Monday, December 01, 2008

educating the princess

evidence i have chosen the right secondary school for my princess.

2008 second-hand book sale list contains the following:

boy - tales of a childhood (roald dahl)
of mice and men (steinbeck)
romeo and juliet (old bill shakey)
animal farm (mr orwell)
medea/hecabe/electra/heracles (euripides)
macbeth (you know who)
to kill a mockingbird (harper lee)
william blake's selected poems
othello
streetcar named desire
the crucible
romulus, my father
equus
theban plays (oedipus rex etc)
hamlet
the old man and the sea (old hem)
WUTHERING FUCKING HEIGHTS
god of small things
summer of the seventeenth doll
great gatsby
bloody turgenev and solzhenitsyn
siddhartha (hess)
perfume by suskind
l'etranger, mais bien sur
the republic, by plato

the only gaps i can see are machiavelli's the prince (but she knows that shit anyway), austen (she can read that herself) and the lovesong of j. alfred prufrock (there will be time... for me to teach her about prufrock).

i can't tell you how happy i am not to see trainspotting or some contemporary flash-in-the-pan novels like shantaram (i like it, don't get me wrong, but it's not a 'classic') or anime or manga stuff, to dumb it all down for the "non-readers." unfortunately the kite runner is on the list ( i have heard it is not good so have avoided) also a morris gleitzman novel - boy overboard, but i think that one is ok, cultural exchange and all that. but the snob in me is prepared to overlook a couple of mis-hits.

* * *

in other news, clokes, the kids and i enjoyed a very pleasant eyeball (to use the old CB lingo) in the park with the loverly i'm not craig and his wife and two beautiful boys yesterday. we were lucky the weather held for us, we sat and ate and drank wine and it wasn't uncomfortable at all!

what a great family, and yes, he is as nice in person as he seems in blogworld.

so, thanks inc, and your lovely wife. jells park next time!

happy days all.

7 comments:

Pen or the Sword said...

it that the books she's reading?

wow.

This year, we have (for basic English):
1984
The Secret River
The Crucible

i was happy ^_^ but by god, that's a good selection you've got there

Melba said...

that's spread over the years from year 7 to 12. no, they only do 3 in year 7.

1984 is good. the secret river and the crucible i haven't read. secret river = kate grenville? meant to be good, crucible, is that arthur miller?

have you read them? must have, year is over...

it is a good selection isn't it?

I'm not Craig said...

It's tragic that the only books I have actually read on that list are MacBeth and Mockingbird. Oh, and Animal Farm.

I attempted Wuthering once, but I might try again once I start sleeping at night with some sort of regularity.

I can't remember whether I have read the Republic. I know I read some Plato when I was at Uni (in Ancient Greek, no less) but I think it was the Symposium.


I'm glad you enjoyed the eyeball as much as I did. Many thanks for the very fine castello cheese and the absolutely indescribably good company.

I think I achieved all my goals for the afternoon, those being:
1. Operate an electric BBQ without accidentally setting my own hair on fire;
2. Call Princess 'dude' just to see what would happen;
3. Confirm my theory that you are wonderful, lovely and delightful and spending an afternoon with you is heaps of fun.

Done, done and done.

Mex said...

what a fantastic reading list! i used to re-read Boy and Going Solo every school summer holidays from about yr 6-10. every summer without fail. i was a Dahl die hard!

Melba said...

What did she say when you called her dude, inc? I must have missed that moment. Clokes was very taken with your wife and her usage of "dude". It is a good word.

Mex - Dahl is ace. That is all that needs to be said. Have you read his more adulty short stories? Great stuff.

I'm not Craig said...

My wife says 'dude' a lot more than she did before we met. I'm a good influence that way.

Princess did not bat an eyelid when I called her dude. She just accepted it as part of the natural order of things and moved on.

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