Since I hold a very prestigious B.A. in the very prestigious field of English, I feel it is my right, no, my DUTY, to enlighten you lesser mortals with the intellectual fodder that will make you worthy of my consideration. This is a beginner's list:
The Flounder Gunter Grass: You must read this. Today. Is it poetry? Is it prose? Is it history? Is it sciene? Is it romance? Is it philosophy? Oh my land! It's EVERYTHING, all wrapped up into a soul-splitting morsel of perfection. Own it, sleep with it, lick it for good luck, this baby is a winner.
Anne of Green Gables Lucy Maude Montgomery: Anne has red hair just like me.
Their Eyes were Watching God Nora Zeale Hurston: I have wept (and I mean truly wept) reading 3 books. This is one of them.
The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis: I'm a Christian so I have very personal reasons for loving this book/essay. But even if you are not a Christian, this is a remarkable examination of temptation and at the very least the author's style and intelligence will leave you scrambling for those boxes in the attic to unearth those childhood masterpieces, The Chronicles of Narnia (which, if anyone is asking, my favorite is Voyage of the Dawn Treader).
Frankenstein Mary Shelley: The most brilliant comment on the birth of feminism and the rise of the industrial age ever. Ever ever ever ever. And the story's cool and creepy, too. Yay!
Women in White Wilkie Collins: I groaned in agony when I saw I had to read this book for a Victorian Gothic class (gross gross gross). But this and Frankenstein changed my view of that period in literature forever. It's amazing, really. In a period of immense change and discovery, when you would expect optimism to ring out in every bit of literature, instead you find works like these that are desperately trying to illuminate the innocence that is likely lost in the midst of such expansion.
The Lexus and the Olive Tree Thomas Friedman: I lived in a "globalization is da bomb" bubble until I read this book. Everything has risks.
The Hunger Artist Kafka: This is the best short story. No qualifiers. No "ever" or "that I've read since college" or "written by a European." It is, quite simply, perfect.
Of Human Bondage and The Razor's Edge Somerset Maugham: I came to Maugham only recently. I read Razor in two days and then reread it. Human Bondage is even better. But start with Razor, to get a feel for his style and his sense of people and narration.
William Butler Yeats: All of his poetry. All of it. I wrote my senior thesis on Yeats so anyone who thinks he isn't amazing cannot possibly be my friend. I took his collected poems with me when I left for the Peace Corps and that book has the sand, blood, and tears of Morocco in its pages now. If you must be choosey, here are some of my favorites: No Second Troy, Wild Swans at Coole, The Stolen Child, Prayer for my Daughter, The Black Tower, Leda and the Swan, The Three Beggars, The Second Coming, To a Young Girl, Two Trees, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, Sailing to Byzantium, Easter 1916... Edit: How, how, how did I forget "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death"?? How? Law school is sucking out my soul, one well-loved poem at a time. I shall have to keep you with me, dear, to remind me of such things.
That will start you off.
1 comment:
I. "An Irish Airman foresees his Death"
II. I feel like a celebrity, really, I do... or three quarters of one.
III. Let Us Now Praise Famous MenIV. But also like a tool for enabling your madness.
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