I have traveled a lot during my 6 decades on this planet. Traveled physically, dragging my raggedy bones from continent to continent - always with the priority of “my children”, my books. I’d ship them, I’d duffle bag them, I’d have friends bring them over.
I’ve also traveled through those books. Been places that no plane or landrover would ever be able to take me. Books have also made me the wordsmith I am. You learn to swim by swimming. You learn to write, gain a voice, by reading.
Books. Yesterday I mentioned Henry Miller in a post and was reminded of his “The Books In My Life”. So I thought I’d share some of the books in my life with those few readers who might peruse my scratchings. I’ll say just a few words about each.
Books In My Life
The Perennial Philosophy - Aldous Huxley.
One of the top brains, polyglot geniuses of the 20th century - Huxley does such a fine job describing how religion is really of two orders. One that worships time and one that worships eternity. I have many fond memories of conversations with an elderly Indian friend, Zinat, who I bought a copy for. Grew immensely from those discussions. It is one of those books you can dip into and be refreshed, feel closer to our original, fragile pulse.
The Holocaust. Martin Gilbert.
Just the facts. Nothing but details, historical facts about the holocaust. A masterpiece of scholarship. It changed my life and I bring it with me wherever I travel. A rare book I treasure. His biography of Churchill is also a masterpiece.
Gimpel The Fool. Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Few writers can hold a candle to Singer. His way of building characters, explaining life, being expansive and also narrow at the same time - is a gift from the gods. Gimpel is a book full of wisdom, Yiddish wisdom and you’ll learn more from it than any school. His book Shosha is also a beautiful book of delicate love and awe of the life we live in.
“The main thing is, the audience should be curious to know what’s going to happen next.”― Isaac Bashevis Singer
Too Loud A Solitude. Bohumil Hrabal.
I spent 6 years in the heady days when the Berlin Wall fell in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. I’d drink beer all afternoon, throwing the pitcher out the window and hearing it bounce on the cobblestones. The gypsy kids running for it and then running to the corner hospody to fill it for me with the best beer on earth. I’d read and read - I sent over a big crate of books. Hrabal, I fell in love with - dear old Hanta, a man of my own heart. It’s a book about books, it’s a book about everything, with voice and wisdom and heart. A must-read in your life, this small book. Hrabal is the one guy I feel so sorry for - he should have won a Nobel. P.S. Read the translation by Michael Heim. The others don’t cut the mustard.
“Because when I read, I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqueur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing on through the veins to the root of each blood vessel.” ― Bohumil Hrabal, Too Loud a Solitude
The Bow And The Lyre. Octavio Paz.
As I grew into my poet’s clothing, I encountered the magical words, the encouragement, the depth of communion in Octavio Paz and especially The Bow And The Lyre. He helped me make sense of the words and the voices in my head. Such intelligence, such erudition. I never could buy a copy, all sold old, out of print. So I stole a copy from the Yorkville Toronto Public Library. May St. Peter save my soul when I get to the pearly gate. But in my own defense, I looked and the book had only been borrowed 6 times in the 20 years it sat in that library.
Tropic Of Cancer. Henry Miller.
As I set off for Europe, I kept this book under my arm. A book like On The Road, it is filled with explosive passages of revelatory thought and meaning. Inbetween it is pedantic but you read just to get to the tour de force, the passages where is Miller at his best. A courageous writer who tells it all, as it is. His honesty is godly.
“I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it. We must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and the soul.”― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
The Stranger. Albert Camus.
This book I read in France and it hit me over the head like a hammer. Not just because of the existentialism. I think Camus is more down-to-earth than a lofty philosophy. It hit me over the head because of Meserault, a man born to speak truth, to speak plainly to the world and somehow escape the trappings of culture. A book for the ages.
“I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger
The Act Of Creation. Arthur Koestler.
Along with Huxley and maybe Polyani, one of the major brains of the 20th century. A man of immense, wide, deep, personal and prolific knowledge. This book truly allowed me to glimpse behind the current into what art truly is, how it gets made - what makes words and thought magical. A gem. I return to it often.
The Shadow Of The Sun. Ryszard Kapuscinski.
If I’m at a loss on what book to lend a friend (this occurs often, I’m living in foreign countries and most English speakers don’t have access to quality English books), I will lend this one. It never lets me down - everyone gets into it. A Hemmingwayesque journalist, Ryszard traveled the world and tells us of exotic people, cultures, political events that just keep your head buzzing. This book is mainly about Africa and it shines a light, a much-needed light on this fascinating continent.
