I can think of many reasons someone might wish to assemble a reading list and share it with others. Most obviously, teachers drawing up a syllabus for students. I remember taking a class in “The Modern Japanese Novel” and getting the list of seven books by writers I had never heard of (except for Yukio Mishima, for extra-literary reasons), including one who would become a favorite: Natsume SÅseki.
And never underestimate
the compulsion to show off. Our age grows more post-literate by the hour but in
certain circles there remains a cachet attached to reading, especially “hard
books,” so-called classics or the literary hit du jour. You can get a
lot of attention in the small world of readers with a solemn suggestion to
snuggle up with Finnegans Wake.
Finally, there’s the
simple wish to share the wealth with others, especially young readers. This can
be an act of generosity. I still periodically reread Tristram Shandy
thanks to one of my professors and her enthusiasm for Sterne more than half a
century ago. In the April issue of New English Review, G. Murphy Donovan
publishes “A Reading List for a Curious Mind”:
“Not long ago I had a
conversation with the son of a longtime friend about books—what to read, where
to begin, and how someone builds a library. It is the sort of question that
deserves more than an off-the-cuff answer, so afterward I promised him I would
put together a short reading list.”
You’ll find no surprises
on Donovan’s list and a couple of clams (jazz slang for wrong notes). He
acknowledges that six of his ten titles are novels, suggesting that the
supremacy of long fiction since the eighteenth century remains in place.
Another reason someone
might share a reading list is to elicit objections to his selections. That’s
inevitable, so let’s get it out of the way: Dune is sub-literary junk,
topical pulp fiction. Vladimir Nabokov denounced Catch-22 as “anti-American”
and “seditious.” He left out “sophomoric.” One Hundred Years of Solitude,
written by Fidel’s pal, is among the most overrated books of the twentieth
century. Tedious refried Faulkner. I applaud Donovan’s choice of poets – Homer,
Dante, Dickinson.
Do reading lists work? Do
they get non-readers to read? Impossible to say. I
do know that children who see their parents reading are likelier to become
enthusiastic readers, though my own experience, in part, refutes that claim. My
parents were not readers and we had few books in the house. Donovan closes with
a reality-based endorsement of autodidacticism:
“If you want an education,
find something that genuinely interests you and pursue it relentlessly. No
school will do that work for you.
“Reading widely helps, but
curiosity matters more than any syllabus. A good book does not give you answers
so much as it teaches you how to ask better questions.”
4 comments:
When it comes to a meaningful literary endowment so much depends on the influence of your elders, especially parents and teachers. A high school advanced placement English teacher whom we called “ Doc” because he had a real Phd., NOT a mail-order “ Ed.D.” distributed a reading list that featured writers who could shape a sentence. I thank “ Doc Hamm” for arming me with the journals of Andre Gide, which later comfortably kept me company when, as an Army medic, I chased my tank battalion through the Bavarian forests. Gide renders an enduring account of sea-sickness, among other descriptive masterpieces.
People with good taste in literature should have good taste across the board and it is hard to see sophisticated literary taste being drawn to Dickinson & Dante while also to Catch 22 and Dune. I think many people mistake a world view that they find sympathetic, usually a world view of a particular time, say Catch 22, with good literature. I rarely pay attention to the literary recommendations of others, though on this blog I have have found many good recommendations - Witness and Nabokov come to mind. Probably others. So thank you for that.
I don't know; Dorothy Sayers translated Dante and the Song of Roland...and also wrote detective stories, which some dismiss as trash. And W.H. Auden adored the Lord of the Rings, a work many people refuse to see any merit in. Taste and sensibility are such individual things, it's reckless to make blanket pronouncements about them. For instance, I think Catch-22 is overrated, but I quite liked One Hundred Years of Solitude, a sin for which I trust our host will forgive me.
The quote implies a young man. Catch-22 is a young man's book, like A Confederacy of Dunces, Lucky Jim, On the Road. Hunter S. Thompson. Like Dune, for that matter, or Vonnegut or (almost!) all other so-called genre fiction. There is nothing wrong with a teenager reading that portion of the canon (the, ah, off-off-Broadway canon) which can only ever be enjoyed by a teenager. It is from a certain perspective proper, like reading Rider Haggard or Treasure Island at 10. That these minor works are not the fittest options for a serious reader says little about their suitability for a novice. One can start on Tolstoy at 15, but reading Tolstoy when young is inefficient. The only danger I can see in reading Heller or Kerouac instead is that one might get stuck there and never move on. And anyone of whom that can be said -- was doomed to cultural mediocrity regardless.
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