Lost Video Island

[thefilmchick]

I need to read a book and do a report on some theory in it (note: not a book report; a theoretical report) this semester for my Law and Literature seminar. It must have some tangential connection with the law.

Example from the first day of class (because, for the seventh time in my middle school through law school career, we are reading To Kill a Mockingbird, which I love, but oh man, am I ever sick of reading it):

Book: To Kill a Mockingbird. Theory: Atticus Finch is not as brave and heroic a lawyer as Scout thinks, because he cannot successfully defend Tom Robinson and change the morals of a community that is on the verge of changing.

It must be a book I haven't read before. It can be anything from Dostoevsky and Shakespeare to a John Grisham novel (one person did Harry Potter last year, seriously). I was thinking of doing Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses (which I have been meaning to read for a while but never got around to) and doing a report on liberal Islam, as contrasted with Sharia law, but that was just a thought that I had. One drawback to the book, though, is that it is quite long.

Books that might otherwise be suggested that I've already read: In Cold Blood, The Executioner's Song, Crime and Punishment, every Kurt Vonnegut novel ever written, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich/The Gulag Archipelago, etc. etc. etc.

Any thoughts? I liked my liberal Islam concept, but I'm not sure how legal it would be. I have a week to figure out what I'm doing.
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I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's. His hair was perfect.

[thefilmchick]

Also! I'm now considering N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn, for what that's worth.

Writers I like, if that helps folks come up with ideas:

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, Jerzy Kosinski, Carl Hiaasen, Anthony Burgess, Edna O'Brien, Philip K. Dick (most), Carl Sagan (when writing nonfiction), Kurt Vonnegut, Ursula K. LeGuin, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Chinua Achebe, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Flannery O'Connor, Joseph Heller, Wole Soyinka, James Dickey, etc. etc. Basically anyone with a distinctive voice (who is not Ayn Rand, haha).

Writers I dislike (although I only really hate Rand; the others have sometimes had passable stuff):

Ayn Rand, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Anne Rice, William Faulkner, George Bernard Shaw (though I agree with his politics), etc.
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I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's. His hair was perfect.

[wolffootball37]

A Clockwork Orange!!! Its very political (and happens to be my favorite movie!) Harry Potter, if you read books 5-7 accually is VERY political, thats probably what i would of chosen.

[thefilmchick]

wolffootball37 wrote:

A Clockwork Orange!!! Its very political (and happens to be my favorite movie!)

Read it several times before (and tried to head it off at the pass by listing Burgess above, heh.) The prof knows I'm an ex-film student and ex-English major. She would never buy me saying I hadn't read it, I'm sure.

And the point isn't politics, but law. Slight difference, in that there has to be not a political opinion, but some sort of ethical problem. (I think the Harry Potter one last year was either on Stockholm syndrome or on something else having to do with victims' rights from violent crime - Harry's rights for retribution/justice for having had his parents murdered. Something like that, anyway.)
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I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's. His hair was perfect.

[wolffootball37]

thefilmchick wrote:

wolffootball37 wrote: A Clockwork Orange!!! Its very political (and happens to be my favorite movie!) Read it several times before (and tried to head it off at the pass by listing Burgess above, heh.) The prof knows I'm an ex-film student and ex-English major. She would never buy me saying I hadn't read it, I'm sure.

well most of all literature that i know of is stuff youve probably already read in High School. Wish i could help though.

[wolffootball37]

wolffootball37 wrote:

thefilmchick wrote: wolffootball37 wrote: A Clockwork Orange!!! Its very political (and happens to be my favorite movie!) Read it several times before (and tried to head it off at the pass by listing Burgess above, heh.) The prof knows I'm an ex-film student and ex-English major. She would never buy me saying I hadn't read it, I'm sure. well most of all literature that i know of is stuff youve probably already read in High School. Wish i could help though.

Quote:

nd the point isn't politics, but law. Slight difference, in that there has to be not a political opinion, but some sort of ethical problem. (I think the Harry Potter one last year was either on Stockholm syndrome or on something else having to do with victims' rights from violent crime - Harry's rights for retribution/justice for having had his parents murdered. Something like that, anyway.)

oops didnt see that. Well first thing that comes to mind is Lenny from Mice of Men. Like innocent because of disibility... just a thought.

[thefilmchick]

Already read that too, and for class as well - three times from fifth grade through college, though not in law school. Sorry! I didn't realize this would be so hard, finding books that I haven't read with some legal concept.
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I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's. His hair was perfect.

[SassyLostie2]

Darn, Trey suggested the books that I may have suggested...that's like all I've got...I have to read Animal Farm for college, but I'm really not sure what to suggest for you. Sorry.
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