A List
5/15/00

SLU LECTURE FOCUSES ON BOOK SET IN NORTH COUNTRY

CANTON -- Professor of English Sidney L. Sondergard will deliver the 
annual Friends of Owen D. Young and Launders Libraries Commencement 
Lecture, on the topic "Swifts and Specters: North Country Gothic in 
Irving Bacheller's Eben Holden."
	The event will be on Saturday, May 20, at 1 p.m. in Herring-Cole 
Hall on campus, as part of Commencement weekend. It is open to the public.
	Sondergard will discuss the important function folklore, old 
wives' tales and legends of the supernatural play in the novel, written 
by an 1882 graduate of the University. Sometimes described as "a sort of 
North Country cross between The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Great 
Expectations," Sondergard says that the book is known for its theme of 
survival, loyalty and good humor in the face of adversity. The lecture, 
however, will address the "dark side" of the book, which, according to 
Sondergard, "functions to keep its characters -- and perhaps its readers 
as well -- happy and healthy."
	Eben Holden was published in 1900 and is considered to be the 
first best-selling book of the 20th century. The campus has several 
reminders of the distinguished graduate: Bacheller Chimes in Gunnison 
Memorial Chapel, the Irving Bacheller Society English department honorary 
and Eben Holden Dining Hall.

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