FENWICK’S SUMMER READING LISTS

I have always been a voracious reader and my current book LEADERS: MYTH AND REALITY is authored by General Stanley McChrystal. It is as interesting and thought-provoking as was his work TEAM OF TEAMS: NEW RULES OF ENGAGEMENT FOR A COMPLEX WORLD, which I read a couple of years ago.

McChrystal’s new work discusses Plutarch’s LIVES OF NOBLE GREEKS AND ROMANS in an early chapter. The citing of Plutarch immediately brings me back to one of my favorite books as a teenager. It also reminds me of Fenwick High School’s summer reading lists, which I dreaded. Fenwick’s reading list normally consisted of five books and the Dominicans verified our reading on the first day of class. I, ever the rebel, had my own reading list.

Like ancient Greek and Roman children, I grew up mesmerized by the lives and exploits of Alexander the Great, Gaius Julius Caesar, Leonidas, the Gracchi brothers, Alcibiades, Coriolanus, among many others. I had read Caesar’s COMMENTARIES ON THE GALLIC WARS when I was in sixth grade and re-read most of it in Latin as a high school sophomore. Today, few children anywhere know who these great leaders and warriors are.

I also read works from military history depicting the American Civil War, which was celebrating its centennial when I first started reading about it. I also read works describing World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. It’s not to say that I didn’t like Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson or Daniel Defoe, which I did.

Few works from my summer reading list ever made it on Fenwick’s. Only two: MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY and ROBINSON CRUSOE. I asked my Fenwick friends about the works that made up Fenwick’s famous summer reading lists. Most remembered only a book or two, as if to expel from their memories the summer reading list.

Each summer, I attempted to read each novel. I gave it about 50 pages and if it sucked, I bought the CliffNotes. Most sucked. The CliffNotes gave me enough information to get a C on the summer reading list test. Ironically, I majored in French as an undergrad and immediately fell in love with French literature. Two degrees later, I was still passionate about the works of Montaigne, Rabelais, Moliere, Racine, Corneille, Fenelon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Balzac, Baudelaire, Prevert, Camus and Sartre.

None of them were on Fenwick’s summer reading list.

This summer, I listened to THE TALE OF TWO CITIES by Charles Dickens. I forced it down like castor oil and at age 66, I still dislike it. I much prefer PARIS IN THE TERROR by Stanley Loomis to provide a poignant description of the French Revolution. Loomis’ characters are alive and real. There is no yawning from the moment Charlotte de Corday decides to assassinate Marat to the death of Robespierre a year later. Years later, I read it to my daughter and she still shares the passion of the French Revolution.

Dickens’s novel doesn’t even come close.