Watershed novels
Apr. 6th, 2006 09:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylToday's Gruaniad featured an article on men's watershed novels, intended as follow up to last year's attempt to find a women's watershed novel. Each of the people interviewed was asked to come up with five. Here are mine:
Wuthering Heights — first read this on a long, lazy sailing holiday in Greece back when I was in my late teens and it totally shook my literary world. It wasn't my first choice but, having exhausted my own reading supply, I was desperate and WH was the only novel I was able to mooch. It turned out to be a piece of good fortune: I was totally knocked sideways by it and by the sudden revelation that classic novels really were worth reading.
The Secret History — appropriately enough, I read read this during a massive crisis of confidence that occurred midway through my second year at university. I found the distant, unhappy, Richard Papen to be a kindred spirit and fellow traveling companion, which now strikes me as rather worrying. Although not exactly cheered up by the novel, I found the bleak, rather melancholy events towards the end deeply soothing.
The Philosopher's Pupil — another novel that eased me through a painful period: this time a grim, rainy, out of season weekend in a small Dutch seaside town. Not really having a great deal to do, not really wanting to be there, I ended up burying myself in the lives of the bizarre inhabitants of Ennistown and, like Tom after his journey to find the source of the spa, I came out of the experience feeling much better than when I went in.
The Name of the Rose — chronically jet-lagged, ill with a cold, I remember sitting down to read The Name. I was amazed by Umberto Eco's note perfect descriptions of monastic life, the clever way genuine historical characters were woven in to the narrative, and the fabulous detective story. I remember getting so caught up in it that, in my delirious state, I was so completely terrified by the appalling murders and the monks' hysterical beliefs that they were living in the end of days, that I thought I was never going to be able to sleep properly ever again.
Brave New World — another formative teenage novel with a serendipitous tale of how I first encountered it. While kicking around in the study pretending to do my homework but really slacking, I found a copy of BNW that my padre had left lying around. It turned out that he'd recovered it from some obscure nook in the dining room and was mugging up after he'd asked some of his undergrads to write an essay on Huxley's introductions to the novel, but once he was done, he passed it on to me. I remember being impressed with it in a way that I hadn't really been with 1984, which I'd read a few months before. Huxley's distopia seemed to me to be much worse, the people more oppressed — chained by their own natures in a way that made resistance, let alone escape, impossible. Best of all, my english teacher turned to be a fan and encouraged me to submit an essay on it.
So, there we go. Not necessarily my five favourite novels ever, but almost certainly my five watersheds.
Wuthering Heights — first read this on a long, lazy sailing holiday in Greece back when I was in my late teens and it totally shook my literary world. It wasn't my first choice but, having exhausted my own reading supply, I was desperate and WH was the only novel I was able to mooch. It turned out to be a piece of good fortune: I was totally knocked sideways by it and by the sudden revelation that classic novels really were worth reading.
The Secret History — appropriately enough, I read read this during a massive crisis of confidence that occurred midway through my second year at university. I found the distant, unhappy, Richard Papen to be a kindred spirit and fellow traveling companion, which now strikes me as rather worrying. Although not exactly cheered up by the novel, I found the bleak, rather melancholy events towards the end deeply soothing.
The Philosopher's Pupil — another novel that eased me through a painful period: this time a grim, rainy, out of season weekend in a small Dutch seaside town. Not really having a great deal to do, not really wanting to be there, I ended up burying myself in the lives of the bizarre inhabitants of Ennistown and, like Tom after his journey to find the source of the spa, I came out of the experience feeling much better than when I went in.
The Name of the Rose — chronically jet-lagged, ill with a cold, I remember sitting down to read The Name. I was amazed by Umberto Eco's note perfect descriptions of monastic life, the clever way genuine historical characters were woven in to the narrative, and the fabulous detective story. I remember getting so caught up in it that, in my delirious state, I was so completely terrified by the appalling murders and the monks' hysterical beliefs that they were living in the end of days, that I thought I was never going to be able to sleep properly ever again.
Brave New World — another formative teenage novel with a serendipitous tale of how I first encountered it. While kicking around in the study pretending to do my homework but really slacking, I found a copy of BNW that my padre had left lying around. It turned out that he'd recovered it from some obscure nook in the dining room and was mugging up after he'd asked some of his undergrads to write an essay on Huxley's introductions to the novel, but once he was done, he passed it on to me. I remember being impressed with it in a way that I hadn't really been with 1984, which I'd read a few months before. Huxley's distopia seemed to me to be much worse, the people more oppressed — chained by their own natures in a way that made resistance, let alone escape, impossible. Best of all, my english teacher turned to be a fan and encouraged me to submit an essay on it.
So, there we go. Not necessarily my five favourite novels ever, but almost certainly my five watersheds.
