I Used to Know That_ Stuff You Forgot From School - Caroline Taggart [11]
☞ ERNEST HEMINGWAY (1899-1961)
Remember the determined Santiago, the aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a marlin in the Gulf Stream? The Old Man and the Sea won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 and has been heavily analyzed in classrooms for its symbolism ever since. Hemingway, however, is posthumously quoted in a 1999 issue of Time (“An American Storyteller”) as saying, “No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in.... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough, they would mean many things.” Hemingway was frank and wickedly tough, evident in some of his other great works: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls.
☞ ZORA NEALE HURSTON (1891-1960)
Once criticized for her cultural depictions and political views, Hurston’s work, Their Eyes Were Watching God, has grown into a seminal work for African-American and feminist writers, and it is a darn good read. The story relates the struggles of Janie Sparks, who in the end says, “Two things everybody got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.” Hurston’s work grew from the Harlem Renaissance and was revived in the 1970s after an article in Ms. by Color Purple author Alice Walker.
☞ WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859)
Known for the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which tells of the unfortunate disappearance of Ichabod Crane one autumn night after being pursued by the infamous headless horseman (the ghost of a Hessian soldier who had his head blown off during the American Revolution). Irving also wrote the Grimm-influenced (some say stolen) Rip Van Winkle, where a henpecked husband who hates his honey-do list heads for the hills. He then takes the drink of some bowling ghosts and falls asleep for a mere 20 years, waking up to a changed geographical and political landscape, a foot-long beard, and a deceased wife. Rip, however, resumes his old walks and habits.
☞ HENRY JAMES (1843-1916)
Although born in New York City, James eventually settled in England, becoming a British subject shortly before his death. James often wrote books that crossed the continents. The Portrait of a Lady was adapted for film in 1996, directed by Jane Campion. The story involves a newly wealthy, young American woman who travels to Europe and becomes scammed into marriage by two U.S. expatriates. James’s other admired works include Washington Square, The Bostonians, and his shorter pieces, “The Aspern Papers,” and “The Turn of the Screw.”
☞ HARPER LEE (1926- )
Born in Monroeville, Alabama, Lee was a childhood friend and next-door neighbor of novelist Truman Capote. In 1956 some close friends gave her a year’s salary for Christmas so she could take the time to write. Within that time she wrote one book, To Kill a Mockingbird, which was published in 1960 and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961. The novel depicts the story of a white lawyer in a Deep South town who defends a black man who is wrongly accused of raping a white girl.
☞ HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-91)
You either love him or hate him, but one thing is for sure: After you read Moby Dick, you will know how to tie several different knots. Melville’s immense detail and multileveled symbolism combine to make what is often called the epitome of American Romanticism (of epic proportions). The first chapter opens with the famous line “Call me Ishmael.” Then soon the reader is afloat on this vessel as it ventures forth, fighting to surmount both fate and nature. Melville wrote other works, such as Pierre and the unfinished Billy Budd.
☞ LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY (1874-1942)
Her works would become a favorite of young women around the world, and whose famous protagonist Anne Shirley once said, “Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” Some other “Anne” books include: Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of