reading the
CORNER
JUNE 2016
presents
th e to p 50 no ve ls of Y R U T N E C H TH E 20T s of o f th e w o rk s w ie v re F e a tu ri n g
oyce James J
nger J .D . S a li
Alb ert Cam us
m in g w a E rn e s t H e
y
Contents
top 50 books of the 20th century
featured authors
bildungsroman
teachers top picks
05 James Joyce
07 The Portrait of an Artist as
66 Hear what teachers top
09 Vladimir Nobokov
a Young Man
choices are for their students
13 Albert Camus
18 A Catcher in the Rye
19 J.D. Salinger
25 The Heart a Lonely Hunter
book club favourites
23 Virginia Woolf
28 Invisible Man
68 Which novels from our 50 make
27 Kurt Vonnergurt 29 Ralph Ellison
modernist
it into book club discussions
35 Sherwood Anderson
04 Ulysses
b.c.’s book stores
45 Theodore Dreiser
06 The Great Gatsby
47 William Faulkner
11 The Sound and the Fury
70 A look into the best book stores
53 Graham Greene
56 A Passage to India
55 William Golding
58 The Sun Also Rises
59 Ernest Hemingway
existential
dystopia
12 The Stranger
10 Brave New World
28 Invisible Man
20 1984 41 Animal Farm 42 Fahrenheit 451
satire 43 Catch-22 46 As I Lay Dying
to visit in British Columbia
50 must read books 50 MUST READ BOOKS
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THE STRANGER ALBERT CAMUS philosophical fiction
andrew ball • Philosophically, The Stranger is one of the most intriguing and moving books I have ever read, particularly the final act where Meursault confronts the priest who attempts to lead him to the Christian God in the last days before his execution. With his impeding death, he achieves a moment of clarity seeing his place in the universe, a universe even more indifferent than himself. Camus never absolves him of his crime but in a sense Meursault rises above the simple act of killing a man, above his imprisonment and above life itself. He achieves full acceptance of his existence and place in the universe and in that moment transcends life and God. I`m genuinely saddened that I’m not able to read the final chapter in its original French. If the translation is this good I can hardly imagine how amazing the original must be.
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colin faison • It is considered—to what would have been Camus’s irritation—the exemplary existentialist novel. Camus famously said that “Meursault is the only Christ that we deserve”—a complicated statement for an avowed atheist. But Camus, of course, was more complex in his atheism than we might commonly expect: he was an atheist in reaction to, and in the shadow of, a Catholicism osmotically imbued in the culture. The inescapable result is that his atheism is in constant dialogue with religion; in L’Étranger no less than in, say, La Peste.
rose isaac • This is the kind of book that one could read and ponder over and over again and I have a feeling I will. It starts off very slowly and builds throughout. I’ve never been on trial and certainly never been on death row but Camus gave Meursault an inner dialogue that rang so true it felt more real than any other portrayal I’ve seen or read. Despite his crime and often callous view of the suffering of others Camus created a character so real and open to the reader that I couldn’t help but pity him terribly for his situation but in the end Meursault found peace regardless of the outcome.
THE AUTHOR albert camus was a
david lee • The Stranger is a haunting, challenging masterpiece of literature. While it is fiction, it actually manages to express the complex concepts and themes of existential philosophy better than the movement’s most noted philosophical writings and almost as well as Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground. While Camus cannot be called a true existentialist in his own philosophical outlook, his fiction does epitomize many existentialist ideas. Marsault is a protagonist like no other in literature—you cannot like him, he is obviously guilty of killing a man in cold blood, and he is of a cold-hearted nature, yet you do understand some of his thinking, find yourself more and more interested in his dark outlook on life, and have to admit that much of what he believes makes sense.
brian simpson • In The Stranger, his classic existentialist novel, Camus explores the alienation of an individual who refuses to conform to social norms. Meursault, his anti-hero, will not lie. When his mother dies, he refuses to show his emotions simply to satisfy the expectations of others. And when he commits a random act of violence on a sun-drenched beach near Algiers, his lack of remorse compounds his guilt in the eyes of society and the law. Yet he is as much a victim as a criminal. Albert Camus’ portrayal of a man confronting the absurd, and revolting against the injustice of society, depicts the paradox of man’s joy in life when faced with the ‘tender indifference’ of the world.
