This past weekend, a post over at the My Friend Amy blog got me thinking about how the value of books are determined. It’s an interesting issue, especially given the many conversations we’ve had about the literary merits and lasting value of Harry Potter, as well as our recent conversations about whether or not those things can be equally applied to Twilight. Amy’s post defines a book value in personal terms. That’s a fascinating conversation in and of itself, and I’ve been brainstorming a way to open it up here. Rather than begin a debate presently about how a value of a book is determined (we’ll do that sometime in the future, I promise), let’s do this instead:
Red Rocker made an excellent suggestion in a recent comment – that we all discuss the book/books that had some sort of powerful impact or influence over us and our lives. It’s a very personal conversation, of course, and it could generate some excellent dialogue, as well as a new recommended reading list for the patrons here.
I agree with Red Rocker that there have to be some qualifiers, so here they are:
- No religion sourcebooks or primary sacred texts (Bible, Koran, etc.). We all know these have had powerful impacts on people’s lives, including many of our own; but that’s a discussion for a different venue. And most folks are already fairly familiar with those books and their important purposes.
- No non-fiction; let’s stick with the power of a story. (Historical fiction is allowed.)
- Please stick with one book at a time, not several. Let’s learn about one at a time (feel free to come back later in the conversation and suggest others). And let’s think about one particular book/story at a time (so, you can’t say, “The Sherlock Holmes books” or “The Chronicles of Narnia.” Pick one in the series.)
- You must have actually read the book, not just heard the story, seen the movie, or heard about it. You’re telling your own story about your interaction with a story.
Got it? Go!
Joivre on 
Red Rocker on 
Arabella Figg on 
korg20000bc on 
Travis Prinzi on 
PotterMom05 on 
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{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow. It’s difficult to pick one. Hmmm…
But, I’ll go the stereotypical English major route: Hamlet. Jamie thinks I’m crazy.
I have no idea when I first encountered the story — probably in movie form (I’m guessing the bad adaptation with Mel Gibson). The first time I read the play was on my own in high school. I don’t remember the year. Despite difficulties adjusting to the language, I struggled through it over and over just because the story inexhaustibly fascinated me.
King is killed.
King returns as a ghost to tell his teenage son to avenge his death.
Son is…emotional…
Mom is…flighty…
Uncle is just plain guilty.
Son can’t decide what to do.
Mom hooked up with Uncle.
On and on and on…
You see the soap opera-like plot coming out, but Shakespeare can mine it for so much tension, intrigue, and mind shattering goodness. For all of Hamlet’s overblown bombast, so much subtlety is packed into every detail. And Laertes gets the most powerful line in the play, I think, in Act IV. As Claudius is manipulating the young man’s emotions into a furious frontal assault over Polonius’ death, he asks Laertes what he would do to demonstrate his love for his dead father in actions more than words. Laertes’ response is simple, and just heartbreakingly quiet:
At this point, we learn two things from these eight words. One is that the simple, straightforward declamation belies a sincerity on Laertes’ part that is often absent in Hamlet’s long orations and scheming. The other is that Laertes is doomed — doomed by his own pride and Claudius’ infernal intentions — and it sends shivers down my arms and spine every time I read it.
When Hamlet tears Ophelia to shreds in Act III (I think?), I can just see her crumble, surrounded by men who treat her as an emotional toy. Thus, when she returns to the stage later, psychologically imploding before our eyes, I tear up every time.
A short novella that deeply moved me when I read it in ninth grade was “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes. It’s an epistolary tale, told by Charlie Gordon, a developmentally-disabled man who is the first human chosen for surgery to elevate brain function. Algernon is his mouse predecessor. You can read it at http://dorinta19.bizland.ro/FLOWERS%20FOR%20ALGERNON%20.htm.
It was the first science fiction story I read. It was later novelized, earning the Nebula Award, and made into a film, “Charley,” with Cliff Robertson (best actor Oscar), which I chose to not read or see, favoring the original which I occasionally reread.
The emotive power and poignancy of this story can’t be overstated. It was the first time I was confronted with the concept of bioethics, and I believe it carries a strong message about gaining the world and losing your soul.
So I’m in high school too. And I come upon this book Atlas Shrugged I have no idea why I picked it up. I may have read The Fountainhead previously. Or someone – the librarian? – might have recommended it. I don’t think I got it in the school library though.
Anyways, there I am, with this massive book in hand. Imagine all seven HP volumes in one. And there is a lot of speeechifying. Pages and pages of speeches, including John Galt’s 56 page speech. The characters are clearly divided into two camps: the good guys, who believe in individual freedom and initiative and creativity; and the bad guys, who are state-sanctioned thieves and villains. Libertarians vs Communists. There are also a few out-and-out victims (Eddie and Cherryl), people who are not strong enough to fight the bad guys. And there are some bad guys who should know better (Stadler). It’s a story of the fight between the good guys and the bad guys – as well as between their two philosophies. The main plot is simple: the good guys decide to go on strike, and retire to a valley in the Rockies from whence they await the break-down of civilization as it’s deprived of their services.
None of which I’m really interested in, at least not to begin with. All my life I’ve read for interesting characters experiencing conflict. So I latch on to Hank Rearden, Francisco D’Anconia and Dagny Taggart, whose love triangle gives some central focus to a story as sprawling as any Russian epic. I make my way through the book, dodging past the speeches, dodging the sections about the bad guys who are fairly uniform in their sleaziness and unprepossessing names (e.g. Bertram Scudder, Wesley Mouch, Balph Eubank), focusing on the sections with the good guys, and trying to piece together the plot.
I emerge from this feeling very positively towards individualism, capitalism and selfishness (which Rand presents as a supreme virtue) and Aristotle, and disliking government regulation, altruism , socialism and words such as collective. It takes me years to work out my own position towards these things, keeping some of Rand’s philosophy, but rejecting or at least modifying other points. I take from her a love of Victor Hugo, and share with her a love for Dostoevsky and O Henry. Over time I learn more about Rand herself (not her real name). I see how she’s rejected many of her own roots in developing her heroic vision of mankind. I read the rest of her fiction. And just last year, I hear that Pitt/Jolie are interested in filming the book, with Jolie as Dagny and Russell Crowe as Rearden. I don’t believe it will happen in today’s economic climate, but it’s something to look forward to.
I submitted a comment which disappeared – I’m hoping Travis can rescue it. In the meantime, I just wanted to say Arabella that I loved Flowers for Algernon. I too had a very strong emotional response to it – I cried, actually, when the effects of Charley’s surgery started to wear off. I’ve wondered, since, if that’s how people feel in the early stages of Alzheimer’s: understanding what’s coming, and helpless to do anything to avert it.
I may have seen the movie once. It wasn’t bad. But nowhere near the power of the story.
I remember the first time I read “Beowulf” (Seamus Heaney’s translation, which is brilliant) and being struck with the same brisk feeling of Northerness that Tolkien and Lewis experienced and loved. I can still remember being haunted by the closing imagery of the Geat woman crying and pulling at her hair with the smoke of Beowulf’s pyre floating off the headland promontory. Epic and chilling.
the bardling
Your comment about the Geat woman reminded me of the statue of the Mary Magdalene by Donatello at the Duomo in Florence.
http://www.oceanru.com/magdalene/Mary_Magdalene_Donatello.jpg
You can read more about Flowers for Algernon, including some FAQs at http://www.vinton-shellsburg.k12.ia.us/tms/seventh/rdg7/algernon.html – 3k -
Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
I found my mom’s copy from high school in our basement when I was in high school and read it (mostly just because I love the smell of old books). I immediately fell in love with it, and I reread it fairly regularly. It’s a non-fiction account (his journal) of the author’s transition from life as a white man to life as a black man living in Alabama, Mississippi, etc. He shaved his arms, head, and hands and changed his skin pigmentation with drugs and ultra-violet lights. It was just so jarring to read about some of his experiences and how he was treated. It’s very emotional for me. I recommend it to everyone.
oops, didn’t mean for the whole post to be italicized…
Flowers for Algernon was one of those books that made me cry and cry, and then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. They made a movie of it that was actually pretty well done, “Charly”, with Cliff Robertson (1968). I don’t know what the newer one is like.
