First Book(s)

I’ve been reading for a long time, the vast majority of my life, but I can’t seem to remember what the first book I ever read was.  Of course there is a difficulty in this.  Should it just be whichever book I first picked up on my own accord and understood the words enough to make sense of it?  Or does it have to be a novel broken into chapters?  Part of the problem is that while growing up my dad read to/with me a lot and it is hard for me to recall when the shift from him doing the majority of the reading to me doing most occurred.  

I remember reading the C.S. Lewis‘ books and E.B. White’s Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web when I was pretty young.  As a kid I was a big fan of Roald Dahl’s books, especially The Witches which I think I read about three or four times.  One author who I remember first having my dad read to me and later picking up myself was John Bellairswho wrote horror novels for children and young adults (and I really mean horror novels, as a kid his books were very scary to me).  I consider my love of Bellairs as a child a precursor to my eventual enjoyment of just about everything ever written by Stephen King.  As far as more picture book style I was really into Steven Kellogg and Maurice Sendak. I also had a huge fondness for Shel Silverstein (owned almost all his books).

When I think of the one book that really launched me into my obsession with reading I always find myself at J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit which had been suggested to me by a friend in fifth grade.  I remember wanting to just read the book and do nothing else, and probably, if people hadn’t made me do other things, I would have just sat all day absorbing the words and story.  The Hobbit is still high up on my list of all time favorite books, and, in my opinion, the best J.R.R. Tolkien book (I bet that statement might garner some disagreement).

Really I can’t place my finger on any one book in my youth that was “first.”  Obviously there had to be one, but the unreliable nature of my memory from that time period makes it impossible to have a certainty of which that one was.  And in the long run it isn’t really all that important.  The big thing is that I did start reading at a young age and have maintained such throughout my life.  Personally I look forward to hopefully having children of my own someday and getting to read with them.

“Choke” and Deviant Literature

Last week I started reading Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke, which I thought I had read before but now that I am about sixty of so pages into it and can’t recall anything I am reconsidering that stance.  The film version of Choke was just released this past weekend, which is a big part of why I picked up the book.  Generally I like to read a book before seeing a film adaptation if I can (of course an exception to this rule was Palahniuk’s other novel Fight Club of which I have only seen the movie).  

So far I am really enjoying Choke.  It falls into a category of what I’d like to call Deviant Literature, that is, novels and stories about characters who live lifestyles or do things that a moral audience might take particular offense to.  I’ve read a lot of books that I would classify in this type of genre.  Examples that come to mind immediately are some of the Bret Easton Ellis books (Less Than Zero, American Psycho), J. T. Leroy (Sarah, The Heart is Decietful Above All Things), and Dennis Cooper (Frisk, The Sluts).  All of these listed novels would be what I call Deviant Literature and have been met with varying degrees of criticism and success.  I would argue that Ellis and Palahniuk have both had a general degree of popular success and acceptance (brought about partially due to the success of the movie versions of their best know works).  Leroy brings a degree of interest in the fact that he isn’t even a real person but instead the imagined persona of Laura Albert (which when you read all about the charade is pretty deviant in and of itself).  Cooper writes some seriously twisted shit, his books were almost hard for me to read, and I am sure there have been some people who have just been utterly disgusted with his work.

I like the Deviant Literature.  I like the rawness of it.  The blunt look at human nature and psychology.  I am sure that almost all the books above have been called pornography at some time or another.  I know for a fact that at least one, American Psycho, has regular attempts at banning from public libraries (and if that is the case then Frisk and The Sluts are probably both very contested).  I would not call these books pornography, even if the stories they tell are often very graphic sexually and/or violently.  The reason why I would not call any of them pornography has to do with the fact that I don’t believe them to be written with the intent to cause sexual arousal but instead are meant to be commentaries, satires if you will (albeit not the most humorous type of satire), looking at people as manifestations of violent and sexual tendencies.  Of course one can draw a line wherever they please and make a case for their stance.  Look at Sade’s work.  He has been dead for almost two hundred years and there is still very heated debate over whether many of his writings are just twisted pornography or if they are actually works of literary merit.

