Tangled Rope

Chris Lott posted a list of “fine fifteen” novels–works that have “stuck with him”, conjured from memory in fifteen minutes or less. I was pondering this same subject on our first cold and rainy Sunday afternoon of the autumn as I listened to “This American Life”‘ (Episode 137, “The Book That Changed Your Life”) in the car. I happened to be recovering from the previous evening’s failed poem attempt, in which I scolded “books I claim I’ve read but can’t remember”. So here’s my indulgence, in which I trade off some of what I consider must-read classics (many of which Chris listed already) for a degree of novelty:

1. Moby Dick I first read this mammoth work when 15 years old, and it cracked open the world of American literature like a thirty-ton, whale-bone handled hammer for its depth, breadth, narrative, and unforgettable characters.
2. The Trial My German is poor, but the fact that I’ve stumbled and skimmed through Der Prozess in the original language says something about this novel’s importance to me. It epitomizes Kafka’s fiction in a purposely disjointed tale that sets an innocent-guilty everyman against the primal fear of powerlessness.
3. Pale Fire It’s difficult to decide which Nabokov novel to include here, and really, it’s a tie between Pnin, Bend Sinister, Ada, and Lolita, but I find that in some strange way Pale Fire represents what I love in each of these.
4. Victory startled me with its intensity, humanity, and language–even after reading Conrad’s more famous Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, or The Secret Agent.
5. The End of the Affair I am a romantic at heart, and so its no surprise that The End of the Affair is near the top of my list, a story in which Graham Greene seduces me, entangles me, then drops me on my head to show me my brains.
6. A Farewell to Arms One of the few books that left me weeping. Hem culminates a fairly mundane story with resonant heartbreak and loss that still haunts me.
7. Catcher in the Rye I can’t deny it; Salinger changed my life. I read this in a single sitting on a hard chair at the public library. Then I went back the “S” self and checked out all his other stories.
8. Lord of the Flies I read this as a sophomore in high school in the two days after it had been assigned. Then I read it again. This is the book that taught me to read closely, decipher imagery, and search for symbolism. Oh, and it’s a riveting novel with strong characters and piercing philosophical strands. Thank you, Mrs. Riggs!
9. Fahrenheit 451 A short novel that still delights in its succinct dialogue, imagery, and form. This is the slot where A Brave New World or 1984 might have gone, because while I think Huxley and Orwell warned us, Bradbury prophesied.
10. Black Boy Richard Wright’s semi-autobiographical tale of resilience and individualism as an affront to racism and mediocrity. I don’t think there’s another book I’ve read more times than Black Boy.
11. The Picture of Dorian Gray Wilde uncovers a darkness of humanity that is shocking not for its immorality, but for its recognizeability.
12. Pride and Prejudice Austen’s ability to represent the human soul through what is both revealed and restrained in dialogue sets this firmly in my list.
13. Nausea Sometimes you bite into a novel, sometimes the novel bites into you. Sartre’s La Nausee shows a mark to this day for its surgical extraction and display of human futility. It is connected in my mind to Notes from the Underground, The Stranger, Amerika, and, of all things, The Sun Also Rises.
14. Lord of the Rings The Moby Dick of fantasy novels. Though I tend to abhor fantasy novels, Tolkien is one of few exceptions.
15. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes These are short stories for the most part, but Doyle’s inspired characters of Holmes and Watson inform my ideas about character motivations and mysteries to this day. And I could think of few detective novels to put in here that would better represent their importance in my education (though Rex Stout is close).
16. She The last slot could have gone to anything, (Stevenson’s Treasure Island was a close second) but I decided to throw in Haggard’s bizarre adventure/fantasy novel which thoroughly satisfies. In my mind, She connects to H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, and H. P. Lovecraft.

Hey, that’s actually 16. I never was good at math (or following the rules).