September 23-24, 2017: Crowd-sourced Legends of the Fall

[As the leaf-peeping begins in earnest (seriously, that’s a thing we do here in New England), this week’s series has focused on some iconic American images of the loss of innocence that we so often associate with autumn. This crowd-sourced post is drawn from the responses and nominations of fellow FallStudiers—add your autumnal reflections in comments, please!]

Responding to Monday’s post on YA lit, blog commenter JaimeLynn88 writes, “I would put A Summer to Die in this category, although the death at its core is from cancer, not violence. The loss of innocence is partly at the distressing notions that kids die and grown-ups can't fix things, but also Meg's realization that she needs to own and make peace with her resentment of her formerly-perfect, popular sister before it's too late. It's sad and scary and responsible for my gut-deep belief that all nosebleeds are harbingers of leukemia.”

Anna Consalvo nominates another work by Robert Cormier, We All Fall Down. And Anna adds, "An oldie but goodie song, Tom Rush's 'Urge for Going.'"

Responding to Wednesday’s post on “The Body” and Stand By Me, Tim McCaffrey writes, “This is a very interesting contrast between the two pieces, and I think each piece works well in its own way. One interesting thing about Stephen King is that he often writes (wrote) about the fears that are often ignored in works about childhood (a recent example that comes to mind after seeing IT is the amount of courage it takes for a child to walk down into a basement alone).”

Other Fall nominees:

Jeff Renye goes with John Cheever’s “The Swimmer,” and Andrea Grenadier agrees, “Oh, definitely! Loved the film with Burt Lancaster!” Jeff adds, "As for song, here's a good autumnal/Tolkien crossover."

Andrea also writes, “Fall! The magic word! Taking a page from my American Studies hero R.W.B. Lewis, I would say all American literature features loss of innocence, a fall from grace, and sometimes, redemption. So one of my favorite Melville stories, "Billy Budd" does exactly that.”

Paige Wallace highlights Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall on Your Knees.

Katharine Covino-Poutasse agrees with my Monday nominee of “A Separate Peace, on so many levels.”

Padmini Sukumaran notes, “Obviously Paradise Lost by John Milton.”

Tamara “Flash” Verhyen writes, “I think fall I think Halloween and so Poe is my go-to this time of year. Also Palahniuk's Haunted is really great. It's like all his books where you don't really know the full story but this one gives you different perspectives and the concept is an homage to Shelley, Byron, and Clairmont getting together to write.”

Shayne Simahk nominates, “Two very different works about falls from innocence... I really enjoy the poem “The Lanyard” by Billy Collins. And though perhaps not scholarly but at least timely, Stephen King's IT, which I actually forced myself to plow through years ago.”

Diego Ubiera goes with La Chute (The Fall) by Camus.

Paul Coleman highlights “Something Wicked This Way Comes, the OG IT.”

Andrew DaSilva writes, “The Berlin Wall by Frederick Taylor; it's fitting cause the wall fell in the fall if ya like the play on words there.”

And AnneMarie Donahue notes, “I might be a weirdo on this one but Half Hanged Mary always reminds me of fall. And a fall from grace... and a very fortunate fall for Mary. I mean, sort of.”

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Any other Fall texts or reflections you’d share?