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With one complete cycle under his belt, Alan Walker, our Senior Director of Academic Marketing and Sales, embarks on yet another Penguin Classics reading marathon of one book by an author per letter of the alphabet. Check out the Penguin Classics website for Alan's latest blog entries (anonymous to A), as well as his entire first marathon.

Anonymous

Having read a Penguin Classic by author for each letter of the alphabet I thought it would be appropriate to start my next round of reading with a book written by that noted author of over 120 Penguin Classics, that illustrious literary figure who has written in every genre through every historical period known as Anonymous. The translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh by N. K. Sandars is really an amazing feat of literature for its accessibility, considering that the tale of Gilgamesh's search for immortality was uncovered by archaeologists in excavations of ancient Middle Eastern cities, predated Homer by at least fifteen centuries (maybe up to twenty), and was originally written on over 25,000 clay tablets. The introduction to this edition covers the historical and literary background of this epic, and is truly fascinating. And I am just sitting here and wondering if the switch from clay tablet to parchment paper was as controversial as the bound book to eBook debate is today?

A

Mulk Raj Anand was considered in his day as his country's Charles Dickens for his detailed portrayals of the poor in traditional Indian society. The short novel Untouchable written in 1935 is a case of a Classic that is truly ripe for rediscovery for it's empathetic exploration of the conflicting emotions, humiliations and repressed desires of a sweeper, a latrine cleaner basically, and member of the lowest caste of Indians known as the Untouchables. The members of this caste were subjected to intense discrimination, and if someone from a higher caste came into physical contact with them, they were considered to be defiled and would have to be bathed thoroughly to be purified. A similar scene actually takes place in the book and is referred to in E.M. Forster's introduction to our Classics edition as "the touching". In Bakha the sweeper, the author paints a vivid portrait of the daily life of a strong and handsome young man who has to repress his anger at his place in society, and yet whose lack of a future and any hope to improve upon his position limits his own awareness of his own feelings. Near the end of the novel you also get to see Gandhi and the unnamed Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, speak at a rally, all though Bakha's own eyes.

B

Ever since my first round letter B choice of Bulgakov, I've been looking forward to trying Borges for the first time. With quite a few titles in Penguin Classics from which to choose, I decided to read Brodie's Report which was Borges' return to fiction at the age of 70, after twenty years of focusing on poetry and nonfiction. All of the stories in the book are just a few pages in length, all representing some form of duel, whether between gauchos, hardened criminals, academics, or competing artists. My favorite story here is called The Other Duel, about two ranchers who were lifelong enemies. Despite having never come to actual blows, their rivalry was renowned. Their final duel came about when both were captured by the Reds while fighting for the Whites during the 1870s Civil War. The Reds, who put to death all prisoners, settled the lifelong dispute between these two men by staging a dual, letting everyone (both captors and soon-to-perish prisoners) bet on which of the rivals would be able to run the farthest once their throats were slit. Macabre and disturbing yet somehow whimsical, Borges' style is wholly original and highly entertaining. This is a real discovery and I look forward to mining his other works in Penguin Classics!

C

"The horror, the horror!" My letter C pick for this go-round is that turn-of-century (1899) classic Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad's deeply psychological tale of a riverboat journey into the Congo in search of the infamous ivory trader Mr. Kurtz. Maybe the most difficult thing for me in reading this book for the first time was trying to rid my mind of Marlon Brando's image as the story progressed. Of course, Brando played Kurtz in Apocalypse Now—the modern film retelling of Conrad's novel with Vietnam as backdrop in place of Africa. At least I don't recall Brando being "a malformed seven-foot-long puppet creature" (from Owen Knowles' introduction). The introduction itself is literary criticism in its highest form, and almost as entertaining as the book itself. Knowles discusses how Heart of Darkness played no small part in shifting attitudes towards "imperialism" which until then was a term with a more "reputable association" and was a form of "unthinking national self-congratulation."