I was recently asked what ten books that I can think of that have had a significant impact on me, and I thought I would use the exercise to write a little about them.
Many of my favourite books were from when I was young. As such, and for the sake of not offering any favouritism, I’ll list them in the order I read them; a developmental chronology, if you will.
Oh, and favouritism is moot anyway. 1984. Most important book of my life. But I digress…
Fantastic Mr Fox – Roald Dahl
The beauty of Roald Dahl’s storytelling lies in the ease with which he wraps the fantastical with the horrific. Kids love to be scared by a nasty fairytale and Dahl pitched every story perfectly, projecting its young heroes into terrifying and wondrous peril and against villains so grotesque that no adult would ever have believed the stories. I could as easily have picked James and the Giant Peach though, or any other number of his books. I adored Revolting Rhymes, but if I move toward rhyming then where does Dr Zeuss figure… But the list is merely ten books long, so alas, alack, the rhyming tomes are gone.
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
I read this when I was quite young, and didn’t completely understand the complicated societal issues that were being played out on the island until later, but the intensity of the atmosphere, as the layers of societal protection so quickly slipped away, was palpable. The believably cruel actions of the child survivors as they slowly lose the ties connecting them to their old lives and descend into savagery gripped me at the time. The seeming ease at which the initial ‘protection of parents and school and policemen and the law’ slipped away, and how naturally the children adopted brutality over the old order was an early, and chilling lesson on the fragility of civilisation.
Lord of The Rings – J.R.R.Tolkien
What do I need to say? It’s Lord of the Rings. It’s an entire world, set over (at least) tens of thousands of years, with an entire history from creation through four ages of civilisations. The richness of the world comes from the wealth of history and culture that Tolkien, a student of linguistics and mythology, created. It is a stupendous endeavour and I loved it as a kid, reading it every year on holiday. I got the entire trilogy down to nine days by the fifth year…
Animal Farm – George Orwell
Orwell is the only author to feature twice on my list but justifiably so. In Animal Farm, he wraps up the glorious, righteous rise and ignominious, corrupted fall of the Communist revolution in a sumptuous allegory. Our investment in the animals carrying the bloody weight of the revolution, our sadness at their betrayal and the inevitable slide of the pigs towards corruption, makes the entire experience one of final, crushing futility. It is at times triumphal and brutal and shocking, right up to its final, absolute moment of capitulation; ‘some animals are more equal than others.’ Boom.
Equal Rites – Terry Pratchett
Again, I could have picked any of the first set of books, be it a Rincewind tale, the witches, the guards or wizards’ books, so I’ve again picked the first one I read. Every book is fantastical and wrapped in satire. They are multi-layered to seamlessly merge a frantic, funny narrative with societal allegory. Pratchett’s world is as extensive as Tolkien’s, and he explores genres with his different sets of characters, veering from detective novel to romance to mysticism without ever losing the fantastical, twisted reflection his Discworld series holds up to us.
1984 – George Orwell
The daddy of all dystopian novels. A prophetic, crushing, claustrophobic… Look, if you need me to tell you why this one is so important then you should probably just leave right now. Go on. Out.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Ah, what a great loss Douglas Adams was, and so young. His brilliance and silliness are divinely played out through the Hitchhiker series, and his other existing works, such as the Dirk Gently books and the Salmon of Truth. I love rereading Hitchhiker’s Guide, and watching the seventies TV show, and I even watch that fairly appalling film once in a while. I love it so much that I might have to name one of my children Slarty Bartfast… Poor little blighter.
London Fields – Martin Amis
This was my first Martin Amis book and, although Money is a close contender, is still my favourite. In typically Amis postmodernist style, the author is also our narrator and details the interactions between our femme fatale, Nicola Six, and two men she meets in a pub, Keith Talent, an East-end knuckle dragger and darts enthusiast, and Guy Clinch, a repressed upper-middle class businessman. Nicola Six enlists the author to document her pushing them both to their limits over her final days. She knows that they are her final days because Nicola Six has a talent; she can see the future and already knows who it is who will kill her.
Glamorama – Brett Easton-Ellis
Damn, this is still the most upsetting book I have ever read, even more so than 1984, due to the inexorable slide into depravity and wretchedness its lead character takes. I had read American Psyche before but that didn’t even touch the overwhelming sense of muted despair and apathetic futility of Glamorama. It is dark, depressing and brutal. I love it.
Beyond Good and Evil – Friedrich Nietzsche
And finally, a philosopher. I considered that I should probably have Marx in this list somewhere but, however useful Marx was as a tool for awakening societal understanding in terms of epochs and means of production, his manifesto was not the most thrilling read. However, Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil is something else entirely. Before I’d read Nietzsche, I wouldn’t have believed that a philosopher could be cutting, and sharp, and yet still mischievous. There is a literary beauty to Nietzsche’s writing that inspires radical thought and challenges dogmatic societal structures. He also had ossibly the most badass moustache of all time.
And that’s the lot. Undoubtedly I will regret the omission of certain names the moment I press submit but so be it. I would already like to make an honourable mention of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, another sublime, disturbing masterpiece that I only read in recent years. This, and so many other wonderful books unfortunately didn’t make the list.
The Bland Corporation 