Back when sports fans were filling out their college basketball brackets, I wrote on Facebook that these were the only brackets that interested me:
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I was wrong.
Even better than punctuation brackets is a book bracket. Now this is a competition I can really get into!
Voting on contenders from the British Library and Library of Congress ends at 9:00 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, March 29.
Pride & Prejudice is currently losing to 1984. We simply cannot allow this travesty to occur! Stop reading, go vote for P&P (and help out Jane Eyre against Catch-22 while you’re there), then come back to read the rest of this blog. 🙂
Do we really want to live in Orwell’s world over Austen’s? (Yes, I realize we already do. But this is about fantasy, not reality, right?)
If I understand my son’s explanation, in a basketball bracket you’re supposed to choose the team you think will win, which may not be the same as the team you want to win. I can’t settle for that with books, so I’ll present both versions of my bracket.
First—how I would have voted in the already-decided contests if I had known about this in time, just for the record:
New York Public Library: I would have gone for The Sound & the Fury over Invisible Man and Frankenstein.
Royal Library: I would have gone for Little Women over Cuckoo’s Nest and Lolita (almost anything over Lolita) and The Scarlet Letter over Slaughterhouse Five. I also would have voted for The Hobbit over Great Expectations and even over Huck Finn, though both of those would have been tough calls.
British Library: I would probably have gone for Wuthering Heights over Dorian Gray, though Heathcliff is a creepy psycho, not a great romantic hero. Ulysses vs. Heart of Darkness—who cares? Yes, Conrad and Joyce were both influences on Fitzgerald, but I have never enjoyed reading either one of them. Haven’t tried in a couple of decades though, so maybe I should give them another try.
Library of Congress. I would have gone for Anna Karenina over Catch-22 and The Count of Monte Cristo over Grapes of Wrath. And although my literature students would be shocked to find me preferring Hemingway to anything, I’d rather have The Sun Also Rises than A Clockwork Orange.
However, all of those questions are already decided. Here are my votes today:
British Library: Moby-Dick over Ulysses and Pride and Prejudice over 1984.
Library of Congress: Jane Eyre over Catch-22 and Catcher in the Rye (which I don’t especially like and barely remember) over A Clockwork Orange (which I especially dislike).
Right now it’s not looking good for Austen and Brontë. 🙁
I don’t know when the next vote will be, but here are my picks for the next round:
NY Public Library: The Great Gatsby over Frankenstein and Fahrenheit 451 over Dr. Zhivago
Royal Library: Huckleberry Finn over Lolita and To Kill a Mockingbird over Slaughterhouse Five
Other than the possibility of the wildly popular movie helping Zhivago beat Fahrenheit, I think that is probably how these will go.
MY FINAL FOUR:
The Great Gatsby
Pride and Prejudice
To Kill a Mockingbird
Jane Eyre
Mockingbird vs. Jane Eyre: I think I’d have to choose Mockingbird. I’ve loved Jane Eyre longer, but Mockingbird had such a powerful effect on me when I first read it only last year that I read it twice and listened to the unabridged audio twice within about 6 months.
Gatsby vs. P&P: Not sure I can do this…deep breath…
I’m sorry, Scott, but although you’re an absolute genius and I adore your words, sentences, and rhythm, I have to go with Jane—I love her characters and her world more. (I hope this public confession doesn’t get my book about Fitzgerald pulled from library shelves.
So…I’m sure some of my readers will disagree with some of my choices. As I tell my literature students, I don’t care so much whether you agree or disagree with me. I just want to know that you have read the book and have a thoughtful opinion about it. (Even if . . . gulp . . . you vote for 1984 over P&P. But tell me why. 🙂
Here’s the Out of Print website where you can vote.
http://www.outofprintclothing.com/bookmadness_a/302.htm