In my old age, I think of the books that have
radically influenced me. To give some context, I am a conventional fellow,
bourgeois, financially privileged, with a vaguely Presbyterian background,
intellectually curious up to a point, but British to the core with tastes
limited to the English-speaking world with smatterings from some European
power-houses. I confess I am not an innovator, lateral thinker nor original
spirit. So be warned!
I list the books in chronological publication
date order, though I certainly did not read them in that order;
1. Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann (1901). Because I had
a family biz background, I understood this saga of the decline and fall over 4
generations of a thriving business in Lübeck, (cf. Succession on Amazon
Prime). Mann was a serious writer and sometimes I struggled with his
complexity. His last work, The Confessions of Felix Krull (1954) showed
that he had that famously elusive German sense of humour.
2. Strait is the Gate by André Gide (1909). A very tender love-story
of the doomed devotion of cousins Jerome and Alissa, whose impossibly high,
puritanical standards cannot be achieved. Mainly told through exchange of letters, this
is a marvellous piece. Gide was a dominant and astringent French intellectual for
40 years.
3. Journey to the End of the Night (1932) by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. This racy
saga of poverty in Paris, the experiences of a doctor, work in the American
motor industry, was highly original and brilliant in 1932. Céline in 1940
became notorious as a collaborationist and antisemite, a decidedly bad egg all
round. He died in 1961, returning to France unprosecuted, after voluntary exile
in Denmark.
4. The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck. This
is a very moving family chronicle of the Joads, driven from dust bowl Oklahoma
to ruthless exploitation and starvation as labourers in California. A bible for
Lefties, it stirred the conscience of and fired indignation into a generation
of Americans. Steinbeck wrote widely but never equalled this masterpiece.
5. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (1940). This tale
of a lone whiskey-priest’s persecution in rural Mexico, is typical of Greene’s
ardent Catholicism and foresight, championing traditional beliefs against the cruelties
of ideological atheism. The priest accepts his martyrdom with shaky dignity.
Striking but somewhat depressing.
6. L’Etranger (The Outsider) by Albert Camus (1942). This short
novel is arresting from its first lines. “Mother died today. Or maybe
yesterday. I can’t be sure”. Camus’ protagonist in Algeria, proclaims his
liberation from life’s norms, is condemned for accidently shooting an Arab man.
He awaits execution with Olympian contempt for his persecutors. What a book!
7. The Master of Santiago by Henri de Montherlant (1947).
This taut drama was an A Level French set book giving a taste of masochistic Spanish
Catholic devotion. Montherlant was an influential writer of the Right, a
tortured soul, who, knowing his declining powers, in 1972 entertained his
friends for lunch and then shot himself. Andre Malraux, Gaullist minister of
Culture praised Montherlant’s irrepressible independence of spirit.
8. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (1945). This
evocation of eccentric 1920’s Oxford and the friendship of Charles Ryder with aristocratic
Sebastian Flyte is highly civilized as is its treatment of the declining
Marchmain family and its crumbling values. This is Waugh in his maturity, his
earlier novels being an acquired taste, not helped by his abrasive personality.
9. 1984 by George Orwell (1949). This is a great
dystopian, if satirical, novel where the protagonist Winston Smith, a low-level
official at the Ministry for Truth, rewrites the historical record to the
orders of Big Brother. We encounter familiar contemporary bogey-men like the
Thought Police, brainwashing and all-powerful governments. A highly relevant
cautionary tale for 2024!
10. The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger (1951). At last, wartime
gloom and post-war nightmares were dissipated by life-affirming Holden
Caulfield and his hilarious adventures and misadventures in love and
adolescence in dynamic America. It was the tonic we desperately needed - I read
it aged 14 and never looked back with any Angst. Thank you, Salinger.
11. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (1954). This furious
comic assault on the pettiness of academic life in a red-brick UK university,
on the class system generally, and an eloquently misanthropic punch at a
variety of human types is side-splittingly funny. Kingsley Amis later became excessively
conservative – many preferred his son Martin Amis’ novels – but I stick with
Kingsley.
12. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (1956). This book
explores the gay infatuation of an American in Paris for a barman. It is
extremely well-written with honesty and candour, about 10 years before its
time. Baldwin went on to write his searing collection of essays, The Fire
next Time, (1963), which discussed the race issue in America with urgent passion.
13. Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? By Edward Albee (1962) was an
explosive stage play and later a memorable film. I saw the play in London in 1964
and was astounded by its depiction of the dysfunctional marriage of George and
Martha. The bitter but often deeply comic exchanges electrified the audience. I
remember being taken to task for expressing my admiration at an interview. “Isn’t
it very destructive? I was asked. Well, I suppose it was, but it was
incomparable theatre.
14. Myra Breckinridge by Gore Vidal (1968). This
brilliant satire, defying all convention, has Myra as dominatrix of uncle Buck
Loner, various scabrous sub-plots and after a car accident, Myra has a
sex-change to become Myron. Not family reading, I admit, but I laughed like a
drain at Vidal’s wit and invention.
I suppose if my list is ever analysed I will be
diagnosed as a misogynistic, crypto-Catholic gay, but I do not think that is
accurate. Literature often shocks and we need that to stimulate and move on. Do your own lists of whatever category and
see where it leads!
SMD
2/02/24
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2024
