature, and a distinction was forming between 'highbrow' and 'popular' fiction. To sample the best of the Edwardian era, I'll be tucking into G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. Intriguingly subtitled 'A Nightmare', this is a thriller centring around secret policeman Gabriel Syme and his involvement with the anarchist poet Lucian Gregory, incorporating metaphysical discussion about the meaning of poetry - I can't wait to see what Chesterton has to offer! Alternatively, you could read Reginald, a collection of the witty Saki's short stories which satirise the society around him, or Canadian author L. M. Montgomery's children's story Anne of Green Gables.
So far on this reading challenge, I've sampled the works of Irish and Russian writers, and now I'm turning to writers whose works were originally published in Arabic, and then translated into English. My top pick today is the short story The Green Bird (it can be found here) by Lebanese writer Emily Nasrallah, who died earlier this year. Her short stories and novels won her numerous Arabic literary prizes, and touch on a multitude of themes ranging from family life to feminism. Other books you could read on a similar theme include Layla Baalbaki's controversial feminist classic Ana Ahya and Jabra Ibrahim Jabra's political thriller In Search of Walid Masoud.
For the fourth course of the banquet, I wanted to savour some delicious horror fiction, and who else could I turn to but the master himself, Stephen King? His first novel Carrie was published in 1974 and quickly became a classic of the genre, so it's what I'll be reading on Thursday. Revolving around a schoolgirl's powers of telekinesis, and told partially in an epistolary style, the book is one of the most frequently banned in America! My alternative picks for today, since I'm sure many of you will already have read Stephen King, span a period of a hundred years, into which Carrie is neatly tucked; first, I offer you E Nesbit's Grim Tales, a short story collection published in the early 20th century, and second, I invite you to read Paul Cornell's Chalk, published last year, which melds folklore and fantasy with horror. I hope you enjoy the thrill of reading some horror!
The idea of a struggling protagonist is common, in particular, to proletarian literature - consider, for example, the 'rags to riches' fiction in which a down-on-their-luck lead gains notoriety, wealth, whatever it is that they were missing at the start of the book. Wanting to read something along these lines, with protagonists in poverty, I'm turning to the bleak Union Street, written by Pat Barker in the early 1980s - it focuses on seven working-class women's lives over the same period of a few months in the 1970s. If you've already read this book, I offer up two more books with protagonists in poverty: Love on the Dole was written by Walter Greenwood half a century before Barker's book was published, but depicts similar themes of poverty in Northern England, and for an international twist, you could read Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, focusing on a farmer family during the Great Depression in America.
I've never been the greatest lover of poetry, but I find that I'm slowly coming round to it, and realising that far from being all about daffodils in the springtime, it can be something laugh-out-loud hilarious, witty, powerful, thought-provoking, challenging, brave, moving. So the dessert at this week's banquet is going to, hopefully, let us all have a good old cry. I'm going to be reading Margaret Atwood's A Sad Child, because what's sadder than a sad child? The poem tries to explain the concept of sorrow to an infant, presenting it as something which must be overcome. And there's a bumper crop of alternative picks today, to encourage you to read a few more poems beyond just the Atwood poem: I encourage you to finish the week with Suicide in the Trenches (Sassoon), Bereavement (Bysshe Shelley), Annabel Lee (Poe) and I Measure Every Grief I Meet (Dickinson). Happy crying!
As is customary, you can spend Sunday in any way you like; perhaps you could try some of the back-up options from each day, read into the context of a book you enjoyed this week, sample some of the authors' other works, or terrify yourselves by watching the film version of Carrie with all the lights off. It's all up to you.
I'll be back the week after next to tell you all about how I got on with this lot of reads - until then, you can keep up to date on Twitter (@Banquetofbooks), and I'll see you soon!
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