Beowulf on the Beach: What to Love and What to Skip in Literature's… (2009)

It's perhaps inevitable that I wouldn't get on with this book, for three reasons. One, I'm an academic type. Two, Beowulf genuinely is my idea of a beach read. Three, in his words, I sit down to pee.

No, no. I don't mean that in a derogatory, 'women always argue' way. I mean that Jack Murnighan keeps going on about 'Man Lit', and how amaaaazing it is that he managed to find anything worth reading in Pride and Prejudice, and how all women are going to be all starry-eyed over Darcy, and whatever.

The very idea that there has to be something 'sexy' about the books to keep a reader's interest strikes me as quite guy-centric -- or not so much that as it's a very consistent idea of what's sexy, or even more generally, what might draw a reader. No mention is given to the compelling nature of David and Jonathan's love for each other, for example.

There's possibly a fourth point, in that this is the literary canon of primarily dead white men. It's European to the extreme. It perhaps wouldn't be such a dealbreaker for me if it advertised itself as such, but considering the title is 'Literature's 50 Greatest Hits'...

Naturally, I disagree on other levels with his ideas of what to skip, and I don't really get on with his flippant tone. About all I credit this book with is encouraging me to pick up some of the classics I previously gave a miss -- but I already had that vague intention in mind anyway.

(Oh, and if you don't want to view the Bible as a literary document, avoid.) ( )

I mostly enjoyed this book, and I thought Murnighan's passion for literature was sweet, but I also got annoyed more than a few times when his arguments became either condescending or dismissive. ( )

My copy of this book has become a well thumbed resource. I not only enjoyed reading it but loved rediscovering books I thought I hated, and plunging head first into ones I thought were just too difficult. Thank you Mr Murnighan! ( )

I do not think there could be a person on earth (1) who obviously loves reading as much as I do, yet (2) who has completely and totally opposite reading tastes. Let me make one thing clear: Jack is a GUY. He is looking for action in books. Plot. Fighting. Killing. Plunder. You know. That sort of stuff.I could care less about plot. I want to get inside people’s heads. I want to understand people. A group of intriguing people, sitting around in chairs, talking? Excellent book for me. So Beowulf at the Beach had nothing for me. Jack looked at fifty classics and showed all the violence and action you didn’t know was there. The good news is that I think I can safely cross about twenty books off my list of Books to Read Before I Die. I’m just not interested in ever reading Blood Meridian or Lolita or Tropic of Cancer or, really, Faulkner. I can get that on the six o’clock news or the latest blockbuster movie. So that is a kind of usefulness, Jack. Thank you for that. ( )

While I have yet to read the entirety of this book, I have read his sections on the books I own, and I thought his descriptions were spot-on. I really enjoyed his take on the classics, especially his sections of his favorite quotes and "what to skip." Not that I would skip anything just because he said I could, but it's nice to know that there really are parts of the classics that are just not relevant to the story. I will be using this book in the future when I pick up the rest of the classics Jack evaluates. ( )