written artwork - diary of a madman and other stories

I can vividly remember one day, sitting in my senior year English class in high school.  We were discussing the book we had been assigned to read, The Grapes of Wrath.  Of course, our teacher, Ms. Stewart, was the expert in the room so she was sharing some tidbits about what the author was "really saying" at certain points.  

While impressed at the teacher's analysis, I remember thinking, "How in the world were we supposed to figure that out on our own?"  With authors telling stories within stories, passing judgment between the lines, or secretly giving their opinion on every page, it can be difficult to figure out what they are saying. 

And it is this reason I wish I had read Diary of a Madman and Other Stories in my high school English class.  I feel like there are some really interesting things in there...but my simple mind just doesn't find them on it's own.  

I mean, really.  One of the stories included in this collection is called, The Nose.  And it's about a guy that wakes up one day and has lost his nose.  Or someone has stolen it.  And then he thinks he sees it on someone else.  Um...there has got to be something really interesting behind this story.  Right?  I hope so, or else it's just a bit odd.  

So, my recommendation...read this book.  It's odd and interesting.  Just do it with someone who knows something about literature and can fill you in on the mystery.

A list of what's to come, and what has already been explored.
My Written Artwork Journey Explained here

1. Animal Farm - George Orwell
2. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. Emma - Jane Austen
4. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
5. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams
6. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
7. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
8. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
9. The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
10. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
11. Nineteen Eighty-four - George Orwell
    
12. Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
13. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
14. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
15. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
16. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
17. Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
18. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
19. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
20. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
21. Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
22. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
23. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
24. The sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
25. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
26. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
27. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
28. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
29. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
30. Crime and Punishment - Fedor Dostoyevsky
31. Watership Down - Richard Adams
32. Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
33. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
34. All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
35. Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
36. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
37. The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane
38. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
39. Tales - Edgar Allan Poe
40. Diary of a Madman and Other Stories - Nikolai Gogol
41. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
42. A Farewell To Arms - Ernest Hemingway
43. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen