1000 Novels You Must Read

Early last year, Guardian selected their own 1000 novels one should read in their lifetime. It was only recently that I stumbled across this list. The list is divided into seven categories: Comedy, Crime, Family and Self, Love, Science Fiction and Fantasy, State of the Nation and War and Travel. I won’t post the entire list here but I’ll post up the titles I have read which is 78 all together.

Comedy:

Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding

And that’s it. I scored a very dismal ONE (!) in this category. It might say a lot about my reading although some titles included here surprised me.

Crime:

Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary E Braddon

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Perfume by Patrick Suskind

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Total – 10

Family and Self:

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood

The Outsider by Albert Camus

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Les Enfants Terrible by Jean Cocteau

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Washington Square by Henry James

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

Total – 12

Love:

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Vilette by Charlotte Bronte

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford

Lolita, or the Confessions of a White Widowed Male by Vladimir Nabokov

Delta of Venus by Anais Nin

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Total – 19

Science Fiction and Fantasy:

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Total – 13

State of the Nation:

The Plague by Albert Camus

Disgrace by JM Coetzee

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Silas Marner by George Eliot

A Passage to India by EM Forster

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Total – 9

War and Travel:

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Crab with the Golden Claws by Georges Remi Herge

Tintin in Tibet by Georges Remi Herge

The Castafiore Emerald by Georges Remi Herge

Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Total – 5

I like the list and I especially love the inclusion of Tintin! I don’t think a list has ever included Tintin and I think it’s unfortunate. Tintin has a lot of literary appeal that perhaps goes unappreciated.

New Books!

I love new books. It’s amazing how the excitement still hasn’t left me hence the joyful exclamation mark in the title. New books always calls for exciting exclamation marks.

New titles are:

• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.
• Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
• The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault translated by Angela Carter
• Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson

There was a revival of Shirley Jackson’s gothic tales on the blogosphere last year. I’ve been looking for her books in various libraries, public and universities, but surprisingly, she is very difficult to find. I enjoyed my first foray into Sartre with The Age of Reason so I’m looking forward to tackling Nausea in the near future. Angela Carter’s translation of the french fairy tales by Charles Perrault is something I’m excited to read next. And Bill Bryson’s book is something I picked up on sale which made it cheaper than the already cheap $9.95 it usually sells for. These cheap Orange Penguins are fantastic because it allows you to dabble into literature that you mightn’t have considered before especially non-fiction.

I must gush about the beautiful Penguin Modern Classics covers. They are just so gorgeous and really inspires one to pick up their books which is important if titles or authors are unfamiliar.

I have to say my favourite is Angela Carter’s with Shirley Jackson’s running a close second.

Review: “Tropic of Cancer” by Henry Miller [1934]

Well! Where do I begin with this? Set in Paris in the 1930s, this story follows an American expatriate as he struggles with being down and out and with finishing his first novel. It is, as it is largely known now, a fictionalised autobiography of Henry Miller’s own experiences during his time Paris. The narrator in the novel remains unnamed throughout except for one instance when he is called Henry.

The narrative is written in a stream of consciousness style as he recounts and takes us through his days. Broke and unemployed, he relies on the kindness (or stupidity) of his friends, acquaintances and strangers to stay sheltered and fed. It is quickly made known the narrator’s three top priorities – food, sex and writing. His days are filled with preoccupation of getting his next meal, his next lay and when he would finish his novel.

In between the detailing of his attempts to fulfill his top three priorities, the narrator also tends to go off on a tangent and rant about philosophy of the world and life. There is also a display of torn devotion to the cities of Paris, which the narrator clearly both adores and loathes, and New York, his home town. He admits to romanticising Paris, as do we all:

Paris is like a whore. From a distance she seems ravishing, you can’t wait until you have her in your arms. And five-minutes later you feel empty, disgusted with yourself. You feel tricked. – p. 211

Tropic of Cancer is a pretty intense read. It is also filled with contradictions. The narrator is, impossibly, simultaneously liked and hated. He is an ambiguous figure and remains detached and unemotional to everything, even his own poverty, except to his writing. The language is crude, and at times it may be considered misogynistic although we should remember that the book was a product of its time, but is constantly juxtaposed by comedic moments. There were numerous times on the train when I sniggered out loud. Miller’s, or the narrator’s, crude and rough language is contrasted against some very beautiful and rather poetic prose:

Imagine these bloody no-accounts going home from the concert with blood on their dickies!

