When I looked at the reading list, I had read a number of the books and three of them were favourites, including The Great Gatsby, Handmaid's Tale and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. The Illegals was written by Lawrence Hill, whose tome The Book of Negroes, is one of my favourites, and there was also Life of Pi, which I'd read but not enjoyed. I read the requirements of this assignment and realized that since resilience is a very important concept, that to me, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption was the best book to elucidate this theme.
I had thought of writing about the Handmaid's Tale because it is also a story of resilience. Further, recent events in Canada around our history with our Indigenous peoples shows me a disturbing connection between fictional Gilead and Canada. As a person whose family has been in Canada for multiple generations, I am shocked to find out that our country for the past century-plus is fits easily in to the dystopian and apartheid, themes of Margaret Atwood's book. I decided not to write about this book, because I think that the topic is worthy of a scholarly essay. To be honest, I am still trying to digest the reality of Canada's position as well as my feelings of horror, shame and disappointment that the country I love has a genocidal history that I was ignorant of. I read this book when it came out. I bet you don't hear that often!
I loved The Great Gatsby and took a course in Fitzgerald's writing once, but as much as I loved the book, it's my opinion that the vapid, superficial personalities attributed to most of the characters are not a good fit for a theme of resilience. I read this book for course work in the past but read it first (and many more times) from the time I was about 12 years old.
For this culminating project, the choice that really stood out to me was Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. I suppose now would be a good time to read my 'about' if you have not already. I first read this novella when it was published. It was included in the book Different Seasons in 1982. I was a very big Stephen King fan, and when I was in my third year of university, I asked a number of different profs in the English Department if they would supervise my writing of a fourth year thesis on Stephen King.
I was flatly refused, because he was a popular novelist, and his work was not considered literature. In the end, I graduated after third year, because I really wasn't nuts about English Literature and if I could not write about Stephen King, then I really wasn't interested in writing about much else. I wasn't a great student, I wasn't motivated and I just wanted to get out of school.
Stephen King is a standout among authors I really enjoy. In a field of books I love, the resilience of characters Red and Andy Dufresne, made choosing Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption a no brainer.
All the novellas in this book were incredible. The Body was made into the movie Stand By Me in 1986.