Other Fabulous Books

       Like some of you, I was gratified to see some of my all-time favorite books on the Strand list.
       One book, in particular, still sticks with me today: John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany".
       I remember being on a beach one day, nearly 25 years ago – in Spain or Portugal, I think – and finishing that book. I remember it because when I completed the final page, I started to cry.
       I cried not because the story was sad (although it was), but simply because the book was over. I had become so involved in the lives of the characters and the richness of the plot that I felt a loss – an emptiness – when I suddenly realized it was gone. I cried too because I felt certain that I would never be able to write as well as John Irving does, although I still continue to try my best.

       I agree, however, that other fabulous books seem to be missing from the Strand list.
       As Liz pointed out, Rohinton Mistry's "A Fine Balance" should surely be there. I remember also being profoundly affected by "Trinity" by Leon Uris. Recommended by my father as a book my older brothers and I could discuss in our eventual medical school interviews (not that I ever applied to med school), it was, at the age of 14 or 15, one of the first truly "important" books I had read. And what about E.L. Doctorow's "World's Fair"? I loved that book!

       Readers: are there other books that you think should have made the list?  For Tom's profound input on this question, see his comment on my last posting, dated June 11.

Counting Great Books

       I had the first of our scheduled home inspections yesterday. It was a stressful eight hours -- much longer than I had anticipated.  As the inspector kept telling me (joining a veritable chorus of people saying the same), "This is not a cookie-cutter house," and everything is a bit more complicated than usual.  The inspector did find some issues, including problems with the first three things he checked -- the dishwasher, the garbage disposal and the pipes under the kitchen sink.  

       Hopefully, nothing will turn into a deal-breaker.

       Still, I had big trouble sleeping last night. I got up at around 1:45 a.m., hoping that War and Peace would knock me out. But 30 pages later, I was still alert. 

       So I started looking into the concept of "great books" and remembered that my favorite book store in New York -- the Strand -- polled its customers a few years ago to help them come up with a list of the favorite 80 fiction books of all time. A moment later, I had found the list.  And I finally relaxed a bit, as I recalled and counted up the books I had read.  

       Here is the list, with the ones I have read noted in bold.  There are actually 81 books on the list, as the last two tied for 80th place.

       Readers, I hope you enjoy seeing the list, and counting the ones you have read too. And I would love your comments. What do you think of the list? (Personally, I think it's a bit heavy on Harry Potter books.) What are your favorites? Which, of the ones I haven't read, would you most recommend?

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
The Fellowship of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by JK Rowling
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
1984, by George Orwell
On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
Slaughter-House Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
Ulysses, by James Joyce
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemmingway
War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by JK Rowling
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
A Prayer For Owen Meaney, by John Irving
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
The Stranger, by Albert Camus
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
The Alchemist, by Paul Coelho
Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
Anthem, by Ayn Rand
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Little Prince, by Antoine De Saint-Eupery
The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath
The World According to Garp, by John Irving
Middlemarch, by George Eliot
To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by JK Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by JK Rowling
The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers
Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk
The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner
Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov
Blindness, by Jose Saramago
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak
The Chronicles of Narnia, by CS Lewis
The Odyssey, by Homer
The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
Franny and Zooey, by JD Salinger
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle
Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood 

Not All Bad

       I received an e-mail from a friend tonight, asking if I am enjoying "War and Peace" at all.

       Until today, my answer might have been "No". Sure, I have been occasionally interested in it. Some parts have moved faster than others. But I would not have called any of it enjoyment.

       But this morning, I read a paragraph that has remained in my mind all day. Indeed, it has followed me everywhere I've gone, making me smile and putting me at peace.

       This is the paragraph, from page 421:

       "Prince Andrei got up and went to open the window. As soon as he opened the shutters, moonlight, as if it had been watching at the window a long time, waiting for that, burst into the room. He opened the window. The night was fresh and stilly bright. Just under his window was a row of trimmed trees, black on one side and silvery bright on the other. Under the trees was some juicy, wet, curly growth, with touches of silver on its leaves and stems. Further beyond the black trees was some roof glistening with dew, to the right a big, curly tree with a bright white trunk and branches, and  above it a nearly full moon against the light, nearly starless sky. Prince Andrei leaned his elbows on the windowsill and fixed his eyes upon this sky."

       This paragraph, alone, makes me feel that my time has not been wasted.  I don't know where it came from. The writing is so different from that in the rest of the book that I can't help but wonder if Count Tolstoy was recalling a particularly splendid night he himself had experienced. 

       The writing (or perhaps the translation), admittedly, is not perfect. I am sure it could be better.  Still, Tolstoy's description of the moonlight waiting to burst in the room, and the trees -- silver and white in the moonlight -- are words I may never forget.  

       In the coming days, I'll be considering what makes a novel "great". For today at least, it seems possible that these words alone may suffice.

Peace and War

       As I’ve been slogging my way through "War and Peace", I have noticed a little something that shouldn’t be that surprising given the title of the book.
       This is a book about both war and peace.  
       The peace parts read like a Jane Austen novel, with detailed descriptions of clothing, conversation and inane or interesting social interactions. The war parts describe formations, battles, petitions and parades in similar detail.