French-Algerian journalist, playwright, novelist, philosophical essayist, and Nobel laureate. Though he was neither by advanced training nor profession a philosopher, he nevertheless made important, forceful contributions to a wide range of issues in moral philosophy in his novels, reviews, articles, essays, and speeches— from terrorism and political violence to suicide and the death penalty. He is often described as an existentialist writer, though he himself disavowed the label. He began his literary career as a political journalist and as an actor, director, and playwright in his native Algeria.
other works The Plague The Fall The Myth of Sisyphus A Happy Death Summer in Algiers Caligula The First Man Les Justes
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50 must read books 50 MUST READ BOOKS
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DUBLINERS
JAMES JOYCES realist fiction
chris ellis • The pinnacle
angela may • Dubliners, Joyce’s collection of short stories which set the standard for the genre, is filled with characters who come to terrible revelations (which he called “epiphanies”) about how their lives had been scarred by the provincialism of Dublin, the divisiveness of its politics, and the oppression of religion. By extension, this is how Joyce perceived humanity at the dawn of modernism. The stories range from the psychologically simple to the extraordinarily complex. But what is common throughout is the feel for Dublin just after the turn of the last century. More importantly, the readers feel the tensions underlying the public smiles and infrequent bursts of confidence that the characters exhibit.
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of this collection is “The Dead”. A novella, actually, “The Dead” encompasses everything: politics, religion, art, journalism, history, love, and the inevitability of death rendering all worldly things meaningless. This doesn’t mean the story is a downer: this death is necessary to making a fresh start. However, there is no denying that as Joyce “pulls back the camera” from the Conroy’s hotel room to the universe above, the writing swells to its most beautiful. To me, this is a movement toward the future, toward change, leaving the living dead behind to a more spiritual life on Earth.
ramon hufft • Although Joyce is Irish, his non-plot stories are a remarkable addition to Modern English studies. Joyce breaks so many writing conventions that he is in a category of his own. Dubliners has fifteen easy short-stories that are rich accounts of Dublin’s poor, as characters reach moments of revelation while transitioning from the industrialization aftermath of the Victorian period. Unconventional themes and coarse Irish language, as well as true disclosure of actual people and places, are a few reasons why publishers, during Joyce’s time, were so reluctant to sponsor this book of short-stories. Dubliners is a must-read. Enjoy.
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THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA ERNEST HEMINGWAY parable; tragedy
linda smith • The Old Man and the Sea shows an older, wiser Hemingway, and it was somewhat of a surprise to many people when they read it. Hemingway allows us to see through the old man’s eyes, sense his emotions, feel the pain in his hands as he tugs on the fishing line that cuts through his well-worn fingers. The old man senses a camaraderie with the huge fish he has just killed, and loves it even though he has taken its life away, Hemingway understood that fight, he had been through it many times, and survived to tell his stories. The Sun Also Rises is very simply told, but it contains a wealth of psychological and interpersonal complexity beneath the simple narrative.
sam adams • This book is a triumph of the bare necessities. Alone, he manages to catch a thousand-pound, eighteen-foot marlin. A life and death struggle ensues as the old man works the fish for days trying to bring it in. The Old Man and the Sea brings us a new awareness not only of age, and what it means to struggle, but also tells us that we are all in the same struggle, against the grim reaper who will come for all of us someday, and despite our efforts, will win the last fight. However, Hemingway knew that the only way to truly win in life was to create something of value, something that would stand the test of time, and he succeeded with this great work.