Sleep is the keynote. No one is listening any more. Impossible to think and listen. Impossible to dream even when the music itself is nothing but a dream. – p. 84

And this is one of my most favourite passage in the book:

I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie.- p. 104

I enjoyed the book but I can’t say that it was an easy read. There is not a lot of reason to Miller’s narration as it basically just flows from story to rant then back to story. The diversions were a bit more difficult to handle and, at times, I felt like throwing the book across the room because I had no idea what the point was and was getting frustrated and a little bored. Having said that, even after I’ve finished the book (and reviewed it too!) I still don’t have much of an idea of what the book was about besides sex, food and writing. This may be a book that needs to be re-read in the future to fall into place. This might completely horrify some people, or delight many, but at times it felt like I was reading a grown up and very sexed up Holden Caulfield. But if you can get through the book, it is ultimately a very rewarding read.

An Award and Bookish Tees

Kimberly, at The Perpetual Writer, has awarded me with the Prolific Blogger Award. Hurrah! I’m still pretty surprised that people actually read my blog let alone like it.

Here are the seven bloggers I pass the award to. I already follow these blogs regularly and enjoy them immensely.

• Another Cookie Crumbles A Londoner blogger who steamrolls through books and writes excellent reviews on them.
• BiblioAddict Is truly a biblio addict and reviews a wide variety of books.
• With Extra Pulp Writes from a journalistic perspective and have some great posts on writing and blogging.
• Start Narrative Here Another great reviewer with a strong penchant for all things Carson McCullers.
• Novel Insights I always enjoy reading posts from this blog which are fun and lively.
• The Evening Reader Writes thoughtful and insightful posts.
• The Private Library This is one of my favourite blogs/site to lurk about. It has fantastic posts on book collecting, hints, tips, themes, etc.

By chance, I discovered two fantastic sites that sells wonderful bookish tees. Now bibliophiles can really wear their hearts on their sleeves!

Over at mannikin.com they stock an apparently famous bookish tee. I’m just drooling over the fact that it’s in fact bookish.

And over at Out Of Print they have a variety of tees with cover art from famous books such as Catcher in the Rye and (I know some of you will love this) Master and Margarita.  The tees are separated into women and men but I think I like the men’s designs and colours better.

Women’s

A Streetcar Named Desire

The Master and Margarita

Men’s

Fahrenheit 451

On the Road

I really want them all! I’m not too sure about the Lolita one though…

Review: “The Well” by Elizabeth Jolley [1986]

The Well is a spine-tingling and deliciously sinister story in a non-traditional way. Set in the vast dry and dusty Australian countryside, the novel explores the relationship between the elderly Hester Harper and her young ward and companion Katherine, an orphan Hester has unofficially adopted one day.

“What have you brought me then?” …

“I’ve brought Katherine, father,” Miss Harper said … “But she’s for me.” – p. 10

For the lonely and isolated Hester, who also struggles with a lame leg, Katherine is the only companion or friend Hester has had in a long while. Having been alone with her father for most of her life on the desolated farm, with the exception of the family’s accountant, Mr Bird, and Hester’s one time governess, Hilde Herzfeld, Hester craves companionship.

