Books that should be read before 30

So in my musings thread, Murr proposed compiling a list of books that everyone should have read before they are 30. The context of our discussion was whether or not I, in my twenties, am ready or not for the more mature works of great literature.

So, even in the unlikely event that everyone agrees on a suitable list, I am in no way signing any contract to read what you propose, but you never know. I turn 30 in May of 2014. What, friends, should I read before then? Let it be assumed that I've read almost none of the things you're likely to suggest.

Forgive me for making shameless use of your accumulated wisdom. I probably in this case won't really follow it anyway. ♥

I should think the first priority is to read the books you ought to have read but are unlikely to pick up for the first time once you're over thirty, e.g.: Bonjour tristesse, L'Etranger, just about any Herman Hesse (esp. Steppenwolf), Portrait of the artist as a young man, Sons and lovers, David Copperfield, Primo Levi's Auschwitz books, any Russian novel more than 2cm thick in Penguin, any American novel from the Beat generation, The power and the glory, Heart of darkness, ...

I've never really thought about books in relationship to age. I've been bouncing between ancients and moderns my entire adult life. I still return to "juveniles." My reading circles ever wider, but always in a widening gyre.

I was glad to come to literature as a young adult in the reading of Doestoevsky. I always wish I had a better foundation in the classics. For Western literature pre 20th century there is such a weaving of allusions, which are like a conversation between works of all ages. Having read Milton, I now come back to Spenser and realize more immediately Milton's debt to Spenser.

I'll be watching this thread for others' ideas on the question, though. It's such a different way of thinking for me that I'm bound to learn something.

Tuirgin

1>
read the books you ought to have read but are unlikely to pick up for the first time once you're over thirty

good advice, thorold.

I would say all of Dickens, for a start, all of Hugo, all of Dostoevsky and as much of the 19th century as you can get down: The Brontes, Jane Austen, Dumas, Balzac.

Also, I think the Greek tragedians and myths, as these provide the basis for so many symbols in later literature.

I would also go for those second rank writers you can race through fairly quickly: John Steinbeck, Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, Herman Hesse, as Thorold said, Sweig etc. You don't want to waste your time on these later as the darkness draws closer, but reading them is necessary if only to increase your awarenes of certain literary tricks/techniques and so on.

Also, you need to have read/studied the main plays of Shakespeare.

I find this is pretty much what I am strong to do now in my late 30s. There is so much I wish I had already read. And I wish I had been more deliberate and methodical. But despite this being the way I work (technology), this just never works for me in reading.

Strong/starting. Damn phone. Swyper no swyping.

Muse, I can't agree with Murr and thorold.
Don't get bogged down in the classics. Read the novels that are fashionable and mean something to your generation. When I was in my twenties the fashionable novels were Catcher in The Rye; Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse. Tales of Power, Carlos Casteneda, On the Road, Jack Kerouac, Iron in the Soul, Jean Paul Sartre They were not all great fiction by any means, but they were all books that spoke to the the young man that I was. Don't lose out by burying yourself too much in the past.

let your imagination fly, hopefully you will have plenty of time to catch up on the classics later. You can always intersperse some classics in with your current reading. Read some poetry, Do read some Shakespeare, but read some science fiction/fantasy, read some thrillers. Read what's hot now.

I only have 11 months for all this! *faints*

Let's see. 26. It means, with good health the next 40 years, if you are that way inclined, you can knock off quite a few books. There's no formulae but it's a fools errand if one doesn't have a familiarity with the great mythologies of the world. And not simply to understand the obvious mythographers like Joyce, et al. The KJ version of the bible is important, to use a Molly Keane word. I was a student of Shakespeare (and the Elizabethans/ Jacobeans) in my school daze. Reason not the need. As I am an old fashion reader I like to know as much as I can about the writers' life and times so I read history, autobiographies, letters, etc. etc. etc. You probably shouldn't take your lead from me as I am completely out of m mind on the subject.

I read second and third rate writers for R&R. SF can be satisfying, Olaf Stapledon's SIRIUS is wonderful. Travel books can be rewarding. Tristan Jones, especially THE INCREDIBLE VOYAGE is excellent. I might add that I'm an insomniac. This fact has been most important (that word again) in the matter of my education. I only needed 4 hours sleep till just recently. And it's so nice to read late into the night and early into the morning; it's so quiet then.

