I neeed to find a book in which the same two people do the following things, in different parts of the book:
- have an interesting and meaningful social interaction fraught with nuances, while also doing something that follows a load of well-known social scripts and having to deal with those at the same time (e.g. birthday party, restaurant, wedding, polite getting-to-know-you conversation, etc.) They have to be having a conversation that's ostensibly about the scripted stuff but actually reveals all kinds of other stuff about their relationship or what they think of one another.
- have another meaningful social interaction fraught with blah blah, but this time without any of that other overlying social script stuff.
Any brilliant examples of this spring to mind?
Why I need this is a long story, but I'm trying to get myself a Masters part-time and I'm trying to get my dissertation organised...
― ljubljana, Saturday, 13 October 2007 18:51 (eighteen years ago)
don delillo
― and what, Saturday, 13 October 2007 19:06 (eighteen years ago)
any of his? or one particular one
― ljubljana, Saturday, 13 October 2007 19:07 (eighteen years ago)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a9/White_Noise.jpg/200px-White_Noise.jpg
― and what, Saturday, 13 October 2007 19:29 (eighteen years ago)
Ta. I am ashamed to say I've never read any of his stuff.
― ljubljana, Saturday, 13 October 2007 19:30 (eighteen years ago)
i can think of a lot for #1 and not a lot for #2! i am reading vanity fair right now though and i will tell you if #2 comes up.
― Maria, Saturday, 13 October 2007 19:42 (eighteen years ago)
I thought of 'To the Lighthouse' but the trouble is I have to use the excerpts in interviews with kids, and my supervisor said TTL might not be accessible enough to kids from a certain socio-economic background o_0
― ljubljana, Saturday, 13 October 2007 19:51 (eighteen years ago)
There's lots of stuff in Updike's Rabbit novels that would fit the bill here too.
― Noodle Vague, Saturday, 13 October 2007 21:46 (eighteen years ago)
edith wharton!
― max, Saturday, 13 October 2007 22:03 (eighteen years ago)
except inaccessibility might be a problem there too
Oh yeah, Noodle, Updike would be great - good thought. Just got to avoid the bed scenes.
All my novels are packed up in boxes in my kitchen as I want to be out of this flat soon. I wonder if I can kind of intuit which box Updike is in...
― ljubljana, Saturday, 13 October 2007 22:27 (eighteen years ago)
I'm not sure I go with this whole inaccessibility thing, but I guess if I use an 'inaccessible' novel I then have to spend endless words justifying it and 'reflecting' on it...
― ljubljana, Saturday, 13 October 2007 22:28 (eighteen years ago)
"accessibility" is a really problematic criterion for choosing a book in this case because unless the book you choose is specifically set in the social/cultural sphere that yr students live/have grown up in, its sort of going to be neccessarily inaccessible because, well, it's going to be about the kinds of social codes and standards of behavior that only a native can understand.
― max, Saturday, 13 October 2007 23:38 (eighteen years ago)
unless yr supervisor means woolf's prose? which i dont think is really that difficult. certainly no moreso than updike or delillo.
― max, Saturday, 13 October 2007 23:39 (eighteen years ago)
henry james henry james henry james
is it okay if what's revealed is never entirely defined?
― horseshoe, Saturday, 13 October 2007 23:40 (eighteen years ago)
yeah james would be my 2nd choice after edith wharton
― max, Saturday, 13 October 2007 23:41 (eighteen years ago)
not exactly accessible I guess.
xpost james, I mean. he and wharton are doing the same thing different ways.
― horseshoe, Saturday, 13 October 2007 23:41 (eighteen years ago)
if accessibility were no issue, I would recommend The Ambassadors. there are one million elliptical conversations where people are actually talking about sex + relationships in that book.
― horseshoe, Saturday, 13 October 2007 23:43 (eighteen years ago)
also it's beautiful I bet you'd enjoy it.
damn I wish I didn't have one million boring books of lit crit to read so I could read The Ambassadors right now.
― horseshoe, Saturday, 13 October 2007 23:44 (eighteen years ago)
Thanks folks.
Is it okay if what's revealed is never entirely defined?
Hmm, yeah, I should have been clearer about that - no, really it needs to be definable at some level at least. I mean, the kids need to be able to at least say 'she thinks he's not telling her something' or 'he's worried that she knows about what happened', that kind of thing.
I feel so badly read. I haven't read any Henry James or Edith Wharton. I should start with the Ambassadors then horseshoe?
― ljubljana, Sunday, 14 October 2007 08:28 (eighteen years ago)
what are you getting a masters in?
― akm, Sunday, 14 October 2007 13:51 (eighteen years ago)
'Psychology of Education', ahem... it's kind of 'Psychology 101' conversion course type thing with a bit of 'ooh, that's relevant to education, isn't it?' tacked on.
― ljubljana, Sunday, 14 October 2007 14:26 (eighteen years ago)
oh, well, maybe James isn't the best, then. though Portrait of a Lady might be okay. what's going on in that book is better-defined than in the Ambassadors.
― horseshoe, Sunday, 14 October 2007 15:27 (eighteen years ago)
I wish I wasn't doing this course. It's been two years now and I have had enough. Six more ***** months and then I'll be able to spend my weekends just catching up on my dayjob, instead of both catching up on my dayjob AND studying.
Sorry. Need a whinge.
― ljubljana, Sunday, 14 October 2007 18:10 (eighteen years ago)