1990

1990

Recently, I asked ’90s, “What book from your Dartmouth academic career comes to mind first?” Here is Part III your responses: Jeff Buchsbaum writes, “The first is The Iliad. I read this freshman fall in a required seminar with the title ‘Memories ofWar.’ The second is Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, juxtaposed in the same class. Our professor was amazing and the class was designed to push us to realize that writers had been trying to educate their audiences on the horror of war so that it would not be repeated. To this day I still think about those books and that class.” Heather Block writes, “Things Fall Apart— of course.” Karen Behling writes, “Things Fall Apart— of course.” Dan Fuchs writes, “The one and only Things Fall Apartl Wait—did we actually have to read the book for it to count?”

William Boulware writes, “I remember Things Fall Apart, the debut novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. Of the books I read while at Dartmouth, Sojourner Truth: Ain’t I a Woman? is memorable, not necessarily for the content but for the version of the book we read in freshman English called Aren’t I a Woman? As a child of North Carolina, I was exposed to this book in my home. I slowly raised my hand to challenge the correction ofthe book’s title and was then compelled (asked) to read aloud with my Southern drawl. Ah, memories.” Jeff Bedell writes, “Paradise Lost— and falling asleep in Sanborn trying to keep up with the reading assignments.”

Scot Paterson writes, “MollFlanders by Daniel Defoe, which I read in the class ‘Rise of the Novel.” It’s a perfect example of the rise of the trashy novel, and it’s a page-turner.” Basia Nikonorow writes, “The Color Purple. I read this in an excellent, memorable literature class focused on Black female authors taught by the legendary Professor Cook. The movie never lived up to the book. In fact, it’s one of the few movies I’ve ever walked out of in my whole life.” Satin Mirchandani writes, “ The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. It was released at the beginning of junior fall, and it ignited all kinds of controversy, including the fatwa by Khomeini. The printers of the book were in such a hurry, they shipped the books without trimming the edges. I called the bookstore and when they confirmed they had one last copy available, I asked the gentleman on the phone to kindly hold it for me. He asked me for my name. I spelled it out for him: S-A-T-I-N. Long pause...‘You’re kidding, right?’ ”

Ann (McDevitt) Miller writes, “War and Peace from a Tolstoy class our Sophomore Summer.” Sebastian de Atucha writes, “Hard Times by Studs Terkel. I read it in a freshman seminar with Blanche Gelfant. She taught this book so well. It’s a long book about the Great Depression that obliged me and my classmates to spend hours buried in the stacks, living through those hard times. It was like a two-day silent meditation retreat focusing on how shitty things can be. Unexpectedly uplifting.”

And finally, congratulations to Heidi Julavits on her most recent book, Directions to Myself: A Memoir of Four Years, which has received extremely positive reviews in numerous major newspapers and magazines.

—Rob Crawford, 22 Black Oak Road, Weston, MA 02493; crawdaddy37@gmail.com