October 23rd, 2010 / 7:29 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Sean Lovelace—
What are the books you need to read between ages 17-22; if not then, never read them at all.
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Meta
catcher in the rye, on the road, heartbreaking work of staggering genius, the unbearable lightness of being, everything is illuminated, updike in general, bukowski in general. it’s good too if you can get lunch poems under your belt before you turn into a cold-hearted snob, but as long as you get early exposure, o’hara is forever rereadable.
I think (maybe) that if a novel affects you in a very radically different way after age 22, you’ve either lost touch with your roots, found them, or grown so wise that you lost all feeling. I have no idea what I just said.
Plath. If you read her during that time frame, you can maybe have nostalgic love once you’re post-22. But I don’t think you can pick up The Bell Jar for the first time at 28 and not just want to punch her in the face.
been down so long it looks like up to me
Steppenwolf, Richard Yates, Howl, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Jesus’ Son, On The Road, The Journal of Albion Moonlight, The Prophet, Lord of the Rings, The Naked Lunch. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way Of Knowledge …
I can’t do Steppenwolf or Howl and I’m still in this age group.
hunter s. thompson
a clockwork orange,
The Book of Disquiet, The Street of Crocodiles, Three Lives, The Metamorphosis, Nightwood, On the Road, Catcher in the Rye,
That’s a good start.
Can we like be friends or something, because you nailed this list. I would add The Road, though it’s pretty readable post 22, I would have loved it in my late adolescence.
i totally missed the window for this one. the first time i read it, i didn’t even know what the hell ‘uncut horse’ was and why it went into that nice lady’s hoo-ha.
i tried at 16, 18, and 20, and i couldn’t get through it. maybe it’s a book for odd-number-aged people
the book of disquiet is perfect for this list.
i am pretty shocked that this post hasn’t yet devolved into yet another protracted (i almost wrote prolapsed) tao lin flame war. it probably will, now that i’ve made this comment. tao lin arguments are the rumpelstiltskin of arguments.
Anything by Henry Miller, Chuck Palahniuk and Chuck Klosterman.
Also any rock bios, such as The Dirt, etc.
I don’t like to say there is such a thing as girl books or boy books, but I think part of the appeal of The Bell Jar (I can’t really speak about her poetry) is having someone else understand what it’s like to be a nineteen-year-old girl. Just as I’m sure I’m probably missing something deep and meaningful in Catcher by not having once been a teenage male.
Casteneda – nice
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 1984, Brave New World, The Color Purple, The Handmaid’s Tale…
Anything by Billy Joel.
letters to wendys
you shall know our velocity, anything by jonathan safran foer
Agree with most of the above, but “Catcher in the Rye” is the lazy choice here.
The earlier you read Jesus’ Son the better. I read it at 28 or 29 and thought ‘oh god, this really would have fucked my shit up if I had read it earlier.’ I think Jesus’ Son is blatantly apparent in a lot of the work talked about here and with a lot of college/recently post college folks.
hunter s. thompson
a clockwork orange,
vonnegut. tom robbins.
Dianetics
I’m gonna go ahead and say Borstal Boy. It’s the first thing that popped into my head and I’m high, so it’s gotta be the right answer.
Wait, how about all the Beats? Post puberty really whets the appetite for drugs, like your body knows it’ll never have it that good again.
This list. I’d also probably add Hesse. But maybe Steppenwolf should be read even younger? Also, as noted below– Bell Jar.
epic of gilgamesh, greek tragedies, winesburg ohio, on the road, howl, godot, the stranger, blood meridian, the elementary particles, unbearable lightness of being, rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead, something plato, shakespeare, dostoevsky, nietzsche, wilde, hemingway, viriginia wolf, faulkner, nella larsen, richard wright, flannery oconnor, frank ohara, kafka, murakami, delillo, raymond carver, john cheever
sartre, flaubert, augustine, in dubious battle
chekhov
proust.
Anything by EL Doctorow. Has anyone else gone back to those recently and wish they hadn’t?
pound’s cantos
Some of the sci-fi heavies: Neuromancer, Philip K Dick etc.
Also: Thomas Pynchon, Aldous Huxley
Richard Yates and Jesus’ Son are both great after 22. In fact, I think I would’ve found Yates too quiet (which is to say boring) at 17-22. I would’ve liked Jesus’ Son because of the humor and the drugs, but probably would’ve missed a lot of the deep shizzle going on in that there text.
Yeah, because Pessoa never really made it past that virginal stage.
You can’t read rock bios after 22?
I’m 32, Canadian and when I was at the ages 17-22 I was reading Canadian novels like Obasan by Joy Nozomi Kogawa, Mordechai Richler – The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and its like. These are what my high school thought imperative to discover. Not until I was in University that I began to discover Milton, Robert Browning, Beowulf. Some of the writing was stifling and I realized the lists were never perfect so I realized I had to go out on my own. If I had it my way this is what those ages groups should read, Top Ten:
Allen Ginsberg – Collected Poems
Charles Bukowski – Women
Donald Barthelme – The Dead Father
Lawrence Durrell – Justine
John Fante – Ask the Dust
Richard Wright – Black Boy
Unknown – Beowulf
Miguel De Cervantes – Don Quixote
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
B.P. Nichol – The True Eventual Story of Billy the Kid
this list has basically turned into a list of every book ever / a place where people brag about books that they read before 22, according to my gf.
seems like we shouldn’t read anything after 22.
I’ve heard that The Fountainhead is exactly this kind of book. I got it when I was 16 and now I’m 22. Should I finally give it a go before it’s too late?
darby said vonnegut, I think.
