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So, I failed to update yesterday, but it was because I was being social. On a weeknight. So, I think it was a good excuse.
Moving on, here's a list of things I think literature is not:
1. Vulgarity for the sake of shock.
2. Complexity of syntax and language for the purpose of sounding smart. (Also known as pretension.)
3. Long-windedness. (I'm looking at you, Mr. Charles Paid-by-the-word Dickens.)
4. Political sermonizing thinly disguised with a narrative.
5. Religious sermonizing thinly disguised with a narrative.
6. A complete lack of narrative.
7. Non-fiction.
Other ideas?
Friday, August 13, 2010
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A Clockwork Orange
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A Good Man Is Hard to Find
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A Passage to India
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A Room with a View
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A Separate Peace
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Absalom Absalom
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Achebe
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Adams
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All the King's Men
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An American Tragedy
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Atlas Shrugged
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Babbitt
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back from hiatus
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baking
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Baldwin
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Baum
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Bonfire of the Vanities
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borderline
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Burgess
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Burroughs
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canon
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Capote
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Cat's Cradle
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Cather
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cheesecake
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Chopin
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Conrad
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cooking
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Death Comes for the Archbishop
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DeLillo
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Dreiser
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du Maurier
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Edith Wharton
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emergency
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Ethan Frome
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excuses
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Faulkner
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Felicia DeSmith
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Finnegan's Wake
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Fitzgerald
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For Whom the Bell Tolls
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Forster
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Fowles
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Franny and Zooey
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Go Tell It on the Mountain
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Grahame
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Guest post
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Hammett
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Hemingway
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hiatus
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holiday
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horrible
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Howards End
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In Cold Blood
(6)
In Our Time
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Irving
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James
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Jazz
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Joyce
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Keneally
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Kerouac
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Kim
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Kipling
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Knowles
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Lady Chatterly's Lover
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Lewis
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Light in August
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Look Homeward Angel
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Lord Jim
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Mailer
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Main Street
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Midnight's Children
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Miller
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Morrison
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Mrs. Dalloway
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My Antonia
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not a novel
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O Pioneers
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O'Connor
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On the Road
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Orlando
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other books
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page updates
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Rabbit Run
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Rand
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Rebecca
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recap
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Rhys
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Rushdie
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Salinger
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Schindler's List
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Sinclair
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Sons And Lovers
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Sophie's Choice
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Star Trek
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Stein
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Styron
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Tender is the Night
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The Age of Innocence
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The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
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The Awakening
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The Beautiful and the Damned
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The Bostonians
(9)
The Call of the Wild
(3)
The Fellowship of the Ring
(5)
The Fountainhead
(8)
The French Lieutenant's Woman
(7)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
(2)
The Jungle
(6)
The Lord of the Rings
(16)
The Maltese Falcon
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The Naked and the Dead
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The Naked Lunch
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The Portrait of a Lady
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The Return of the King
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The Satanic Verses
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The Two Towers
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The War of the Worlds
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The Wind in the Willows
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The Wings of the Dove
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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
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The World According to Garp
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Things Fall Apart
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This Side of Paradise
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Thomas Wolfe
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To the Lighthouse
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Tolkien
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Tom Wolfe
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Triv
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Tropic of Cancer
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unworthy
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Updike
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vacation
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Warren
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Waugh
(9)
Wells
(4)
Wharton
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Where Angels Fear to Tread
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White Noise
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So, Charles Dickens, who alone among authors made an appearance in not just one but both posts about the quintessence of literature - literary writer or not?
ReplyDeleteUmm, and yes, I just realized the titular references in both posts. Very sneaky, Dawson.
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna go ahead and call him literary, simply because of his novel contribution (hah, get it?) to literature. But I still resent him a little. Ok, more than a little.
ReplyDelete