The Grumpy Librarian: Loved Beowulf and Don Quixote? Read this.
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
At the risk of doubling down on modern megafiction, perhaps you should try a slightly more experimental take on Ye Olde Classics.
♥ Loved: Some Anglo-Saxon (also Seamus Heaney), Beowulf
♥ Loved: Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
X Hated: Allan Gurganus, The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
Recommendation: Technically this reader listed Man of La Mancha as the second beloved book, but the Grumpy Librarian assumes that was just a mistype of the musical lover. But big thanks: Now the GL will be humming “Dulcinea” for the next few days.
Obviously the answer “just read the classics, I guess” is not exactly what the Grumpy Librarian is paid for, although considering that both Beowulf and Don Quixote go on and on and on and on, she is surprised that the wordy old Confederate Widow was not to the reader’s liking. At the risk of doubling down on modern megafiction, perhaps you should try a slightly more experimental take on Ye Olde Classics: John Barth’s 1960 novel-as-pastiche, The Sot-Weed Factor. (His short stories are even better, but today we’re going big. You have a Kindle, right?) The Sot-Weed Factor is one of Barth’s early novels, and is more or less the fictionalized satirical biography of the real 18th-century poet Ebenezer Cooke, who is best remembered for his satirical poem “The Sotweed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, A Satyre.” It is very funny, if you are the kind of former English major to enjoy overwrought riffs on the picaresque novels of yore.
Of course, if the idea of a metafictional recap of the 18th-century trend of very, very long and sporadically humorous fictional biographies like The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman sounds punishing — well, actually, when the GL phrases it like that, it does sound punishing. But try it anyway! And if it ends up being too punishing, just read The Three Musketeers or something — there’s probably a new translation of that to get all righteous over.
