Actually, they aren’t stars. They’re asterisks, which I assign to books that I find Most Meaningful. All these books and their authors can be found at the left side of the How Jack London Changed My Life review blog. I was scanning the list and the fact that some authors had a lot of titles under their names made an impression. Why don’t I give a salute to these guys?
They are, indeed, all men. Plenty of women appear on the MMB list, and a good number have three asterisks. But, alas, none got five.
Some authors with fewer than five stars wrote a book (or even two) that deserve the accolade Great (with that word capitalized). Some died young; I include all three novels written by Franz Kafka and the four by Nathanael West. But tuberculosis took Kafka at age forty and a car accident took West at thirty-seven. For various reasons, many outstanding authors simply never reached the magic number.
Anyway, here they are, in alphabetical order, nine writers who did make the grade. And though most come in for a bit of criticism, I’ll try to pinpoint why, in at least five of their works, they were meaningful to me. This is a purely personal matter. It’s not entirely about quality; it may be that I just enjoyed them so much.
They are, indeed, all men. Plenty of women appear on the MMB list, and a good number have three asterisks. But, alas, none got five.
Some authors with fewer than five stars wrote a book (or even two) that deserve the accolade Great (with that word capitalized). Some died young; I include all three novels written by Franz Kafka and the four by Nathanael West. But tuberculosis took Kafka at age forty and a car accident took West at thirty-seven. For various reasons, many outstanding authors simply never reached the magic number.
Anyway, here they are, in alphabetical order, nine writers who did make the grade. And though most come in for a bit of criticism, I’ll try to pinpoint why, in at least five of their works, they were meaningful to me. This is a purely personal matter. It’s not entirely about quality; it may be that I just enjoyed them so much.
Evan S. Connell (5)
Connell’s approach to his subject engaged me. He wrote two books about his parents, but he did it with detachment, and through brief snapshots of their lives. Those Bridge books are a matching pair, and so are structured along similar lines, but the other four on his MMB list vary widely in form and subject matter. He wrote a novel about a man obsessed with pre-Columbian figurines (The Connoisseur) and a non-fiction account of Custer and the Indian culture he was in conflict with (Son of the Morning Star). For a short while, maybe a year, I wrote letters to authors after reading books by them that I admired. Connell got a letter for Diary of a Rapist (don’t be put off by the title). He responded with a handwritten note, saying he wasn’t satisfied with it, though he wasn’t quite sure what was wrong. Interestingly, after Double Honeymoon (which I thought was a terrible mistake), he gave up writing novels. He was only fifty-two, and for the rest of his long life (he lived to age eighty-eight) he devoted himself entirely to non-fiction and essays.
Connell’s approach to his subject engaged me. He wrote two books about his parents, but he did it with detachment, and through brief snapshots of their lives. Those Bridge books are a matching pair, and so are structured along similar lines, but the other four on his MMB list vary widely in form and subject matter. He wrote a novel about a man obsessed with pre-Columbian figurines (The Connoisseur) and a non-fiction account of Custer and the Indian culture he was in conflict with (Son of the Morning Star). For a short while, maybe a year, I wrote letters to authors after reading books by them that I admired. Connell got a letter for Diary of a Rapist (don’t be put off by the title). He responded with a handwritten note, saying he wasn’t satisfied with it, though he wasn’t quite sure what was wrong. Interestingly, after Double Honeymoon (which I thought was a terrible mistake), he gave up writing novels. He was only fifty-two, and for the rest of his long life (he lived to age eighty-eight) he devoted himself entirely to non-fiction and essays.
Knut Hamsun (5)
The Norwegian writer was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1920, and he deserved it. He had the gift of entertaining at a deep level. His first novel, Hunger, was a groundbreaking work in twentieth century fiction. This was mainly due to how completely Hamsun entered his character’s mind; he succeeded in laying bare the many facets of a mental state. Hunger was a one person novel, and Pan, about a doomed love relationship, was a two person novel. But Hamsun’s scope could expand to produce the long historical Growth of the Soil. Human nature, in its many forms, was his abiding interest, and his characters, with their virtues and flaws, come across with accuracy and compassion. He doesn’t portray life in a rosy light; the reverse prevails, but not to the point of darkness. I’ve read many Hamsun novels, and found only one less than very good. Mysteries fails because he has a character so aberrant that it’s impossible to relate to him. As a result it lacks the relevancy of his other work, in which I could understand and believe in people living in a foreign country many years ago.
