Literary Blog Hop (We'll Be Having Scotch and Cigars in the Library)

Someone among our friends over at The Blue Bookcase has been taking her ginko biloba (I'm betting on Christina).  This weekend marks the first ever Literary Blog Hop wherein we snooty literary types look disapprovingly through our wire-rimmed glasses, over the rims of our scotch tumblers, and through the haze of cigar smoke in our grand libraries at all those lesser genres, which so murk the crystal clear waters of the beautiful River of Literature, which flows unbroken down the valley of time from its origins among the forests of late-medieval England and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.

We're just kidding, of course.  I myself occasionally read a Clive Cussler (adventure) or Orson Scott Card (sci-fi), and I even made it through the first 50 pages of Twilight before I was forced to quit and dedicate my life to its eradication from the planet (see our Declaration of War on All Things Twilight here).  Which is to say that our tastes here at The Literate Man are not entirely or exclusively "literary," but we do generally find that we obtain the most enjoyment from works that tell an essentially human story, demonstrate growth or at least change in their characterization, endure the tests of time (exhibiting a consistent social relevance), and evidence an expert, innovative, or at least playful use of structure and language.  We also prefer beer over scotch, but that is the subject of a different post.

One of our favorites (I say speaking for myself and Aaron, but perhaps not Greg) is Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey (see our review of it here).  Kesey is much better known for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest--which is a good book, don't get me wrong--than for Sometimes A Great Notion, which was his masterpiece and (arguably) the best book ever written about life in the great American Northwest.  Sometimes is a novel of freedom and independence set in a world that tends toward conformity, which is perhaps the most relevant story of our age.  Each of its many characters develop throughout the course of the novel, but none more so than the bookish and rebellious Leland Stamper, who finally comes to stand with his family against the forces arrayed against them.  The novel is as relevant today as the day that it was written and its relevance should continue as long as workers' unions continue to exist.  But perhaps the most impressive and "literary" feature of the work is Kesey's technique of multiple perspectives, whereby the thoughts and actions of several characters are presented on the same page and sometimes in the same line.  It sounds confusing, I'll admit, but somehow Kesey makes it work.  The truth is that I've never read anything like it except, perhaps, James Joyce's Ulysses, which I am convinced must have directly influenced Kesey's work.

So that's our contribution to the first Literary Blog Hop discussion.  If you're here from there, please feel free to look around.  Thanks again to The Blue Bookcase for putting an obviously great idea into practice.  We sincerely intend to participate as frequently as possible.