Help choose the April 2016 selection to read for the MR Literary Club!
Select from the following works:
What Maisie Knew by Henry James
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:After her parents' bitter divorce, young Maisie Farange finds herself turned into a 'little feathered shuttlecock' to be swatted back and forth by her selfish mother, Ida, and her vain father, Beale, who value her only as a means of provoking one another. And when both take lovers and remarry, Maisie-solitary, observant and wise beyond her years- is drawn into an entangled adult world of intrigue and sexual betrayal, until she is finally compelled to choose her own future. Published in 1897 when Henry James was becoming increasingly experimental with narrative technique and fascinated by the idea of the child's-eye view, What Maisie Knew is a subtle, intricate yet devastating portrayal of an innocent adrift in a corrupt society.
The Golden Bowl by Henry James
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:'A thing to marvel at, a thing to be grateful for.'A rich American art-collector and his daughter Maggie buy in for themselves and to their greater glory a beautiful young wife and noble husband. They do not know that Charlotte and Prince Amerigo were formerly lovers, nor that on the eve of the Prince's marriage they had discovered, in a Bloomsbury antique shop, a golden bowl with a secret flaw. The superstitious Amerigo, fearing for his gilded future, refuses to accept it as a wedding gift from Charlotte. 'Don't you think too much of "cracks,"' she is later to say to him, 'aren't you too afraid of them? I risk the cracks...' When the golden bowl is broken, Maggie must leave the security of her childhood and try to reassemble the pieces of her shattered happiness.
In this, the last of his three great poetic masterpieces, James combined with a dazzling virtuosity elements of social comedy, of mystery, terror, and myth. "The Golden Bowl" is the most controversial, ambiguous, and sophisticated of James's novels.
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:On one level, An American Tragedy is the story of the corruption and destruction of one man, Clyde Griffiths, who forfeits his life in desperate pursuit of success. On a deeper, more profound level, the novel represents a massive portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde's tawdry ambitions and seal his fate: It is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and of the dark side of the American Dream. Extraordinary in scope and power, vivid in its sense of wholesale human waste, unceasing in its rich compassion, An American Tragedy stands as Theodore Dreiser's supreme achievement.
Based on an actual crime case, An American Tragedy was the inspiration for the film A Place in the Sun, winner of six Academy Awards, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
The Complete Plays of Oscar Wilde
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:Oscar Wilde took London by storm with his first comedy, Lady Windermere's Fan. The combination of dazzling wit, subtle social criticism, sumptuous settings and the theme of a guilty secret proved a winner, both here and in his next three plays, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and his undisputed masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest. This volume includes all Wilde's plays from his early tragedy Vera to the controversial Salome and the little known fragments, La Sainte Courtisane and A Florentine Tragedy. The edition affords a rare chance to see Wilde's best known work in the context of his entire dramatic output, and to appreciate plays which have hitherto received scant critical attention.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas de Quincey
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
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The poll will be open for three days and a discussion thread will begin shortly after a winner is chosen.
The vote is multiple choice. You may vote for as many or as few as you like. If you vote for the winner it is hoped that you will read the selection with the club and join in the discussion.
Bonus votes:
Spoiler:
When the poll ends, bonus votes will be manually added before determining final results. Basically, anyone who has commented in two out of the last six discussion threads is eligible for bonus votes, and everyone eligible will have any votes cast doubled.
Everyone is welcome and encouraged to vote if interested in participating in the literary club whether eligible for bonus votes or not, and anyone interested in bonus votes is encouraged to become eligible as it doesn’t take much.
Currently eligible-
AnotherCat, bfisher, Bookpossum, Bookworm_Girl, caleb72, fantasyfan, HomeInMyShoes, issybird, sun surfer
This includes posts thus far in the October to March discussion threads.
*There are a few caveats to eligibility as outlined in
this post.
**If anyone feels there is any mistake in eligibility, please let me know before the poll is over. Once the poll ends and the tally with bonus votes added is announced, the results will be final.
The rotating nominator (this month - Spinnenmonat) may not vote in the poll. In the event of a tie, there will be a one-day non-multiple-choice run-off poll where the nominator again may not vote. If the run-off also ends in a tie then the tie will be resolved by the nominator.