June 23rd, 2010 / 11:27 am
Web Hype

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.

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109 Comments

  1. brian

      All the Pretty Horses is one of my favorites on this subject.

  2. Jason

      A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving

  3. rk

      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?

  4. lee

      On the Road, Visions of Cody–lots of Kerouac, in fact

  5. JimR

      Very true!

      You could say Ulysses is about the friendship between Stephen and Bloom, but Ulysses is too encyclopedic to be about anything.

  6. Guy

      Old Friends by Stephen Dixon

  7. mimi

      Huck Finn & Jim

  8. Schylur Prinz

      Los detectives salvajes

  9. J Blume

      Superfudge

  10. B Cleary

      You never give up, you hag.

  11. Kevin

      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.

  12. Salvatore Pane

      Fortress of Solitude

  13. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      Alec, read the whole George Miles cycle. Hurry.

  14. Lincoln

      As far as friendship and Bernhard, how about The Loser?

  15. sm

      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.

  16. osmon steele

      how did neither of you think of huck finn were you high

  17. Amy

      Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Summer Sisters, The Myth of You and Me, Ferris Beach, Little Alters Everywhere…etc.

  18. goner

      Of Mice and Men

  19. Schylur Prinz

      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.

  20. Kate

      century of clouds or my walk with bob by bruce boone…pamela by pamela Pr

  21. Kate

      pamela lu, sorPr

  22. carl ravech

      brothers can’t be friends

  23. brian

      All the Pretty Horses is one of my favorites on this subject.

  24. goner

      they aren’t brothers. george milton and lennie small.

  25. Jason

      A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving

  26. rk

      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?

  27. lee

      On the Road, Visions of Cody–lots of Kerouac, in fact

  28. d

      I loved ‘Wittgenstein’s Nephew’.

  29. JimR

      Very true!

      You could say Ulysses is about the friendship between Stephen and Bloom, but Ulysses is too encyclopedic to be about anything.

  30. Lincoln

      have you read his others? I thought WN was his worst, though still good.

  31. Guy

      Old Friends by Stephen Dixon

  32. mimi

      Huck Finn & Jim

  33. Joseph Riippi

      A Separate Peace, John Fowles

      The Quiet American, Graham Greene

      BFG, Roald Dahl

  34. alan

      Mid- to late-career Bellow is terribly underrated, glad to see people picking up on this stuff.

  35. Schylur Prinz

      Los detectives salvajes

  36. keedee

      Pale Fire has a friendship theme? Imaginary friends count?

      Then Fight Club.

  37. J Blume

      Superfudge

  38. B Cleary

      You never give up, you hag.

  39. Tim Ramick

      Extinction is my favorite. The Lime Works is perhaps his strangest/most harsh. The Loser does have an odd triangulated friendship…

  40. ryan

      don quixote is the ultimate friendship book.

  41. Kevin

      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.

  42. Salvatore Pane

      Fortress of Solitude

  43. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      Alec, read the whole George Miles cycle. Hurry.

  44. Kevin Spaide

      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.

  45. Alison

      Beautiful Losers

  46. Lincoln

      As far as friendship and Bernhard, how about The Loser?

  47. Today I didn't even have to use my A.K.

      Old Yeller.

  48. Ryan Call

      where the red fern grows

  49. Ryan Call

      sounder

  50. Ryan Call

      marley and me

  51. Reynard Seifert

      totes on the road

  52. Ryan Call

      white fang

  53. sm

      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.

  54. osmon steele

      how did neither of you think of huck finn were you high

  55. Amy

      Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Summer Sisters, The Myth of You and Me, Ferris Beach, Little Alters Everywhere…etc.

  56. goner

      Of Mice and Men

  57. Tom N

      One of the things I liked best about Lethem’s Chronic City: the friendships seemed far more important than the love stories.

  58. Schylur Prinz

      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.

  59. Kate

      century of clouds or my walk with bob by bruce boone…pamela by pamela Pr

  60. Kate

      pamela lu, sorPr

  61. carl ravech

      brothers can’t be friends

  62. zzzzzipp

      CALL OF THE WILD

      THE DOG WHO WOULDN’T BE

      OWLS IN THE FAMILY

  63. goner

      they aren’t brothers. george milton and lennie small.

  64. Tim Ramick

      Non-novels:

      Waiting for Godot (Vladimir and Estragon)
      The Iliad (Achilles and Patroclus)
      The Cat in the Hat (Thing 1 and Thing 2)

  65. d

      I loved ‘Wittgenstein’s Nephew’.

  66. Lincoln

      have you read his others? I thought WN was his worst, though still good.

  67. Joseph Riippi

      A Separate Peace, John Fowles

      The Quiet American, Graham Greene

      BFG, Roald Dahl

  68. alan

      Mid- to late-career Bellow is terribly underrated, glad to see people picking up on this stuff.

  69. keedee

      Pale Fire has a friendship theme? Imaginary friends count?

      Then Fight Club.

  70. Tim Ramick

      Extinction is my favorite. The Lime Works is perhaps his strangest/most harsh. The Loser does have an odd triangulated friendship…

  71. ryan

      don quixote is the ultimate friendship book.

  72. Neil

      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.

  73. Kevin Spaide

      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.

  74. Amy McDaniel

      I really don’t appreciate not being the A in this tally.

  75. Alison

      Beautiful Losers

  76. Today I didn't even have to us

      Old Yeller.

  77. Tim Horvath

      John Knowles, just for the record.

  78. Ryan Call

      where the red fern grows

  79. Ryan Call

      sounder

  80. Ryan Call

      marley and me

  81. Reynard Seifert

      totes on the road

  82. Ryan Call

      white fang

  83. Ryan Call

      the curious incident of the dog in the night

  84. Ryan Call

      the fox and the hound

  85. zzzzzipp

      THE CAT IN THE HAT

  86. zzzzzipp

      TIM I’M SORRY, I COPIED YOU BY ACCIDENT

  87. Tom N

      One of the things I liked best about Lethem’s Chronic City: the friendships seemed far more important than the love stories.

  88. zzzzzipp

      CALL OF THE WILD

      THE DOG WHO WOULDN’T BE

      OWLS IN THE FAMILY

  89. Tim Ramick

      Non-novels:

      Waiting for Godot (Vladimir and Estragon)
      The Iliad (Achilles and Patroclus)
      The Cat in the Hat (Thing 1 and Thing 2)

  90. Neil

      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.

  91. Amy McDaniel

      I really don’t appreciate not being the A in this tally.

  92. Ryan Call

      the curious incident of the dog in the night

  93. Ryan Call

      the fox and the hound

  94. zzzzzipp

      THE CAT IN THE HAT

  95. zzzzzipp

      TIM I’M SORRY, I COPIED YOU BY ACCIDENT

  96. mark

      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).

  97. mark

      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).

  98. Kevin

      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.

  99. Kevin

      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.

  100. treilly

      Cannery Row: the ultimate.
      Most Hemingway. Do the friendships have to turn out?
      Hamlet and Horatio.
      Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

  101. treilly

      Cannery Row: the ultimate.
      Most Hemingway. Do the friendships have to turn out?
      Hamlet and Horatio.
      Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

  102. James Yeh

      yeah. on the road is a “quintessential” friendship book.

  103. James Yeh

      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.

  104. James Yeh

      yeah. on the road is a “quintessential” friendship book.

  105. James Yeh

      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.

  106. Daniel Nester

      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.

  107. Daniel Nester

      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.

  108. IA

      Kokoro, by Natsume Soseki

  109. IA

      Kokoro, by Natsume Soseki