cole cook • The story is one of Hemingway’s simplest. All of his books are simple on the surface. The Old Man And The Sea is truly simple, a story about a simple man, with simple ideas, with a simple life, with a simple, elemental encounter with the natural world: he catches a massive marlin that he battles unsuccessfully to bring to market. It is a tale of success in the midst of failure, of quiet stoicism and courage, and refusing to give in to the challenges the world throws at him. Most of all, it is a story about courage. The tale that is told is so clearly told that a very young child can understand it. It is so marvelously told that an adult can marvel over it. P U B L I C AT I O N N A M E | 7
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50 must read books 50 MUST READ BOOKS
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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE J.D. SALINGER bildungsroman (coming-of-age novel)
rose wilson • In J.D. Salinger’s brilliant coming-ofage novel, Holden Caulfield, a seventeen year old prep school adolescent relates his lonely, life-changing twenty-four hour stay in New York City as he experiences the phoniness of the adult world while attempting to deal with the death of his younger brother, an overwhelming compulsion to lie and troubling sexual experiences. Salinger captured the eternal angst of growing into adulthood in the person of Holden Caulfield. Anyone who has reached the age of sixteen will be able to identify with this unique and yet universal character, for Holden contains bits and pieces of all of us. It is for this very reason that The Catcher in the Rye has become one of the most beloved and enduring works in world literature.
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may nelson • Time has not damaged this tome; it remains a sometimes harrowing, sometimes absorbing, sometimes frustrating, sometimes moving look into a mind in a state of disarray. Others have written more “shocking” books or have been more overtly anti-social, but with The Catcher In The Rye, J.D. Salinger captures the bitterly confused mind of a youth who hates the whole world not because the world is worth hating, but because he’s frustrated at his own inability to get along in that world, with such crisp reality that it shocks far more than any fantastical American Psycho.
abby jones • I find Holden to be walking a fine line between witty sarcasm and dangerous cynicism. There is nothing that he, in the end, does not dismiss as being phony, whether it is the nuns with whom he shares a cup of coffee, the teacher at the end who most likely was just trying to help, the Egyptian wing of the museum, Pheobe’s school... everything. His humor is sharp and witty and I often laugh out loud while reading, but it is also an easy way for him to detach himself from a world which he no longer feels he belongs in, or wants to belong in.
THE AUTHOR j.d. salinger was an Amer-
alvin perez • People criticize the book because Caulfield is totally unlikable, a guy who rails against phonies when he himself is something of a phony ... but that’s part of the point. Holden throws off all the signals someone in his situation actually throws off in real life, and just like real life, they’re almost always ignored. Clearly this was a very, very autobiographical work for Salinger. It rings remarkably true. The reason this has impact, though, is not simply because of the subject matter, not because of what Holden Caulfield is going through, and not because of the context of its time, but because Salinger never plays it for melodrama. He neither makes Holden’s mentality seem “cool” nor does he preach against Holden’s attitude; he just says, “This is what it is.”
will bennett • My theory as to this book’s unusually polarizing nature: either you identify with Holden Caulfield or you don’t. Those who see themselves (either as they were or, God help them, as they are) in Holden see a misunderstood warrior-poet, fighting the good fight against a hypocritical and unfeeling world; they see in Salinger a genius because he gets it, and he gets them. Those of us who don’t relate to Holden see in him a self-absorbed whiner, and in Salinger, a one-trick-pony who lucked into performing his trick at a time when some large fraction of America happened to be in the right collective frame of mind to perceive this boring twaddle as subversive and meaningful.
ican author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980. Raised in Manhattan, Salinger began writing short stories while in secondary school, and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. Catcher in the Rye and his depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield was influential, especially among adolescent readers. The novel remains widely read and controversial, selling around 250,000 copies a year.
other works Franny and Zooey Nine Stories A Perfect Day for Bananafish Three Early Stories The Laughing Man Teddy
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50 must read books 50 MUST READ BOOKS
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FAHRENHEIT 451
RAY BRADBURY science fiction
gabriel hart • This book is absolutely amazing. It describes a time in the future where censorship prevails and minds are caged. Nobody has original thoughts; with the abolishing of books creativity was lost as well. Guy Montag, the protagonist, is a fireman (firemen burn books in this story) who has to fight to pull himself from the grip of an overpowering government and tradition, only to see that it is all useless (why teach to people who can’t understand?). The novel shows what censorship can do to a society, and why individuals must not accept the norm without questioning its integrity and implications.
