The Fieldston English curriculum contains a vast swathe of books, poems and short stories that open high schoolers up to the beauty of literature. However, a plethora of other timeless works exist outside the confines of the English department. Whether you are an avid reader seeking your next literary gem or a student looking to expand your horizons, here are novels, novellas and short stories that the Upper School English department recommends students read outside the classroom to enrich the reading experience.
English teacher, Jarret Brown, has a couple of suggestions. First, he recommends John Steinbeck’s “The Pearl.” Published in 1947, the novella recounts the story of Kino, who discovers a massive pearl while diving in the Gulf waters and believes it will offer his family an escape from poverty. However, greed begins to consume the villagers as word spreads about the pearl. Kino encounters trials and tribulations attempting to sell the pearl. In the end, he devastatingly discovers that what was meant to bring his family wealth and joy instead brought destruction. What Brown values most about “The Pearl” is that it “teaches you about love. The power of love. I mean, the central character acts out of love and out of a deep understanding of what that is. I think we all need to know what it means to love and care for someone. To know that we are part of a family. That particular quality, I think, is crucial in helping us to navigate this world that we live in, which is sometimes difficult because we can be so unkind to each other.”
Next, Brown recommends “A House for Mr. Biswas” by V.S. Naipaul, published in 1961. Set in Trinidad, the novel is centered around Mohun Biswas, a man born into poverty and struggles to find his role in society. He yearns to own a house, and his pursuit of fulfilling this dream represents a quest for pride and agency. “The reason I think it would be a good book for students to read is that it speaks to this long-lasting and very important theme of migration and also family that we all can identify with. It also speaks about the way in which the world changes and how individuals have to adapt to it,” says Brown. A book is all the more meaningful when it particularly resonates with its readers, and “A House for Mr. Biswas” did this for Brown through its exploration of ambition: “We all have it. There’s nothing wrong with seeing how that manifests in different cultures and for different people.”
Lastly, Brown suggests Hemingway’s classic tale of man versus nature, “The Old Man and the Sea.” The novella, published in 1952, follows aging fisherman Santiago and his struggle to catch a giant marlin. He’s faced an 84-day streak of lousy luck, unable to catch a fish. After an arduous battle, Santiago hooks the marlin as his perseverance and endurance are tested to reel it in. Despite the powerful forces of nature, Santiago refuses to give up. The novella presents “this wonderful treatment of what it means to endure or to follow through on a particular activity, and this whole idea of a journey in the sea,” according to Brown.
English Teacher and Form IV Dean, Vinni Drybala, suggests “The Old Man and the Sea” as well. Drybala believes the novella presents itself “more as an introspective, philosophical text than it does morals of the world around you. It’s far more an isolationist text than a communal one.”
Drybala additionally recommends “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller, which he read as a senior in High School. The satirical novel follows Captain John Yossarian during World War II, stationed on the fictional Mediterranean island of Pianosa. The title references military rule, “Catch-22,” stating that “a soldier’s request to be relieved from active duty can only be accepted if he is mentally unfit to fight.” However, the rule’s parameters ensured that no soldier would ever be deemed unfit for battle. Throughout the story, Yossarian grapples and navigates these absurdities as he attempts to avoid flying additional missions to stay alive. Drybala believes that the novel mainly speaks to the “absurdity of the human condition,” helping its readers to understand life’s meaning and complexities.
English Teacher Hsia-Ting Chang proposed Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom!,” Nabokov’s “Lolita,” and Austen’s “Emma.” Chang explained, “I am drawn to novels that trap readers in a character’s psyche, no matter how disturbing or claustrophobic that experience might be.”
“Absalom, Absalom!” is widely regarded as one of the greatest Southern Gothic literary works. Set in Faulker’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County, the story follows Thomas Sutpen, a man determined to establish himself as an extremely powerful figure in the South. He builds the plantation Sutpen’s Hundred and marries into a prominent family. However, Sutpen is unable to escape his dark past, revealing secrets that cause the downfall of his dreams. Faulkner uses multiple narrators and nonlinear storytelling to symbolize the fractured essence of the truth.
Although a controversial novel, Nabokov’s “Lolita,” published in 1955, is a highly well-known and prominent piece of literature. It delves into Humbert Humbert’s infatuation with twelve-year-old Dolores Haze, whom he refers to as “Lolita.”