Personally I would kind of like to teach a course on Deviant Literature, partially because the debate on the nature of the various works would likely be very interesting.  If I was going to teach a class I think I would probably start with some Sade, then touch on authors like Jean Genet, Henry Miller, William S. Burroughs, Ellis, Cooper, LeRoy, and Palahniuk.  I think there are very comparable themes that can be found in the works of all these writers and some good discussion could be made.  I would be curious to hear what people think about why these books manage to last and continue to be talked about.  Again, Sade’s writing has been described as one of the most depraved and disturbing stuff ever written and yet a fascination with him persists.  Is it the forbidden fruit theory, or is it that people are are actually more interested in the content of these works than our moral personalities want to admit?  Something worth thinking about.

Considering I am a long way off from teaching any classes I will satisfy myself for now with Choke.  Let me know if anyone has read any of the above books, I’d love to hear your thoughts on them or on Deviant Literature as a whole.

My 10 Most Influential Books I Read in College (A Re-Print)

The Following was originally published on General Lordisimo’s Apocalypse (see link below) on April 3rd, 2008.  I reprint it here because I think it does and excellent job at capturing a lot about my reading habits and opinions.

 

I graduated from college with a degree in English Writing almost a year ago (May 2007) and have been living in Greenville, South Carolina since.  Being an English major (albeit with a writing option) and a Philosophy minor I read a hell of a lot books during my college career which is okay because I like books . . . books are good.  Yesterday I posted about April 2nd birthdays and discovered that a favorite author of mine, Camille Paglia, was born on that day in 1947.  After taking out her most recent work in the library (Break, Blow, Burn) I wrote a post a little bit about her on MadLord Innovations (note the continuing theme of shameless cross blog self promotion.  Though I haven’t even linked to I Wish I Was a Scientist yet — haha, there we go). 

Anyhow . . . At lunch yesterday I began reading Break, Blow, Burn and was immediately reminded of why I had fallen in love with reading Paglia’s writing way back in my freshman year of college.  That year I read Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence From Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson which is still to date one of the best books I’ve ever read (it was also probably the most difficult book I read freshman year, and one of the most difficult throughout my whole college career).  Thinking about Sexual Personae got me to thinking about all the other books that I read in college (which was a damn lot) and how they had changed my way of thinking.  So sitting at lunch I wrote down what I think are my 10 most influential books I read during my years of undergraduate education.  Note that not all these books were required readings for classes, some I had just chosen to read for my own pleasure or interest.  I will list them here in as best order as I can remember reading them (from first to last).

1. The Night Abraham Called the Stars: Poems by Robert Bly (Freshman): Plymouth State University had a really good poets series and every year had a number of noteworthy poets come and read on campus.  The first Poet I saw read at school was the amazing Robert Bly.  The venerable poet had a charisma and passion to his reading and writing of which I don’t think I have yet encountered an equal.  He read the title poem of this book and I was captivated, I think it was then and there that I knew I wanted to be a poet more than anything.  After the reading I bought this book of poems (his most recent collection at the time) and got his signature.  I can’t say how many times I’ve read this book since it’s purchase but the current state of its cover suggests that the number is many many times.  Utterly amazing and beautiful.  Not only did it change my perspective on reading poetry but it has also greatly influenced my own poetry writing.  I so love the title poem of this book that I think it would be nice if somebody would read it at my funeral or memorial service after I die (sorry for the grimness but its just the way I feel).
2. Zoo Story and American Dream by Edward Albee (Freshman and again as a Senior): This is actually two plays by Albee and so some may not consider it a book but I will anyways.  I read these two plays in my Contemporary American Literature Class and absolutely loved them.  I think I read them both in about three hours one afternoon after getting out of class, I hadn’t intended on reading them that fast, in fact I hadn’t even been all that interested in reading them in the first place, but once I started the reading I couldn’t put it down.  Albee is well know for his absurdest style and satirical humor (often being quite critical and biting of society).  Both plays fit this description well.  Something about both the dry humor and the dark sarcasm of the plays really appealed to me at the time and I would say they have somewhat helped formulate my perspective of the world especially concerning American culture.  I picked up Zoo Story and American Dream again my senior year and used the two plays to help write a paper on Existential Theatre (along with Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit).
3. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson by Camille Paglia (Freshman):  If I remember correctly Sexual Personae was the first book I read in Literary Criticism with Professor Robert Garlitz (a professor who is involved in a way with two of the other books on this list and who has likely read everything I am writing about).  Sexual Personae is a big book.  No, that is an understatement, it is fucking huge (no pun intended for those who know what the book is about).  Not only are there a lot of pages but there is just a lot going on in it in general.  For a freshman it was a very intimidating book to suddenly find oneself reading.  But I did read it (albeit slowly so as not to miss anything) and I found it changing the way that I looked at everything in art and sex and culture and, hell, just about anything I could imagine.  The biggest challenge ofSexual Personae for me, as a freshman, was that, at the time, I was severely lacking in my literary and cultural knowledge.  Thus I have picked the book up many times since my initial reading as I feel that it is an incredibly valuable piece of writing to help think about the world as a whole. 
4. Dark Back of Time by Javier Marias (Sophomore): This is the second book the Bob Garlitz played a role in.  Sophomore year I took Contemporary World Literature with Garlitz and at one point in the semester he gave every student a different book to read and do a quick presentation on.  I got Dark Back of Time.  To date Marias may be one of the strangest and most enigmatic authors I have read.  I find it hard to even explain what Dark Back of Time is about.  It comes across as partially auto-biographical, part fiction, part roman-a-clef, and then a whole bunch of other things.  The novel (if it can even really be classified as a novel) is still to date possibly the most challenging book I’ve read because of the chaos that it seems to present and yet the comforting order and simplicity that slips in between all the apparent discord.  I list Dark back of Time as one of my most influential books of my college years because it, like The Night Abraham Called to the Stars, had a profound impact on my writing and also my perspective of narrative and novels.  I have since read two other novels by Javier Marias (both given to me by Garlitz right before graduation) and found them to follow suit withDark Back of Time.
5. The Brothers Karamazovby Fyodor Dostoevsky (Sophomore and again in an independent study as a Senior): I didn’t realize the three Bob Garlitz involved books would appear on this list one after another but they have.  I did not originally read The Brothers Karamazov for any class, in fact I had never really intended on reading it at all, but during my winter break happened to come upon it in a box of books in my Grandmother’s basement.  I didn’t have anything to read at the time and seeing as my winter breaks were really long I thought to myself, “Why the hell not?”  I am glad that I did choose to read The Brothers Karamazov as I now think that it is probably my favorite book of all time.  I realize this is a big bold statement but to be perfectly honest I cannot think of a better book that I have read (Frankenstein, Moby Dick, and Stranger in a Strange Landhave all come close but something about The Brothers Karamazovmakes it stand out more than these three).  I love this book, even though it is huge and difficult and not necessarily the most accessible piece of literature (I don’t think of it as a book that one would want to pick up for just a casual read).  Senior year I set up an independent study with Bob Garlitz that was meant to be focused on the novel.  The class ended up being more focused on discussion and contemplation of literature as a whole but I still used it as an opportunity to reread The Brothers Karamazov and further affirm my love of Dostoevsky’s writing.  Besides being a poet I think another occupation that would be high up on my list of ideals would be to become a Dostoevsky Scholar.  Perhaps what surprises me most about The Brothers Karamazov is that even after 120 plus years it still seems to convey a relevance and understanding of human ideology and action; it reads as almost timeless.  No other book has ever quite struck me to the degree in which The Brothers Karamazov has.
6. Theory of Religion by Georges Bataille (Junior): Junior year I took a class called Comparing World Religions which was taught by Phil Hart.  As students we had two big text books assigned for the class (I can’t recall what they were titled) and then this thin little book.  Though I had not read any Bataille prior to Comparing World Religions I was familiar with his name because my roommate at the time had taken another class with Hart and read a Bataille book entitledErotism: Death and Sensuality.  Of all the philosophical texts I’ve read (quite a few as a philosophy minor) I think that Theory of Religionhas had the most lasting effect on many of my own ideas.  The basic idea in the book is that of humankind’s lost intimacy with being; that we have fractured our existences through the process of “thingness.”  Bataille says that we as people desire a return of that lost intimacy and immanence of “the animal” which passes through the world “like water through water” and as such we create ritual and violence to release that inner part of us that yearns for the unbroken being.  This book is heavy cerebral stuff and Bataille’s writing style is, at best, damn hard to read and yet sticking with it I found myself thinking about a lot of things I had never considered before.  In many ways this book did for my philosophical thinking whatSexual Personaedid for my artistic and cultural thinking.  I would later read another Bataille book (in another Hart class no less) titled The Accursed Share, Vols. 2 and 3: The History of Eroticism and Sovereignty which was also very good but not quite to the same level as Theory of Religion.
