Books

[k-j]

I've been reading like crazy over the past year or so, and of the hundreds of volumes I've wormed through, here is my top 15:

1 Don Quixote - Cervantes (tr. Smollett) - my favourite book ever. In part two where Quixote realises he's fictional is the saddest thing ever written down.

2 V. - Pynchon - he was 27 when he published this. Amazing; amazing.

3 Tristram Shandy - Sterne - read parts before but never in its entirety. Far and away the most likeable book I've read. Sterne's just my kind of bloke.

4 Riddley Walker - Hoban - you put it down at the end and you just sit there and reel for a while, because it's a work of genius.

5 The Secret Agent - Conrad - a grainy evocation of a London which never fully materialised, the anarchist threat aborted by WWI and communism.

6 The Master and Margarita - Bulgakov - the ultimate flight of fantasy. The Pilate scenes just ooze colour.

7 A Handful of Dust - Waugh - perhaps the best ending to any story. Waugh dispenses his brutality with more restraint than in "Vile Bodies" and "Decline and Fall".

8 Gravity's Rainbow - Pynchon - only recently read. This may rise in the rankings after a few revolutions round my head. Like all Pynchon, to be re-read in five years' time.

9 For Esmé, with Love and Squalor - Salinger - my mum bought me this after I named my daughter Esmé. But it turns out to be 100 times more interesting than Catcher in the crappy Rye.

10 Mrs Dalloway - Woolf - I should hate Woolf, but I love her. I can't explain why. She does know how to describe the fall of sunlight on surfaces, though.

11 Underworld - DeLillo - worth it for the 50-page prologue alone.

12 A Sportsman's Sketches - Turgenev - another nice bloke. Also some top-notch pastoral passages: rural seasons, sunsets etc.

13 Herzog - Bellow - I love the writing, but Herzog's the kind of character who annoys the hell out of me.

14 A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy - Sterne - every bit as good, word for word, as "Tristram Shandy". Another legendary ending.

15 Singular Rebellion - Maruya - heartwarming realist tale of a 60's salaryman who acquires a murderess for a grandmother-in-law.

[David]

Cheeky sod that I am, I'm going to annotate your list, k-j. If you hate this, I apologise.

I've been reading like crazy over the past year or so, and of the hundreds of volumes I've wormed through, here is my top 15:

1 Don Quixote - Cervantes (tr. Smollett) - my favourite book ever. In part two where Quixote realises he's fictional is the saddest thing ever written down. I agree. It feels like wilful abuse by an author of his characters.

2 V. - Pynchon - he was 27 when he published this. Amazing; amazing. Read it when I was about 19. Yes, astonishing. Is it the last scene, where the hero (?) wades into the water ... at Valletta? Still resonates.

3 Tristram Shandy - Sterne - read parts before but never in its entirety. Far and away the most likeable book I've read. Sterne's just my kind of bloke. Damn right.

4 Riddley Walker - Hoban - you put it down at the end and you just sit there and reel for a while, because it's a work of genius. Again, yes. What was it - dancing with Antie?

5 The Secret Agent - Conrad - a grainy evocation of a London which never fully materialised, the anarchist threat aborted by WWI and communism. Aagh! Never read it. Read lots of Conrad - Nostromo is far too long - but I will read this now.

6 The Master and Margarita - Bulgakov - the ultimate flight of fantasy. The Pilate scenes just ooze colour. Wonderful stuff. I don't remember the Pilate scenes. I remember the cat, and Moscow at night.

7 A Handful of Dust - Waugh - perhaps the best ending to any story. Waugh dispenses his brutality with more restraint than in "Vile Bodies" and "Decline and Fall". Too brutal for me. I prefer Scoop.

8 Gravity's Rainbow - Pynchon - only recently read. This may rise in the rankings after a few revolutions round my head. Like all Pynchon, to be re-read in five years' time. No way! Tried to read it years ago. Impossible. Unfinishable. Coprophiliac! Can I suggest Mason & Dixon? Wonderful big warm brilliant book.

9 For Esmé, with Love and Squalor - Salinger - my mum bought me this after I named my daughter Esmé. But it turns out to be 100 times more interesting than Catcher in the crappy Rye. Dunno, but Catcher in the Rye is crap.

10 Mrs Dalloway - Woolf - I should hate Woolf, but I love her. I can't explain why. She does know how to describe the fall of sunlight on surfaces, though. Another omission of mine. Woolf, though? Where Joyce?

11 Underworld - DeLillo - worth it for the 50-page prologue alone. And not a whole lot more.

12 A Sportsman's Sketches - Turgenev - another nice bloke. Also some top-notch pastoral passages: rural seasons, sunsets etc. Yes! Is Bezhin Lea not one of the best things you have ever read?

13 Herzog - Bellow - I love the writing, but Herzog's the kind of character who annoys the hell out of me. Yep. I've read a fair bit of Bellow. I love his writing, but I'm not sure I like his books. (I remember really liking Henderson the Rain King!)

14 A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy - Sterne - every bit as good, word for word, as "Tristram Shandy". Another legendary ending. I must read this.

