1. Brotherhood of Tyrants: Manic Depression and Absolute Power, by D. Jablow Hershman
I was talking with the doctor who helps me manage my bipolar. He saved my life back in 2013. Well, it was a group effort. He knows me well. I was talking about my lifelong interest in dictators and he recommended this book. Making a connection between mental illness and something else – artistic ability or becoming a murderous dictator, for example – is seen as “dangerous”, I suppose. Maybe yeah in the wrong hands it would be a bad thing. But I like the thought-experiment. (Kay Jamison’s Touched With Fire ruffled so many feathers when it was published but for me – someone suffering from anguish I can’t even describe – her book was so important. It actually suggested that, in terms of human evolution, mood disorders have their place, can be useful. Otherwise they would have been “selected” out of existence.) My interest in dictators is, to some degree, about what the world looks like to a Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot. I think it’s important to try to understand how they think so we can recognize what’s going on as it’s going on. Hm, seems a bit relevant right now.
2. Heroines, by Kate Zambreno
Her fragmentary “snapshot” style – the paragraphs separated out into little discrete thoughts, stand-alone and yet working cumulatively – is inspiring to me.
3. The Man Without Qualities Vol. 1: A Sort of Introduction and Pseudo Reality Prevails, by Robert Musil
I read a lot of very long books this year. Books that took me months to complete. This was the first of them. I honestly don’t know if I can make it through Volume 2, which is even longer. But it was a very interesting experience, even with its tedium. In fact, the tedium I think was part of the point. Musil goes on and on and on detailing the rather silly and superficial life of this guy, and his involvement in the planning committee for an event celebrating the Habsburg Empire. Nobody can agree on anything. Nobody can agree on what form the celebration would take. Chapters and chapters are devoted to planning meetings, and little romances, and the superficiality of the entire world, and it’s eerie because this world is about to end. These people are planning a celebration for the world they think is forever. Meanwhile, that very same world – and their blessed Empire – gallops towards a cliff.
4. Waking the Dead, by Scott Spencer
I was thinking of writing something about the film adaptation of this book, but then decided not to, the political vibe in this country being what it is right now. I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the stomach for it. But in the preparation phase, I read the book (which I had never read before). Spencer wrote Endless Love, a smash hit to end all smash hits. The movie is pretty faithful to the book. I think it’s probably Jennifer Connelly’s best performance.
5. The Meaning of Hitler, by Sebastian Haffner
See the above notation for Brotherhood of Tyrants. In my Hitler-reading, this book is often in the bibliography so I decided to check it out. It’s a biography – kind of – but it’s more an examination of him psychologically, and all the different forces that formed him. He was formed early. It all was there before he even went into politics. I highly recommend this book.
6. My Name is Barbra, by Barbra Streisand
It’s rare for a book to be such an event everyone reads it at the same time. Everyone puts down whatever else they are reading to take up the new one. You literally drop everything. And you talk about it with everyone. Barbra’s tome of memoir was an event. There’s so much to say about it but one of the reasons I loved it so much – and consider it a bit of a miracle – is how in-depth she goes with her own process as an actress. She talks about the choices she made, how she thought about things, the research she did. There’s so much STUFF around Barbra Streisand, she is rarely asked the questions in interviews that I want asked. I also loved how she remembers every meal she ever had. And tells you where to get the best milk shakes up near Malibu, etc. I kind of never wanted it to end. My entire community of friends turned into an impromptu book club, asking each other “Have you gotten to this part yet?” “Where are you at in the book?”
7. Address Unknown, by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor
A brutally effective novella, in epistolary form. First published in 1938 in Story magazine, it caused a sensation, before lapsing into obscurity for almost an entire century. It’s finally been re-issued. The book is made up of the correspondence between two friends: a Jewish art dealer in San Francisco and his former business partner who moved back to Germany in 1932, excited about all the “democratic” reforms supposedly happening in the homeland. There is no outside narration. We only have the letters. The correspondence is filled with chit-chat, but the background noise is the rise of Nazism and then Hitler’s power-grab. It’s chilling. Taylor was urged to use the name “Kressmann Taylor” by the editor of Story, since it was thought too strong for a woman to be the author. The magazine sold out in record time. It is such an effective way to show brainwashing/propaganda, and to illustrate the dangers of state power. It’s heartbreaking but it also shows that you can’t just go on being “friends” with people who want to debate your right to exist. We live in a time where a lot of people are saying things like “Let’s have a debate about these political ideas!” Sure! But not if you are “for” rolling back my rights, or taking away the rights of others. Some things aren’t up for debate. Taylor witnessed German Americans turning on their Jewish neighbors. She saw how these poisonous ideas could not be compartmentalized. She saw the danger. The story was brought out in book form and published internationally. It was banned in Germany.
