My Life in Books – Part 2

Last week I talked about books I liked as a child and K-12 student — and those I didn’t like but was forced to read for English class.

I forgot one of those books: the book I call my favorite book ever. Looking back I think I read this book as part of that special “advanced reading group” in junior high. I thought it was seventh grade, but it was probably ninth grade. Oh, the name of the book? A Separate Peace* by John Knowles. I don’t know why that book had such an impact on me. I remember only the main character, Phineas, and the fact it was about young men going to war. And one other thing that might be a spoiler in case you haven’t read the book. Several years ago — probably more than that — I tried to read the book again, and it was just too heavy in my later years! But at the time I read it, I went on to read other John Knowles books, including Indian Summer, which I believe was a sequel to A Separate Peace, and The French Lieutenant’s Woman. 

I don’t recall ever seeing a movie of A Separate Peace, but I just looked it up and the movie does exist, so I might have seen it. I would buy it now, but I have neither a way to play DVDs or VHS tapes!

I was a double major in Print Media and English Literature, so I know I took at least eight specialized English courses. I don’t remember them all. I do remember the British poetry: Blake, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley. I didn’t like any of it. Who knows why I majored in English! Confessions of an Opium Eater gave some promise of enjoyment, but I think I was disappointed.  I am sure I took a course in earlier works because I remember reading The Canterbury Tales, which weren’t so bad.

I remember a course in more modern American writers, but remember none of the books except perhaps Agee’s A Death in the Family. Maybe some of the books I remember reading at some point around that time were included in that class.

Two of my English classes were favorites. One was a Shakespeare class taught by the world famous (late)Wylie Sypher. We read a number of Shakespeare’s plays, but the only one I remember loving is Othello, which remains my favorite. The other great class was Music in Literature. It was in the music department, which consisted of three courses, all of which I took. Nothing stands out in my mind about that class — which was basically an opera class — except Tristan and Isolde, which I just loved. I remember nothing about either of those favorite works.

During my college and young adult years, I read many of the books that were trendy at the time. These were the 70s and 80s. Here are some of them:

• A couple of books that would be too heavy for me now were John Barth’s The Sotweed Factor and Gunther Grass’s The Tin Drum*. Loved them both.
• Read some Steinbeck including The Grapes of Wrath (likely for some class),  Cannery Row, and Tortilla Flat. The last two were of my own choosing during my Steinbeck “thing.”
• Not so many notable African American writers then, but I read Native Son by Richard Wright and The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. 
• And of course I read some Fitzgerald: Tender Is the Night and The Great Gatsby (possibly for a college course).
• And whatever I read by Hemingway and Faulkner I didn’t like.
• Who can forget Vonnegut, the most notable writer of my college days? I read them all.
• I had a thing about D.H. Lawrence for a while and read several. First, of course, Lady Chatterly’s Lover* and then Sons and Lovers.
• I did read the first 110 pages of War and Peace. And that was that.
• The Hobbit* and the Lord of the Rings trilogy are among my all-time favorites. I read The Hobbit to my kids when they were little. I still have those four books.
• Did the dystopian thing too, although I am not sure when: 1984, Animal Farm*, Lord of the Flies*, A Clockwork Orange. I think Animal Farm may have been part of that advanced reading group too. Animal Farm is one of my favorites.
• Read some popular sci fi, including Brave New World by Huxley, Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein, and Dune* by Herbert.
• Oh, and I read the junk: Valley of the Dolls and Peyton Place!
• I did not ignore the “classics,” although there are many I didn’t read. I liked Tess of the Durbervilles, Madame Bovary, and Far from the Madding Crowd* by Hardy. 
• I read the creepy ones: Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and In Cold Blood.

Here are some of the other books I read and really liked. And if you are of my era, you likely did too!

• Catch 22*
• The Bell Jar by Plath
• Night* by Elie Wiesel
• Myra Breckinridge by Gore Vidal
• The Word According to Garp*
• On the Road* by Jack Kerouac – still have that one too.
• Franny and Zooey* by Salinger
• Naked Lunch by Burroughs 
• The Chosen* by Chaim Potok
• Portnoy’s Complaint* and a lot of others by Philip Roth
• Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (no relation) because it was supposed to be, you know…..
• Dead Souls by Gogol
• Ragtime* by Doctorow
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull, inscribed to be in 1974 by my then boyfriend. I had it until recently and I had to do away with it!
• Oh, and that one about the meat factory by Upton Sinclair — or do I have two books confused???
• And Catcher in the Rye*!!

If you haven’t read some of those books, I would recommend them, especially the ones I have starred! Don’t commend me on my fabulous memory. When I started to use Goodreads, I put all the books I could remember reading in my life on the list. So I just looked at the list. However, I didn’t look at it carefully or look at how to spell the author’s names. I wanted this to be more organic: how I remembered them, or to see if I could remember them. So I apologize if I spelled any author names wrong or tweaked the titles a bit.

Happy Reading!

---

Next Week: Special Fourth of July Post