And I remember reading Black Like Me in the early or mid-60s. It was powerful whether you agree or disagree with what he did, because it really let the reader at least have a glimpse of what it was like to have that sort of racial hatred aimed at you. I, like a lot of others, thought that it resulted in the author having skin cancer and dying from it, but according to Wikipedia (that paragon of truth), he had other health problems that had nothing to do with the stuff he took to change his skin, and that he never had skin cancer. But, yes, definitely worth reading, and not a very long book at all, so it’s a quick read that will keep you thinking for a while.
And I’ll add to the list, Barack Obama’s book, Dreams from My Father. I found it interesting, and written in a style that was easy to read – and definitely shows our President-elect to be a person of integrity and honesty.
Oh, and Red Rocker, I read most of what I could find of Ayn Rand – and I did get all mine from my school library. I found the stories compelling, but for some reason I never wanted to re-read any of them. Later, I’ve come to realize that it’s mostly because I don’t agree with her “me only, and the heck with the rest of the world” attitude that is so strong, especially in Atlas Shrugged, which was the last one of hers that I read. But, I am glad that I read her books. (I read Anthem and <The Fountainhead first, and I may have read We the Living, but I’m not sure about that one.) They made me think about my own beliefs, and that’s never a bad thing. Sometimes it is reading something that is nearly the opposite of our own beliefs that helps us figure out just where we do stand – and I would never had done what the characters did at the end of AS. At least, I hope not.
Pat
Oops – forgot part of the tag for The Fountainhead. Sorry.
Pat, strictly for its story-telling, I think that We the Living was Rand’s best book. Less polemical, with more accessible characters. It also showed a very realistic – and harrowing – view of life in the Soviet Union just after the revolution. Three families to a flat, a diet of millet, and rampant tuberculosis.
I read Black Like Me and found it moving, of course, and maddening too. But I have to ask myself why Griffin felt the need to disguise himself to understand what it felt like to be black. He was a journalist who wrote about racial inequality. Were there not enough black people to tell him exactly what that was like?
The book that I considered my favorite for a long time was A Tale of Two Cities.
I have a strong affection for books that have strong themes of redemption and a great love of historical fiction. A Tale of Two Cities is an exquisite combination of the themes of redemption, romance, social change, revolution, corruption, and revenge. It is a very complex and humorous story and I tried my hardest to convince all of my close friends to read it. Incidentally, it also solidified my Dickens addiction that had been fueled by The Old Curiosity Shop.
OK, now that I’ve actually read all the rules, which I (ahem) skimmed before and didn’t follow very well . . . sorry.
The Illuminator, by Brenda Rickman Vantrease. It’s set in the late fourteenth century in England. The main character is Finn, an artist who illuminates bibles, specifically ones for the Church, but also those for John Wycliffe who is translating the Bible into English. So there is the conflict and the intrigue, as Finn continues to break the rules of the Church, then meets a widow and her family as well as historical figures who are important to the issue of Bible translation.
For me, it is the best kind of historical fiction: fictional characters whose lives intertwine with real people. Vantrease, from the research that I was able to do, did her homework in the accuracy of her historical characters, John Wycliffe, Bishop Henry Dispenser, Julian of Norwich and John Ball.
It wasn’t a period of time that I knew much about before I picked up the book, so I did what I always do with historical fiction and started looking up people and events even as I read the book. I was happy to find out that the “facts” were fairly accurate and I enjoyed learning more about the process of illumination and the whole controversy of translating the Bible into the language of the people. I’ve heard about Wycliffe Bible translators for years, but never really understood who he was or just how dangerous it was in the beginning to be involved in any part of and English Bible. This book has provided that missing connection to today’s Wycliffe Bible translators.
Julian of Norwich also was someone I’d heard of, but not much more than just her name. So I had to do a lot of reading there. And as it turned out, before I finished the book, hubby was sent on a business trip to where else, but Norwich, England. I really, really wanted to go on that trip. And I seriously thought about trying to figure out a way to just go. I am sure I could have entertained myself quite nicely while he was working – and would have been content to stay in England when they then went off to Spain for a few days. But there was no way it was going to work – the timing was too short for me to get a reasonably priced airline ticket, for one thing, and I had other things I had committed to. As it turned out, most of the time he was gone, I was sick with bronchitis, so I couldn’t really have gone anyway. After reading about Julian, I especially liked the way Rowling ended Deathly Hallows with “All was well”, echoing Julian’s words (from the plaque in Lady Julian’s cell):
All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
Instead of visiting all these places for myself, I had to content myself with talking to hubby about the book and making him promise to see some of the places in Norwich, where a good portion of the book takes place. He came back with photos, souvenier books and post cards and a china mug from Norwich.