From the beginning, there is an instant connection between Hester and Katherine and the bond only strengthens after Hester’s father dies. Now a free and relatively wealthy woman, Hester spoils Katherine and satisfies her every whim. Their lives descend into a slight hedonistic haze, giving themselves decadent and wasteful banquets every night,  going on shopping sprees and getting into the habit of drinking champagne with their cornflakes at breakfast. Katherine is flushed with life and Hester, never given the opportunity to quite live, is living through Katherine. Because of this, and somewhat due to her upbringing, Hester becomes quite possessive of Katherine. She holds contempt against Katherine’s only other friend who she writes to constantly, but not without Hester reading each and every letter first, and the two women eventually become extremely isolated when the main house is leased, and they to a small out-of-way cottage with a dried up well.

It is while Katherine, still learning, is driving recklessly the two women back home from a party on the dark and usually deserted road, that she hits something. When they decide to dump the creature into the unused well, it is when all their troubles begin and the relationship between Hester and Katherine begins to unravel when Katherine starts hearing a voice coming from the well.

This was a thrilling read and, while it is spine-tingling and sinister, it is unlike other any other thrillers. The Well focuses more on the psychological aspects of the sinister, of the emotionally deprived Hester and the somewhat blank and unformed Katherine. Their relationship bordered somewhat onto the homoerotic and as Jolley dangled them along the ledge, I was constantly reminded of another female relationship in a subsequent novel, Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal (which of course came after Jolley’s).

Wheeler Centre Highlights: Helen Garner

This post is called ‘highlights’ because I have a ridiculous short term memory, especially when I’m giddy from being in close proximity to my writing idols who are rock stars in my geeky world, and because I don’t like taking notes at events.

This evening, I tripped along to the newly open Wheeler Centre for a session called ‘In Conversation with Jennifer Byrne: Helen Garner‘. The title suggests that it is part of a series and I certainly hope so although Jennifer already hosts a similarly titled series on the ABC to complement the First Tuesday Book Club she also hosts.

The session started off with microphone issues. I was somewhere in the middle of a quite small (and sterile looking, I must say) auditorium and there was difficulty hearing Jennifer’s questions. I felt sorry for the little old ladies sitting in front of me who were a little distressed at not being able to hear. I’ve never heard Helen’s voice and it was a very nice, soft lilt. She comes across quite harsh in her photos but her voice was very warm and kind. I never tire at being surprised by authors’ voices.

Highlights:

• I couldn’t hear the question but Helen began to talk about coercion. She read out a paragraph by Philip Roth from the latest Paris Review so you can check it out if you’re interested. I think it was the last paragraph. She adores Philip Roth’s work.
• Helen spoke a bit about her writing. She writes everyday, either in her journals or whatever she is working on. She’s always kept journals but, rather sadly, the ones before 1980 have been destroyed.
• She loves going to court proceedings and wonders why more writers aren’t as interested, particularly for cases which concerns human morality (not the run-of-the-mill drugs and gangs). She’s gotten me all interested in going to court cases but I’m too afraid to simply show up to watch.
• Currently, Helen’s in the middle of writing a non-fiction book on the Robert Farquharson case but it has been put on hold. Farquharson was found guilty in 2007 of murdering his three sons by driving the family car into a dam on Father’s Day in 2005. However, Farquharson was granted a re-trial which is starts in April 2010.
• What Helen had to say about this case has really stayed with me. She recounts the 2009 summer where Melbourne went through a long heat wave and a devastating bush fire. She noted, in a wonderful expression that, unfortunately, I can’t remember, that the heat made people go mad and do crazy things. Helen recalls the day in January when four-year-old Darcy Freeman was thrown off the West Gate Bridge by her father. That day, Helen was driving her three grandchildren to the beach in the same area and consequently had to drive under the bridge during the time the girl was being resuscitated (although Helen didn’t know what was going on at the moment). With the three grandchildren acting up in the back of the car and the oppressing and stifling heat, what made that father snap, and what didn’t in Helen, was something very small indeed. It could have easily been anybody else.
• What makes some people ‘snap’ and what holds others back is what fascinates Helen. Paraphrasing her words, ‘there are only 30 steps of difference between them and us’.

Helen then briefly talked about her other books – The First Stone, Joe Cinque’s Consolation, and The Spare Room. She wryly quotes Simone de Beauvoir “I write so I will be loved” in response to the backlash she received when The First Stone was released.