8. The Dud Avocado, by Elaine Dundy
I had never read this and I am in love with it. Dundy wrote what I consider to be one of the best books on Elvis Presley (and that’s a pretty crowded field), but I hadn’t branched out into her other work. The Dud Avocado is clearly loosely fictionalized, based on Dundy’s knockabout 20s. A slightly aimless young woman decides to head over to Europe to bum around. It’s the 1950s. She has friends, boyfriends, she trips around the streets of Paris, there are walks of shame, she gets caught up in the wrong crowd, but she finds the right crowd too. It’s funny, lively, and daring. It could have been written yesterday.
9. The End of Me, by Alfred Hayes
Last year I read his My Face for the World to See and felt excited to have discovered a new fave. The End of Me is even bleaker than My Face (which is saying something, since My Face for the World to See is very bleak). There’s a similarity to John Cheever here in that Hayes looks unblinkingly at things other men don’t want to face. He looks straight at the facts of his life, of being a man, of being a failure, of getting older, of losing your attractiveness, of feeling like life hasn’t somehow worked out the way you hoped. Norman Mailer, for example, could sometimes still pump himself up. Hemingway really stopped being ABLE to write when he stopped believing his own mythology. Men have different challenges than women, not lesser or worse, just different, particularly in the middle of the 20th century. I should clarify: white middle-aged men. Hayes nails a certain kind of loneliness and self-pity, a wild emptiness and loneliness, a hole that can never be filled. Men who are disappointing to others. Ouch. This is one of those Flâneur-type novels, with the main character wandering around the rainy New York streets, lost in a haze of memories and regrets, searching for something he will never find. Everything he wants is in the rear view mirror.
10. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce
This is probably my sixth time reading it. And it won’t be my last.
11. Basic Black with Pearls, by Helen Weinzweig
A haunting eerie book about a proper housewife, an “invisible woman”, in thrall to her lover Conrad, a mystery man who appears to be a high-level international spy. He leaves her cryptic messages which she then must decode, before flying off to meet him in Vienna. But he never seems to be there. His disguises are impenetrable. The writing is hypnotic, and so close-first-person, I started to question her reliability as a narrator. The affair is so fantastical I wondered if perhaps she was making it all up, create adventures for herself in her mind in order to combat the crushing boredom of a conventional life where she basically doesn’t exist except as a bored wife. I wondered if the book was really about psychosis, if her lover was a manifestation of her brain-wiring going wrong. Weinzweig doesn’t make it clear. The book is purposefully ambiguous, and totally devastating.
12. Screwball: The Life of Carole Lombard, by Larry Swindell
I read this biography in preparation for writing about Carole Lombard in my column at Liberties Journal.
13. The Uncollected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick
I’m late to the Hardwick party and it’s been fun doing catch-up.
14. The Communist, by Guido Morselli
A depressing novel providing an intriguing look at post-WWII politics in Italy, as seen through the eyes Walter Ferranini, a deputy in the Italian parliament, a one-time follower of Mussolini, who then went to Spain to fight in the Civil War (not on Franco’s side, of course). The son of an anarchist, he is discouraged and depressed by the realities of Italian politics in the 1950s, and what has become of the Communist Party he has devoted his whole life to. The Communists turn on him, as they were wont to do. The Communists are puritanical, vindictive, demanding self-confessions, and basically shunning people who step out of line. Walter finds himself cut loose. He has never had a personal life. He sacrificed everything for politics. Without the Party, life has no meaning. Morselli’s life was difficult. He wrote constantly but only published two books in his lifetime. He committed suicide in 1973. This is a very serious book and it was painful to read: you can’t avoid the feeling that Walter has devoted his life to something empty, that he had bought a lie, and was now coming face to face with reality, with the wreckage of his dreams.