My Happy Days In Hell. Gyorgy Faludy.
I once found a whole box of this book, maybe 30 copies, outside a Coles bookstore in North Bay, Ontario. .99 cents a copy. I bought them all and then over the next few months gave them as presents to friends and family. It is a marvelous book about a man fleeing dictatorships, totalitarianism, war, and his trials and tribulations along the way. Faludy is a colossus. A learned man who lived what I consider a life without equal. Lived it bravely. I had the opportunity to meet him in Toronto in his later years. We laughed and I hope he’s spending even more happy days in hell writing poetry that makes this world wonder.
“My father taught us growing up that if we dropped bread or a book, when we pick it up we must kiss it. I’ve continued this tradition to this day.” Salman Rushdie
The Engineer Of Human Souls. Josef Skvorecky.
Another writer I met in Toronto after my return from the Czech Republic. He lived in a nice brownstone in Cabbagetown. Slippers at the door with his marvelous wife Zdenka who made fantastic Czech cookies and also knedliky. Skvorecky was a writers writer. This book, a masterpiece of character development, pace, knowledge and more … One of the few books that made me cry, truly, deeply, madly cry.
A Red Carpet For The Sun. Irving Layton.
When I first clasped onto the words and voice of Layton, I said - “There goes a man!”. I was only 18 or 19 but he taught me that a poet needs much more than words. He taught me how nature and allegory and metaphor run through strong poetry. There is a secret code a poet knows. I loved Layton for being both gentle and gruff at the same time. His poetry has inspired me to no end.
Burning In Water. Drowning In Flame. Charles Bukowski.
Bukowski I got into later in my life, in my 30s. And he’s always felt like a brother. I now keep his books in the honored place, next to my shitters (I have two in the house), and read him daily. I read his poems over and over, they are never the same. This anthology, I’ve brought to five continents and all the empty space in it is scrawled with my own poetry inspired by him, a wonder and gift of nature.
“That's how it is with books, isn't it: They're not in a hurry. They'll wait for you till you're ready.” - Charles Bukowski
A Minor Apocolypse. Tadeusz Konwicki.
There are many books dealing with totalitarianism and how artists, writers were “captive minds” struggling to let the world know any truth. Konwicki and his protagonist bring the issue to an epiphany as he walks and thinks through the novel about whether to set himself on fire or not, as a means of protest. As powerful a work of fiction as they get.
Waiting For The Barbarians. J.M. Coetzee.
The title is based on the fine, fine poem of the Greek poet Cavafy. It was a book I reached for again after 9-11 and to understand the subsequent false “war on terror” (along with Camus’ The Plague). A magistrate waits in a town for the barbarians who are approaching, always approaching. A novel that Kafka might have written, subtle and dealing with our own fears and cultural hangups.
The Monkey Wrench. Primo Levi.
Little secret. Throughout university and 3 years after, I worked construction. Loved it. Steelwork was my thing and walking steel high up, the freedom, I loved. Unfortunately, I fell off a building and that was that. But The Monkey Wrench was a book I took solace in - only a book the polyglot, generalist Primo Levi could have written. A series of stories between a chemist (Levi was a trained chemist) and a steel erector. A character akin to Zorba. Wonderful stories about life, living well, the places our time here takes us.
Notes From Underground. Fyodor Dostoevsky.
In Russian literally - Notes From Under The Floorboards - it’s a psychological novel on a level of no other. I put it above his other works like Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment) but it is, take your pick. I applaud them all. Dostoevsky writes deftly about the illogic ruling society, about the hypocrisy everywhere and ultimately leaves you with many questions about who you are as a man/woman and your part in the circus we live. So many powerful, flurries of writing from his “I” character - akin to some parts of Brother Karamazov, analysis that only a Slavic soul could exude.
“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Beyond Good & Evil. Fredrich Nietzsche.
Subtitled - Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. I’ve carried this book around for years. It taught me the power of aphorism, a flurry of intellectual thought on the page. He challenges our conventional narrative of morality and brings the reader into the high air of the mountains of the mind. At the time, in my youth, it gave me the courage to write, say what I felt and follow the creative power of my “will”.