The Illuminator is a book that I want to re-read. In fact, I had it out last fall, but picked up something else instead. Now that I’ve thought about it again, I might just put it ahead of some of the other books on my “read soon” list, or maybe I’ll just add it to my 2009 list and see where it falls.
Pat
Another one that I just finished reading (for the multiple-eth time…I’m probably making that word up) is “Perelandra”, the second book in Lewis’ Space Trilogy. This series often seems (unfortunately) buried beneath the edifice of Lewis’ other equally brilliant works, but it has become one of my favorite trilogies. Lewis has such an amazing way of turning normal perceptions inside out you can see the real nature of the issue at hand, and he does that well here in contrasting the hero Ransom and his fallen earth attitudes with those of the unfallen world of Perelandra. There’s a ton of philosophical, theological, aesthetic, and scientific themes packed in here, and all artfully done.
thebardling, thank you for confirming my suspicions that I should be moving the Space Trilogy up the list of books I need to read.
Definitely Brent. The Space Trilogy is one of Lewis’ lesser known jewels.
The story that most grabbed me when I was growing up was Peter Pan. Though I was introduced to it by the musical, a highly simplified book, and then a couple of different animations (surprisingly not Disney), I read the real book by the time I got to middle school. I’m sure Barrie’s story was the first I encountered that really had that “faerie” element, which explains why it was always my favorite. A book by a Scottish author about kids who escape to a magical world…thinking about it, its easy to see why I’m now drawn to HP.
I also loved “Flowers for Algernon”, I don’t know what made me pick it up, but it is a wonderful story.
I have to say there are a lot of books I could write here, and I’m looking at my shelf thinking ” I’ve got to re-read some of these!” But I’m too busy reading Harry Potter for the 600th time
So, my recommendation: “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold. Now that I have a child, it would be worth re-reading just to see how much more emotional I’ll get!
I would never read The Lovely Bones again. I cried non-stop the first time I read it. And now that I too have a child, I would not risk the total emotional meltdown that would be inevitable.
As a freshman in college, somebody told me to read On the Road. I liked it enough to try some other Kerouac books — and I found The Dharma Bums. I spent two summer afternoons laying by a lake, envisioning Japhy Ryder (a thinly disguised Gary Snyder) running across bolders next to high mountain lakes in the Sierra Nevadas. Everytime I see a snow-capped peak in California, now, I can’t help but see that image in my head.
Not everyone’s cup-of-tea. But, even if On the Road turns you off, I think The Dharma Bums could still appeal to you.
Hmmm, I read The Lovely Bones, and like Red Rocker, I cried all the way through it. But not because of my own daughters. It’s because it made me constantly think of a young girl who was murdered in our town in 1991. They found her body, but never found the killer. So it wasn’t the same situation, but close enough with the randomness of a child being murdered.
Pat
Yes… I think I like books that bring out that raw emotion. I also thought the point of view through which it was written was wonderfully done.
Marley and Me is another one, I cried through the last 3 chapters I think.
Here’s a gripping, awarded YA book that, each time I read it, keeps me inwardly debating for days over the ending: Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman. Fourteen-year old Shawn suffers from such severe cerebral palsy that he can’t function or respond in any way to declare his existence. Yet, with his bright, funny mind, he relates his perceptions of his life, family, condition, and belief that his father is planning a mercy-killing. Trueman later wrote a companion book, Cruise Control, told from Shawn’s brother’s perspective.
One of favourite stories that struck some type of enduring chord with me was Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini. The story is about Peter Blood- an Irish doctor, formerly a mercenary, who is accused of treason after he renders medical aid to rebels against King James. He’s sentenced to death but ends up being transported to the Caribbean. He turns pirate but a pirate with stores of personal honour and restraint.
I really enjoy the personal journey of the protagonist and the self-mocking awareness of his plight. It’s a study of honour, self-control, courage and how doing “good” often brings short-term loss but long-term gain.
I love Sabatini’s writing and humour.