Five Books I Recommend to Everyone
I hate the idea of a canon of good books one must read “before you die,” or that sort of thing. Many of these are books aren’t beloved so much as revered. Has anyone ever felt passionately about “A Separate Peace?” If you do, it’s probably because you had a dog when you were nine named Phineas or some other subconscious sentimental reason. But besides the titles that only developed a reputation for substance, even the ones that are of merit and historical importance aren’t necessary to you, at least, not right now.
So many people make the mistake of plodding along with every sewer sub-plot in Les Miserables because they think doing so makes them smarter. One should be confident enough to call the “emperor has no clothes” on books that bore or fail to say anything illuminating. Many 19th century novels like Thomas Hardy’s were sold by word count. So don’t few guilty if you’re skimming through yet another description of the color of the fields for a scene with Eustacia Vye doing something crazy.
While it’s good to read popular and much loved books for a shared experience with the culture, how much like the rest of the world are you? Shouldn’t your reading reflect your personal fears and dreams and expectations? It’s sad to see how little readers demand of their writers. The experience I get with Anna Kavan’s or Steve Erickson’s novels seems to go way beyond anything I’ve ever felt about a book. I can’t say for certain that another reader might have the same feeling, but I hope you all come to love an author that much. Trial and error, really. Would you marry the girl you just kinda like, but find annoying sometimes, but guess is cute cause others say she’s cute? Then toss aside the book you’re not so into, and keep hunting for the right ones.
Here are several books I imagine anyone might like:
If you like Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman, try Christopher Priest’s Inverted World
Every once in a while the elder statesmen book reviewers let a cult writer in the canon of great literature like Beckett or, to a lesser degree, Burroughs. O’Brien seems to be the newest corronated one. The Third Policeman is great, but after a million retrospective pieces in Harper’s, The Atlantic, and so forth, and a mention on the tv series Lost you might want to try another book about riddles and shifting dimensions. This is a traditional science fiction book, but ingenious — very reminiscent of Ballard’s early earth-disaster SF. And it’s a mindfuck. An Escher sketch in novel form. I couldn’t put it down. Proof that Modern Painters is better cued in to good literature than most literary publications, they have a review of this book in the newest issue.
If you like William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, try Anna Kavan’s Eagle’s Nest
As much as I like Burroughs, Naked Lunch is so full of 50s junkie slang it can be difficult to read. Anna Kavan, his contemporary, has a liquidy way of writing. Scenes are so full of life they seem to fall off the page. A heroin addict until she died in her sixties, with a truly heartbreaking lifestory, you can feel, with some bitterness, where the drug is influencing her writing as you read along. Adored by the likes of Anais Nin, Jean Rhys, Ballard, Brian Aldiss, Current 93’s David Tibet, and many others, why she isn’t better known here or abroad really baffles me.
If you like Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire, try I’m Not Stiller by Max Frisch
I can’t imagine anyone disliking I’m Not Stiller. It’s witty and so smart. Imagine the best parts of Confederacy of Dunces and the best of Nabokov, with a little bit of Chandler suspense and Kafka humor, all written so well the Dalkey Archive would publish it.
If you like Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body, try by The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter
Winterson’s novel is a good book about gender and androgyny and all that, with pretty poetic language, but you can get all of those things plus a post-apocalyptic setting and a bunch of fun in The Passion of New Eve, Carter’s best and inexplicably most obscure novel. Were I handed a few million dollars, turning The Passion of New Eve into a musical would be on a short list of things I’d do with the money.
If you like Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, try Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai
Ok, I don’t like Safran Foer’s book at all, but a lot of people whose opinions I respect seemed to enjoy it. A better book about a young braniac, chock full of random information and done in a sweet, never cloying way, is The last Samurai. Of the 80 people reviewed it on Amazon, 56 gave it 5 stars, which should give you an idea how much people love this book.
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5 Responses to “Five Books I Recommend to Everyone”
Posted by: Bill Fisher - 07/31/2008
“Cannon,” no. “Canon,” yes
Posted by: Joanne McNeil - 07/31/2008
missed it. thanks
Posted by: Iris - 07/31/2008
Overrated authors are fodder for the canon or for the other kind…
This is one of the most thoughtful online pieces I’ve read in a long time - thank you for inspiring me to waltz through the fiction section at the Cesar Pelli library today.
In defense of the 19th century: there’s a radical quality to those novels, but it doesn’t lie in their plots (which were conceived as unmoving foundations, never as puzzles). Instead, their style and mechanics twist around to create the main event. Even “Anna Karenina” has some bizarre stream-of-consciousness passages towards the end, more Dylan Thomas than square Tolstoy
Posted by: Joanne McNeil - 08/01/2008
Interesting! You are right they’re aren’t all boring (or *that* boring.) And I really envy that you get so much from them.
Posted by: chris - 08/05/2008
Hi, I’m a new reader, just wanted to let you know I’m really enjoying your site. I’d never heard of Anna Kavan before, so thanks for that tip!
Anyways, glad I found you and look forward to visiting often in the future.
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