Sunday, November 28, 2004Hugh Hewitt is writing about reading and re-reading novels and wondering just what books get read twice and wondering if it's a reliable indicator of quality, of what makes a good gift, etc.I tend to re-read alot, but not usually the "great books." These, like the Wolfe book alluded to, I tend to read once. My "great books" are those which I found not so much moving as entertaining. If you wish to become a better person, there are lists for that. If, however, you wish to keep discovering little touches that remind you why a book was fascinating, delightful or delightfully nasty, may I suggest the following: Stranger in a Strange Land by R.A. Heinlein. In many ways, an update of Voltaire's L'Ingenu, this delightful fairy tale, complete with a "Once upon a time..." beginning, shows how backward civilization can become when it takes itself too seriously and, with its new-age mumbo jumbo, suggests how far we might go. To be re-read for: Jubal Harshaw's comments as he tries to remain sarcastic and jaded but winds up giving a damn what happens in the world after all. Number of the Beast by R.A. Heinlein. A superior work, in fact, a rambunctious work, in which four very sharp people set out in a time machine to save the earth from green men and discover that if a universe can be thought, in a way it probably is. By this device, Heinlein draws in the best of fantasy writing from earlier days that inspired him and creates a wonderful multiverse where the bad guys really are the bad guys but everything else is up in the air. To be re-read for: The curious places our heroes and heroines go and the bit about bathbuns. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. Everybody knows the Hitchhiker "trilogy," but the first detective novel forced Adams to move from stringing together gags to writing an actual book. In this wonderful story, we find out what the Ancient Mariner is really about, why the poem Xanadu stops so abruptly, and what it is like to feed a dodo bird. What more could you ask for? To be re-read for: Discovering new parallels with the poetry of Coleridge and the strange way it all makes sense in a world where people like Dirk Gently exist. Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley. A delightfully nasty look at politics and morality with a tobacco lobbyist for the hero. The more ridiculous things get, the harder the laughs come. And with a bizarrely sweet love story thrown in. To be re-read for: belly laughs. Very healthy. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse. Sure, you've read it before and know what's coming next. But the gags are so great as Bertie and Dahlia purse the mystic cowcreamer. How can you resist? To be re-read for: The Rise and Fall of Roderick Spode. J.R.R. Tolkien Boxed Set (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings). I'll give Hugh this one. A classic story of good, evil and in-between. To be re-read for: The glorious battles, glorious locales and the nameless dread Tolkien can inspire when writing about evil. The Ground Beneath Her Feet : A Novel by Salman Rushdie. Do we include audiobooks we pop in multiple times? Christopher Cazanove's performance of this title is a masterpiece. But so is the story, one of Rushdie's best, for its strangely personable narrator and its amazing heroes. Vina Apsara and Ormus Cana are the rock and roll legends of their time till everything starts going to hell. The whole thing is chronicled by Rai Merchant, photographer and lifelong companion of the two. A must listen, or, as the audio is hard to come by, a must read. To be re-read for: Taking it all in. There are three life stories told here, each with a wealth of revealing details. Once through is not enough. Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. What if you made up a ridiculous story about Templars, Rosicrucians and the secrets of the Holy Grail, only somebody thought you actually knew... and was prepared to kill you for your knowledge? Dan Brown offered some snappy reads with the DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons, and left more than a few of the unschooled going "Wow! I never knew that." - about things that weren't really there to be known. But Eco created a serious work about what can happen when you take serious subjects seriously enough to look for the truth, not just what people want to believe. To be re-read for: A thousand missed details about Templars, Rosicrucians and, most especially, the strange fraternity of Causabon, Belbo and Diotallevi and how they gradually drag each other into the madness. 
posted by gbarto at 11:01 PM |
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