Books like The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry or My Sweet Orange Tree by José Mauro de Vasconcelos.
I think the age group the book is meant for should also be considered. Is the book meant for adults or for young children? – Cagney9 years ago
The Bluest Eye is a great example. The narrative voice switches from the viewpoint of two little girls, an external narrator who takes on the protagonist's (another little girl) perspective, and stream of consciousness. Sometimes you get the voice of adult characters too through diaries or letters, and at the end you get the voice of the protagonist and this is where you see the impact of racism, which damages the individual's sense of self. And this book is meant for adults. Great book! – Rachel Elfassy Bitoun9 years ago
A classic example of a book with a child's point of view is Where The Wild Things Are. It not only deals with a child's imagination, but also the anger and frustration that is prevalent at that age. – Aaron Hatch9 years ago
Prayers of a Very Wise Child by Rock Carrier is a great text to look at. It's told from the author's child point of view and satirically exposes society but is easily written so it can entertain children and adults alike. A child's POV is turned into a powerful tool for commentary. – Slaidey9 years ago
Another example could be Ender's Game, which is in the POV of a growing child (Ender). I've heard that some people wrote letters to the author complaining that the child's mindset didn't seem childlike at all, while the author argued that to a child, their own mind wouldn't consider themself immature. – VelvetRose9 years ago
I don't know why no one has mentioned Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird yet, but her perspective is really the best thing about the book. Without her innocent perspective, the story would not have been nearly as shocking with the inherent wrongness of racism in that town. – thekellyfornian9 years ago
Books like "World War Z" by Max Brooks, in which Max Brooks is a journalist collating interviews from the zombie outbreak. Or "And Then There Was No-One" by Gilbert Adair, in which the protagonist is an author of detective fiction called Gilbert Adair.
Philip Roth is the main character in at least 2 Philip Roth novels:
Operation Shylock – Philip Roth is the first person narrator who discovers that another "Philip Roth" has appropriated his identity and is using his celebrity to push a anti-Zionist political agenda.
The Plot Against America – Philip Roth, as a child, comes of age in an alternate history 1940's America where Nazi sympathizer Charles Lindbergh has become President and keeps the US out of WW II.
An article could not only address different novels and how they approach authors as main characters but also how readers react to it. Does it help or hinder the novel? For that matter I was wondering if first person novels translate better into movies than third person because fans fall in love with the external characters... so does this work the same way? Do we come to love the author or try to treat them as a separate character themselves while within the literature? – Slaidey9 years ago
They are not the authors, they are fictional representations of the authors. – T. Palomino2 years ago
The author's (assuming they reveal it in an interview or something) or the reader's (they usually interpret while reading the comic, before watching/reading the filmmaker's interview)? Is it different when the book in question has one ambiguous element and when the entire plot is ambiguous?
Same question can apply to movies, and often does.
If a film/book has a deliberately ambiguous moment, and the author film maker later reveals what they believe happened, this is just their opinion. When you hand a piece of art over the public you are free to interpret how you want and your opinion is just as valid.
The classic example that comes immediately to mind is the film Drive. At the end, the Driver drives away and we don't know if he'll live or die. My immediate thought at the end of that film was that he is going off to die. Later the film maker said that he thought the Driver lived, and he may even do more films with the character.
Until you give us another movie, the directors opinion is only that. If he wanted his films ending to be conclusive, he had the chance when he first made it. There is no point being arty and vague with an ending, if you just want to tell us later that you think the guy lives.
Calls for a great article nonetheless.
It would be interesting to discuss John Green, who refuses to answer questions about ambiguous events in his books (or symbolism, or what happened afterward) because he believes books belong to their readers and anything they interpret could be true. – Grace Maich9 years ago
Yes yes I'm so passionate about this topic! Does the book belong to the reader or the author? JK Rowling and John Green definitely support the idea of the reader having their own interpretations, but maybe seek out the other opinion, like authors who strongly support author-only interpretations. – Taylorsteen9 years ago
Currently in academia it is agreed upon to be up to the reader, because as they say "The Author is Dead." But it would be interesting to explore the hypocrocy. Many will say the author is dead in one case and then when it comes to David Foster Wallace, his word is literary law to the point that people are wondering if Wallace would be for or against the film about him. If the author is truely dead then why the hell would we care what David Foster Wallace would think? Yet, you say this and the literary mob will come at you with fire and pitchforks. An article on this topic should really enter into the academic conversation as well as the fandoms. It should have a nice works cited. – Erin Derwin9 years ago
Are they mutually exclusive? Drawing perhaps from Jonathan Lethem's The Ecstasy of Influence, discuss the effect of subconscious (or in some cases very conscious) influence by other authors. Is the evidence of another author's influence in a text a negative thing? Does it render the writer's work unoriginal?
This is a wonderful idea and one that has not been explored enough I think. Writers make other writers better - or so we hope that in a small community we can lift each other up. However, there is the danger that in our subconscious we write the same things we recently read because we loved it and saw it as successful writing. Though I have not read the piece you mentioned, I think the influence can be a good thing because an idea can spiral in so many different directions but it all depends on whose mind the idea is in. So an idea borrowed (whether subconsciously or consciously) can become an original idea once built on and taken in a different direction. Obviously we wouldn't write the same book even if we had the same idea. Not sure how much sense I made but I hope this helps! – Nof9 years ago
Depth is an important concern for most literature enthusiasts. There are people who can write four pages on pounds, "In the station of the metro". There are others who see 14 words. As a literary artist, one should be able to understand, critique and create literary pieces. What if one cannot, but still has an intense passion for the arts?. Is there a level of depth required to appreciate literature?. Depth meaning, intense understanding, reading between the lines and cohesive interpretation.
Under Revision for the title capitalize I. – Venus Echos9 years ago
Also, the apostrophe between the words "can't" and "but" should be removed. As for the question mark, it belongs more at the end of the sentence instead of a period. – dsoumilas9 years ago
@Venus @dsoumilas Instead of adding a note, you should have just clicked the Reject button and then outlined your revision note there. – Misagh9 years ago
Interesting choice of topic. Depth, meaning, subjectivity and the importance of passion would all be highly intriguing things to explore. – IRBurnett9 years ago
What are some classic British novels that Americans should read? I'm currently reading The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie and Blandings Castle by P. G. Wodehouse. Blandings Castle is one that I think my fellow Americans should read because of its particularly hilarious, sarcastic, British humor. If there are any Brits out there who can come up with a list like this, do it!
Agatha Christie is definitely worth reading, especially
In terms of classics you have Dickens, Austen, Shakespeare and all that jazz :)
In terms of fantasy, Tolkien is always a must-read.
If you are looking for a different kind of British literature, have a look at post-colonial/immigration novels like The Buddha of Suburbia, The Lonely Londoners or Reef. – Rachel Elfassy Bitoun9 years ago
That is a big topic! It would be useful to limit it, maybe if you want quintisential British lit you could say 'the best' from England, from Wales, from Scotland and from Northern Ireland. Off the top of my head, I would go:
T.H.White
Dylan Thomas
Walter Scott
Seamus Heaney Scotland in particular has a lot of very influential authors, J.M.Barrie for example – Francesca Turauskis9 years ago
I agree with Francesca Turaukis about splitting it by country. Not only does it make it more managable but it's an interesting way to present it. I'd say Brideshead Revisited and A Handful of Dust, both by Evelyn Waugh. Great if you want to read about class, the notion of 'Englishness', and in the former, the legendary Anthony Blanche. – AidaA9 years ago
Dorothy L Sayers' Peter Wimsey stories are brilliant and a terrific read for those interested in classic British detective literature. I agree it could be narrowed down, perhaps by topic or genre, because British Literature is so broad, both in terms of time and subject. – PrincessYeti9 years ago
In books, it is not too uncommon to find stories about the struggles of male characters with extreme deformities or other unpleasant features such as scarring that cause them conflict towards the outside world. Hugo's Quasimodo and Leroux's Phantom frequently come to mind as examples on the literary subject of beauty being found within.
However, it is uncommon to find such stories for a female character even from books that have female authors such as Bronte's Jane Eyre where the title character is ultimately plain, not hideous. Is this convention of women having at least some physical attractiveness so unavoidable that a female equivalent in extreme ugliness cannot be reached in writing?
This is a pretty interesting, I couldn't come up with any ugly female characters off the top of my head while reading this. Hermione in the written series was supposed to have big teeth and frizzy hair, which I guess they tried to stick to in the first movies until Emma Watson got stunning. It's hard to find ugly females in writing... The closest thing I can come up with as using a less attractive female protagonist is Ugly Betty the tv show. Orange is the New Black had an interesting episode about the older Asian woman's backstory that really made me empathize with her struggles as well. I hope any of these examples help :) – Slaidey9 years ago
I have only seen this in antagonists. Generally, if a woman is "ugly" in a film she is seen as evil and it is "the evil/bad" that makes her ugly. The protagonist is beautiful because she is good. This sounds like a good premise but, hat films tend to miss is that they only capture physical beauty. Men can always be good or evil separate from their appearance but for women it is seen as a part of their identity. – brandibusick9 years ago
This is an interesting topic and is definitely connected to the general "types" of people that are typically included in different media. The only example that comes to mind of a female protagonist being described as "ugly" is in Gail Carson Levine's novel "Fairest" (a novel aimed at a child/young teen audience). However, based on memory, it's hard to assess if the character is fully "ugly" or more conscious of her appearance. The story alludes to "Snow White" and definitely addresses concepts relating to beauty, ugliness, and perceptions; it might be a connected story to look into for this topic. – DragonWrite9 years ago
I would like to see a guide to the common style and structure of Russian literature. It would also be good to see some suggestions for a Russian literature novice to try reading.
That's a pretty complex topic since Russian Literature is an umbrella term: there are Russian literature classic writers such as Chekhov, Tolstoy, Pushkin. There is also Soviet Literature that includes masterminds such as Bulgakov, Nabokov, Pasternak... And lastly there is modern Russian lit that is not much different from other modern lit from around the world (Akunin, Pelevin). It all depends on what particular period interest the reader. – crispychips9 years ago
I JUST took a course on 19th Century Russian Literature. Man, oh man, is it interesting! However, each generation of writers has changed since then, so you would need to be more specific as to what you're looking for. Also, it would be most beneficial for someone who knows Russian to write this (as I can already think of at least 3 significant factors lost in translation that I learned about from a Russian scholar). – Nicole9 years ago