       This duality poses something of a challenge.

       The problem is that, so far at least, these two facets of the book remain quite distinct. Just as I find myself engaged in one aspect of the book -- caring even for a moment about a character's unhappy marriage or the outcome of a poorly-planned battle -- the book switches gears. Abruptly, the story of that marriage or battle is simply wrapped up and dropped into an authorial oblivion. I suddenly have to work to become engaged again in an entirely different matter.

       And I find myself wondering if there are many people (or any people) who would enjoy or benefit from both parts of the book equally. I will not apologize for carefully reading the social interaction parts, but occasionally skimming the chapters filled with the minutiae of war. I just don't care that much about terrain, fog thickness and the success (or lack thereof) of repeated canister shots.  At the same time, I’m sure there are readers who would prefer that to descriptions of dinner parties and décor. 

       Because "War and Peace" is a so-called great book, I can't help but hope there is a point to this duality and that some over-arching theme that embraces both aspects of the book will later become apparent.

       At the same time, I can’t help but wonder if "War and Peace" would ever get past the desk of a modern-day book agent or editor, who would demand to know what the book is about and who the target audience is.

On My Own

       So...no one wants to join me on my quest!

       Well, it serves me right. 

       In fact, I was supposed to have read "War and Peace" with some friends earlier in the year. Tom and I had signed up, with another couple we know, for a four-session Continuing Education course on the book – spread over an eight-week period (to allow time for reading). 

       I dutifully read the first 294 pages as preparation for the first session. But right after that first class, I realized I was going to be out of town for the second and third session. So, you know, I figured I sort of had kind of an excuse for not keeping up. And by the fourth session, naturally, I was way too far behind to ever catch up.

       Now I admit I would never had tried to use such an explanation if I missed a few sessions of Grade Seven math, for example. Even at the age of 11, I was aware that missed classes meant I had a responsibility to catch up – even if I had to work extra hard to do it.

       But I’m an adult now and I had voluntarily signed up for the "War and Peace" class. Furthermore, it wasn't like there was going to be an exam or anything. So why stress about it? 

       Am I right, or am I right?

       Still, for some reason, I do still feel sort of a commitment to finish it. I may even feel a teeny tiny sense of guilt.          

       In case you’re wondering, however, none of the other three who signed up for the course with me finished it either. The husband of the other couple listened to the book on CD, which would be okay, except that it was an abridged version. His wife, my good friend, read about 3/4 of the book, but then also switched over to the abridged recorded version. 

       And my over-worked Tom didn’t get very far at all. Although we had bought twin copies of the book so that we wouldn’t have to fight over the privilege of reading it, business obligations meant that Tom ended up missing all four classes. He never got further into his copy than page xii of the introduction.

       Hey! Now that I think of it, perhaps that can actually serve as a further enticement to you. If any of you now wish to change your mind about joining me, I have Tom’s nearly untouched copy available for your reading pleasure. 

       You won't even have to give it back.

Translated by...

       These are the first words of "War and Peace", as translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky: "Eh bien, mon prince, Genes et Lucques ne sont plus que des apanages, des estates, de la famille Buonaparte." Then there is a little number "1" referring readers to a note found on page 1225. At the end of the first paragraph  -- all in French, except for twelve words -- is a little asterisk, referring readers to a translated version of the first paragraph -- from French into English. 

       I look ahead to see that the novel continues to be partly in French, sometimes with whole pages entirely in French.  And at the bottom of nearly every page are notes or translations, written in a tiny typeface (which I can't read without removing my glasses), with various symbols to distinguish them from each other. On page 7, for example, these symbols are found at the bottom of the page: *, +, ++ (on top of each other), s, #, **, ++ (sideways).

       I can't help but get the feeling that this book is going to be exhausting. 

       Which, given my goal of sleeping, might be a good thing.

       But really, if the translators were going through the trouble of translating the book, could they not just have directly translated the Russian and the French into English, without making one refer to an array of translated notes?

       Perhaps it is especially annoying for me. Since I sort of understand French, I find myself stumbling through it, only caught up by words like "apanages". Also, en francais, I am not entirely clear at first if Genes and Lucques are people or places. 

       With that enticing introduction, would any of you readers like to join me on my quest of completing "War and Peace" by the end of June?  Or if not "War and Peace", would you like to read some other "great book" that you have long felt you should read? 

       Perhaps we can lend support to each other. Please let me know.

War and Peace and Real Estate

       I have been under some stress for the past several days. It’s a good stress, mind you. Indeed it’s a happy stress, because Tom and I are hoping to purchase a wonderful and unusual home that we discovered several months ago.        

       Since I learned only ten days ago that it might truly be a possibility, I have hardly been able to sleep. And so far, that’s been okay. 

       But I have to keep my wits about me. Since Tom is extremely busy with his job (and because I am, after all, a lawyer), it will be up to me look after all the details that could make this dream our reality. So I do need to sleep sometime.

       That’s why I decided this would be a perfect month to fulfill my commitment to read War and Peace.