I've seen Hermann Hesse mentioned several times as a "b" list writer, but I, at least, wouldn't relegate The Glass Bead Game or Siddhartha to a list of seconds. I haven't read Steppenwolf, so maybe that's a point of reference I'm missing. Hesse is a voice dear to me.

I've never been concerned with -- our even aware of -- what is current, fashionable, or cutting edge. The classics serve as a known starting point, and largely I depend on authors leading me to other authors. It's only with a group such as this one that I'm finding trust worthy recommendations from still-living people (with no offense meant toward the undead among us).

I read eclectically, and wish I were more disciplined. If I were more disciplined, I'd start with the beginning and work my way to 21st century lit whenever, if ever, I get to it. It seems like it's only in the last century that our literary and cultural referentiality has become focused on the present, on the new and current, and not very deeply rooted in a length and breadth of tradition. In this respect I suppose I *am* a bit of a traditionalist. But I think writing and reading as a conversation, even argument with the past makes a good deal more sense than reading and writing as a conversation with the present.

T

I missed out on Hesse somehow and have the Glass bead game on my list of stuff I really have to read before I hit 50. Only about 7 years to go...

GBG is a book that is due for a re-reading. If you haven't read any of him, though, I'm not sure I'd recommend starting with it. Narcissus and Goldmund was my entry into Hesse. It was given to me by one of my best friends, someone who played Narcissus to me Goldmund. Siddhartha came next for me, and it develops some similar themes along different lines. GBG, it seems to me, is the apotheosis his exploration of these ideas, and is masterful, final, and hauntingly beautiful, especially the end and the collection of stories at the end.

T

The context of our discussion was whether or not I, in my twenties, am ready or not for the more mature works of great literature.

That seems like a load of bull. I think many can agree that age and maturity have no correlation. Your maturity is based on your level of education and your ability to observe things and process information from what you have observed. Now, reading can greatly enhance that ability and that's what one should be reading for.

And on that note, it's possible to learn as much from those "great works" as one can learn from a "lesser work". Zweig? Second-rate author? I would never consider him second-rate. I've learned more from Zweig than I've ever learned from Dostoevsky. But it's true that in my case, the Russians just do nothing for me. Not because I'm not "mature enough" but simply because I have tried and read a few and just don't feel any relation towards them.

The Japanese on the other hand? Ah yes, the Japanese. Now there's something I can learn from.

In any case, as someone who is of the same age as you, I can only tell you my path to my 30s. Read anything and everything I want. I like a good mix of contemporary and classics. Each helps me understand the other. We no longer live in the world of the classic authors so it's important to see what people are considering relevant right now. But, we must also not forget what was considered relevant back in that age as those ideas are what helped build who we are today. You need just as much contemporary as one needs classic.

And since everyone is an individual, what works for one person won't work for another. My mother and grandmother loved Stendhal's The Red and The Black back in the day and couldn't stop gushing over the book. I managed to get halfway before I had to put it down due to the naive "romance" that was in the book. My mom then told me she tried to reread it recently and she thought it was dumb as well. So, basically, read what you feel is right for you now. No matter your age.

And that tomcat turd called my beloved fellow Californian John Steinbeck second-tier or second-rate?! You'd think the Nobel Prize committee was the Pulitzer, saying such a thing!

Come 'ere, catty kitty, that I might strike a match & light thy whiskers afire after hog- or dog (or whatever it is)-tying thine paws and shaving a stripe of matty fur from your back!

no actual cat was harmed in the posting of this message

LOLOL

(oooooh I love a good controversy! I'm glad my trashing of Zweig, Steinbeck et all elicited such passionate responses. I was tempted to include Hemingway on that list, but he is actually third rate, so...)

Actually, I agree with everyone above. Telling someone what books they should be reading is a mugs game. Read what you want. Lilisin made an excellent point about age and maturity, and Choco (are you still there, dear?) you have shown again and again in your reviews the kind of maturity that makes a great reader, the kind of reader most writers would long for.

