The New Lifetime Reading Plan

Willa Cather (1873-1947) lived most of her adult life in or near New York City, but used memories of her early years on the plains of Nebraska as the source of her literary inspiration. Her first popu­lar success came with My Antonia (1918), which draws on her plains childhood in semiautobiographical fashion. In her later novйis she explored the experiences of other early settlers in the Amйricas; two of the best of these are Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) set in Spanish colonial New Mйxico, and Shadows on the Rock (1931), set in French colonial Quebec.

John Cheever (1912-1982) was as brilliant a master of the short- story genre as can be found in ali of American literature. His most characteristic stories are set in the well-to-do suburbs and exurbs of the Northeast, and scrutinize, with a gimlet eye softened by irony and wry humor, the foibles of people who, away from the office, spend too much time at the country club, drink too much, and are too attracted to their neighbors' spouses. His crystalline prose exem- plifies the old "New Yorker style" at its best. Feast on his Collected Stories (1978).

Robertson Davies (1913-1995), even more than Margaret Atwood, seemed to personify twentieth-century Canadian fiction. Davies was a master storyteller, with such a sure grasp of humor, such control of language, and such a genius for plot that he was able to make ideas the real subjects of his novйis without impeding their narrative drive at ali. My favorites of his many novйis are those of the Cornish Trilogy: The Rebel Angels (1981), What's Bred in the Bone (1985), and The Lyre of Orpheus (1988).

E.L. Doctorow (1931- ) is a fluent and exceptionally clever story­teller whose novйis characteristically are set in the American past and blend real events with fictional ones, made-up characters with historical figures. His best-known novel, Ragtime (1975), is a com- pelling story of crime, race, and aspirations at the start of the twenti- eth century.

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) was the leading American practi- tioner of the school of writing called "naturalism," which attempted to substitute an unflinching realism for the artificial proprieties of the Victorian novel. Dreisers first novel, Sister Carrie (1900), tells the story of a young woman who successfully makes her way in the world as a "kept woman." It would have been considered scandalous had it been noticed at ali; instead it was ignored by critics and the public alike. Only very much later was it recognized for the master- work it is. Read also An American Tragedy (1925), Dreisers most celebrated novel, a harrowing fictional account of a murder and its consequences.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955). I would have liked to include Einstein's The Meaning of Relativity in The New Lifetime Reading Plan itself, but reluctantly concede that it would prove too heavily mathematical for most general readers. Still, it is worth trying for what you can get out of it—read past the equations, and dont let yourself be deterred by them. In his first American lectures (1921), Einstein presented a systematic explanation of his theory of relativ­ity, one of the great intellectual achievements of our time. This book, based on those lectures but revised and expanded by Einstein himself several times over the years, repays multiple readings; more of the meaning will emerge each time.

Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) published only one novel in his life, but The Invisible Man (1952) had a literary and social impact suffi- cient to guarantee him a lasting place in twentieth-century American letters. Ellison's nameless young Black protagonist is liter- ally, to the world, invisible as a person; he is merely a black face. He uses his invisibility as a mask, observing the world that ignores him; but ultimately he must retreat entirely into a world of his own to preserve his sense of wholeness. Part allegory, part realism, this novel of the Black experience continues to resonate strongly today.