The Norwegian writer was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1920, and he deserved it. He had the gift of entertaining at a deep level. His first novel, Hunger, was a groundbreaking work in twentieth century fiction. This was mainly due to how completely Hamsun entered his character’s mind; he succeeded in laying bare the many facets of a mental state. Hunger was a one person novel, and Pan, about a doomed love relationship, was a two person novel. But Hamsun’s scope could expand to produce the long historical Growth of the Soil. Human nature, in its many forms, was his abiding interest, and his characters, with their virtues and flaws, come across with accuracy and compassion. He doesn’t portray life in a rosy light; the reverse prevails, but not to the point of darkness. I’ve read many Hamsun novels, and found only one less than very good. Mysteries fails because he has a character so aberrant that it’s impossible to relate to him. As a result it lacks the relevancy of his other work, in which I could understand and believe in people living in a foreign country many years ago.
Aldous Huxley (5)
I have a theory about Huxley. In his three early novels — Crome Yellow, Antic Hay, Those Barren Leaves — he observed mankind (mostly the moneyed class) with light-hearted cynicism. In these romps people carry on absurdly, mired in self delusion and hypocrisy. But in the much longer, more ambitious Point Counter Point, a shift occurs; though the cynicism remains, it’s not funny anymore. Huxley seems to have had a “Is this all there is?” change of heart. He decided that the follies of mankind and society must be seriously explored. So next we got Brave New World, a cautionary tale. But I consider that to be his last successful novel, and it was skewed to his new approach: He became a bearer of messages (a proselytizer for Eastern Wisdom, psychedelic drugs, etc). We lost a good writer and got a philosopher, a reformer What a shame. Those early novels shimmer, as do some of his short stories, notably “Nuns at Luncheon” and “The Gioconda Smile.”
I have a theory about Huxley. In his three early novels — Crome Yellow, Antic Hay, Those Barren Leaves — he observed mankind (mostly the moneyed class) with light-hearted cynicism. In these romps people carry on absurdly, mired in self delusion and hypocrisy. But in the much longer, more ambitious Point Counter Point, a shift occurs; though the cynicism remains, it’s not funny anymore. Huxley seems to have had a “Is this all there is?” change of heart. He decided that the follies of mankind and society must be seriously explored. So next we got Brave New World, a cautionary tale. But I consider that to be his last successful novel, and it was skewed to his new approach: He became a bearer of messages (a proselytizer for Eastern Wisdom, psychedelic drugs, etc). We lost a good writer and got a philosopher, a reformer What a shame. Those early novels shimmer, as do some of his short stories, notably “Nuns at Luncheon” and “The Gioconda Smile.”
Thomas Mann (5)
Why is he on this list? To get to five titles, I include The Magic Mountain. But I was in my teens when I read it. How could I understand such a massive philosophical work? I believe I was proud to have made my way through it, so I considered it a great novel. I won’t contradict my younger self; if something was meaningful to me when I was seventeen, I’m going to respect that judgement. Later contacts with Mann were both good and bad. Since I’m here to praise Mann, not to bury him, I’ll discuss the good. For someone in his early twenties to write Buddenbrooks is an incredible achievement. The ornate Death in Venice is an intriguing work. Less known is Royal Highness, a wonderful love story (between a man and woman; Mann’s homosexual bent has been well-publicized). His last work, the novella The Black Swan, is simple and direct and the subject matter (a woman’s cancer being mistaken for a reawakening of sexuality) is unique. Mann wrote a lot of stuff I have no interest in, such as his religious tetralogy. He could be ponderous, and his intellect sometimes overpowered his storytelling. But when he turned to human nature, he could be great. Like Hamsun, he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
Why is he on this list? To get to five titles, I include The Magic Mountain. But I was in my teens when I read it. How could I understand such a massive philosophical work? I believe I was proud to have made my way through it, so I considered it a great novel. I won’t contradict my younger self; if something was meaningful to me when I was seventeen, I’m going to respect that judgement. Later contacts with Mann were both good and bad. Since I’m here to praise Mann, not to bury him, I’ll discuss the good. For someone in his early twenties to write Buddenbrooks is an incredible achievement. The ornate Death in Venice is an intriguing work. Less known is Royal Highness, a wonderful love story (between a man and woman; Mann’s homosexual bent has been well-publicized). His last work, the novella The Black Swan, is simple and direct and the subject matter (a woman’s cancer being mistaken for a reawakening of sexuality) is unique. Mann wrote a lot of stuff I have no interest in, such as his religious tetralogy. He could be ponderous, and his intellect sometimes overpowered his storytelling. But when he turned to human nature, he could be great. Like Hamsun, he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