Bas, it's all very well to say you should be reading what is important for your generation -you cite Sartre, the Beats, Castaneda etc. We should all be so lucky that our generations should include writers like that! A diet of solely contemporary writers (I know you're not suggesting that) would give us what? Ewan McEwan? Cormac McCarthy? JK Rowling? Dan Brown?

oh dear.

Read the good/great coming-of-age novels and kunstlerroman -- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Sons and Lovers, Crime and Punishment (just for Murr), Women in Love, To the Lighthouse, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, lots of Austen, early Margaret Drabble and A.S. Byatt, Patterns of Childhood, the Martha Quest series, Tender Is the Night, The Sun Also Rises, Cat's Eye, The Magic Toyshop, Burger's Daughter, Our Eyes Were Watching God, The Bluest Eye, Sula, The Portrait of a Lady, The Joy Luck Club, and the Romantic poets.

Also -- lots and lots of mythology --Greek, Hebrew, Native American, Hindu, Mesopotamian, Meso-American, Buddhist, Far-Eastern -- literature is steeped in it.

Ooooh this is marvellous! You're all inspiring me, I hope others are getting the same benefit.

As usual the cream of the conversation happens while I am asleep in my antipodeal bed, but I herewith my responses:

>13 lilisin: lilisin, maybe maturity wasn't quite the right word, I was more meaning life experience. Piero had plenty of that when he was way younger than I am and thus had an advantage - but I've had an ordinary life so far. Would not this make a difference?

Also, the advice given here is overwhelmingly about a good grounding, what makes a foundation for the other, bigger works. Where to start so you can work up. This is so incredibly awesome, to have such advice from those of you who have been working it out for yourselves. So "read what you like" is of course true, and is what I'm going to do anyway, but what I'm asking is, what am I more likely to like now, as opposed to later? And all this is telling me.

Bas, I largely agree with Murr, that what great writers are writing today? I do read Ishiguro and David Mitchell, who Murr would give third rank I think, but I consider them to be pretty good. Otherwise, I don't yet know of any contemporary writers who really give a genuine insight into my generation, though I think citygirl would disagree.

>9 Porius: Por, you are advising me to get a classical education, and I agree with you. Of course all the English writers pre1950 had it, and for all I know all pre1950 writers had it wherever they were. I don't know. But I do know I'd have picked up more in Eliot if I knew the old mythologies. I know it largely because I do have a familiarity with the KJ Bible and I see allusions to it often. No doubt the Greeks and so on would be as oft alluded to.

TCM is on the money when he says you are an ideal reader for any and all writers. Your artistic instincts are sound. It's written all over that 'gloves' picture you posted earlier. I encourage you to write reviews first and foremost because I enjoy reading them. Keep up the good work and as that old Disney character used to say: 'let your conscience be your guide.'

Now if old Davies calls his novel THE LYRE OF ORPHEUS just what is he trying to say to us. A novel wherein Ernst Theodore Wilhelm is in the catbird seat.

Por, Davies is saying that I need to Google "Orpheus", which I did. I guess I'd need to read Davies' book to see exactly what is being symbolised as a much-desired object that charms and attracts anyone who comes into contact with it... am I on the right track? Greek mythology. Yes. I lack that exceedingly.

I have a dreadful feeling that you are attributing too much to me Por. I'd love to pretend that I really meant whatever it is that you see in that gloves picture, but the fact is, I just went looking on the internet for a picture that I liked which also illustrated my point. If you see a deeper meaning than that in it, well I sincerely wish I lived up to your reading of my artistic character, but it would not be honest of me to say so. (if you are reading this it means I was brave enough to hit 'post message', but I'm seriously contemplating letting you keep believing in my genius).

That picture again:

Who are the good literary writers writing today? And by "today" I'd define it as an author who's published something in the past five years, 2006 & beyond.

First, I'll echo Muse's David Mitchell & Kazuo Ishiguro. Cloud Atlas puts Mitchell in a league all his own.

Besides them? Plenty. But let me add only two for starters. I'd like to hear others list theirs lest I list them for them.

Richard Powers
William T. Vollmann

The older I get, the more I gravitate toward the distant past of Lit., but it'd be foolish for me not to recognize the greatest of today -- the genius of Powers and Vollmann and Mitchell. Ishiguro's close (I like the two I've read of his a lot) but I suspect he'll eventually be in that second rung, which is still a pretty damn esteemed rung if you ask me.