Things Fall Apart. Chinua Achebe
A book of historical proportions which challenged the nature of colonialism and missionary work in Africa. Okonkwo, a famous Nigerian wrestler in his region faces challenges and uncertainty in his life. A modern and realistic novel, it depicts the changing face of Africa in the 1890s. Side note - the title comes from Yeats’ poem - The Second Coming.
Monsieur Teste. Paul Valery.
If I had to bring to an island only the works of one writer to read for the rest of my life - I might pick Valery. First among his equals is Monsieur Teste. A partly autobiographical novel, it arises out of Valery’s own overlooked, delicate, profound poetry. Mr. Teste is a character with few equals and he will bind to your heart, from the moment of his first words "La bêtise n'est pas mon fort" ("Stupidity is not my strength.") to his last. A novel of ideas, of emotion and an anti-hero who lives above it all, in his high mind.
Good Soldier Svejk. Jaroslav Hasek.
A tomb of an irreverent novel that should rank up there with Don Quixote as one of the greatest works of all time. A dark, comedic novel set during World War 1 - Svejk makes fun of everything, especially war, stupid war. He’s a simpleton, Forrest Gump character but with more contradictions and depth. A book on every Czech’s bookcase.
“The Son of God on the other hand was a gay young man with a handsome stomach draped in something like bathing drawers. Altogether he looked a sporting type. The cross which he had in his hand he held as elegantly as if it had been a tennis racquet.” Jaroslav Hasek, Good Soldier Svejk
The Mismeasure Of Man. Stephen J. Gould.
A mind that one should download. Gould in this book sets science in its place and cautions us of its abuses, the potential for abuse as a “religion” - especially as it regards race and the debunked ideology of eugenics. Anyone interested in science and its role in our world should, must read this book of immense knowing.
Strange In A Strange Land. Robert Heinlein.
As a young boy on the farm, far away from libraries - my one outlet was my subscription to the Science Fiction book club. Each month, several slim books would arrive, full of short stories from authors with funny names - Asimov, Zamyatin, Gluchovsy … This lead me to save my pennies and take them up on an offer of buying Stranger In A Strange Land. I read it as an 11-year-old and it changed how I see the world, my place in the world. It lead me to think of ideology, religion - the meaning of life as I followed Michael - a man born on Mars and his “grok”.
Nadja. Andre Breton.
I went through a strong spell of interest in surrealism in my 30s. It made sense, everything was coated in absurdity. Nadja and Breton’s other pamphlets was top of the top for me. It combined my own interest in the mysterious nature of love, “le regarde” and destiny. Nadja fascinated Breton and I had my own Nadja, my own Pipsi (Hrabal’s love) - it helped me along, through that. I also loved that in a way the book is “real” with real pictures, telling a real story but with a fictional air.
The Book Of Ecclesiastes. King Solomon ???
Since my teens, I’ve read the bible as a work of wisdom. Northrup Frye’s - Great Code, an immense help in this. But I was never enamored by the bible as a work of literature until I read the Book of Ecclesiastes. When my mind turns to mush - I reread it and it gives me solace. Its message you can make your own - it isn’t filled with the “in your face” sloganeering of most of the bible. It’s full of questions, asked by an aging man about life. Necessary questions. A good brake on our ego.
The Captive Mind - Czeslaw Milosz
A poet and deeply religious man, Czeslaw Milosz takes on the topic of Soviet totalitarianism and how it captures the minds of people, making them into automatons. A book about propaganda and applies too to our own advertising, this governmental age where messages slyly turn us into something we aren’t.
A Confederacy Of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
A modern-day version of Don Quixote, Ignatius is a beloved character. He goes through life in early 60s New Orleans, tramping from one low-wage job to another. He loathes the world around him and believes himself to be worldly knowing but really has never left the local neighborhood. His adventures reveal so much about America, our own lives, our own fears and our contradictions. The title comes from an essay by Swift, "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.". Toole committed suicide, frustrated the novel saw the light of day in print. Bless his mother her after persisted and got this gem into print for all our benefits and laughter.
I enjoyed reading your list. Several of my favorites were found there, including Perrenial philosophy which I've been re-reading, IB Singers stories, all of them, Tropic of Cancer, Notes Underground. I think there were a few more. I'll have to take a look at others on your list.
a kindred spirit
hath written this
though beyond my realm
yet do I decipher
read on my friend
with children such as these
one is never alone