Pale Fire, History, and Holden Caulfield Gone to Hell

Herodotus, The History, (translated by David Grene; University of Chicago Press, 1987) Herodotus is a really great figure who's coming back into his own He is an enormously sophisnSared and Very fanny author, but also a great historian. His history teaches us how to do history, of how riot to do history as the case may constantly purveying tales that are completely preposterous, and he thinks they are too, but they're very amusing or interesting to know. Of transcendental merit; unyielding genius from beginning to end.

Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire {Anon Press, 1994). . Asatire on the self-satisfied old poet, John Shay. Nabokov is such a mimic, he caprures American spoken language in all its deadhess and lack of rhythm and pulls it off as poetry. One of the funniest books you'll ever read.

Elsa Morante, History: A Novel (Vintage Books, 1984; out of print, but worth finding) A bitter novel about the history of the forgotten poor people of Rome in the second world war. History, as classically conceived, is about the generals and statesmen, but Morante, as a Marxist writer, makes history about the overlooked the poor, the downtrodden, die illiterate, the handicapped and makes a great novel out of it.

Charles T. Wood, foan of Arc & Richard III: Sex, Saints, and Government in the Middle Ages (Oxford University Press, 1988). A look behind the popular myths about thesefamous figures to the historical realities. Wood teaches history at Dartmouth.

Jay Parini, The Last Station (Holt, 1990). An historical novel about Tolstoy. Also, for a nice slice of Dartmouth life in the '70s, see Parini's The Love Run (Little, Brown, 1980). Parini, who taught at Dartmouth, now teaches at Middlebury.

Cleopatra Mathis, The Bottom Land: Poems (Sheep Meadow Press, 1983). "Bottom Land" is a wonderful poem distilled from the life of the author, a Dartmouth English professor.

Ernest Kebert, Mad Boys (University Press of New England, 1993). A kind of psychedelic On The Road. Very good and very tough, sort of like Holden Caulfield gone to hell and back, but set in the local area. The story took root with an actual, crime the rape and murder of a young boy. Hebert, a Dartmouth English prof, . tried to enter into the mind of the victim and write what would have happened if such a person had lived. "