Read 21 classic novels I've never read in 2008

I’ve managed not to actually complete any book since I finished Versailles (which was good, by the way). I intended to go straight from that to one off the list, but someone actually went to the trouble to buy me a copy of John Adams, the pulitzer prize winning book by David McCullough and it felt rude not to begin that immediately. It’s good – interesting, but a bit dry. I think if I had the time necessary to really get into it, I’d love it, but as it is, I’ve been reading it in ten or twenty minute increments and the going is slow. To counter the history, I started Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters, hoping that it would be the bawdy, vaudeville lesbian melodrama it sounds like it should be. Unfortunately, it’s mostly just depressing and every time I pick it up for a little while, I put it down feeling like I should probably just go hang myself in the back yard.

To counter both of those books, I went out and bought The Host, a new sci-fi story by Twilight author Stephenie Meyer. Too early to tell about that one, but it’s enjoyable so far. I was afraid it was going to be “sci-fi lite”, since this is being touted as Meyer’s first “adult novel”, but actually it seems pretty rich in scope. We’ll see.

After The Grapes of Wrath let me down, I picked up Withnails: The Film Diaries of Richard E. Grant to cleanse my palate before jumping to the next book on the ever more intimidating list.
“Withnails” was a good in-between book. I believe it would be funny and interesting to anyone with any knowledge of the movies Grant describes working on, but especially fun for his own particular brand of fan. ‘Withnail & I’ is one of my favorite movies and I have a hard time separating Grant from his character, though he proves himself in the book to be a kind, honest and really clever person.

Next was The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. This one took me a few days to get into – there’s a sort of dense, detail laden description of the architecture in Paris for what feels like the first eight million pages or so, but once you crack into the human elements of the story a little, it’s hard to stop reading. Such an incredibly heartbreaking story, on just about every level. I came out of this one with a new favorite book, and that’s exactly the kind of experience I wanted to have when I made this list. Hunchback almost made up for the disappointing Grapes of Wrath and Look Homeward, Angel.

I moved from that tour de force to something fluffy with Jancee Dunn’s “But Enough About Me”, in which the former Rolling Stones reporter intersperses her quick and funny memoir with tongue in cheek lessons in talking to celebrities. There was a little more to this one that just the good celebrity dirt I was expecting from it and that works in it’s favor. That said, it’s a short read – I finished it in a matter of hours and moved on to…

Versailles by Kathryn Davis, which is a prosey, fictional look a the life of Marie Antoinette. So far, so good – sometimes these kind of flowery things really irk me, but Davis is a good writer and pulls no punches with subject matter. It’s certainly an interesting book so far. Also very short, and will probably be finished with tonight, at which point I’ll be moving on to the John Adams book that David McCullough wrote, which someone just bought me a copy of, they wanted me to read it so much, and simultaneously, one of the books on THE LIST. Not sure which one yet though. There are books I’m saving for certain times of the year (Woman In White for October, for example), so I’m just going to feel it out from how I feel after Versailles.

Wow, consider this strike two on the list so far. I didn’t enjoy this book at all. So depressing that I felt awful the whole time I was reading it and full of characters who seem to make only marginally informed and terrible decisions. I love the way Steinbeck writes, but this story was mediocre at best. Very disappointing.

I find it interesting that out of this list of supposed classic works, books I’ve heard so much praise for, that out of three I’ve read, only one I’ve enjoyed. I feel as though I must be missing something, but….what? Has time solidified these books as something more important than they are? It seems that people are willing to believe that a book they’ve never read is good, just because that’s what they’ve always heard. Nobody wants to say “I don’t like The Grapes of Wrath” because it makes you sound as though you either obviously didn’t understand some vital piece or you’re purposefully going against the flow.

What a frustrating experience this has been so far. I am taking a break from the list to read something that doesn’t make me want to put my head in the oven.

Finally got around to another novel on the list –
Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe.

This one was actually a bit of a letdown. While it is beautifully written, I found the lack of structure a little off putting – I think it would have benefited from a little more focus on one or at least less characters. Certainly an impressive piece of work, but on the whole, not a very enjoyable one. Took me forever to read.

After that, took a break and read Slightly Chipped by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone. I’d read their previous book-on-books (or rather, book on book collecting) last year and enjoyed it. I wasn’t aware there was a follow up, but came across it by chance in a local used book store. Follows the same casual format as the first, but was a little bit more interesting this time. There were some interesting details about the books they get to view as “press” that the public don’t have ready access too. A short book, so was finished in a day and a half, so I’m extending my break to include Unless by Carol Shields, who I love. Following that, I’m thinking of starting Grapes of Wrath or Woman In White.

I feel like I’m lagging behind because it’s already March and I’m only two books down.

8. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

This really was kind of an overwhelming novel. Much more epic than I expected it to be, and quite good. Don’t be misled by the Oprah Book Club stamp – this really is worth reading. I think this is one where the less you know before you start reading, the better. All the descriptions I’d heard and read before starting didn’t really do the story justice and were somewhat misleading.

7. The Santaroga Barrier by Frank Herbert

I intended to take a little Frank Herbert break after the three Dune books I’d read in the last couple of months, but my boss noticed I was reading those and brought me this one. Having only read Dune related Herbert, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Santaroga. It feels a little bit like Herbert decided to try his hand at a Twilight Zone episode, which certainly isn’t a bad thing. It’s a fun read – nothing mentally taxing here, about a city that seems to exist in its own world and the man who goes there to try to find out the secret. I enjoyed it, but wasn’t blown away or anything. At a brisk 255 pages, it was a good way to kill an afternoon.

6. Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

Great little novel about a group of people learning to survive in a post apocalyptic world. I honestly hadn’t heard of either the book or the author (who wrote under a pseudonym), so I was somewhat surprised at how moving and concise it was. Definitely worth reading.

4. Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

I had really enjoyed the first two Dune books, but I hit a snag with this one. Paced somewhat differently (i.e., lagging in the middle), I found this one hard to get engrossed in. Too little was said about too many characters and the focus seemed a bit blurry. The last 75 or so pages of the book pick up dramatically, and the ending is an interesting set up for the following novels, but I was still left a little disappointed. My least favorite of the series so far, but it seems a bad Dune book is still a pretty good book in general.

5. Clara’s Grand Tour by Glynis Ridley

A non fiction book detailing the showing of Clara, the first Rhinoceros ever seen in most of Europe and her caretaker. A little less about rhinos than about the marketing and the impact of the tour of the animal, still an interesting book. It’s hard to imagine what people who had never seen such an animal before would have felt upon their first viewing – as addressed in the many aspects of the publicity, claiming Clara as the “behemoth” from the story of Job in the bible and ascribing to her false traits that were at the time assumed of the rhino.

Put off starting one of the books on my list because a friend gave me a stack of books he thought I’d enjoy and I felt I should plow through those first.

3. Waiting Period by Hubert Selby, Jr.

Kind of funny and depressing and terrifying at once. A succinct story about a man who goes to purchase a gun with which to kill himself. A computer problem results in a two day waiting period for him to receive his gun and during that limbo he decides that people he thinks deserve to die should be killed rather than himself. Well written and engrossing, this still left me feeling more than a little uneasy about both the story as a whole and the somewhat unambitious conclusion. By no means bad, but certainly not for everyone and definitely not for the faint of heart. After finishing this one, I continue my plodding way through ‘Children of Dune’.

I just last night finished the first book from my list of choices for 2008. I randomly chose Christopher Morley’s “The Haunted Bookshop” and I must say that it was surprisingly great. I had scarcely even heard of Morley and had absolutely no expectations, and it turned out to be clever and sweet. A little bit of a mystery (not a difficult one, but an entertaining one, really), a little bit of a love story and a lot about the art of bookselling. Morley is immensely quotable and has a fairly sharp wit (he put me in mind of Somerset Maugham), but also gives the impression that his characters are completely aware of their own stereotypes and works that into the joke. I will definitely be adding more of Morley’s novels to my future lists.