Welcome to a new episode of
The Book Report presented by
The Millions! This week,
Janet and Mike get inspired by
Harper Lee's new
Go Kill a Watchbird, and talk about sequels to classic books they'd like to discover.
Discussed in this episode:
Go Set a Watchman and
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, racist Atticus Finch,
The Great Gatsby by
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
A Christmas Story by
Charles Dickens,
Scarface (dir.
Brian De Palma),
Little Women by
Louisa May Alcott,
The Family Stone (dir.
Thomas Bezucha),
Dermot Mulroney,
Sarah Jessica Parker,
Claire Danes,
Animal Farm by
George Orwell, middle school plays, old-timey editorial cartoons,
Gone with the Wind by
Margaret Mitchell, Scarlett O'Hara's nonsense,
The Catcher in the Rye by
J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield's stupid cap, selling out, the Harry Potter series by
J.K. Rowling, the forgotten students of Hogwarts,
Crime and Punishment by
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Jean Valjean.
Cut for time from this episode but likely to be included as an extra on the eventual DVD:
2 Naked 2 Dead by
Norman Mailer.
Say what?! The Marriage Plot is about DFW, JE, and Mary Karr? I really need to go back and reared it. Really like this series. — reaching for the Beowulf directly.
Great episode! I had heard about the Wallace character in The Marriage Plot (and it was pretty obvious when I read it), but didn’t know about the triangle with Mr. Eugenides. Loved the book. Bold choice of Nixon as likable villain. He did like bowling. So he’s got that going for him.
Janet scores empathy points for Frankenstein & the Romanovs.
Mike makes an inspired choice with Nixon who, coincidentally, played a helluva piano.
But nobody picks Raskolnikov? Come on! DFW but no RRR? He’s like a 3rd-year MFA’er going into debt and…murder!
Re: Grendel–Mike should check out hot-shot 70s author John Gardner’s “Grendel,” which is an examination of 12 big ideas of civilization from the perspective of the “monster” who channels J. P. Sartre. Gardner was a short-lived literary lion back then, sort of a cross between John Irving, Robert Pirsig and Robert James Waller (!)
He died young (late 40s) in a motorcycle accident, which may have kept him from being as well-remembered as he deserves to be.
How about Count Fosco in The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. He is so charming, witty and enlivens every page he is on, as opposed to the cardboard hero and heroines. And speaking of Counts, there is another I can think of who also brightens up the story he is in by his rare but very entertaining presence.