Ithaca College

I am pleased to announce the selection of Ransom, by the Australian novelist and poet David Malouf, as the First Year Reading for the 2011-2012 academic year. 

Ransom is a recounting of one of the best known stories in the history of literature told with a fresh insight that leads one to wonder what will happen next. The novel tells of the hand to hand battle between the two great warriors Achilles and Hector, and of the subsequent determination of Priam to recover the body of his son by doing something no king had ever done. The book does not stint in describing the brutality of war, and yet it also shows that in the midst of war mortal enemies may recognize their common humanity. 

Ransom is a story of one of the oldest recorded wars in human history, told in a way that demands reflection on the conflicts of our era. It is a story of the mutual understanding that develops between a king and a day laborer – two people whose life experiences are completely different but whose fates become entwined. It is a story about the telling of stories.  

David Malouf writes near the end of Ransom that “Those who sit, intent as children, and give themselves up to these old tales, will have heard them a hundred times before and know every detail and unlikely turn.” It is in the exploration of the familiar that we sometimes have the most surprising of insights.  As the incoming freshman class embarks on the next major phase of their lives, Ransom will be a provocative spur to questions about the world we live in and our place in it.    

In the coming months, the Ithaca College faculty, staff and peer mentors will take advantage of the social networking opportunities created by IC Peers to suggest questions and engage with student thinking about the book. 

I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the First Year Reading committee, which reviewed nearly a dozen books in depth before recommending a number of possibilities to me. The committee was chaired by Associate Provost Bashar Hanna and included Barbara Angler, Michael Buck, David Garcia, Mark Andrew Hall, Bruce Henderson, Eleanor Henderson, Dan Isbell, Amy Moticello, Kathleen Mulligan, Shaianne Osterreich, James Pfrehm, Ayana Richardson, Robert Sullivan, Rachel Wagner, Patricia Zimmerman.