William March (5)
Never heard of him? Probably not. But he meant so much to me as a reader that I wrote an essay about him (The Two Williams). He was an author I read in my late teens and early twenties, though much later I revisited two of his novels — October Island and The Bad Seed — and they held up quite well. It's likely that the second title rings a bell — evil little Rhoda Penmark is a character that lives on. Though March is the least sophisticated stylist of the authors cited in this group, he was capable of crafting his work in such a way that it was convincing and forceful. His vision of human relationships is conveyed in his two Reedyville novels, Come in at the Door and The Tallons. In both an event or emotional force in early life will dominate and twist the entire lives of the characters. Even at a young age I believed in March’s world, one in which people and relationships are dangerous. And I also found the deep-seated iconoclasm underlying his work — his cynicism about human institutions such as family, religion, patriotism — to be bracing. His first novel, Company K, is about WWI (a subject he knew intimately), and he chose a format that is innovative and effective: he let all 131 men in the company give their take on an event they experienced. Seed, March’s last book, was the least intimate, and the only successful one as far as sales go. But it too, of course, is dark, and the last lines can serve as his summing up. Like Connell, he was a lifelong bachelor; both men strike me as outsiders, and this perspective is reflected in their work.
Never heard of him? Probably not. But he meant so much to me as a reader that I wrote an essay about him (The Two Williams). He was an author I read in my late teens and early twenties, though much later I revisited two of his novels — October Island and The Bad Seed — and they held up quite well. It's likely that the second title rings a bell — evil little Rhoda Penmark is a character that lives on. Though March is the least sophisticated stylist of the authors cited in this group, he was capable of crafting his work in such a way that it was convincing and forceful. His vision of human relationships is conveyed in his two Reedyville novels, Come in at the Door and The Tallons. In both an event or emotional force in early life will dominate and twist the entire lives of the characters. Even at a young age I believed in March’s world, one in which people and relationships are dangerous. And I also found the deep-seated iconoclasm underlying his work — his cynicism about human institutions such as family, religion, patriotism — to be bracing. His first novel, Company K, is about WWI (a subject he knew intimately), and he chose a format that is innovative and effective: he let all 131 men in the company give their take on an event they experienced. Seed, March’s last book, was the least intimate, and the only successful one as far as sales go. But it too, of course, is dark, and the last lines can serve as his summing up. Like Connell, he was a lifelong bachelor; both men strike me as outsiders, and this perspective is reflected in their work.
Vladimir Nabokov (6)
He shot to fame (and fortune) with Lolita, but he had written many novels before that notorious book. And, of the five others on my MMB list, all come from the pre-Lolita years, and only one, Pnin, was written in English. I’m certainly not downplaying Lolita; it’s a masterpiece. But an earlier novel, Invitation to a Beheading, is just about as good. When he kept a check on himself — when he was writing with an eye to pleasing the public — he could combine excellence with entertainment value. I like his early potboilers, which had people I could relate to caught up in a tangle of emotions. Though I consider him to be a genius, I totally reject the path he took in some of his later work, in which he rambled about in an esoteric intellectual world and overindulged in games and linguistic inventiveness. He should have heeded the advice of Katherine White, editor at The New Yorker, when she criticized one of his stories: “I think it’s fine to have your style a web, when your web is an ornament, or a beautiful housing, for the context of your text . . . but a web can also be a trap when it gets snarled or becomes too involved, and readers can die like flies in a writer’s style if it is unsuitable for its matter.” But Nabokov was a stubborn man, and, when Lolita made him rich, he could do as he pleased. So we get Pale Fire and the novel he considered his culminating achievement, a monumental mess entitled Ada.
