LMM: Round 3, Part 2: Tolstoy! Flaubert! Nabokov! Dostoyevsky!

Tolstoy v. Flaubert

Nabokov v. Dostoyevsky

Literary March Madness - Round 2, Part 2

Sorry about the delay between posts - my evenings have been occupied lately by watching the White Sox continue to lose game after game. So on to a more happy sport! The next set of matches contains a couple of fierce underdogs: #9 Harper Lee and #15 Flannery O'Connor (A Good Man Is Hard To Find). Southern authors have been doing very well so far in this tournament. O'Connor, in my opinion, scored a huge upset against Balzac in the first round. But maybe I should stop being surprised. On the other side of the bracket, fellow Southerner William Faulkner seems to be coasting to a win over Hermann Hesse. O'Connor once said that "anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic." Maybe my northern sensibilities just aren't tuned in to the proper Southern palate - but who knows, the Kentucky Derby is coming up.

A slew of new Round One winners to announce: Virginia Woolf barely squeaks by #15 E.M. Forster 4-3, while Charles Dickens more easily handled Stella Gibbons. And please stop letting matches end in ties! Evelyn Waugh (Brideshead Revisited) tied L. Frank Baum, and J.K. Rowling tied Philip Pullman. D'oh! I'll be making an executive decision later today (call it a "Biden") - but if you feel strongly one way or another, now is your chance to let me know! Also, #15 Sherman Alexie is on the verge of upsetting #2 Henry James with one more day left of voting. As Jesse pointed out, this may be because Alexie was and always has been a loyal Seattle SuperSonics fan. Who did James root for? The Boston Americans?

Update: I have been in heaven this afternoon. After a trip downtown for breakfast and returning library books, I have been able to watch both the White Sox (finally! a win!) and the Trail Blazers (down 69-71) at the same time! In other news, four more polls have closed, with all four matches being won by the higher seeded writer. #1 Melville defeated Raymond Carver, #8 Zora Neale Hurston edged #9 Kurt Vonnegut 3-2, Goethe defeated Lampedusa 3-1, and will advance to face Kafka in the next round, who beat Tony Kushner 4-2.

Keep voting!

Tolstoy v. Lee

Flaubert v. Mann

O'Connor v. Nabokov

Dostoyevsky v. Borges

Literary March Madness Updated Bracket

Here is an updated bracket for our Literary March Madness as we prepare to move into Round Two, which I'm planning on posting tomorrow. Now that we've shuffled off a few of our less worthy authors (sorry, Derek Walcott...) we're starting to be presented with some truly intriguing match-ups. First off, of course, will be #1 Jane Austen versus #8 Emily Bronte. My first thought is that this pits the creators of two of the most iconic - and parodied - male protagonists in the history of English literature against one another. I'm speaking, of course, of Heathcliff and Colin Firth Mr. Darcy. In many ways, Bronte's Heathcliff is a romantic reaction against the straight-laced Darcy. Emily's sister, Charlotte, famously wrote of Austen: "Miss Austen being, as you say, without "sentiment", without poetry, maybe is sensible (more real than true), but she cannot be great." Burn! We don't want no sensible heroes in our moors - give me something true! Indeed, there are many glaring contrasts between Darcy and Heathcliff, but here's the one I want you to keep in mind: Heathcliff is an orphan. Darcy has an annual income of £10,000. OMG! WWMD? (...think about it...)

Of course, these are just two of many of the great characters that we'll be asking you to judge over the next week or so. We've got Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter and Jane Eyre of Jane Eyre, Pierre Bezukhov (War and Peace) taking on Atticus Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird) in an "honor-off", Behemoth the demonic cat, and, of course, everyone's favorite pedophile, Humbert Humbert!


Talk about The Madness!
Literary March Madness(2)

Literary Madness Round 1 - Part 4

I apologize for any sense of repetition that this blog may be developing, but I'm trying to keep the Literary March Madness matches coming down the tubes as quickly as possible so that we might be able to move on to Rounds 2 and 3 in a timely fashion. Cab suggested that we provide a little more background info for some of our authors, such as links to their works or Wikipedia page or something. I'm not quite sure where to fit this in yet, but I'll try to be a little more helpful in the future.

As for our last batch of matches, well, they're all turning into routes, with Tolstoy, Terry Pratchett, and Harper Lee all leading by wide margins. In other news, Emily Bronte still leads Jhumpa Lahiri by a single vote with only more day of open polls left. The tension! Now, here are some more match-ups from our Second Region to vote on:

Flaubert v. Ellison

Mann v. Lhu Hsun

Balzac v. O'Connor

Nabokov v. Wodehouse

Dostoyevsky v. Diaz

Borges v. Satrapi