15 Singular Rebellion - Maruya - heartwarming realist tale of a 60's salaryman who acquires a murderess for a grandmother-in-law. Complete blank. I'll look out for this.

Great idea, this. It's far more impressive than my list would be, I think. A lot of the classics I read under the influence of The Western Canon by Harold Bloom. Read him on Don Quixote (and almost anything). Brilliant, and very entertaining.

Cheers

David

[Wabznasm]

Good list KJ, I agree with you on most, but especially on V. I haven't gotten to Gravity's Rainbow yet, but how someone could have written V. at that age is just beyond me.

[k-j]

Yes, the Valletta stories in V., and Mondaugen's story - two lodestones. I will read Mason & Dixon but on the pirapism and erotomania of Gravity's Rainbow, by the end I agreed with it, I think it was justified. But then it's the kind of book where you can justify anything.

Riddley Walker - yes, dancing with Auntie, getting fucked by the death-hag. And "arga warga"!

Conrad - Nostromo almost made the list but it has a few patches where Conrad just seems to give up trying - I think he was ill when he wrote it. A flawed masterpiece.

Salinger - seriously, this short-story collection is worth reading. And actually, Catcher in the Rye isn't crap, but I think it's teen lit isn't it? In that context it's great.

Lack of Joyce: this list is just recent reads. I haven't read any Joyce this year - but I've read it all (except Wake) at least twice.

Turgenev - Yes - Bezhin Prairie (in my translation) was the highlight. Brilliant.

[camus]

Good List KJ,

I've got Saul Bellow on my xmas list.

Re For Esmé, with Love and Squalor Always meant to check that out as his other short novel, erm, novella, Franny and Zooey is superb. I think he was overwhelmed by Catcher, pigeonholed, and ultimately driven into "solitude like Howard Hughes" then again he could have just been that way inclined anyway, I think perhaps he was. Still I love a bit of Catcher meself.

[cameron]

You put us all to shame kj; good stuff.

I couldn't finish Handful of Dust - I found it too depressing. I like Waugh's bleak view of the universe but only when it's mixed with humour. Give me Scoop and Decline and Fall anyday.

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust." T.S.Eliot.

At the moment I'm (mostly) reading Coot Club by Arthur Rancid - as I'm on the trail of all the Broads locations he mentions. It's good stuff: a trifle long-winded maybe but it holds the attention. He can't render the Norfolk dialect though.

Cam

[Wabznasm]

Handful of Dust is really bleak, isn't it? But he gets away with it because it's so clever! I would say my favourite Waugh novel is The Loved One. Again, another perfect ending. And it's definitely his darkest in my opinion.

I'm working through the Faulkner bibliography at the moment. He's nearly perfect.

[Elphin]

I was bemoaning recently the lack of new and interesting books to read - now I have a list. Thanks

On Conrad - Secret Agent I enjoyed but hard work to stick with. Nostromo I preferred but give me Heart of Darkness every time.

One recent publication I find many people have missed is The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson. Fantastic exploration of belief - whats real and whats not.

Elphin

[k-j]

Wabz - The Loved One is on my to be read list based on your recco, along with Put Out More Flags.

Only Faulkner I've read is As I Lay Dying when I was at uni, which I found much more depressing than Waugh. He's obviously a great writer though so I'll be reading The Sound and the Fury and anything else you recommend.

Elphin - Gideon Mack sounds interesting, thanks.

[Wabznasm]

I actually haven't read those two yet because, after reading Light in August, I decided to start from the beginning. So all I can suggest for now is Light in August. His first three are a bit dodgy (although Flags in the Dust is certainly worth looking at, but not if you want the cream of the crop).

[David]

I tried reading Gideon Mack on holiday. Got bored. Liked the first chapter / introduction, but then it turned into an averagely tedious "when I was growing up in the 60s" Bildungsroman. Of course, it could have got good again later. I'll never know.

Haven't read Faulkner for ages. Have you (either of you) read Flannery O'Connor? Same neck of the deep dark woods (but much deeper and darker). I think she must have been clinically mad - religiously insane - but a brilliant and very upsetting writer.

[Elphin]

David

I've never read Flannery O' Connor - what book would you recommend starting with?

Gideon Mack you need to get through the early scene setting then you'll be off into a fascinating exploration of duality and belief.

Just read The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruis Zafon - quirky story but maybe trying too hard to be "literature"

Anyone read Cold Skin - Albert Sanchez Pinol -. Interested in what you made of it.

[David]

David

I've never read Flannery O' Connor - what book would you recommend starting with?

Read The Complete Short Stories, but prepare to be exhilarated and appalled.

Gideon Mack you need to get through the early scene setting then you'll be off into a fascinating exploration of duality and belief.

Doggone it. You make it sound really interesting, but we left it behind in order to lighten the luggage.

I don't read much modern fiction, but I recently finished Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Kadare. Very good. Everything you wanted to know about life in wartime Albania, in an evidently amazing old hill town, from a child's point of view.

[camus]

Well,

I found Herzog and the V characters so far up their own self-pitying arses, that I didn't give the actual writing a chance to sink in, I'll try again some other time.

For Esmé, with Love and Squalor on the other hand was a pleasure. Still getting my head around the message of the banafish character, paedogeddon?