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Books Concerning Friendship
Alec Niedenthal spent the weekend here in NYC, and we got into a conversation about Bellow’s Ravelstein, which I recently read and loved very much. Among its other signal virtues, it is one of the best books on friendship I think I’ve ever read. This got us talking about books about friendship as a literary subject, and we decided to see how quickly we could think of a dozen books that treat it as the (or a) major theme. Here’s what we came up with, in the order we came up with it–a highly non-exhaustive, non-hierarchical list off the top of our heads. Annotations indicate which of us has read the book in question. Interestingly, the final tally was four books only he’d read, four books only I’d read, and four books we’d both read.
Ravelstein – Saul Bellow (J + A)
The Waves – Virginia Woolf (J + A)
Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow (A)
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov (J + A)
Try – Dennis Cooper (J)
Hey Jack! – Barry Hannah (J + A)
A Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert (A)
It – Stephen King (J)
Veronica – Mary Gaitskill (J)
Chilly Scenes of Winter – Ann Beattie (A)
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens (J)
Correction – Thomas Bernhard (A)
Anyone got further recommendations or thoughts about these books? You know what to do.
Tags: Saul Bellow, Virginia Woolf
All the Pretty Horses is one of my favorites on this subject.
A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
All the Pretty Horses is a fine one but also Cities of the Plain. Crossing is the best book about brothers.
As with Bellow I think friendship is dealt with so well and so often in Bernhard partly because those two typically handle one or two dominant characters. Correction was listed but Old Masters is the one I liked best. I found that a very moving book. Wittgenstein’s Nephew certainly merits.
Don Quixote?
On the Road, Visions of Cody–lots of Kerouac, in fact
Very true!
You could say Ulysses is about the friendship between Stephen and Bloom, but Ulysses is too encyclopedic to be about anything.
Old Friends by Stephen Dixon
Huck Finn & Jim
Los detectives salvajes
Superfudge
You never give up, you hag.
Damn beat me to it. But Don Carpenter’s Hard Rain Falling is a great one; Lethem’s Fortress of Solitude; Moby Dick. There’s some.
Fortress of Solitude
Alec, read the whole George Miles cycle. Hurry.
As far as friendship and Bernhard, how about The Loser?
It’s not a novel, but Truth & Beauty, about Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy’s friendship, is amazing.
The Quickening by Michelle Hoover is about farm-wife frenemies. That’s a trite description though–it’s really a good book.
how did neither of you think of huck finn were you high
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Summer Sisters, The Myth of You and Me, Ferris Beach, Little Alters Everywhere…etc.
Of Mice and Men
I don’t know if I can read Huck Finn as a novel of friendship. Seems a bit blithely optimistic. Sort of like thinking the Kid isn’t eaten by cannibals .001 seconds after The Road ends.
century of clouds or my walk with bob by bruce boone…pamela by pamela Pr
pamela lu, sorPr
brothers can’t be friends
All the Pretty Horses is one of my favorites on this subject.
they aren’t brothers. george milton and lennie small.
A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
All the Pretty Horses is a fine one but also Cities of the Plain. Crossing is the best book about brothers.
As with Bellow I think friendship is dealt with so well and so often in Bernhard partly because those two typically handle one or two dominant characters. Correction was listed but Old Masters is the one I liked best. I found that a very moving book. Wittgenstein’s Nephew certainly merits.
Don Quixote?
On the Road, Visions of Cody–lots of Kerouac, in fact
I loved ‘Wittgenstein’s Nephew’.
Very true!
You could say Ulysses is about the friendship between Stephen and Bloom, but Ulysses is too encyclopedic to be about anything.
have you read his others? I thought WN was his worst, though still good.
Old Friends by Stephen Dixon
Huck Finn & Jim
A Separate Peace, John Fowles
The Quiet American, Graham Greene
BFG, Roald Dahl
Mid- to late-career Bellow is terribly underrated, glad to see people picking up on this stuff.
Los detectives salvajes
Pale Fire has a friendship theme? Imaginary friends count?
Then Fight Club.
Superfudge
You never give up, you hag.
Extinction is my favorite. The Lime Works is perhaps his strangest/most harsh. The Loser does have an odd triangulated friendship…
don quixote is the ultimate friendship book.
Damn beat me to it. But Don Carpenter’s Hard Rain Falling is a great one; Lethem’s Fortress of Solitude; Moby Dick. There’s some.
Fortress of Solitude
Alec, read the whole George Miles cycle. Hurry.
Timoleon Vieta Come Home, Dan Rhodes
Sir Vidia’s Shadow, Paul Theroux
Sally Lockhart Trilogy, Philip Pullman
In Cold Blood?
Never would have thought of It.
Beautiful Losers
As far as friendship and Bernhard, how about The Loser?
Old Yeller.
where the red fern grows
sounder
marley and me
totes on the road
white fang
It’s not a novel, but Truth & Beauty, about Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy’s friendship, is amazing.