“Emma” is a seminal piece of English literature, often considered one of Austen’s best novels, alongside “Pride and Prejudice”. Published in 1815, the story revolves around Emma Woodhouse, a youthful and beautiful woman who takes an interest in playing matchmaker. However, through her meddling, Emma unintentionally provokes harm to those around her. When reading “Emma,” the reader witnesses her character’s evolution from a naive girl to an introspective young woman.
Chang finds deep value in each of these literary works because “These authors’ ability to walk the knife edge of sympathy and (in some cases) disgust is, for me, very compelling and helps me understand viewpoints that diverge wildly from my own…I try to think about my own decision-making from a few different angles, and they remind me how siloed or insular my own thinking can be if I don’t check it or calibrate it against other ways of thinking.” Chang highlights the true power that literature holds to help broaden perspectives and highlight alternative viewpoints, helping readers understand the complexity behind each and every human experience.
English Teacher Charlotte Stabenau also relishes reading and rereading the novels of Jane Austen for her loveable female protagonists: “The women of Austen’s novels go through the stages of life in which so many changes, so that every time I read them, as my own woman’s life changes, I feel closer to them and, in a sense, understood without having to speak,” says Stabenau. After all, a truly great book is one that accompanies the reader on their journey through life, evolving and growing up with them.
English Teacher Ms. Gina Apostol recommends longer pieces of literature, including Melville’s “Moby Dick,” Shikibu’s “The Tale of Genji” and W.E.B. Dubois’s “Black Reconstruction in America.” Considered a great masterpiece of world literature, “Moby Dick,” first published in 1851, follows sailor Ishmael, who joins a whaling voyage aboard the Pequod with Captain Ahab. The plot essentially revolves around Ahab’s desire to seek revenge against Moby Dick, the white sperm whale who bit off half his leg. Shikibu’s classic Japanese literary work, “The Tale of Genji,” explores the romantic endeavors of Hikaru Genji, a handsome nobleman born to an Emperor during the Heian period. Dubois’s “Black Reconstruction in America” is a work of history that delves into the period of Reconstruction in America following the Civil War. He argues that African Americans actively influenced the construction of an inclusive democracy while cementing their rights as citizens.
“For me, a reason to read long books is the amount of time it takes to read them—and that time spent in my experience has been valuable for me…It took me almost a decade to read Proust’s In Search of Lost Time—but that time reading it was well spent: I gave myself permission to stop and drop it then pick it up,” says Apostol. She additionally has cultivated the habit of trying to read all the books of a writer she is interested in: “As a kid, I did that with Kafka, Dostoevsky, Austen (I used to reread all her books in one go every summer when I was still in college), Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges.”
Finally, Form III English Teacher Marjorie Gruder recommended “A Vision of the World,” a short story by one of my personal favorite writers, John Cheever. In it, a middle-aged writer in the suburbs begins to question life and his dreams after discovering a suicide note in his garden. According to Gruder, the protagonist learns that “despite the mundane quality of his suburban life, there are values and virtues that moor him to his world…he comes to understand in his dreams the importance of love and beauty and valor. Those are virtues that I, too, hold dear.”
As for the literary work that I urge other students to read, it is Cheever’s “The Swimmer.” The short story is somewhat of a modern Epic that follows the protagonist, Neddy, and his goal to swim across his neighbor’s swimming pools. In the 1964 short story, he embarks on an epic journey with a twist. In place of a world with supernatural elements such as centaurs and gods, Neddy is lost in a fantasy that he has created in his mind.
I found profound meaning in this story because it changed the way I view the hero’s journey altogether. As a younger child, the hero’s journey appeared in books like “Harry Potter,” but the narrative archetype felt like it was one reserved for “the chosen ones,” not ordinary people in everyday humanity. However, Neddy embarks on a modern-day hero’s journey, not as a conventional hero with admirable physical and mental strength, but instead as a relatable protagonist who goes on a journey as a flawed human being. Neddy’s journey is traveling from fantasy to reality–from midsummer to autumn, from pool to pool back to his empty home, from day to evening, from sunshine to rain–so that he can come face-to-face with his real-life demons. The story invites everyone to embrace their own hero’s journey.