7. The Heart is Deceitful Above all Things by J.T. Leroy (Junior and again in class Senior):  Nearing the end of the semester in Comparing World Religion, Phil Hart handed me this paperback book and said I would probably like it.  I think I looked at it and kind of shrugged and told him I’d take a loot at it if I got a chance.  I believe Hart laughed and said I’d probably have it read within a week.  He was right about that.  If I remember correctly I had been kind of sick (actually the sickness eventually led to my having pneumonia and getting to spend a good part of a Saturday in the hospital) and so one afternoon I sat on my bed by my big window and picked The Heard is Deceitful Above all Things up.  It only took me about a day to read the whole thing.  The story is fascinating in a certain cathartic, voyeuristic, and vicarious way.  In its simplest it is about child abuse but when one really sits down and considers it, the book becomes a real examination of masochism, religion, poverty, and many other societal topics.   All this made for a great read but alone it isn’t enough for this book to make my top ten list.  What elevated it to this level was the revelations on the nature of the author.  A lot of people had had questions about the author J. T. Leroy(whose life the book was suppose to be loosely based upon) because he was a shadowy character himself, rarely making any public appearances and reluctant to hold interviews.  First semester of my senior year I took another Hart class called Sexual Ethics and The Heart is Deceitful above all Thingswas one of the required readings (as was Bataille’s The Accursed Share, Vols. 2 and 3: The History of Eroticism and Sovereignty).  During that semester the Paris Review interviewed Laura Albert who turned out to be the creator of the identity of J. T. Leroy (some other publications had made claims that Albert was really Leroy prior to the Paris Review but the prominent literary publication pretty much settled the matter once and for all).  A lot of people (literary critics, reviewers, the general public) considered the revelation of the reality of Leroy a hoax in the least and a downright scandal at worst.  I found it fascinating because suddenly there was a whole new degree of fiction and narrative that we were looking at beyond what Leroy had written in The Heart is Deceitful Above all Things and his other novel Sarah.  Leroy himself was a work of fiction!  The whole matter with Leroy and Albert and the novels brings up so many questions about authenticity and authorship and reality that I just love.  If it had not been for the Leroy revelation, The Heart is Deceitful Above all Things probably would have just gone on my list of enjoyable reads, but because of how things turned out and all the wonderful thinking it provokes this book cannot be ignored as far as its influences on me during my college years.
8. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (Junior): Durning the long break between Fall and Spring semester of junior year (the whole month of January 2006) I lived on campus and worked some twenty plus hours a week at the Lamson Library.  Because there was not a lot to do at the library during the long break I ended up just reading a ton (just counting in my head I think I read about eight books in one month).  One thing I decided to pick up and read was Stephen Hawking’s well known A Brief History of Time which I had skimmed through a couple times in the past but never really sat down and read.  What a wonderful and educational book!  I really think that anybody who has even the slightest of interest in science in general should pick up this book.  Sure Hawking is a big famous theoretical physicist but his book is amazingly accessible and written in with an intended audience of common everyday people.  Some of it is still a bit confusing and beyond my grasp, but all around I learned more about space and time and physics from this book than from any other source.  I actually read the illustrated version which was wonderful because it had great pictures to demonstrate a lot of the ideas being discussed.  I have always loved science but A Brief History of Time further developed my fascination and I would say it is a pivotal work that lead to my creation of I Wish I Was a Scientist (twice in one post!  This is absurd.  Mr. Lordisimo have you no dignity? — Answer: No).
9. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (junior in high school and junior in college):  What?!  How can you put this on your list if you originally read it in high school?  Here’s how.  I had to read The Sun Also Rises in my junior English class of high school and I hated it.  Honestly I think I may have loathed it more than any other book I read in my four years of high school.  I thought it was the biggest most boring load of crap I had ever read (Ethan Frome was right up there as well).  I am pretty certain that I swore upon finishing The Sun Also Rises, in high school, never to pick up Hemingway again.  Now jump forward almost four years to that same long winter break when I read A Brief History of Time. Lamson Library had a display of the Time Magazine list of 100 best English-Language Novels from 1923 to Present (many of which I read during the long break.  Special favorites from that list that don’t quite make this list but are awesome nevertheless are Catch-22 and Watchmen).  One day one of my professors, a fellow named Joseph Monninger, came into the library and was looking at the display, then he walked over to me holding one of the books.  “Have you ever read this?” He asked.  I took a look at it and cringed.  It was, as you have probably guessed, The Sun Also Rises.  I looked at Monninger and responded, “Yeah, I’ve read it and I hated it.”  He looked shocked.  “Really?  When did you read it?” ”Junior year of high school, ” I said.  Monninger laughed at this and handed me the book.  “Read it again, I dare you.”  I think at the time I was fully intending on putting The Sun Also Rises back up on the display as soon as Monninger left but for some reason or another I opened it up and read the first page.  Then I read the second.  And Third. And then the whole damn thing.  And when I was finished it a couple of days later I put it down and sat there thinking to myself, “My God how could I have ever hated this book?”  This is why The Sun Also Rises is on this list.  I talked to Monninger about it after I had finished it and he told me that he knew I would like it now but he also could understand why I hadn’t liked it that much in high school.  For me, in many ways, The Sun Also Rises represents how much I came to appreciate good literature and writing during my college years.  I loved reading and writing in high school, but it was in college that I really got down to studying the arts and loving them for their uniqueness and skilled creation.  It had taken me nearly four years to get to the point where I could pick up a book I had thought I hated, reread it, and then see why it was a classic of literature.  For that The Sun Also Rises will probably always hold a special place in my heart.
10. Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard (Senior):  In some ways Simulacra and Simulation is a book of regret for me 1). because the class it was taught in, The Real World (not the reality TV show though we did talk quite a bit about reality TV) was the second of only two classes I had with the awesome professor Robin DeRosa and 2). the same semester I read this book in The Real World I had had an opportunity to take another DeRosa class on Critical Theory but I had chosen not to which, in hindsight, I now believe was a big mistake.  Still even though regrets arise when I think of Simulacra and Simulation I cannot regret the actual fact that I did read it, as it, like all these books on this list, is absolutely amazing.  Baurdillard’s book is about post-modernism and hyperreality and more or less says that the real world is gone and has been replaced by layers of simulacra or mirrored representations of that lost real.  In a lot of ways I can compare the ideas found in this book to the concepts of lost intimacy in Theory of Religion.  Not only did this book further expand upon my already diverse knowledge of philosophy and theory but it has remained a big part of how I still look at the world to this day.  I think a lot of my critical (not necessarily bad critical, just critical thinking critical) views of the world today are in direct correlation to what I read in Simulacra and Simulation.  Like all these books on this list this one was very difficult, I remember in class a lot of my classmates struggled with the work (as did I) but once we got down to discussing it and applying it to other ideas in the class it ended up being hugely significant and beneficial.