15. Table for Two, by Amor Towles
I love Amor Towles’ novels (Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow, Lincoln Highway) and so this collection of short stories was a blast. I read it in one sitting, trying to make myself slow down, but I couldn’t! Included in the collection is the novella Eve in Hollywood, starring Eve, the “lead” of Rules of Civility. Towles had, I believe, self-published this years ago, but it was impossible to get your hands on it. I was so excited to finally read it, and it didn’t disappoint. Eve in Hollywood is an old-fashioned Hollywood caper. What is it exactly Towles is doing? It’s hard to put my finger on it. All I know is I was so engrossed in Rules of Civility I missed my train stop, and I had to find a motel at midnight, which led me to Seekonk, Massachusetts. It was surreal, but that’s how good Towles is. The conductor announced my stop multiple times. I was lost to the world. I went to a talk he gave at the Coolidge in Brookline around the publication of Lincoln Highway. Highly recommend seeing him in person. I signed up for his newletter.
16. The Complete Poems, Philip Larkin
Another book which took me months. It’s the complete works. I read about a poem a day. It was a morning meditation. And he is not, how you say, a cheery read. He only published four volumes of poetry over his life, but, of course, his reputation is massive. I am only familiar with his most famous poems, “This Be the Verse”, “High Windows”, “Church Going”, so he’s always been someone I meant to explore more. Honestly, he’s tough. He sounds suicidal. This is not a judgment. Just an observation. There are certain lines that ring a gong in me – but the gong is so deeply buried (by design) – I don’t exactly want to hear from that particular gong. He’s tough. Not a pleasant man, but a brilliant poet.
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three(which was rather late for me)
-Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.
17. Thomas Jefferson : Writings : Autobiography / Notes on the State of Virginia / Public and Private Papers / Addresses / Letters, Library of America
Another reading project that took me almost the full year. I have the Library of America volumes for Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington, and Hamilton. Never read any of them in their completion. I decided to just start this one morning, like “what the hell, let’s go for this.” I know no one will follow my advice – or who knows, maybe you will – but I do recommend taking this on. I took it slow. One can only take so much in one sitting.
18. Close-up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream, by Sam Staggs
I’ve read his other books (on All About Eve, on Streetcar Named Desire) but not this one. This year, I presented Sunset Boulevard at the Jacob Burns Film Center, and although I’ve seen the movie countless times – and absorbed the stories about it by osmosis – I had never sat down to do research. Most of this I already knew but it was fun.
19. Wild Heart, a Life: Natalie Clifford Barney’s Journey from Victorian America to the Literary Salons of Paris, by Suzanne Rodriguez
This was a rapturous reading experience. Natalie Clifford Barney was a rich American who lived an unconventional life (putting it mildly), moving to Paris at the turn of the 20th century, where she became one of the leading lights of the literary and artistic world, as well as queen of the lesbian scene. She intersected with everyone. Everyone. She was a siren. People were obsessed. She wrote, and hosted a famous salon, where everyone – everyone – showed up. People like her fascinate me. She had a powerful personality, obviously, but she also had such an independent spirit she recognized no outside rules or conventions. She lived for herself, she made her own rules. Not only is she an interesting person, the book is a great portrait of Belle Époque Paris.
Natalie Clifford Barney
20. Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith
I circle back to Patricia Highsmith’s novels on the regular. I move through them, and then just start again. I’ll keep doing this forever. They never get old. It’s incredible that this is her debut. What??
21. I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, by Lorrie Moore
Sometimes it’s tough being a fan of Lorrie Moore. She publishes so rarely! She makes you wait. She’s a master of the short story. Her writing is so unique, so distinctly hers. Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, barely topping 160 pages, is her best novel, in my opinion. I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home is her first novel in years. I am going to be honest. This was a tough read. The subject matter hit too close to home and I am not ready to deal with any of it yet. I will when it’s time. But not now.
22. Show Me The Magic: My Adventures in Life and Hollywood, by Paul Mazursky
Who has picked up Paul Mazursky’s torch? Was it even a torch? It was special, whatever it was. He was a product of his times, for sure, but these kind of finely observed social comedies for adults don’t really exist anymore. His memoir is mostly work-based, stories of film-making. He was a real bohemian. He tosses in some biographical details
– wife, kids – but they aren’t really the point.
