Much is said about the “American dream”, so much so that it has become a cliché, and as such it is often taken for granted that it is a well-known phenomenon. But is it really so? As often happens so often, if we analyze the issue, it may not be so much our knowledge
SPANISH READING CLUB 2015-2016 CYCLE: “Contemporary North American Narrative” September 24: Submundo, by Don DeLillo (1997), 904 pp. October 29: Breathing Exercises, by Anne Tyler (1988), 400 pp. November 26: Wedding plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides (2011), 536 pp. December 17: Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987), 368 pp. January 28:
READING CIRCLE ON POETRY AND PROSE POETRY Cycle: American Women's Writing October 26 th: Marilyn Hacker. “Essay on Departure” November 23rd: Anne Bradstreet, “To My Dear and Loving Husband” December 14th: Emily Dickinson, “They shut me up in Prose” January 18th: Emma Lazarus, “By the waters of Babylon” February 22nd: Gwendolyn Brooks, “A Sunset of
“Winner of the National Book Award, White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, his fourth wife, Babette, and four ultramodern offspring as they navigate the rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. When an industrial accident unleashes an “airborne toxic event,” a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their
Our last story of the 2014-2015 cycle is Norman Mailer's “The Language of Men,” published in Esquire magazine in 1953. This story closes not only our annual cycle, but also the sub-cycle of our last three texts, all of which (starting with Twain's “The Californian's Tale” and continuing on with Hemingway's “Hills Like White Elephants”)
This month's story is Mark Twain's “The Californian's Tale,” published in 1893. Twain rates among the most celebrated and iconic of all American writers, and has achieved that rarified air of an author whose characters (Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer in particular) have come to embody the mythos of the country they reflect. with his
This week's story is Ambrose Bierce's “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, published in 1890. While it would be unfair to suggest that Bierce deserves to be considered a “lesser-known author” given the strength of the rest of his oeuvre, it It is undeniable that this story is by far his most popular and widely anthologized.