He shot to fame (and fortune) with Lolita, but he had written many novels before that notorious book. And, of the five others on my MMB list, all come from the pre-Lolita years, and only one, Pnin, was written in English. I’m certainly not downplaying Lolita; it’s a masterpiece. But an earlier novel, Invitation to a Beheading, is just about as good. When he kept a check on himself — when he was writing with an eye to pleasing the public — he could combine excellence with entertainment value. I like his early potboilers, which had people I could relate to caught up in a tangle of emotions. Though I consider him to be a genius, I totally reject the path he took in some of his later work, in which he rambled about in an esoteric intellectual world and overindulged in games and linguistic inventiveness. He should have heeded the advice of Katherine White, editor at The New Yorker, when she criticized one of his stories: “I think it’s fine to have your style a web, when your web is an ornament, or a beautiful housing, for the context of your text . . . but a web can also be a trap when it gets snarled or becomes too involved, and readers can die like flies in a writer’s style if it is unsuitable for its matter.” But Nabokov was a stubborn man, and, when Lolita made him rich, he could do as he pleased. So we get Pale Fire and the novel he considered his culminating achievement, a monumental mess entitled Ada.
George Orwell (5)
In reading Orwell’s letters, it was clear that he was a political animal. One novel that came out of that inclination is the just-about-perfect Animal Farm. And 1984, which he finished writing on his deathbed (he died young — age forty-six), is powerful and frightening. Actually, he only wrote six novels. A lot of his work was non-fiction, reportage about social issues or war; those books are interesting because he immerses himself in poverty, and he fights in the Spanish Civil War. As for his first novel, Burmese Days, he incorporated some of his experience as an imperial police officer in Burma, so it has a political aspect. The other two novels are free of politics, and he seemed to regard them merely as a way to make a buck. He professes to hating Keep the Aspidistra Flying, about a poet who turns away from all creative endeavor and settles for a secure job and a conventional married life. I found it highly enjoyable. And then we come to Coming Up for Air, whose unlikely hero is devoid of all virtues except honesty. How can one write something so damn good and not care all that much about it? It was a case of authorial misjudgement for him to disparage his straight fiction.
In reading Orwell’s letters, it was clear that he was a political animal. One novel that came out of that inclination is the just-about-perfect Animal Farm. And 1984, which he finished writing on his deathbed (he died young — age forty-six), is powerful and frightening. Actually, he only wrote six novels. A lot of his work was non-fiction, reportage about social issues or war; those books are interesting because he immerses himself in poverty, and he fights in the Spanish Civil War. As for his first novel, Burmese Days, he incorporated some of his experience as an imperial police officer in Burma, so it has a political aspect. The other two novels are free of politics, and he seemed to regard them merely as a way to make a buck. He professes to hating Keep the Aspidistra Flying, about a poet who turns away from all creative endeavor and settles for a secure job and a conventional married life. I found it highly enjoyable. And then we come to Coming Up for Air, whose unlikely hero is devoid of all virtues except honesty. How can one write something so damn good and not care all that much about it? It was a case of authorial misjudgement for him to disparage his straight fiction.
Isaac Bashevis Singer (5)
This is a strange entry. In a number of ways, but first the minor ones. Though he was fluent in English, he wrote all his work in Yiddish, so we get a translated version (which he closely supervised). Three of the books on his MMB list are short story collections, and In My Father’s Court is a memoir (none of the other authors cited here have even one of either in their lists). Only The Family Moskat is a novel. There’s no rule barring short stories if the collection, as a whole, is impressive enough. The same goes for memoirs; if it’s good enough, it deserves an asterisk. But the really strange thing about Singer’s work is its strangeness. I’m not talking about mere oddity. He portrays life in a way that is foreign. The supernatural abounds. Malignant forces lurk, and sometimes emerge. There’s a wildness to Singer — in a review I write that he “has the power to compel the reader to enter the dark and tangled forest.” In his grounded-in-real-life stories (and in the novel) there’s often a cynicism that is chilling; his portrayal of man/woman relationships is fraught with conflict; women are frequently portrayed as frightening creatures. These aspects I’ve cited sometimes have the negative effect of overwhelming the material; one shrinks away. And with Singer I have to qualify my observations with words like “sometimes” and “often” because he could be gentle. He was a writer of unusual power, and he addressed big issues about life — but has no answers. He too was awarded the Nobel Prize. A good introduction to his work is the wonderful short story, “Gimpel the Fool.”
