I own these books. Some of them I have owned for over 15 years now and I just keep schlepping them from house to house. They sit in my “to be read someday” bookshelf taunting me as I pass them over to pick up the latest Anita Shreve instead. My guilt only lasts as long as it takes to pick them up, thumb through them and them put them right back on the shelf.
Zorba the Greek
by Nikos Kazantzakis. Seduced by the classic Anthony Quinn movie, I have started this book four or five times. For some reason, it gets a little too earthy or something for me as early as the second page. But picking it up again after a long-time absence (maybe half a dozen years) I’m inspired to try again. Maybe.
The Golden Notebook
by Doris Lessing. Yes, yes, a towering achievement by a Nobel-prize winning author. Yes, yes,one of the seminal works of literature for the feminist movement. Yes, yes, a probing look at the psyche of a woman and an artist trapped by her time. Yes, yes, a sharp narrative of communism, the threat of nuclear annihilation and gender politics. No, no, I still can’t manage to work it to the top of my pile.
Scandalmonger
by William Safire. What was I thinking? I’m never going to read William Safire! I don’t care how many prizes this book won. And how many great reviews it got. OK, maybe I’ll thumb through it again.
Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace. The book is 1,079 pages. And it has footnotes. But he is dead and this is the Ulysses of our generation. Sigh. So maybe I just need a plan and some company and that could make the difference this time.
Finnegans Wake
by James Joyce. Let’s get real. No one has read this. Ok, maybe like a dozen people in all of the world have read this. This is not a book that one just picks up and starts. This is a book that requires a Marshall plan and plenty of reinforcements in the form of annotated guides and reference books. Let’s give you a taste of the first two sentences, shall we:
riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
Sir Tristram, violer d’amores, fr’over the short sea, had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor had topsawyer’s rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurens County’s gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all’s fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a peck of pa’s malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.
So there it is. But now I’m tempted to go back and give them another look-see. Except for Finnegan’s Wake. That shit’s impossible, man.
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ugh. james joyce. no thanks. infinite jest is also on my “to read…” but i’ve given myself the time frame of “…in my lifetime.”
Yeah, Joyce tends to simultaneously beautiful and incomprehensible, a bit like growing up on the prairie and then deciding to drive through the mountains. It’s gorgeous, but it takes all your concentration to get through and by the time you do, you’re exhausted.
I think it’s a bit like poetry, meant to be read aloud, once you figure out how to pronounce some of the words.
Don’t bother trying to plow through The Golden Notebook. I read it several months ago, and it is not worth the effort.
I like the idea of reading it outloud. The Salon article I linked to had the guy reading it to his four-year-old daughter … who probably understood it just as well as he did.