My reading list is varied, and sometimes a little on the odd side. It's pretty evenly mixed between fiction and non-fiction and between contemporary and historical works. At present, I'm making my way through Oswald Spengler's "The Decline of the West," which prompts some interesting and uncomfortable comparisons to the United States today. I'd probably get more out of it were I able to read it in the original German, but my sprechen sie is inadequate to the task; ask me to order a pilsener and a plate of schnitzel, and I can manage, but a treatise on politics of the Weimar Republic? Not so much.
I've always been addicted to reading. My parents were as well; Dad in particular hated television but whenever he was sitting still, he always had a book at hand. Mom, too, was addicted to reading and was fond of murder mysteries and Jane Austen novels. My own reading was limited to Louis L'Amour novels, and Pat McManus' short story collections such as "A Fine and Pleasant Misery," until I was about 16.
At that time I was still serving a sentence in something called "school," which not only cut into my hunting and fishing time but was for the most part pretty boring. In my junior year, I took an American Literature class, and that teacher proved to be one of the few teachers in my small-town eastern Iowa high school for whom I ever felt any genuine respect. One afternoon, I was in the classroom waiting for class to start, browsing through the latest "Outdoor Life" magazine, when he approached me. "Clark," he said, "you like to fish, right?"
"Sure," I replied.
He handed me a book with a bookmark in place and said, "Read this." I looked at the cover; it was a compilation of Ernest Hemingway's "The Nick Adams Stories." I opened the book to the bookmark and found a story called "The Big Two-Hearted River." I read that. Then I read the rest of the book. Then I went back to the teacher asking for more. I was hooked. It turned out that our little school library had a fair number of American classics. I devoured all the Hemingway they had, then moved on to John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, and others. My experience back then, in the late '70s, was a far cry from what high school kids find in their school libraries today.
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Since then, I've read a lot. I have a fondness for Shakespeare's plays, although those are meant to be viewed, not read. My Dad pushed me into reading the ancient Greeks, including Aristotle's "Metaphysics," "Politics," and more, as well as the great Greek tales from Homer, all of Cicero's speeches from the last years of the Roman Republic, and all kinds of things. "An intelligent man reads," he told me, and as usual, he was right. And writers, in my experience, read - a lot.
When it comes to great American literature, I could never reduce my recommendations to five books, but I'm limited by bandwidth, so I've tried to do so; ask me tomorrow and I might well choose five different ones, but for now, here are my five:
1) John Steinbeck: "The Grapes of Wrath." My Mom originally recommended this book to me. It spoke to her, as she grew up on a small farm in the Depression, although there was no mortgage on my grandparent's century farm, so they were in no danger of losing their home to bank foreclosure, which is what happened to the Joad family in the book. While Steinbeck was a leftist, he was a brilliant writer, and this book so vividly presents the challenges of a family of migrant workers in the turmoil of the Depression. There are a lot of Biblical metaphors, including the relationship between the ex-preacher Jim Casy (J.C.) and the ex-con Tommy Joad, who became his disciple. Best of all was the strongest female character in American literature, Ma Joad, who held her family together through sheer force of will.
2) Ernest Hemingway: "The Nick Adams Stories." These semi-autobiographical tales chronicle the main character through his youth in Michigan, through his wartime service, and his post-war years up to marriage and fatherhood - all very similar to Hemingway's own life. He omitted the unfortunate suicide business, though.
3) Herman Melville: "Moby-Dick or, The Whale." Melville's writing is archaic and sometimes difficult for today's readers, and he spends about half the book presenting his time's understanding of the natural history of whales and other sea life, which is mostly horribly outdated now. But any work that contains vivid dialogue like this is worth reading:
Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!
It's a tale of obsession and revenge that has outlasted the ages.
4) Ray Bradbury: "Fahrenheit 451." Bradbury gave us a vivid warning as to what might happen should certain parties whining about "disinformation" get their way and neuter the First Amendment. He presents a horrible future, where an endless government-approved video stream is projected into every home, and where "firemen" don't save structures but instead burn books - 451 degrees Fahrenheit being the temperature at which paper ignites.
5) Isaac Asimov: "The Foundation Series." Tied in with his "Robot" and "Empire" series, and loosely based on the fall of the Roman Empire, the Foundation series is rumored to have been one of George Lucas' inspirations for "Star Wars." But Asimov was a deeper thinker and a better storyteller than George Lucas ever dreamed of being, and the Foundation series presents a tale of how, in dark times, only knowledge can save us. Oh, and don't bother with the Apple TV series; Asimov must be spinning in his grave like a gyroscope over what they did to his work in that televised grenade.
And, of course, you can always check out my fiction writing here.
Reading - and writing - are great endeavors. It's a pity that so many in our political class seem to do neither.
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Language is what makes us human. It predated everything else we have done, possibly even fire. It has enabled us to pass on culture, knowledge, and philosophy, not only from generation to generation but through the great sweeps of history; Aristotle rings as true today as he did in his day. So go forth, then, and read! And if you have any recommendations of your own, as always, the comments are yours.
