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Apr. 11th, 2004 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iceinyourmusicHum, how to procrastinate on this Sunday? There's no way I'm ever going to list anything like "my most important books", but very quickly and randomly, ten of the many books that have made a difference to me:
[x] The Diary of Anne Frank
Nazis are bad. Diaries are good. People must be good at the heart, after all. Rereads are endless.
[x] L.M. Montgomery, the Emily books
For a good number of years, Emily defined my ambitions, and Teddy Kent defined my romantic ideal; the extent of the permanent damage done by this is anybody's guess.
[x] Agatha Christie, Ten Little Indians
Beginning of an era.
[x] Jane Connor, Just Good Friends
The first book I ever read all the way through in English. Then reread it. Then reread it. All 14-year-old love interests in the world should always be called Twig.
[x] Anja Kauranen, Pelon maantiede
Theoretical feminism, chillingly lovely homicidal lesbians, and the rediscovery of the domestic literature.
[x] Donna Tartt, Secret History
The bible of murderous pseudo-intellectualism, the definitive angsty teenager novel, the one I carried with me to school and sat alone in the corner reading, like the geek I was; it made me believe (but what?). And yes, I may occasionally mock it now, but maybe that's exactly why.
[x] The Journals of Sylvia Plath
have probably influenced me (and continue to influence me) more than any other book ever, but mostly I hope it doesn't show; that is all.
[x] Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Much to my shame, I can't claim that the content or the style ever turned my world upside down per se, but it did start the process that eventually had me landing in fandom. Surely that counts as formative.
[x] Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction
A man appeared on a flaming pie, and he spoke with the voice of god, and his name was Brian McHale, and we saw that this was good. Got to me at a fairly impressionable stage in my life (2nd or 3rd semester at the university, I think), and even though I've already forgotten most of the details, I think it's safe to say that there's very little about my way of looking at contemporary literature that doesn't owe something to McHale.
[x] Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace
Because, maybe my favourite. And the book that launched a thousand obsessions. I didn't really really get into it before I tried to write a seminar paper on it, but better late than never, no? Just ask me, and I'll never stop talking about it.
[Indefinitely edited to add Most Glaring Accidental Omissions Bubbling Under: Carolyn Keene, the Nancy Drew books; Christian Leourier, L'arbres-miroir; Steven Brust & Emma Bull, Freedom & Necessity; Nina Auerbach, Our Vampires, Ourselves; Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises; Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology; Mirjami Hietala, Toinen mahdollisuus.]
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melymbrosia has been keeping track of people listing their formative books.
[x] The Diary of Anne Frank
Nazis are bad. Diaries are good. People must be good at the heart, after all. Rereads are endless.
[x] L.M. Montgomery, the Emily books
For a good number of years, Emily defined my ambitions, and Teddy Kent defined my romantic ideal; the extent of the permanent damage done by this is anybody's guess.
[x] Agatha Christie, Ten Little Indians
Beginning of an era.
[x] Jane Connor, Just Good Friends
The first book I ever read all the way through in English. Then reread it. Then reread it. All 14-year-old love interests in the world should always be called Twig.
[x] Anja Kauranen, Pelon maantiede
Theoretical feminism, chillingly lovely homicidal lesbians, and the rediscovery of the domestic literature.
[x] Donna Tartt, Secret History
The bible of murderous pseudo-intellectualism, the definitive angsty teenager novel, the one I carried with me to school and sat alone in the corner reading, like the geek I was; it made me believe (but what?). And yes, I may occasionally mock it now, but maybe that's exactly why.
[x] The Journals of Sylvia Plath
have probably influenced me (and continue to influence me) more than any other book ever, but mostly I hope it doesn't show; that is all.
[x] Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Much to my shame, I can't claim that the content or the style ever turned my world upside down per se, but it did start the process that eventually had me landing in fandom. Surely that counts as formative.
[x] Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction
A man appeared on a flaming pie, and he spoke with the voice of god, and his name was Brian McHale, and we saw that this was good. Got to me at a fairly impressionable stage in my life (2nd or 3rd semester at the university, I think), and even though I've already forgotten most of the details, I think it's safe to say that there's very little about my way of looking at contemporary literature that doesn't owe something to McHale.
[x] Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace
Because, maybe my favourite. And the book that launched a thousand obsessions. I didn't really really get into it before I tried to write a seminar paper on it, but better late than never, no? Just ask me, and I'll never stop talking about it.
[Indefinitely edited to add Most Glaring Accidental Omissions Bubbling Under: Carolyn Keene, the Nancy Drew books; Christian Leourier, L'arbres-miroir; Steven Brust & Emma Bull, Freedom & Necessity; Nina Auerbach, Our Vampires, Ourselves; Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises; Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology; Mirjami Hietala, Toinen mahdollisuus.]
melymbrosia has been keeping track of people listing their formative books.