23. The World Is Yours: The Story of Scarface, by Glenn Kenny
Glenn’s Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas was one of the books of 2020. Glenn is a pal of mine, and it’s so cool to see the successes of his recent books! I’m not a huge Scarface fan, but of course I know the movie intimately. If you went through an Al Pacino phase when you were studying acting in college, you watched Scarface on eternal repeat. Glenn got interviews with everyone (except, sadly, Pacino). Fantastic anecdotes from everyone. I can’t wait to see what movie Glenn tackles next.
24. Letters of Mary Shelley
This slim collection was originally published in 1911. Scanned in from Cornell University’s collection. Hence, no footnotes. Nothing to explain anything. Still: as first-person documents, these are incredible.
25. Jonathan Swift: Major Works
I wrapped up the Thomas Jefferson project and took up Jonathan Swift. I am intimately familiar with his most famous three – Gulliver’s Travels, Tale of a Tub, and Modest Proposal – oh, and some of his poems – but had never read the rest. This was another book that took me months to get through. I relied on the massive footnotes because satire is often incomprehensible outside the era in which it was written. He’s dazzling. Dazzlingly cranky.
26. Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters, by John Waters
I definitely needed to lighten the mood. I adore him.
27. Berlin Alexanderplatz, by Alfred Döblin
Of course I’ve seen the Rainer Werner Fassbinder mini-series and so the story was familiar, I knew where we were going. Never read the book before. Holy shit. This is a masterpiece. That’s my commentary.
28. Orwell: Essays
I’ve read all the books over and over again and have a smaller collection of his most famous essays (“Such Such Were the Joys”, “Politics and the English Language”, “Inside the Whale”, etc.) but had never read the complete works. The book is massive. He had his own column for years, where he wrote about living in wartime London, he reviewed books, etc. This was the reading experience of the year for me. I bought the Everyman Library edition. I’m a completist. I’ll revisit this book countless times.
29. Fatelessness, by Imre Kertész
I read his Liquidation last year. This one is loosely based on Kertész’s own harrowing experience being hauled away from his home as a teenager and sent to Auschwitz (and a series of other camps after that: amazingly Auschwitz was just a way-station for him). Hungary was “final days” for Germany’s reich, and was the beginning of the real end. He spent less than a year in the camps before being liberated, and then trying to make his way back home to Hungary. Brilliant and chilling book about a kid in an unimaginable situation.
30. From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir, by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough
What an incredibly painful read. It tore at my heart. Death haunts the book. Riley Keough put the book together from the cassette tapes and notes her mother left behind. Riley adds her own commentary in between Lisa’s words, providing glimpses of her childhood, and what it was like for Riley – and Lisa’s other kids – during different periods. There was a lot here I hadn’t really known, or put together. The Scientology thing, for example. Priscilla was at her wits’ end and basically dropped Lisa Marie off at the Celebrity Center, sort of like “Here, you deal with her.” While this sounds horrifying, and it is (Priscilla doesn’t really come off well), for Lisa Marie it was freedom. She was left alone there. The Celebrity Center was a haven (as wild as that sounds), with all these rebel outlaw kids living in complete anarchy. It gave me a whole new perspective on Lisa Marie’s involvement with that “organization”. I cried a lot reading this book. I am so in awe of Riley for putting this together. I can’t even imagine how difficult this must have been for her.
31. Mary Shelley, by Miranda Seymour
A massive exhaustive biography. Her life doesn’t even seem possible. How could one person experience so much?
32. Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan
I read this in preparation for reviewing the film (which I loved). I loved “Foster” (also adapted into a film, called The Quiet Girl, which I also reviewed). The criticisms of Small Things Like These – you can look it up – seem ridiculous to me. Not every story needs to be told in the same way. It’s not a history book. It’s the story of a man who has to make the decision to address an evil going on in his town (and everywhere in Ireland), and it’s against his nature to make a fuss, to “step in”. He’s not an activist or a hero. But he is a deeply moral man and he can’t forget what he has seen. Keegan’s style is light, not weighty. She doesn’t go on and on and on. She’s the opposite. Her stories are short. She gets so much done with less words.
33. Shakespeare’s Sonnets, edited by Stephen Booth
I learned of this edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets – and why it’s special – through Ron Rosenbaum’s book The Shakespeare Wars. This edition dates from the 1970s and was edited by Stephen Booth, and Rosenbaum gets fascinated by him – and by the notes in the back – and goes and interviews Booth. I got really really interested. So I bought this edition. I wrote about all of this way back in 2010. I read this entire edition – plus notes (some of which are 8, 9 pages long) – maybe 10 years ago? So I did it again this year. Here’s my process (and I would do one a morning):
— Read the sonnet out loud. Stay sharp and see what I notice about the language.
