Recently a friend asked me to make a list of books I would recommend for someone who would like to read some serious literature, and in doing so, I realized that a list like this could serve as a useful primer for anyone who reads what I write in this space. That being said, what follows are not my selections for the best or most important texts from all of recorded history; they are merely a starting point for the uninitiated. My hope is that if one were to actually read everything I recommend they would be left with a broad knowledge of a range of literature and would also be inspired enough by a few novels to pursue more work by a specific author or era. So, with that in mind, please do enjoy.
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I’m always interested in tracing the lineage of art, of finding an indication of what influenced an artist, and of discovering what aspects of a past novel, for instance, have been adopted and repeated by contemporary novelists. It’s a small thing, but I feel as though I more thoroughly understand Philip Roth’s American Pastoral when I see that he’s adopted Proust’s technique of allowing the dialogue of several characters to run together as a series of sentences rather than breaking them up into individual paragraphs. This connection with Proust doesn’t inform my understanding of Roth’s characters or his plot, but it adds to my enjoyment of the novel by delivering to me a new angle from which to approach the text.
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I like to buy books for people as gifts. I do this with the awareness that most of the books I purchase will never be finished and most likely not even begun. I don’t know what it is about me—whether buying books or writing in this space—that instills me with the compulsion to thrust things upon people that they have no interest in. Perhaps it’s the challenge. The more esoteric my subject, the more intent I become on exploring its intricacies with my unwilling participants.
Perhaps this is why I enjoy teaching; I can’t think of a group who could be more indifferent about the exquisite crafting of “The Dead” than a class of twenty year old college students, half asleep and hung over on a Thursday afternoon from three straight nights of partying. Man, that’s funny because it’s true. Or am I only bitter about having gone to a big, state school?
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