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juan boyd • Fahrenheit 451 is a simply great book. Yes, it’s quite distressing and unpleasant to read—because what Bradbury describes is much closer to truth than we’d like it to be. And that is precisely what makes the reality of the book so alike our own - it’s more pleasant not to think about such things. The disturbing thing about the book is that, unlike many other books that deal with the distant future, Fahrenheit 451 (written in 1953) hasn’t been proved wrong simply by time itself. Not at all. Actually, what is shocking to realize is that we’ve come quite close to the society Bradbury writes about.
richard ford • The dystopian future of Fahrenheit 451, is a bottom-up phenomenon (as opposed to top-down imposition from an all-powerful state). What profoundly disturbs about this novel isn’t only the soul-less, amoral future where keeping books is a criminal offense; it’s the process. Bradbury describes by which society reaches this point. Keep in mind that Bradbury’s first version of this tale came out in 1950–ancient history in tech terms. Yet much of what he describes is now coming true thanks to the Internet and digital technology.
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CATCH-22
JOSEPH HELLER historical fiction, satire
roy davies • The clever thing about this book is that Heller makes you laugh but without losing touch with the sadness and horror of war. He highlights these things while at the same time creating humor that ultimately leave the reader feeling fairly uncomfortable for finding humor in war. Catch-22 is also quite sad and the absurdity reflects a sense of hopelessness that many of the characters are experiencing. It begins as comic farce, proceeds to the increasingly surreal, and then transforms into a nightmarish tragedy before ending triumphantly. Hugh Walpole who wrote, “Life is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel.” No book illustrates that better than this novel. This truly is one of the funniest books I have ever read. It is also one of the most tragic.
wendy ley • At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. If Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he’s committed to flying, he’s trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the bureaucratic rule the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, if he makes the request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he’s sane and therefore, ineligible to be relieved.
jen johnson • I’ve owned a copy for years. But let’s face it, it’s 500-plus pages long, there are more than 50 characters, and everybody knows what a Catch-22 is – it’s one of those things where you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. It’s hard to describe briefly just how gloriously, envelopingly hilarious this logic becomes as the novel unfolds. Its core paradox – that insanity is sanity – burrows inside everything. Sure, it’s been funny. But all along the comedy has been an expression of horror; it springs from outraged, stupefied humanity. There seems to be something up for grabs in Catch-22’s circular logic – where madness begets laughter, and laughter begets madness – that makes me immediately go back and read it again; which is an impulse I think Heller, Yossarian and the rest of the gang would understand. PPUUBBLLI ICCAT ATI IOONN NNAAM MEE | | 11 11 THE RE ADING CORNER | 4 4
50 must read books 50 MUST READ BOOKS
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THE ALCHEMIST PAULO COELHO philosophical fiction
dennis fu • I found the book moving in its simple way. The characters deliver their statements without subtlety, but subtlety is more a literary virtue than a philosophical one. In fact, I essentially came to view this work as a life philosophy expressed as a fable, so I didn’t particularly mind that its messages were not buried far beneath the surface. Are those messages novel? No, but what of it? Novelists have been recycling themes for centuries, because many themes are of enduring interest and relevance. The point is, the messages are worthwhile and deserving of consideration. They are simple, but I think that simplicity is itself one of the central themes of the book: that life is not that complicated when one follows one’s dreams honestly and passionately, or as the book says, “with love and purpose.” And yet the book reminds us that it is very easy to give up dreams and abandon one’s passion.