Here we are criticizing Murr, when in fact he's giving high praise to Steinbeck, the 20th centuries United States equivalent of Victor Hugo -- socially conscious easy reading, didactic if not moralizing storytelling (both of whom I love regardless!), by placing him so high. I thought for certain Hemingway would rate the seventh circle of Hell, Murr, but you've got him way up there in the third rung -- I'm surprised by your munificence & magnanimity!

And what about Haruki Murakami? But I said I'd only list two.

Rique, thanks. I was going to say 'but they're so American!' but I see on the list I've been compiling from this thread, there isn't much American lit there, so that's great. I am going to add Peter Carey and Thomas Kenneally to my list, though they are surely third rank but still, as you say, Rique, excellently high up there.

Right. Here's my list so far, mostly based on what's written above.

Definitely/Probably
Portrait of the artist
Heart of Darkness
Bleak House
The Idiot
Old Goriot (or another Balzac)
Of Human Bondage
Charles Lamb – essays and letters
To the Lighthouse and other Woolf
Peter Carey – True History of the Kelly Gang, or Parrot and Olivier in America

Maybe/Preferably
Hesse – Narcissus and Goldmund
Sagan – Boujour Tristesse
Dickens – David Copperfield
Primo Levi – If this is a man
G Greene – the power and the glory
Shakespeare comedies
Sirius by Stapledon
The Incredible voyage, Tristan Jones
Beware of Pity, Zweig
something by Thomas Kenneally

Have Already Read
Les Mis (meh)
Dumas (didn’t finish should try again)
All Brontes
All Austens
Of Mice and Men
Various Shakespeares – most tragedies, plus Richard III, Midsummer night’s dream.
Murakami – Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Grenville – The Idea of Perfection - I threw this one in because it's by an Australian female still living, and I thought it was very good indeed when I read it.

If you are not 30 yet, don't spend too much time with books.

Travel instead, a short walk through the hindu kush for instance, go fishing, try to catch a white whale, fly to the moon, speak with rich people, live with poor people, party in Moscow, relax in the Mountains, pray, cast a stone to the heavens, have experiences...look for beauty

Amen, dear Mac. What more can be said after that.

A song maybe ?

TCM is visible in the clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT-fOr29OfA

Mac is right as rain as ever, though I'm a believer in reading. Take a few books with you on the trip. If the darned thing wasn't so heavy I'd say take Simon Shama's REMBRANDT'S EYES with you as you toddle through the hindu kush. Maybe even meeting some remarkable men, maybe?

It's not just me, most of us feel that your reviews show a maturity beyond your years. It would be cruel of me to engage in false flattery. I mean every word I say, really.

That's weird, Por, because I know I saw absolutely nothing at all positive in Muse's reviews, nor did I see anything suggesting "holy shiitake mushrooms!, she's a salonista from Down Under!" in her reviews either, back circa late '09, when I covertly recruited her to join our company. I mean, why is Muse even here? Do you know? I sure don't.

You're so playful EF.

I liked Choco's review of my book, though misguided from down under she may be.

Simon shama, on the evergrowing TBR list !

Choco, in this brillant Salon, some years before you were born on one of our yearly international conventions, we reviewed the the short list of the Bookers, since they started many years ago.
No surprisingly a lot of books were discarded as pulp by our esteemed members.

We therfore sampled our own list : the SALAD list, Salon's alternative list of awards and distinctions...

Here is what we kept as essential reading :

http://macumbeira-macumbeira.blogspot.com/2010/03/unread-salad-awards.html

The truth is there are plenty of writers writing today who are worthy of being read, just as there are in the past.

I like Ishiguro but he's not a showy writer like the others so that may lead readers to underestimate him. I did not think Never Let Me Go was all that great. However, between The Unconsoled and his shorter subtler novels he has shown he belongs in any group of elite contemporary authors.

I've come thisclose to buying Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance but the few times I've picked it up and thumbed through, it's not made the cut when I take the trip to the register.

I still dig the Beats, but I've never read On the Road. When I get around to it, I expect my perspective will be different than if I was 20, but I also expect I will appreciate it.