It was a great evening. I started off writing this review in the formal manner and referred to both Jennifer and Helen by their last names but it felt so cold so I switched to their first names and now I sound like their best friend. Oh well. I’m still pulling my hair out at not being able to stay behind to get a book signed. Hopefully, there will be a next time. I always get incredibly nervous at book signings though – what do you say to them besides “I really, really, really liked your book/s/writing”? My alternative is to stand there and smile eagerly.

A Gala Night of Storytelling

Last night, I attended the opening session of the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne, of which I blogged about recently (ok, it was more like I boasted ). The inaugural event was a good old storytelling session by a lovely mix of leading Australian writers, a comedian and a musician. I knew the event was sold out but I had absolutely no idea how many people or popular it was going to be. My friend and I were late but it didn’t matter since the line sneaked right around the corner and around 500 metres up the next block. Ironically, I ended up standing outside the antiquarian book store. I wished I had taken a photo of the line because it was pretty exciting to know how many book geeks were out there last night.

The theatre was a lovely room with bygone decor and architecture. Here are some photos I sneaked while waiting for the show to begin:

The mixture of stories told were marvelous and they were all equally captivating. Some were sad and wistful, as were the stories told by David Malouf about his mother and the simplicity and beauty of family love by Tara June Winch, who read out her piece in a most lovely sing-song and gentle voice.

There were funny stories by Cate Kennedy, who regaled the audience with funny anecdotes of her eccentric but lovable grandfather, Judith Lucy, whose family was not big on storytelling but, in turn, provided her with stories to tell, and John Safran, who told us that it was his father who first urged him to test the boundaries and to always …err…poke at things.

There were also stories with morals. John Marsden spoke about a recent incident which caused him to muse over consequences where the youth of today are not part of a community and are never, informally or formally, initiated into society as an ‘adult’. Christos Tsiolkas spoke about the alienation of migration, where grandchildren and grandparents become worlds apart and, in many instances, are no longer even able to speak the same language.

These were just some of the stories told and I was enraptured from the beginning. The finale song by Paul Kelly was both uplifting and sad, teaching, or warning, us about the importance of distinguishing between chance, fate and destiny.

It was a great night and a great welcome and introduction to the Wheeler Centre and christening of Melbourne as a City of Literature. Hurrah! For those who are interested in seeing the event, the session was filmed and it should be available to watch online soon.

It was also great to meet Elena, from With Extra Pulp, after some slight confusion, phone troubles (on my part) and chasing each other around the city on a Saturday night. We enjoyed a Booty Call and weird tasting vodka while talking about books and writing.

Pen Pals of Prose

Simon, at Savidge Reads, is setting up a new project that hopes to unite bibliophiles all over the world with the lost art of pen pal-ing. If you’re interested, simply head over to register and you will be sent a registration form.

I’m quite excited about this. It was pretty difficult in the past to get pen pals but the net, a blessing and a curse, made it much easier. I should also probably point out that my pen pals and I largely communicated via email, and very rarely through hand written letters although we did occasionally send each other small parcels which was so exciting. I’m still somewhat in touch with two pen pals with the help of Facebook and it’s pretty interesting to see how the idea of privacy have changed so dramatically.

Review: “Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture” by Ariel Levy [2005]

There is no denying that raunch is everywhere in our culture today. Music videos, advertisements and even children products are more often than not targeted as ‘sexy’ because, let’s face it, sex sells. In Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy explores and discusses how this culture has risen and how the second-wave feminist struggle has appropriated into the war cry that sex and stripping now means liberalisation for women. Levy writes:

This new raunch culture didn’t mark the death of feminism, they told me; it was evidence that the feminist project had already been achieved. We’d earned the right to look at Playboy; we were empowered enough to get Brazilian bikini waxes.  – p. 4

But have women actually come so far as to not be objectified? Levy asks herself:

And how is imitating a stripper or a porn star – a woman whose job is to imitate arousal in the first place – going to render us sexually liberated? – p. 4

