My Personal Canon
1.) The Hours - Michael Cunningham
2.) To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
3.) My Sisters Keeper - Jodi Picoult
4.) The Pact- Jodi Picoult
5.) The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald
6.) The Color Purple- Alice Walker
7.) Yellow Raft In Blue Water - Michael Dorris
8.) Fences - August Wilson
9.) Romeo & Juliet- Shakespeare
10.) Dear John- Nicholas Sparks
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Jodi Picoult's writing is fantastic, but "The Pact" makes me want to cry too much to be on any canon. The story is also a bit far-fetched, and I absolutely HATE Emily in that book. I realize that she was abused as a child, but there is no reason for her to be so selfish to ask her boyfriend to take her out of her misery. That was awful. I realize that horrible things happen, but I don't think that was believable situation. Great writing, but the story fell short for me.
ReplyDeleteWhat, no "Nineteen Minutes?" Besides that, I'm a bit disappointed with "Romeo and Juliet" as a choice. A classic, I know, but that to me is like "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost: it's over-used and doesn't do anything for me.
ReplyDeleteI already commented on The Great Gatsby, but I totally agree with you about Yellow Raft in Blue Water, I thought it was fantastic.
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy that you have Yellow Raft in Blue Water on your list! I thought that was a wonderful book (and I had forgotten about it and now I'm wondering if it should be on my list).
ReplyDeleteI haven't read a few of the books on your list (half, really), which makes chosing one to disagree with you on that much harder. I guess I'll go with Romeo and Juliet, too, like Mar. I think that the story is quite overused these days (which is not to say that I don't, for instance, love the Leo DiCaprio/Claire Danes version with all of my heart - Baz Luhrmann (the director) = love), and I think that many of the issues addressed in this play are addressed more effectively and meaninfully in other plays by Shakespeare. So why did you pick this one over all of his other works?
I put To Kill a Mockingbird in my canon as well, but I'm just curious for your reason to include it?
ReplyDeleteI feel like a lot of us included similar books, but for different reasons. I'm interested to learn what everyone got out of certain texts to hold them in such high esteem.