Sunday, December 7, 2008

Favorite novels covered this semester

Out of all the novels we've covered in this class this semester, the majority of the class would say that Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants was their favorite. I enjoyed this novel a great deal as well, and wanted to comment on the structure of the class.
If the FIRST book we read was Water for Elephants I think that most people in the class would have been pretty turned off by the novels that would follow. By starting with Will Ferguson's Happiness we were introduced to a different kind of novel from those that we would typically read in an English class. Even the cover of the book was enough to get me going "What the heck is this about?" The cover has fake teeth on it with rainbow letters that spell out the title. I think most people in the class liked Happiness enough that they were not turned off by the class...but didn't like it so much that any other novel would be difficult to follow after.
After Happiness, we read My Year of Meats which I also think is an excellent novel. Ruth Ozeki wrote this novel in a very intelligent manner--it truly made me think through a completely different perspective and opened up my eyes to the harsh realities of the meat industry. This was sort of a depressing read, but by following up with Water for Elephants the class perked up again and the conversations were exciting.
My recommendation for future 110 classes is to introduce the class in the same manner--begin with something that is good, but not "the best" so that the class won't be disappointed later.

1 comment:

EMC said...

I love that suggestion. I'm glad that Happiness didn't spoil the momentum--you never know sometimes! Thanks for your input and all of your hard work this semester.