This is a strange entry. In a number of ways, but first the minor ones. Though he was fluent in English, he wrote all his work in Yiddish, so we get a translated version (which he closely supervised). Three of the books on his MMB list are short story collections, and In My Father’s Court is a memoir (none of the other authors cited here have even one of either in their lists). Only The Family Moskat is a novel. There’s no rule barring short stories if the collection, as a whole, is impressive enough. The same goes for memoirs; if it’s good enough, it deserves an asterisk. But the really strange thing about Singer’s work is its strangeness. I’m not talking about mere oddity. He portrays life in a way that is foreign. The supernatural abounds. Malignant forces lurk, and sometimes emerge. There’s a wildness to Singer — in a review I write that he “has the power to compel the reader to enter the dark and tangled forest.” In his grounded-in-real-life stories (and in the novel) there’s often a cynicism that is chilling; his portrayal of man/woman relationships is fraught with conflict; women are frequently portrayed as frightening creatures. These aspects I’ve cited sometimes have the negative effect of overwhelming the material; one shrinks away. And with Singer I have to qualify my observations with words like “sometimes” and “often” because he could be gentle. He was a writer of unusual power, and he addressed big issues about life — but has no answers. He too was awarded the Nobel Prize. A good introduction to his work is the wonderful short story, “Gimpel the Fool.”
Evelyn Waugh (8)
And da winna is . . . That “8” after Waugh’s name signifies all the enjoyment he has given me. His unadorned, beautifully smooth prose allows his characters, their situations, and their dialogue to stand out. And though all three are often bizarre, with Waugh we come to accept the unexpected. He’s known for his humor and for his cruelty. But he never presents graphic violence; what he portrays is social cruelty: how people treat one another, mostly to achieve selfish goals. And it’s the perpetrators of cruelty — such as his recurring character, an unflappable cad named Basil Seal — who come out on top. In his masterpiece, A Handful of Dust, noble-minded Tony Last is used and abused by his wife, and meets a most dismal end in a South American jungle. I guess there’s an element of social commentary in his work, and a statement about human failings, but it’s hidden in the light approach. Even in his war trilogy there’s a jaunty element. I suggest that you start your reading of Waugh with his first novel, the delightful Decline and Fall. If you choose to move on, please skip the work he’s most known for: Brideshead Revisited. In that novel (his only one with a first-person narrator) he gets serious and religious and talks much about love (he also amps up the prose to artfulness). In other words, he violates all the virtues I’ve cited. He was at his best when there was detachment. When he wrote a novel about his ill-fated marriage, Vile Bodies, he still kept a distance. I was glad that he ended his writing life with a long short story entitled “Basil Seal Rides Again.” For the last time he has Basil get the best of it.
And da winna is . . . That “8” after Waugh’s name signifies all the enjoyment he has given me. His unadorned, beautifully smooth prose allows his characters, their situations, and their dialogue to stand out. And though all three are often bizarre, with Waugh we come to accept the unexpected. He’s known for his humor and for his cruelty. But he never presents graphic violence; what he portrays is social cruelty: how people treat one another, mostly to achieve selfish goals. And it’s the perpetrators of cruelty — such as his recurring character, an unflappable cad named Basil Seal — who come out on top. In his masterpiece, A Handful of Dust, noble-minded Tony Last is used and abused by his wife, and meets a most dismal end in a South American jungle. I guess there’s an element of social commentary in his work, and a statement about human failings, but it’s hidden in the light approach. Even in his war trilogy there’s a jaunty element. I suggest that you start your reading of Waugh with his first novel, the delightful Decline and Fall. If you choose to move on, please skip the work he’s most known for: Brideshead Revisited. In that novel (his only one with a first-person narrator) he gets serious and religious and talks much about love (he also amps up the prose to artfulness). In other words, he violates all the virtues I’ve cited. He was at his best when there was detachment. When he wrote a novel about his ill-fated marriage, Vile Bodies, he still kept a distance. I was glad that he ended his writing life with a long short story entitled “Basil Seal Rides Again.” For the last time he has Basil get the best of it.
2 comments:
It was meaningful to read about your five star writers. A couple of them I have definitely read works by, a few I think I have (my memory cannot be relied upon), and a few I have not. I will refer back to this blog when I am next on the search for a good book. As always, I enjoyed your insights.
Regarding Connell and the Bridge books. I recently reread both, but only the Mrs. is worthy of being cited as excellent.
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