[Strippers] are merely sexual personae, erotic dollies from the land of make-believe. In their performances, which is the only capacity in which we see these women we so fetishize, they don’t even speak … they have no ideas, no feelings, no political beliefs, no relationships, no past, no future, no humanity. – p. 196

How has stripping, imitating sexually explicit poses and flashing their breasts in public or for the camera render women ‘sexually liberated’? Are they still not being objectified as sexual objects by men? Levy sets out to ascertain why the raunch culture is so appealing to women, particularly young, educated women and more concerning, young teenage girls, some as young as twelve, who strive to embody the raunch culture by wearing make-up and snapping g-strings at boys. Levy discovers that raunch and sexual appeal have become separated from the act of sex itself. These young girls understand acting and dressing sexily is what gets attention from boys but they do not understand the act of sex and its pleasures.

Raunch culture, then, isn’t an entertainment option, it’s a litmus test of female uptightness. – p. 40

In the book, Levy also details the history and battles of the second-wave feminist movement and key activists. Women have finally broken through the barriers and have presumably gained gender equality. The problem is, as Levy suggests, that women are still not free to act as ‘women’ or as themselves but they are now pressured to act as ‘men’ so they will be included and considered as one of the boys. Levy discusses women like Christie Hefner, Hugh Hefner’s daughter and the CEO of Playboy, and  Sheila Nevins, a high profile and formidable veteran producer for HBO. They see no problems with producing media that promotes and encourages female raunch. Women either have to ‘get with the program’ or risk looking prudish and uptight to both other men and women.

… the Female Chauvinist Pig (FCP) has risen to a kind of exalted status. She is post-feminist. She is funny. She gets it. She doesn’t mind cartoonish stereotypes of female sexuality, and she doesn’t mind a cartoonishly macho response to them. The FCP asks: Why throw your boyfriend’s Playboy in a freedom trash can when you could be partying at the Mansion? Why worry about disgusting or degrading when you could be giving – or getting – a lap dance yourself? Why try to beat them when you can join them? – p. 93

The female chauvinist pigs are women who consider themselves apart from their less raunchy sisters,

a new sort of loophole woman who is ‘not like other women’, who is instead ‘like a man’. – p. 96

And there lies the problem. Who is this invisible, ideal man that everybody strives to emulate? And are women actually liberated when all it seems is that they are still struggling to be accepted as themselves? Why aren’t the men concerning themselves that if they don’t flash their genitals, women might not find them sexy and think them prudish? The FCP is not limited to heterosexual women and Levy discusses how the lesbian community have appeared to have taken similar heterosexual gender roles such as butches, femmes and bois.

Female Chauvinist Pigs is a slim but thorough and interesting volume and Levy ties in the current, past and alternative cultures nicely although it is very American-centric. The raunch culture have appeared to stabilised since the book was published in 2005 but, having said that, strippers, gyrating dancers, porn stars and Paris Hilton are still figures that many young girls and women look up to. Women still find it hard to find their own independent voice, particularly if they work in male dominated and cut-throat worlds. To succeed, they ultimately have to become ‘one of the boys’ or otherwise come across as uptight.

Literary Crush

Elena, at With Extra Pulp, has started up a new meme which debuted yesterday (Sunday). I’ve decided to join in a day late but it’s better late than never, right?

The rules are pretty simple: Must be a character that appears in a book, comic or graphic novel (because, let’s face it, superheroes are hawt).

One of my long lasting literary crushes has to be Laurie from Little Women. I was devastated, still am actually, when Jo continued to reject Laurie and he ended up marrying Amy. Despite everything turning out well for both Jo and Laurie and their respective partners, you can’t deny the chemistry that was there oozing through the pages and across endless times and oceans. Maybe a slight exaggeration there but you get the idea.

Here’s a clip of Laurie proposing to Jo with Winona Ryder as Jo and a very young and delicious Christian Bale as Laurie.

“We’d kill each other!”