The Quickening by Michelle Hoover is about farm-wife frenemies. That’s a trite description though–it’s really a good book.
how did neither of you think of huck finn were you high
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Summer Sisters, The Myth of You and Me, Ferris Beach, Little Alters Everywhere…etc.
Of Mice and Men
One of the things I liked best about Lethem’s Chronic City: the friendships seemed far more important than the love stories.
I don’t know if I can read Huck Finn as a novel of friendship. Seems a bit blithely optimistic. Sort of like thinking the Kid isn’t eaten by cannibals .001 seconds after The Road ends.
century of clouds or my walk with bob by bruce boone…pamela by pamela Pr
pamela lu, sorPr
brothers can’t be friends
CALL OF THE WILD
THE DOG WHO WOULDN’T BE
OWLS IN THE FAMILY
they aren’t brothers. george milton and lennie small.
Non-novels:
Waiting for Godot (Vladimir and Estragon)
The Iliad (Achilles and Patroclus)
The Cat in the Hat (Thing 1 and Thing 2)
I loved ‘Wittgenstein’s Nephew’.
have you read his others? I thought WN was his worst, though still good.
A Separate Peace, John Fowles
The Quiet American, Graham Greene
BFG, Roald Dahl
Mid- to late-career Bellow is terribly underrated, glad to see people picking up on this stuff.
Pale Fire has a friendship theme? Imaginary friends count?
Then Fight Club.
Extinction is my favorite. The Lime Works is perhaps his strangest/most harsh. The Loser does have an odd triangulated friendship…
don quixote is the ultimate friendship book.
I recently read Chronic City, which I wasn’t a huge fan of. But the friendship in it between the two main characters was relatively amazing.
Timoleon Vieta Come Home, Dan Rhodes
Sir Vidia’s Shadow, Paul Theroux
Sally Lockhart Trilogy, Philip Pullman
In Cold Blood?
Never would have thought of It.
I really don’t appreciate not being the A in this tally.
Beautiful Losers
Old Yeller.
John Knowles, just for the record.
where the red fern grows
sounder
marley and me
totes on the road
white fang
the curious incident of the dog in the night
the fox and the hound
THE CAT IN THE HAT
TIM I’M SORRY, I COPIED YOU BY ACCIDENT
One of the things I liked best about Lethem’s Chronic City: the friendships seemed far more important than the love stories.
CALL OF THE WILD
THE DOG WHO WOULDN’T BE
OWLS IN THE FAMILY
Non-novels:
Waiting for Godot (Vladimir and Estragon)
The Iliad (Achilles and Patroclus)
The Cat in the Hat (Thing 1 and Thing 2)
I recently read Chronic City, which I wasn’t a huge fan of. But the friendship in it between the two main characters was relatively amazing.
I really don’t appreciate not being the A in this tally.
the curious incident of the dog in the night
the fox and the hound
THE CAT IN THE HAT
TIM I’M SORRY, I COPIED YOU BY ACCIDENT
extinction is my favorite, too. and — bonus for this discussion — it looks at three important friendships for the narrator — gambetti, maria and the man of the church whose name i’m not remembering right now. as bleak as it is, lot of heart in that one (to use a term bernhard would probably not have favored).
extinction is my favorite, too. and — bonus for this discussion — it looks at three important friendships for the narrator — gambetti, maria and the man of the church whose name i’m not remembering right now. as bleak as it is, lot of heart in that one (to use a term bernhard would probably not have favored).
Frog and Toad Together. I’ve had to read this book about 400 times over the past couple years to my son. It’s still pretty good.
Frog and Toad Together. I’ve had to read this book about 400 times over the past couple years to my son. It’s still pretty good.
Cannery Row: the ultimate.
Most Hemingway. Do the friendships have to turn out?
Hamlet and Horatio.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
Cannery Row: the ultimate.
Most Hemingway. Do the friendships have to turn out?
Hamlet and Horatio.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
yeah. on the road is a “quintessential” friendship book.
A lot of Bolano is like that, though not sure if you could say an entire book is “about” friendship, as he’s kind of all over the place. But basically all the stories in Last Evenings on Earth are, if I’m remembering it correctly, about friendship.
yeah. on the road is a “quintessential” friendship book.
A lot of Bolano is like that, though not sure if you could say an entire book is “about” friendship, as he’s kind of all over the place. But basically all the stories in Last Evenings on Earth are, if I’m remembering it correctly, about friendship.
I like Joseph Epstein’s Friendship: An Expose, and people might dig Lytle Shaw’s Frank O’Hara and the Poetics of Coterie, especially for the latter if they are still in graduate school and can get past the academicese more easily.
I like Joseph Epstein’s Friendship: An Expose, and people might dig Lytle Shaw’s Frank O’Hara and the Poetics of Coterie, especially for the latter if they are still in graduate school and can get past the academicese more easily.
Kokoro, by Natsume Soseki
Kokoro, by Natsume Soseki