Tag Archives: fiction/literature

On the Road

Here is a reading on Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Kerouac, and particularly this novel, influenced me greatly as a very young man. I probably read On the Road five times, and The Dharma Bums another five.

I recently listened to some recording of William S. Burroughs on the streaming music service I use, and some of Kerouac’s recordings popped up as recommendations. So I listened, and realized that Jack Kerouac (and all the Beats, really) will probably always be in my life.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Prolixity

“Prolixity (noun): Speech or writing that is wordy or lengthy, sometimes tediously; a tendency to long-windedness; verbosity. Adjective: prolix; adverb: prolixly.

Mann writes in a manner inimitable by anyone else; the density and prolixity of his novels would be intolerable in a writer who did not also possess his extraordinary sweep and complexity of mind.’ Robertson Davies, One Half of Robertson Davies.”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

 Rotten Reviews: 10:30 on a Summer Night

“…has the proud air of saying in her every painful, glottal line, ‘Hup for prose.’”

Hortense Callisher, The Nation

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.    

Book of Answers: Dr. Seuss’s First Book

“What was the first book published by Dr Seuss (Theodore Geisel)? And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street was published in 1937 by Vanguard Press, after being rejected by twenty-three other publishers.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

The Algonquin Wits: Robert Benchley on His Dismissal from the World of Advertising

“Benchley spent a short, highly unsuccessful apprenticeship in the advertising department of Curtis Publishing Company, about which he recalled: ‘When I left Curtis (I was given plenty of time to get my hat and coat) I was advised not to stick to advertising. They said I was too tall, or something. I forget just what the reason was they gave.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

Ambiguity

“Ambiguity (noun) The state or quality of having more than one possible meaning; unclear or unresolved sense; a double meaning or equivocal word or expression. Adjective: ambiguous; adverb: ambiguously; noun: ambiguousness

‘Disraeli has a standard reply for diplomatic ambiguity for people who sent him unsolicited manuscripts to read: “Many thanks; I shall lose not time in reading it.”’ Robert Hendrickson, The Literary Life.”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

Tour de Force

“Tour de Force: (French, ‘Turn of Force’) As a literary term it may be applied to a work which provides an outstanding illustration of a writer’s skill and mastery; a sort of ‘one-off’ brilliant display. Among modern examples one might suggest: Hemingway’s short story The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber (1938); Arthur Koestler’s novel Darkness at Noon (1940); Orwell’s fable Animal Farm (1945); Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange (1962); Daniel Keyes’s short story Flowers for Algernon (1965); and Vikram Seth’s extraordinary ‘novel’ The Golden Gate (1986)—a narrative which consists of 590 sonnets in rhyming tetrameters.”

Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.

Cultural Literacy: The Grapes of Wrath

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on The Grapes of Wrath. This is a half-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. In other words, a concise introduction to the novel’s basic plot, with an excursus on the origins of its title.

If you’re looking for something longer on this book, you’ll find it here. If you want something on John Steinbeck himself, here that is as well.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

The Algonquin Wits: Alice Duer Miller Charges Aleck Woolcott

“Novelist and Round Table frequenter Alice Duer Miller once paid off a loss at cards to Aleck Woollcott, informing him: ‘You, sir, are the lowest form of life—a cribbage pimp.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

Rotten Reviews: The Ginger Man

“Disgust, indignation, and boredom—those are the most likely responses to be anticipated among readers of The Ginger Man. No doubt the book will also get a few screams of praise from those who habitually confuse the effects of art with the effects of shock and sensation… This rather nasty, rather pompous novel gives us, in all, a precocious small boy’s view of life, the boy having been spoiled somehow and allowed to indulge in sulks and tantrums and abundant self-pity.”

Chicago Tribune

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.