Thursday, February 19, 2009

Verse Novels / Versromane

I've started a blog for my course on "Contemporary Verse Novels / Zeitgenössiche Versromane". The students and I will all write posts for it. Feel free to drop by and comment if you like!

The books in question:

Ciaran Carson, For All We Know
Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red
Durs Grünbein, Vom Schnee, oder Descartes in Deutschland
Christoph Ransmayr, Der fliegende Berg

This is a bilingual blog. The first post is already in German (my first set of notes on Ransmayr).

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Currently I am reading a verse novel called =Darlington's Fall= ... The author is Brad Leithauser (Knopf, 2002). I don't recall how I happened upon it, but it wasn't just by browsing at my local library, because I had to ask them to find it for me via interlibrary loan.

It's (sort of) a biography of an entomologist, whose career-in-the-field was nipped in the bud when he suffered a serious fall which left him paraplegic (or almost so). I haven't yet figured out if the main character is entirely fictional or not.

The story is fascinating, and I find many of the occasions of rhyming to be extremely interesting. Often they occur several lines apart, and I only notice them when the final syllable(s) of the second word of the pair suddenly remind me that I 'heard' those same sounds just a few moments ago. I am really enjoying this effect.

I'm a little over half way through the book, and am very curious about 'what comes next' ... stay tuned!

-- dhsh

Andrew Shields said...

I've read that one; I really liked it. But I loaned it to someone and forgot who and never got it back!

Anonymous said...

I've finished D's Fall now, and liked it so well that I'm going to look for other books by Leithauser (whether or not in verse).

-- dhsh

Andrew Shields said...

I have a couple volumes of his poetry, but I've never read any of his novels. "A Few Corrections" got excellent reviews. Please keep me posted on what you think of his prose fiction!

Anonymous said...

Have you read (or heard of) =Identical= by Ellen Hopkins? That's next on my list (verse-novel-wise, that is). So =A Few Corrections= will have to be put off until some later mo' ... but thanks for pointing me in its direction.

-- dhsh

Andrew Shields said...

I don't know that one, Mom. Keep me posted on it!

Anonymous said...

Finally reporting in on Ellen Hopkins'
verse-novel =Identical= ...

It took only a few pages for me to decide
that, no, I don't want to read a story about
twin-daughters-and-father incest after all!

-- dhsh

Anonymous said...

One of my recent 'favorite authors' is Sharon Creech, winner of the Newbery Medal for =Walk Two Moons= (which I liked so much I looked for other titles by her. They are quite numerous! Among them is what can only be called 'a verse novel' ... it's called =Love That Dog= and the main character is still in elementary school (age not specified, but maybe fourth grade?) and is, along with his whole class, being 'introduced' to poetry ... reading it, listening to it being read, and writing it. It's quite delightful, and I think you'll enjoy it too (as well as your wife and kids) ... if not also your students!

-- dhsh

PS: And now, finally, I'm going to seek out =A Few Corrections= per your suggestion of some months ago.

Anonymous said...

I've finished =A Few Corrections= now ...
it was interesting and clever, but not as
excellent as =Darlington's Fall= ... but I
will happily read another title (or two)
by Brad Leithauser. In fact, I have his
newest from the library right now. Its
title is =The Art Student's War= (Knopf,
2009).

-- dhsh