Since we had a total of 30+ hours in the car, we had a lot of time to listen to our Teaching Company CDs, Classics of American Literature. We usually alternate the CDs with a music CD so that our brains do not go numb; Mer also has the problem that she “spaces” because she starts thinking about how to teach the work we are learning about. So, over the course of the vacation, we managed to get through eighteen 30-minute lectures (there are 84 lectures in all). These lectures covered:

– 2 lectures finishing 4 lectures on Moby Dick (Melville)
– 2 lectures on Benito Cereno (Melville)
– 5 lectures on Walt Whitman
– 3 lectures on Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe)
– 5 lectures on Emily Dickinson
– 1 lecture starting 5 lectures on Twain, this one covering Tom Sawyer

The lectures are great – I recommend the Teaching Company highly. This lecturer (Dr. Arnold Weinstein) is unpretentious, and he takes the authors on their own terms – he presents the works largely from how the author and the author’s contemporaries would have seen the work, while still working in modern views without undermining or attacking the work. He has done a really good job. My personal take on the works we heard about:
– Moby Dick – an important work (it may be THE important American work) that sounds ponderous (long book, difficult vocabulary, and long, complex syntax). I enjoyed the lectures, but would probably not try to tackle the book.
– Benito Cereno – These lectures were fascinating. I cannot say much about the book without giving the ending away, but I am intrigued by this work. I recommend it, although I have one warning – there are some race issues that are not handled in modern ways.
– Whitman – I alluded to this in another post. I liked Whitman’s city poetry, but not much else he did. I probably will not bother to read any Whitman (I am not a big poetry fan, in general).
– Uncle Tom’s Cabin – These lectures were great. Weinstein went to some lengths to put the book in its historical setting. He also defended it against accusations that is an unsophisticated book. I may try to read the work. Fun fact of the day – according to Weinstein, Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the second-best-selling book in the English language, after the Bible.
– Dickinson – I was not familiar with Dickinson’s work. I really liked it. She is very odd, and writes a lot about death, but I really liked her stuff. It is packed with many meanings, and seems simple at first listen. Nice stuff. I would like to learn more about her poetry. I may try to read some of the best-known works, but what I would really enjoy would be to hear more lectures on her work.
– Twain – Twain is one of my heroes, so I enjoyed the introduction to Tom Sawyer. I am really looking forward to the three lectures on Huck Finn, which is one of my favorite books.

In addition to the Teaching Company lectures, I did manage to go through about 10 lessons of my Rosetta Stone Italian program. I like the teaching style – it seems to be working well. I just am impatient, and I want to speak Italian NOW. Level 1 Italian has about 90 lessons, so if I can stick to a good schedule, I should be done with Level 1 in the late spring.