I agree with Mac but I say bring a book with you and hit the bookstores in all those exotic places. If you ship them, you won't have to carry them around!

I like Peter Carey too, but haven't read anything since the disappointing Tristan Smith except Jack Maggs. Jack Maggs is a must read for any Dickens lover. The Tax Inspector is a must read period. I wouldn't place Carey in the elite, though.

A list like EF suggested should include Paul Auster. I am having a hard time distinguishing between the absolute top authors and the many other really good ones. So I'll stop at Auster for now.

Mac reminds me that I picked up Sour Sweet after we compiled that SALAD list and I've not yet read it! I am mentally shifting it toward the top of my reading pile.

If you'll permit me to interject again, a distinctive - but not necessarily unique - voice seems like it is a necessary quality in a writer elevated to "elite" status. Showy writers often have distinctive voices but not many showy writers are good enough to make their idiosyncratic works work like they need to for elite status.

I'm with you, Choco (as in, I recently turned 27)...I'd recommend re-reading books you remember liking a lot when you read them in high school. You'll probably still like them, but you'll also notice how much you've changed, and how different the characters seem to you with another decade under your belt. So yeah, with the new books you've simply got to read before 30, some of the old books you already read and enjoyed. I've been trying to re-read a couple of old teenage favorites a year (mine include The Moviegoer, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, The Day of the Locust, and any number of books by Kurt Vonnegut) and it's been quite rewarding.

slick,

Three Farmers on their way to a Dance I've not read. I believe it was his first novel? Not everybody's first can be a Bright & Risen Angel.

I guarantee you that you would be in to his novel Plowing the Dark. It has slick written all over it. Just read that first italicized page and tell me it alone is not enough to make you salivate and want to read the rest. It's a virtual reality mind pfuck of a book. Galatea 2.2 is excellent as well, especially if artificial consciousness is your thing. As is, or so I've heard, The Gold Bug Variations, that requires an extensive knowledge of classical music and music theories to "get," and since I don't, have not attempted it. Medellia, if she were around, could convince you of Powers' genius far better than I can.

The only reasons I can think of to read something early in life rather than later are that it either opens up new vistas or helps you understand other things you'll read later. That would militate in favor of reading old stuff, since new stuff will refer to it, or foreign things, since foreign by its nature is more likely to be "new" to whatever domestic you want to subscribe to.

This could be boring, but wisdom often is. But you don't want to make the "should" reads too much of your diet.

My first thoughts, limited to 10 things:

(1) Some biblical things. Genesis, Exodus, Job, John, and whatever else strikes your fancy.
(2) Greek plays and lots of 'em.
(3) Gilgamesh.
(4) Early Chinese and Arabic poetry, but in each case read with a native who can pronounce things for you and let you hear them in the original. Consider this worthwhile dating advice as well.
(5) Edgar Allan Poe. While Melville tops my charts for 19th Century America, I think Poe may give you more of a sense of the birth of secular literature in my country. So he's the American I'll suggest pre-decrepitancy.
(6) Don Quixote. Maybe the most fun on the list. Well, this and Gilgamesh.
(7) Confucius.
(8) The Upanishads.
(9) Homer, but not that hack Virgil. To get the full complexion of Greek mythology, though, you may need Hesiod. Really, one can never read enough Greeks.
(10) Sakuntala. This message brought to you by the summer stock thread.
(10) Genji. You can't look at any art from Japan without Genji. So this one is really part of art appreciation class.
(10) Thomas Mann.

that hack Virgil LOL

Answering a question later in the thread (because I'm catching up:) I know of only one current writer in English whom I'd advocate calling "great" - Derek Walcott. I am sure others will become great after they die.

To macs point of the walk through the kush and trying to catch a white whale, one of the fun things about reading Melville's letters and journals is that he finally got around to reading shakespeare when he was 29, because he was busy chasing whales and taking walks. It was a pretty big deal for him, really loved the stuff, and played a big role in his move from light hearted to weighty minded. Kind of sad, actually.

