Welcome to the blog for English majors and faculty at Southern Connecticut State University. We would like to use this space to “talk” about all things literary, from discussing books and posting literary news to offering reading suggestions and sharing our creative work. Feel free to post and comment, and, as always, keep reading.
Pianissimo said,
December 14, 2007 at 9:21 pm
I’m the first one to comment! Do I get a prize?
Just finished (after weeks of dozy bedtime reading) THE GLASS PALACE by Amitav Ghosh. (Check out his website at http://www.amitavghosh.com/) It’s a multigenerational, multinational, family epic, spanning more than a century (from the British invasion of Burma to roughly the present) and shuttling back and forth among Burma, India, and Malaysia. Frankly, I was dubious through the first half, but there was just enough to keep me going, and then things got really interesting in the last third or so. Particularly interesting: a broad variety of differing perspectives / insights on colonization and postcolonial reality from a range of characters occupying radically complicated national, ethnic, class, and religious “positionalities”–mostly provoked by the historical stresses created by WW II. Very interesting stuff.
Scott Ellis said,
December 14, 2007 at 9:28 pm
I haven’t read any of his novels, although I have _The Calcutta Chromosome_ on my wish list. The description looks fascinating. Has anyone read any other works by Ghosh?
Robin Troy said,
January 23, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I haven’t read anything by Ghosh…but one of the books I read over break (for the second time) was “What We Lost” by Dale Peck. Peck is coming to read at Southern in April; he’s prolific and, I think, brilliant, and while his other books are fiction, “What We Lost” is a blend of memoir/creative non-fiction/fiction that tells the story of his father’s childhood. He does such a deft job of zooming in a tight lens on scenes from his father’s life–scenes he, himself, obviously wasn’t there for–and the result is that the book reads like a novel…until, perhaps, the very end. It’s not a long book, just a powerful one.
walkyrja said,
February 28, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Hello, O English Department!
I thoroughly enjoyed “What We Lost” by Dale Peck and can only echo what Robin said above. I am looking forward to seeing him read here at SCSU!