How I Managed to Enjoy a Play About Books I Haven't Read

Last night I was gifted a ticket to Travesties, written by Tom Stoppard and produced by the talented Soulpepper theatre troupe in Toronto. I am not much of a theatre fan, but I do tend to enjoy the plays of the literary hard-hitting kind - those of Stoppard, Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Millar, Eugene O'Neill, and David Mamet. I suppose though, upon reflecting on that list, that I have come to these playwrights via the screen (A Streetcar Named Desire and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? are among my favourite films.)

But I digress (as usual.)

Here's the jist of Travesties courtesy of the Soulpepper website:
Three prominent revolutionaries of 20th century art and politics — James Joyce, Vladimir Lenin and Tristan Tzara — come together in the mixed-up memories of a British consular official who blends history, literature and echoes of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. An intoxicating comedy of ideas, Travesties is widely considered to be Stoppard’s most ingenious masterpiece.

Jeez Louise! I have a degree in English Literature and I felt like I needed to read a Coles Notes primer before stepping into the theatre... I had only tried to read Joyce's Ulysses, never craked The Importance of Being Earnest and had no clue as to what Tzara's Dadaism was. Alas, I didn't have time to even scope out the Wikipedia entry on the play!

But I liked the play very much regardless and found myself laughing at times, though I was also left listening to a laughing audience at others.

Which reminded me of this book I haven't yet read but want to, and will pretend that I am knowledgeable about: "How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read." I wish I had read how to talk about books I haven't read so that I could watch a play about books I haven't read and pretend to understand it so that I could talk about it (and the books it was about) after I'd watched it!

Then today, I saw that a friend on Facebook had posted the BBC Top 100 Books list. She had read 26 of them. I sighed before taking a look at the list myself - after last night I wondered why I ever took a degree in English! Thankfully, I've read (or partially read and can therefore talk about) 33 of them. And I plan to read (or partially read) 33 more - to keep the conversation going!

Here's the list if you're interested in determining your own literary chops!

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien x
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen x
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling x
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee x
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne x
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë x
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë x
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier x
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger x
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens x
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell x
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling x
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling x
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling x
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien x
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot x
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving x
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck x
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll x
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl x
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen x
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery x
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald x
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy x
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck x
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens x
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough x
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles x
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding x
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding x
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce x
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac x
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie x