50 Books to Read Before You Die

words to inspire before you expire

Category: Missing From the List (Page 3 of 3)

Missing From the List: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

March 8, 2017 /

Hello again, class.

James Joyce’s Ulysses features prominently on the 50-books bookmark, for good reason (more on that another time). But what bothers me is that Ulysses is a sequel—one of the main characters, Stephen Dedalus, is the main character of Joyce’s original groundbreaking work A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I won’t have any of this reading-out-of-order nonsense, so Portrait of the Artist needs to be spoken for.

Granted, I’m not the first to admit that Ulysses is the better of the two. It has stronger characters and fewer sermons. But Ulysses wouldn’t have been possible without Portrait of the Artist. And since millions of books wouldn’t have been possible without Ulysses, I think Joyce’s first novel has earned a little spotlight.

Portrait of the Artist tells the coming-of-age story of Stephen Dedalus, a boy in late 19th century Ireland with a creative streak and a complicated life. We get to see him transform from a mystified little boy to a questioning teenager, and then to an adult making the terrifying decision to be himself, regardless of the consequences. He loses respect for his father, puts his family in financial struggle, rejects religion and Irish nationality . . . and doesn’t compromise.

The mastery of this novel is not the story—this is a story anyone could tell. What makes it masterful is it’s original style, which any reader encounters with the opening lines: “Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo . . .”

It’s confusing, that’s for sure. It causes quite the double-take.

Some of you know that this is called stream-of-consciousness, where the author takes the characters inner thoughts and dumps them on the page as they are. Most authors do this within the rules of grammar, but Joyce didn’t have time for rules. Just like Stephen’s struggle to be himself, despite the expectations around him, Joyce denied the expectations a novelist should follow.

These opening lines are the inner thoughts of Stephen as a child, with a glorified version of his father telling him a story. The “moocow” is the combination of the sound with the animal (imagine asking a child what noise a cow makes, and they answer “MOOOO;” in their mind, they don’t distinguish the noise from the animal . . . they are the same thing until they’re old enough to tell the difference). And without commas or periods, the run-on feels like a knowledge dump, which is how Joyce portrays the mind of a child—unbound by rules.

As Stephen grows up, his mind develops, and his thoughts become more structured. He uses a stronger vocabulary and a more refined grammar. Not that it makes his style much easier to follow—we are still inside the mind of a temperamental artist.

Which is why the title has that specific word artist. Stephen isn’t just anyone—his creative tendencies are a part of his core. He finds himself obsessed with the beauty of words, and his imagination is incredible as it unfolds (my favorite moment is when he is a boy: he thinks of different colors of roses and imagines a rose that’s green).

Stephen is a bit too angst-y to be likable, but he is still a strong character. And when we see him again in Ulysses . . . well, we’ll get there when we get there.

I’m still reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, and it’s worth mentioning the similarities it has with Portrait of the Artist. The main character is hinted to have autism, so he sees everything differently—many people claim that James Joyce had some form of autism, which may have led to his particular stylistic approach. While the novels are very different, the stylistic connections make The Curious Incident a kind of spiritual sequel to Joyce’s writing.

That being said, Haddon’s book is a lot easier. If Joyce isn’t your thing, The Curious Incident is a touch easier on the brain cells. But more on that next week.

Until then,

Prof. Jeffrey

Missing From the List: Twelfth Night

February 22, 2017 /

Good morning, class.

I wrote about Hamlet a while back, which is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. But even though most of his other plays are just as good, the 50-books list limits itself to just this one Shakespeare play. Let’s balance out the scales here.

I prefer Shakespeare’s tragedies—I’m also partial to Macbeth—but that’s no excuse for dismissing his comedies. Some worth mentioning are A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Much Ado About Nothing. . .but if I’m picking the one you need to read before you die, it’s Twelfth Night.

Viola and Olivia

The main character, Viola, survives a shipwreck thinking her twin brother has died at sea. She is a woman alone in the strange land of Illyria, without many options. . .so she disguises herself as a man, to serve in the house of Orsino, duke of Illyria. Viola quickly falls in love with Orsino, who is pining after Olivia, who falls in love with the man Viola is pretending to be. Then Viola’s brother turns up, and it’s all a hilarious catastrophe.

Some of the dialogue stands out as Shakespeare’s best: “If music be the food of love, play on,” (Act 1, Scene 1) and “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them” (Act 2, Scene 5) are well-known. One of Viola’s monologues, while not as well-known, sums up the chaos and ache of her situation—her disguise has caused more trouble than she’d intended, and she can only wait for Time to sort it out for her.

The plot is certainly dated—love triangle with a sitcom angle, it’s been done to death. And it’s not as “ghastly” and “unnatural” to play with the rules of sexual identity anymore (if it is, you need a different circle of friends). But the real drama here is about disguises and first impressions.

Depiction of Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene IV

Everyone in the play is wearing a kind of disguise. People are pulling pranks, falling in love with the wrong people, and pretending to be what they aren’t. . .but then everyone gets to reveal their true selves as well. Even the play wears a disguise—the excessively cheesy drama is a disguise for the play’s message, which is that first impressions are usually wrong.

As Viola holds her disguise together, she starts to see past the disguises of others, like the hidden wisdom of the fool or the hidden love of a friend. Wearing a disguise is something everyone does—sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. We only ever see outer layers, not the soul underneath. In some ways, Viola’s journey is about coming to terms with that.

But as much as I want to sell Twelfth Night, this isn’t the only Shakespeare play to try this. Most of his plays, including Hamlet, deal with the struggle of dual lives, disguises, pretending to be something else, lying. . .it makes for great drama and speaks at real human truths. Twelfth Night just does this in my favorite way, and it’s why I think it should make the list (I know my bias is affecting my decision, but I’m in charge here, so it’s obviously okay).

If you feel that I’m wrong, and some other work of Shakespeare’s belongs in the winner’s circle, post your comment below now or forever hold your peace! It’s been a while since I’ve had a literary debate, anyway.

Look forward to my post next week! I plan to have finished Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice by then.

Enjoy your week,

Prof. Jeffrey

Missing From the List: As I Lay Dying

February 1, 2017 /

Good morning, class,

Whenever I think of American authors from the early 20th Century, three come to mind: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner (there are more, but it takes a few more seconds for them to kick in—I wasn’t there, you see). I have my preferences among the three of them, but in my mind, the three are equals.

Well, the constructors of the 50-books list did not consult me before choosing books. Fitzgerald’s widely-known The Great Gatsby and Hemingway’s lesser-known Men Without Women feature prominently on the list, but Faulkner doesn’t appear at all. Today, I will be remedying that oversight.

Yoknapatawpha County, Faulkner’s fictional Southern landscape

As I Lay Dying is the kind of novel that needs to be studied with a guide waiting nearby. It’s also the kind of novel that needs to be read at least twice to be fully appreciated. (Maybe there is a good reason it didn’t make the list.) Even so, it’s one of the most groundbreaking novels I’ve ever read.

The story is about the Bundren family honoring their deceased mother’s wishes: to be buried in a distant town. Being a poor Southern family in the 1920s, accomplishing the task is difficult. The journey takes many days, and the family survives many perilous events—a dangerous river crossing, a barn burning, violence between each other—until it becomes less and less meaningful to bury the body at all. By the end, secrets are revealed, siblings betray each other, and any semblance of happiness seems more distant than ever.

But the way it’s told is the novel’s genius: each chapter specifies a different character as the narrator, and they each tell the story in a different way. Darl, the second oldest sibling, has the most chapters and seems to be the best storyteller, with his own biases. Cash, the oldest, has a practical and structured mind, and tells his chapters plainly—one chapter of his is a list explaining how he made his mother’s coffin. Vardaman, the youngest, uses short, choppy sentences and leaves out key things he can’t understand. The rest of the family and several other characters get their own chapters, too, throwing out any stability we can have in the facts.

Even Addie, the mother, gets her own chapter—after her death. She reveals which of her children is not her husband’s, and expresses her struggles with marriage and motherhood. It’s her ideas about language that tell us WHY the novel is so complicated: “That was when I learned that words are no good; that words don’t ever fit even what they are trying to say at…He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack” (Faulkner).

William Faulkner, author

For me, this novel defines the unreliable narrator. Everyone is looking at the same events and recounting a different story. Addie’s words are the least reliable of all—she’s either out of the order of events, coming back from the past to tell her story, or she’s aware of the struggles of life only from within her own rotting body, closed off from life by the coffin her son built. Even then, she is the key to understanding the problem in their family: they can’t communicate. They are all trapped in their silent thoughts and failing words.

Many of the novels I’ve read from the 50-books list have similarly unreliable narrators—The Canterbury Tales, The Color Purple, and The Catcher in the Rye, to name a few. It’s one of the best concepts in literature, to know that the person telling you the story can’t be trusted. It tips the hierarchy…if even the person telling the story can’t be trusted, what can we rely on? If there’s no stability in the story, it begs questions about every detail. Those questions get closer to the truth than statements ever do.

As I Lay Dying does this really well. Maybe too well…and that’s why it didn’t make the list.

As usual, tell me what you think—what novels should be added to the list? What book should every person read before they die? Come, broaden our horizons. What else is class for?

Until next time,

Prof. Jeffrey

Missing From The List: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

December 28, 2016 /

Happy holidays, class!

As I’ve said before, our class textbook is flawed. There’s certainly more than just 50 books to read before you die—what about the books that didn’t make the cut? Not to worry…Prof. Jeffrey to the rescue.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is one of those books. I can guess a couple of reasons why it didn’t make the list: it can come off as disjointed or unstructured, and it isn’t as strong as other fairy tale narratives, such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (I do keep coming back to that one, don’t I?). Nonetheless, it’s worth reading.

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

In many ways, the novel has been surpassed by The Wizard of Oz (1939), considered one of the greatest films of all time. From there, the story has spawned many revisionist versions, such as Gregory MaGuire’s The Wicked Years series or the use of the characters on TV shows like NBC’s upcoming show Emerald City or ABC’s Once Upon a Time. The movie musical has also inspired musical adaptations such as The Wiz and Wicked. The cultural impact may be more important than the original story.

Even so, L. Frank Baum’s novel on its own has made milestones. It’s essentially the first “American” fairy tale—a children’s story built on the backbone of late 19th century American culture. References to the farming population of the Midwest, the Industrial Revolution, the glamour of urban life, and the overwhelming sense of social, economic, and political influences are seen through the eyes of Dorothy Gale, an innocent girl in the middle of it all. It isn’t a stretch to call Oz the American Wonderland—just as amazing to behold, and just as terrifying in the eyes of a child.

Wicked (1995), novel by Gregory MaGuire

It’s enough of a remarkable story to keep returning to, over and over again. Remakes, revisions, rewrites…everyone has an image of Oz they prefer, and it’s diverse enough to withstand new adaptations. Talking animals, wicked witches, wonder and adventure and terror—it’s got everything a good fairy tale needs. Even if you’ve seen the movie and you know the story, the original is worth the read.

Your homework: what other books belong on the list? What books do you think people should read before they die? Put it in the comments!

I’ll be finishing Life of Pi next. See you next week.

Prof. Jeffrey

Missing From the List: The Odyssey

November 16, 2016 /

Welcome back, students.

I’m starting something new today: I’ve studied the “50 Books to Read Before you Die” list often over the past few months, and it is my duty as a teacher to tell you that our textbook is flawed. I’m sure the people who made the list are wagging their fingers at me, but I can’t see them, because this is a blog. So I win this round.

There are quite a few selections missing from this list, and from now on, I will be dedicating class time now and again toward rectifying this wrong. I’ve read plenty of books that aren’t on the list, and they deserve the Prof. Jeffrey treatment. too. So let’s jump ship.

Sculpture of Odysseus

Sculpture of Odysseus

Speaking of ships, The Odyssey by Homer tells the story of the worst ocean vacation recorded in literary history. Everyone knows the story, probably from freshman English: Odysseus takes the long way home after defeating the Trojans, and he is stopped by virtually every single monster in Greek mythology.

I partly bring it up now because it has heavily influenced the “50 Books” list. I’m reading my ninth book for this blog, and so far, three of those books were retelling Odysseus’ story: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Catcher in the Rye, and currently, The Grapes of Wrath, each of which is a series of episodes about a hero on the quest for home, both figuratively and metaphorically. The Odyssey may not have invented the quest narrative, but its ideas on the hero’s quest have equally influenced novels like The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter Series. There are more retellings to come on the list—most obviously with James Joyce’s Ulysses, but also indirectly with Yann Martel’s Life of Pi and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, among others.

Perhaps it didn’t make the list because it has more power as an influence than as a story on its own, but even that is a stretch. Not only is the poetry of the story remarkable, but Odysseus’ journey itself is stunning—he encounters sirens, a deadly Cyclops, sea monsters, Circe the witch, a band of suitors trying to take his wife and home, and near countless gods with their own agendas. Add on the fact that he antagonizes Poseidon, god of the sea, and then tries to sail home. Honestly, he was asking for it.

Painting of Odysseus, his son Telemachus, and his dog Argos

Painting of Odysseus, his son Telemachus, and his dog Argos

But his he-was-asking-for-it-ness, or what the experts call hubris or excessive pride, makes Odysseus vain, heroic, and oddly human all at once. Every character that seems inspired by him—in the above examples, that’s Alice, Holden Caulfield, Tom Joad, etc.—has that human oddness etched into their DNA. They each are reflections of “that man skilled in all ways of contending.” They each have that uncompromising, confident human spirit in the face of all obstacles.

Like I said, our textbook is flawed. The Odyssey is absolutely one of the books you should read before you die.

More books will have their day in my missing-from-the-list lectures; I’d like to get enough to make my own alternate list, but let’s take this one step at a time…

Your homework: take a moment to look at the list yourself. Are there any books you think are missing? What book(s) should people read before they die? Comment below, and if I’ve read it, it may become a class topic, with maybe a quick shout out to the person who posts it (fame is achievable, my friends).

If the month of November doesn’t kill me, then you can look forward to my post on The Grapes of Wrath.

See you next week!

Prof. Jeffrey

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