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will bellis • The Alchemist is an inspiring saga about the journey of life. It reminds us that the story of each of our lives can be a great adventure if we are wise enough to read and follow the spiritual omens along the way that constantly nudge us closer to our true destiny. This tale shows us that when we summon up the courage to follow our own dream the result is always remarkable, rewarding, and never exactly what we anticipated. This book is an engaging, easy read that promises to refresh our understanding and increase our passion for our own quest.
rosalia miller • The Alchemist uses the story of young shepherd’s search for his Personal Legend as an allegory, for every man’s struggle to break from the comfortable confines of conformity and pursue his life dreams. Along the way, of course, he is beset by all manner of setbacks, testing his resolve and forcing him to become attuned to the Soul of the World in order to survive. By paying attention to the details in the world around him, which serve as omens guiding him towards his goal, young Santiago becomes an alchemist in his own right, spinning unfavorable circumstances into riches.
THE AUTHOR paulo coelho, a Brazilian
jess pierce • These are lessons that we all know in our hearts, but that we forget as we get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of our material lives. Lessons about listening to our hearts and following our dreams. Lessons about living in the moment, the transient nature of possessions and the illusion that we can even “possess” something to begin with. Lessons about trusting in signs, knowing that our lives have a grand purpose and that the forces of the Universe will conspire to help us fulfill that purpose. And the lesson that all of the fortunes and misfortunes we encounter in life are part of our spiritual education, and that it’s not the earthly “treasure” we seek that’s important but the lessons learned while in pursuit of it.
steve garcia • The story is timeless and tells the story of a young boy, Santiago, on his way to find the riches and treasures of the world. But, beyond that, the book acts as a metaphor for turning your life around. Only you have the power to change your progression in life. I read this book as a kid, and it helped inspire to own my own business and do what I wanted to do despite other’s opinions of me. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.
author, was born in 1947 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Before dedicating his life completely to literature, he worked as theatre director and actor, lyricist and journalist. In 1986, Paulo Coelho did the pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostella, an experience later to be documented in his book The Pilgrimage. Since the publication of The Alchemist, Coelho has produced a new book at a rate of about one every two years. In a somewhat unusual scheduling ritual, he allows himself to begin the writing process for a new book only after he has found a white feather in the January of an odd year. As odd as that may sound, it seems to be working. His 26 books have sold more than 65 million copies in at least 59 languages
other works Veronika Decides to Die Eleven Minutes The Witch of Portobello The Zahir Brida The Devil and Miss Prym The Fifth Mountain
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Ulysses The Great Gatsby A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Lolita Brave New World The Sound and the Fury
James Joyce
Henry James
The Wings of the Dove
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Henry James
The Ambassadors
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Tender is the Night
Vladimir Nabokov
James T. Farrell
The Studs Lonigan
Aldous Huxley
George Orwell
Animal Farm
James Joyce
William Faulkner
The Stranger Albert Camus Dubliners The Old Man and the Sea The Grapes of Wrath Under the Volcano A Catcher in the Rye
James Joyce Ernest Hemingway John Steinback Malcolm Lowry J. D. Salinger
Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451
Joseph Heller
Catch-22
Theodore Dreiser Evelyn Waugh
Sister Carrie A Handful of Dust
William Faulkner As I Lay Dying Robert Penn Warren
All the King’s Men
Thornton Wilder The Bridge of San Luis Rey
1984
George Orwell
E. M. Forster
I, Claudius
Robert Graves
James Baldwin
To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf
Graham Greene
The Heart of the Matter
Theodore Dreiser
William Golding
Lord of the Flies
Carson McCullers
Anthony Powell
A Dance to the Music of Time
An American Tragedy The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Slaughterhouse-Five Invisible Man
Kurt Vonnegut
James Dickey
Howard’s End Go Tell It on the Mountain
Deliverance
Ernest Hemingway
The Sun Also Rises
Richard Wright
Aldous Huxley
Point Counter Point
Henderson the Rain King
Saul Bellow
Joseph Conrad
The Secret Agent
Appointment in Samarra
John O’Hara
Joseph Conrad
Nostromo
John Dos Passos
D. H. Lawrence
The Rainbow
Sherwood Anderson
D. H. Lawrence
Women in Love
Native Son
U.S.A. (trilogy) Winesburg, Ohio A Passage to India
Ralph Ellison
E. M. Forster
Henry Miller Tropic of Cancer