Are we ready for another week of incredibly varied literature, encompassing centuries' worth of stories in multiple forms, embodying multiple themes? Week 6 of the Banquet of Books reading challenge starts on Monday! Here's what's coming up for you this week...
We've read some medieval stuff before in this reading challenge, but not really touched on the thrilling world of the combative, chivalrous medieval knights. From what I understand, the knights Palamon and Arcite in The Knight's Tale section of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales better represent the 'combative' aspect of being a knight than the 'chivalrous' element. Imprisoned together, they first metaphorically, then literally, joust for the affections of the beautiful Princess Emelye. I hope this second section of Chaucer's epic will shed light on the world of the medieval knights and the system of courtly love - don't feel obliged to read it in the original Middle English, by the way! If you've already read it, I can suggest Sir Walter Scott's The Betrothed, written in 1825 but set at the time of the Crusades, or the Arthurian romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
After looking at famous authors' earliest published works back in the first week of the reading challenge, today I'll be sampling some posthumously-published works - whether finished or not, these arguably represent writers at their pinnacle, benefiting from a lifetime of accumulated skill and knowledge. My top pick is E. M. Forster's Maurice, finished in 1914 and finally published (posthumously) almost four decades afterwards - a note found attached to the manuscript deemed the novel 'publishable - but worth it?'. Its central theme - gay love - explains why it went unpublished for so long. If you've already enjoyed the novel, I can offer up Lost Laysen, a manuscript by one-hit-wonder novelist Margaret Mitchell found and published in 1996, eighty years after it was written, or Dickens' final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, frustratingly unfinished when he died.
The antihero is a character common to countless published works over the centuries; they exist in the works of Homer, as well as in classical Greek and Roman drama, although the terminology was only created in the 18th century. Defined as a protagonist who doesn't embody typical or expected heroic qualities (but is, nonetheless, in all likelihood not a villain) and instead acts in a morally ambiguous way. Today, I'm going to read some of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, a 1955 psychological thriller which introduces the eponymous Tom Ripley, a "suave, agreeable and utterly moral" con artist and serial killer (as per Highsmith's own description). Alternatively, you can read Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Toni Morrison's multicultural bildungsroman Song of Solomon.
In English history, the Civil War of 1642-49 culminated in the execution of King Charles I and led to a decade-long Interregnum, a period without a monarch, during which the censorious and moralist Puritans took hold of the running of the country and closed all theatres - fun was distinctly off the menu. When the theatres reopened, the plays produced were livelier than ever, more vivid, raucous and bold. I'll be sampling George Etherege's 1676 play The Man of Mode to give me an idea of the party atmosphere of Restoration drama, but you could also have a good go at female playwright Aphra Behn's The Lucky Chance published a decade later, or John Dryden's renowned play Marriage a la Mode, which has been praised for combinating exquisitely-written comedy with a thoughtful reflection on the nature of sex and marriage - something for everyone!
A subject of interest in literature for a relatively short amount of time, mental health is picking up speed as a theme in YA writing nowadays, as awareness of conditions grows - whether you see these novels as exploiting sufferers or simply raising awareness is up to you. I'll be going right back to 1892, reading American author Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story The Yellow Wallpaper, which shines a light on attitudes to women's mental health at the time. Jumping forward, the alternative reads that I recommend are Wilfred Owen's poem Mental Cases, which describes the post-traumatic stress disorder engendered by combat, and Mira T Lee's hot-off-the-press novel Everything Here is Beautiful, whose protagonist Lucia's condition isn't even specified.
To finish off our six-course literary banquet this week, we're going to be going incredibly meta, by trawling through the previous backup lists in search of juicy tomes. As you'll have worked out by now, I always try to provide two 'alternative' reads, in case you've read the book that I'll be reading on a certain day, but I haven't had much time to read the alternatives that I suggest. Therefore, on Saturday I'll be enjoying Virginia Woolf's seminal To the Lighthouse, which I suggested as an alternative back in the very first week! Woolf's modernist novel prizes introspection above plot, so if it isn't your thing, then my 'backup list backups' (!) are John Dryden's Annus Mirabilis - yes, he's back again! - or Irish writer George Bernard Shaw's 1919 play Heartbreak House.
I am, frankly, amazed that I managed to get this post up on time - I'm busy this weekend, so wasn't expecting this to be done until Monday, to be honest. Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful week with these promising texts, and I'll be back some time the week after next to give you my thoughts on all of this. In the meantime, remember to follow me on Twitter @Banquetofbooks for all the latest updates! Happy reading!
To finish off our six-course literary banquet this week, we're going to be going incredibly meta, by trawling through the previous backup lists in search of juicy tomes. As you'll have worked out by now, I always try to provide two 'alternative' reads, in case you've read the book that I'll be reading on a certain day, but I haven't had much time to read the alternatives that I suggest. Therefore, on Saturday I'll be enjoying Virginia Woolf's seminal To the Lighthouse, which I suggested as an alternative back in the very first week! Woolf's modernist novel prizes introspection above plot, so if it isn't your thing, then my 'backup list backups' (!) are John Dryden's Annus Mirabilis - yes, he's back again! - or Irish writer George Bernard Shaw's 1919 play Heartbreak House.
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