SORT OF EASY READS BY CLASSIC WRITERS

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 20:11:18 GMT

Most of us were marred by our first exposure to literature. Literature is the single subject available to our youth where all theories, all religions and all governments are open to discussion and disdain. Unfortunately, we now associate the classics with a high school English teacher we can’t imagine ever being laid. Short of undergoing analysis, the removal of such a disturbing association requires a reintroduction to the topic of good books.

I chose the following works because each work is short and distinct, yet none of the works are ones normally read in any high school or college class. The authors selected are a strange grouping. The authors traveled politically and religiously in all directions. They were people who were never satisfied with the answers of others.

Let’s start from the beginning and work our way up:

(1) Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: The first modern novel that is not for everyone. Dostoyevsky stunts our complacency in this short novel by being too bluntly honest to provide easy answers.

“It cannot be recommended to those who are not sufficiently strong to overcome it or sufficiently innocent to remain unpoisoned.” D.S. Mirsky

(2) Hadji Murad by Leo Tolstoy: Contrary to popular opinion, Tolstoy wrote many short, concise and powerful novels. It’s incredible that this novel that is so violent and passionate was written by Tolstoy when he was seventy-six years old.

“Immensely courageous as he was, Tolstoy was moved not so much by a commonplace fear of dying or death as by his own extraordinary vitality and vitalism, which could not accommodate any sense of ceasing to exist.” Harold Bloom

(3) To the Person Sitting in Darkness and To My Missionary Critics by Mark Twain: His satiric attacks on the missionaries in China and the Philippines resulted in his being called a traitor. He was not a traitor, but he was a great writer.

“It is unfortunate for the reputation of Mark Twain that he should go out of his way to slander these men because they believe in the right and duty of our Government to enforce its authority over all of the territory belonging to the United States.” Army and Navy Journal, March 23, 1901

(4) On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche: With everything that has been written concerning his enmity towards Christianity, we forget that his real target was the morality of timidity, obedience, and of the herd. This book is a dissection of that morality.

“One would make a fit little boy stare if one asked him: ‘Would you like to become virtuous?’ But tell him that you can make him stronger, and watch his eyes light up!” Friedrich Nietzsche

(5) The Apocalypse of Our Time by V.V. Rozanov: A mystic who loved life and who was tortured by what was going on in his beloved Russia in 1917. All that he felt comes forth in this short work.

“Try and crucify the sun, and you will see who is God.” V.V. Rozanov

(6) Journey to the End of the Night by Louis Ferdinand Celine: Celine was an anarchist who was imprisoned in almost every European nation for expressing the outrage that he felt. He is the most savage and unrepentant writer I have ever read, and Journey made him infamous.

“And yet, we have nothing and can never have anything in common. You belong to another species, you see other people, you hear other voices. For me, a simpleton, God is a trick to help us think more highly of ourselves and to avoid thinking of others; in short, a superb desertion.” Letter of Celine to Francois Mauriac.

(7) Prejudices by H.L. Mencken: Irreverent and funny.

“H.L. Mencken (1880 – 1956) was a bigoted, misanthropic elitist who ought to be sorely missed.” Wendy Kaminer

(8) Go Down Moses by William Faulkner: These superb seven stories cover everything from war to murder to religion to passion to miscegenation to incest to affirmations of life. Those who object to the difficulties in reading Faulkner usually prefer their literature less complicated and more dead.

“I reckon I'll be at the beck and call of folks with money all my life, but thank God I won't ever again have to be at the beck and call of every son of a bitch who's got two cents to buy a stamp.” William Faulkner's Letter of Resignation Concerning His Job at the Post Office

(9) Black Boy by Richard Wright: This autobiography tells the simple and terrible story of a black man asked to crawl before the most hateful of people. When that black man refused to be a non-entity, a sort of victory was won.

“For Wright came from the absolute godforsaken bottom, rural Mississippi around the turn of the century, and this high-school dropout ended up in Paris as a peer of Jean-Paul Sartre. No thinker ever underwent a more excruciating journey of the body and the mind to get to the place where he ended up, and so there is no excuse for the half-a**ed mediocrity that passes for thinking today.” Hazel Rowley

(10) The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway: The term overrated is overused, especially in the case of Hemingway. This novel concerns a generation shell shocked from the First World War and betrayed by their elders, and yet they persevere. This is the edgiest novel that Hemingway ever wrote and, unfortunately, he never improved upon this or his early short stories.

“Mr. Hemingway’s sketches, for this reason, are excellent: so short, like striking a match, lighting a brief sensational cigarette, and its over. His young love-affair ends as one throws a cigarette-end away.” D.H. Lawrence

I’d also recommend the short stories of: Isaac Bashevis Singer, who took ancient Jewish folk stories, gave each a modern twist and made them timeless; and Isaac Babel, a Jewish writer who died as a young man in a Russian Gulag, and whose writings would never fit into any political system.

Arctic Shores Contemporary Reviews: Book Reviews

SORT OF EASY READS BY CLASSIC WRITERS