 Holy crap, the list is done!  This is a really big blog post!  I started this post yesterday afternoon (I’ve done some editing since then) and now I am wrapping it up.  It has felt wonderful to recollect and write it down.  Very autobiographical really.  Also makes me miss all the awesomeness that was college.  Boy I had some damn good times.  Not to mention some awesome professors and friends. Oh yeah, and the books, so so many great wondrous amazing spectacular genius books!

Goals, Ideas, Directions . . . all that and the etc

It is raining incredibly hard outside right now, which does not make me very excited about having to go to work in a little bit.  Oh well, for now I will focus on writing.

As if I don’t have enough blogs going right now anyway (General Lordisimo, I Wish I Was a Scientist, the semi-defunct MadLord Innovations).  That being said I would kind of like to use this blog for books alone.  You know talking about something good that I have read or are in the midst of reading.

Having spent four years in college as an English major I have read my fair share of books and have also developed what I like to think of as a pretty decent critical opinion of literature.  Of course these opinions will be mostly my own (mostly, though outside influences should always be considered).  Perhaps eventually I will invite others to contribute to posting here.  I guess I will just have to see.

For now then.

I hope this rain ends soon.

Holy Cow!

I can’t believe I am the first person to register a wordpress domain for booksaregood.wordpress.com.  Not even sure what I will do with it.  Actually that is a lie . . . I know perfectly well what I will do with it.  Assuming that I find time to do things with it.