Everything Here is the Best Thing Every, Ever, Richard Yates* (*the novel), The Complete Works of Marvin K. Mooney, Scorch Atlas, Light Boxes, Eat When You Feel Sad, and Hamlet.
I see what you did there.
Surfacing, by Margaret Atwood. Wait – anything by Margaret Atwood. Then again, that holds true for ages 23-89 too.
quick skim of the above comments and nobody’s said Vonnegut yet?
Murakami?
This list is ridiculous. I’m guessing it’s a joke, but Virginia Wolf (sic)? Kafka? Faulkner?
I’ve heard that The Fountainhead is exactly this kind of book. I got it when I was 16 and now I’m 22. Should I finally give it a go before it’s too late?
darby said vonnegut, I think.
RA Salvatore. Drizzt Do’Urden just isn’t as interesting when suddenly confronted with the prospect of bills.
I believe Mr. Con is referring to the novel “Richard Yates” by Tao Lin, not the writer Richard Yates, who wrote “Easter Parade” and “Revolutionary Road,” among other things. This is something that sometimes gets confused because of Tao’s Lin choice to name his most recent novel after one of the more famous writers of the 20th Century. He did this to infer the emotional weight the writer Richard Yates often wrote with and at the same time to make a (sly?) gesture that Lin’s own novel is also “autobiographical fiction,” like what Yates himself said he wrote (though one could argue that the book Richard Yates is straight non-fiction, with names changed to famous movie stars). Please don’t feel bad if you didn’t catch it, everyone thinks it’s ridiculous that Lin named his novel after Yates too. It’s just some people have to pretend otherwise, for personal reasons.
Also, I wholeheartedly agree with the Klosterman, rock bios, Heartbreaking Work, On the Road, and Bell Jar suggestions. Brilliant question.
damn, was really ridiculous when picasso named a drawing of a woman and her hands “war and peace.” what is he think is. was really ridiculous when james joyce named one novel after a character from another book, an epic poem no less, and then he named his next book after a pub song. why’d duchamp name a toilet “fountain.” that’s ridiculous it’s not a fountain when i was 17 i played with childish things when i got to be 22.1 years of age i put aside childish i said i have no i have friends personal reasons serious put aside serious writer to myself i said everyone thinks it’s so ridiculous that it’s ridiculous that he ridiculous everyone
why is that list ridiculous? you can’t read “hard” books at a young age? modernism too much for a 17-22 year old?
I’d say The Secret History is perfect for 17-22… and then forever re-readable.
honestly it seems pretty strange to say ‘this book must be read’ at all, regardless of age. to some degree if you’re really into literary studies, you do need a grounding in some of the ‘big novels.’ but otherwise who gives a shit, people will read what they read when they read it.
so that is me agreeing with you.
Is this comment an inside joke? I really can’t keep them straight so you’ll have to enlighten me Stephen. But thank you(not really, I am using sarcasm here) for your interesting history and literature lesson. I was so dense before!(again, sarcasm).
Maybe you typed your very lucid(not really, this is sarcasm) comment from your Blackberry or from gchat. That would explain everything. And then later when someone asks, “Stephen, why could you not construct one coherent sentence?”
You’ll just say, “Well, I was typing this on from my Zune-Pad, don’t you get it?”
Again, though, great topic, I also second Howl, Fear and Loathing, and Catcher in the Rye.
Nonsense begets nonsense style. I typed that on my computer. I don’t like snobbery, I don’t like bullshit, and I don’t like the dismissal of young people. I’m not using sarcasm this time. You don’t know me, Jeffrey. I’m not sure what you know. I construct many things. We’re not on the same level. Interpret that inside.
it’s ridiculous because the question is asking for books that, if not read between 17-22, should never be read at all. I think faulkner holds up pretty well for them older folks.
god, why does htmlgiant always get me pissed off. fuck everything haha…
steve…
i was going to write something in this thread, but i resisted…
there’s no way to “win”…
The Bell Jar, A Clockwork Orange, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Catcher in the Rye, and Girl, Interrupted.
JT Leroy. He’s a better writer than most young people, but still.
@stephen –
I thought maybe you were channeling Molly Bloom’s soliloquy or something with the devolving language. (I may be way off here, I know.) I liked it, (and it doesn’t really matter where it came from). Try not to get upset or feel too bad.
“everyone thinks it’s ridiculous that Lin named his novel after Yates too.”
That’s not really true, I don’t think it’s ridiculous.
Reads like a curriculum, doesn’t it?
Ah-ha! That makes more sense indeed. Thanks, my friend.
Uh…
It’s actually a pretty amazing novel. Howard Roark is a memorable, strong character. Absolutely read it at your first opportunity. Just try to read it as a novel. We all hate Ayn Rand, but The Fountainhead was a fucking novel’s novel. Never got around to Atlas, Shrugged, and still don’t have intentions to.
Jeffrey, you’re right, I was referring to the novel RICHARD YATES by Tao Lin, not the writer of the same name.
I’d like to stress my list isn’t in any way condemnatory. I simply believe
there are some books more acutely encountered when one is young, though I’d never discourage anyone from reading them once one has reached a level of maturity and independence.
One error in my list: I meant to type ‘Naked Lunch’ not ‘The Naked Lunch’.
Crap, I shouldn’t drink and post.
JEFFREY WHO IS EVERYONE WHERE DO THEY HANG OUT. WHERE ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE WHISPERING THAT TAO LIN WAS “SO PRESUMPTUOUS” TO NAME HIS BOOK “RICHARD YATES”. ARE THESE PEOPLE THAT ANYONE WOULD WANT TO BE FRIENDS WITH BECAUSE IT SEEMS LIKE THEY ONLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT REALLY PETTY UNIMPORTANT STUFF.