Melville is a writer I would hug if I met him

Very nice your back Sam. Always brimming over with solid suggestions for the common reader. Though I must admit it takes some balls to call Virgil a hack. Maybe Virgil Trucks? But even he had good stuff. If memory serves Publius Vergilius Maro knew which side his bread was buttered, or buddered as they say here in the Mid-West.
VT
http://mopupduty.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/virgil-trucks3.jpg

This topic is way too depressing. All great titles, and I am 20 years behind. Sigh...

Oh well, 'better late than never.

And why focus on early adulthood? How about some Philip Roth? Sprinkle in a few tales of lifetime reflection.

I'm behind too, dawg. By 30, the only literature I'd read because I wanted to was Les Mis & War & Peace. I'd had a thing for Rimbaud in college but nothing that I was compelled to read for good grades interested me outside the classroom. At 31, I read an article in the L.A. Times about the new professor who'd just been hired by the Claremont Colleges to teach creative writing twenty minutes north of where I lived, some weird (but intriguing) intellectual named David Foster Wallace, and decided to set the science fiction down for a sec and bought Infinite Jest the very next day. That simple decision & curiosity revolutionized everything about reading for me from there on out. Just over ten years removed, I'm still playing catch up.

Riffing off your Roth, I would think Portnoy's Complaint would be a good one to read by 30. Or, based on what Roth said recently about fiction, perhaps I've wised up to reading anymore Philip Roth.

Slick, I've been meaning to say that I agree about Never Let me Go. But The Remains of the Day and When we were Orphans are both exceedingly good, IMO.

Sam!! How good to see you here. So you're saying Mann is a place to start? I've been relegating him to the 'later when I'm more ready' class.

Your dating advice sounds pretty good. Now to find the right Chinese or Arabic man...

Thank you. This will keep me busy. The most recurring advice is Greek stuff, so Greek stuff I hope to pursue forthwith.

I don't think wisdom is often boring, except on the surface (which is probably what you meant).

Muse: I agree. Orphans might be my favorite. Even if Unconsoled is most ambitious. Floating World is about as good as Remains. Unconsoled is the one you (meaning I) think about most often years later.

Don't let Mac overhear mee, but I'd like to put in a good word for The Plague. I've returned to it about once every seven years. Its a bit different every time and always seems really relevant.

huh ? snort, spit whine ...grumble

Did I say The Plague? I meant The Scarlet Plague!

oh ah grumph snort lick shuffle oh ah ok, scared me boy...

ok slick, I am bit tired about these jokes that I do not like Camus.
I love Camus, I adore Camus, I wish to spend a night with Camus

http://www.modelmanagement.com/model/virginia-camus

I'm also sick and tired of the jokes my brothers.

I love Ulysses.

Edith Wharton - especially The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country, the short stories, Summer, and The House of Mirth. Wharton's short story "Xingo" is a hoot.

Ellen Glascow Barren Ground and Vein of Iron

Zola - Germinal

Flaubert Madame Bovary

Sigrid Undset the Kristin Lavransdatter series

Homer The Odyssey

Maguerite de Navarre The Heptameron

All of Dickens, Jane Austen, and the Bronte sisters

Willa Cather's The Song of the Lark (her only first-rate novel in my opinion)

Sinclair Lewis Main Street

A really good translation of Lysistrata

Shakespeare of course

Crime and Punishment or The Brothers Karamazov

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

The Second Sex

Saroyan's The Human Comedy

For fun Mary Stewart'a first two books of her Arthurian cycle The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills

Anything by Isak Dineson

I realize this list is very Anglo-American. I didn't arrive at a more global perspective until I reached my thirties.

Oh just everything - read it all.

haha, Brilliant list!

A question to the Russophiles in our group, has anyone read or heard of this book?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0811213641/ref=pe_160130_20424340_pe_vfe_dt7
Omon Ra, a novel about the Soviet space program.

I haven't read this one, but I've read some other Pelevin. He can be extremely funny, a kind of mad, vodka fuelled Murakami. if you read it, I will be interested to hear what you think of it.

Onto the wish list it goes!

I love how all the advice is contradictory but right.

Read classics--excellent advice. Don't read the classics--also excellent advice. Pay attention to the writers of your times--excellent advice. Don't read; collect experiences--excellent advice. Read everything--most excellent advice.

I don't know what one should read but I know it's fortunate if one read before thirty the books worth rereading after thirty.