— Go through the notes. Flip back and forth between notes and sonnet to see what he’s pointing out.
— Read the sonnet again, out loud, with all the new knowledge I have just acquired.
What’s different about Booth is he has no interest in biographical speculation. The notes are language-based. He makes no “guesses” about what the sonnets “mean” overall. So this is an extremely rigorous experience of “close reading”. It’s good exercise for the brain. And once I got into the groove of it, I start to notice the patterns. I start to know what to look for. Any instance of the word “will” for example. Any mention of “eye” (think “I”). So once I’m in the swing of it, I can notice things myself, without even checking Booth’s notes. It’s super fun. A nice ritual for the morning.
34. Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere, Christopher Hitchens
There are a couple of older collections of his I haven’t read, this being one of them. This collection is made up of essays from late 90s up to 2000, so it’s a little bit eerie because they come from “the moment before”. There are two essays on Oscar Wilde, and essays on Hitchens’ regular subjects: P.G. Wodehouse, George Orwell, Rudyard Kipling, Philip Larkin. Percy Shelley said that poets were the “unacknowledged legislators of the world” so this collection is mostly about writers and poets. Again: it’s very 1999/2000.
35. James Joyce: A Life, by Edna O’Brien
I’d read this before and decided to re-read in preparation for interviewing filmmaker Sinéad O’Shea about her Edna O’Brien documentary. I remember Dad recommending this book to me. It’s short, it’s not Richard Ellmann’s doorstop of a Joyce bio (Joyce deserves a doorstop and Ellmann’s book is one of the greatest biographies of the 20th century.) O’Brien’s insights into what drove Joyce are invaluable, especially regarding his anger. “Anger” doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. His was a total rejection. A firm “NO” to all of it. And only by saying “No” could he find his way to the “Yes” which closes out Ulysses. If you look at Ellmann’s book and feel intimidated by its length – well, first of all, you should read it anyway. But O’Brien’s much shorter bio might be an easier place to start.
36. The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
I am launching my new reading project which will take me into 2025: reading Oscar Wilde’s complete works. As should be obvious, considering my background, I know all of his major plays very well, have been in one of them, and quote them all the time. They are a part of me. I have read Dorian Gray probably 5 times. I have also read The Happy Prince, and then the big famous things, like “Ballad of Reading Gaol” and “De Profundis”. But I haven’t read any of his book reviews and the majority of his essays. Also his poetry. So I’m doing all of it – in as close to chronological order as I can do. Dorian Gray comes later in the timeline, but I wanted to launch my Wilde Year with this one. I’m excited.
37. Vera; Or the Nihilists, by Oscar Wilde
This is Oscar Wilde’s first play. He wrote it for an actress he loved and there were plans to put on a production but it was cancelled. I don’t think the actress was into it. I don’t blame her. It’s unbelievable to read Vera and try to connect it with the man who wrote, less than a decade later, Ideal Husband, Lady Windermere’s Fan … It takes place in Russia among a group of revolutionaries. Lots of fiery political speeches, and they all seem to be in earnest. (ahem) He based it on the life of revolutionary Vera Zasulich.
38. Part Of Our Time: Some Ruins And Monuments Of The Thirties, by Murray Kempton
I bought this because Christopher Hitchens reviewed it in the Unacknowledged Legislation. I was very intrigued. I had to buy it second-hand and it took weeks to arrive. This book is fascinating. It was written in 1955, and is a look at the last 40 years of the Left in America, focusing on a couple of different figures. It’s basically the journey of the radical Left from Sacco and Vanzetti to the HUAC. “Dashed hopes” is an understatement. I hadn’t heard of many of these people before, and it was really interesting to learn about them. I feel like there’s a lot of relevance to what we’re experiencing now. And it has added value since it was written by someone who participated in all of it, feels attached to it still, and is in the middle of a dark time – the HUAC times. So it’s written in-real-time. It’s not a historian’s view. It’s someone who knows many of the subjects he writes about personally.
39. Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi, by Teffi
Teffi! I need to read her memoirs now. I laughed out loud a couple of times reading this charming (and yet still unsettling) collection. She was an establishment writer in pre-Revolutionary Russia: a famous person, a beloved figure, a social commentator and a humorist. Then of course everything changed and soon she was on the run. The things she wrote when she was on the run are haunting (many of them only published posthumously). The essay detailing her personal encounters with Rasputin – who gave her the creeps – is WILD.
40. Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories, by Oscar Wilde
I’d only read two of these stories in the collection: Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and The Canterville Ghost. I wrote about the Charles Laughton adaptation of the second for Film Comment. I adore The Canterville Ghost. It makes me laugh out loud. The poor ghost, tormented by those twin boys, who ambush him nightly. And he just can’t terrorize the American family the way he would like. They refuse to be terrified of him and it’s so depressing for him!
41. The Searcher, by Tana French
I took a bit of a Tana French break and am coming back fresh. This is not an entry in her famous Dublin Homicide Squad series, although it takes place in Ireland. An ex-cop from Chicago buys an old house in a little town in Ireland and starts fixing it up. Before he knows it, he gets sucked into a local mystery, lured into curiosity by a 13 year old kid who asks for his help. Naturally the townspeople seem friendly on the surface but they have no patience for a “blow in” sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong. (I remember being a kid during our visit to Achill Island, and my dad was talking to a guy who referred to his neighbors as “blow-ins” even though they moved to Achill 40 years before.)
42. Lost, Found, Remembered, by Lyra McKee
I’d been meaning to get to this collection of the murdered journalist’s work. Reading it made me sad and mad. She was an independent investigative reporter. She wrote about growing up in Northern Ireland, what it was like to have been born into “peacetime” (post-Good Friday Agreement), and all the problems still plaguing her generation, trauma passed down, hopelessness passed down. She wrote a lot about the epidemic of suicides among the youth. (Her piece called The Ceasefire Babies – which I read in The Atlantic in 2016 – was what first got my attention. I was like, “WHO is this young writer?”). She was just 29 years old when she was killed. RIP Lyra.
42. The Duchess of Padua, by Oscar Wilde
Dreadful! And it’s five acts! It’s interesting though because you can see what he’s trying to do. He is trying to write a play that a famous actress will want to do. Same with Vera. The male characters don’t rate at all. The women get 2-page-long speeches. He clearly wants to be a playwright. He is trying. The leap forward just five years later – into the plays that would make his reputation forevermore – plays that are being done, at all times, around the globe – is jaw-dropping. Somewhere on earth right now a company is doing Importance of Being Earnest. Many companies, more like. It’s being performed as we speak by 20 different community theatres across America. Across the continent another company is doing An Ideal Husband. Always. Oscar had to get Vera and The Duchess of Padua out of his system first.
43. The Happy Prince and Other Tales, by Oscar Wilde
“The Happy Prince” is a heartbreaking story, similar to “Giving Tree”, but coming out of the world of decadence/aesthetics. The golden statue is stripped bare of jewels. He once dazzled the eye. He ends up grey and shabby. I love that Rupert Everett named his movie about Oscar Wilde’s final years The Happy Prince. The fairy tale came early in Wilde’s writing work, but it was prophetic. The world would strip its author bare. Other touching stories: The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish Giant, The Devoted Friend (this one makes me so mad!), and The Remarkable Rocket, which is very funny. A hoity-toity egotistical firework device comes to an ignoble end.
44. The Yellow Wall-paper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A work of genius. I first read the story in college and it rattled me. It was around the same time I tripped over Doris Lessing’s “To Room Nineteen”, which rattled me even more. I didn’t take a class in feminist literature. I just kind of stumbled over these things, doing what I do now, following the bread crumbs if I’m interested in something. (This is why there are major gaps in my education, which will take a lifetime to address). I was heavily into Margaret Atwood freshman/sophomore year in college, and read a couple of books about her work so maybe that’s where I heard about Yellow Wall-paper. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been on my own in terms of post-high-school education (outside of acting/theatre, etc.) You read The Yellow Wall-paper and you can instantly feel its importance. The voice – its present-tense diary-entry tone – is extremely unnerving since you are inside her madness as it develops. It’s a psychotic dream-world where the yellow wall-paper morphs before her horrified eyes. There are so many solutions: leave that damn room, divorce your husband, etc. (Which of course the real Charlotte Perkins Gilman did.) But the fictional character has absorbed the husband’s opinion of her (she is weak, she needs to rest), and has internalized the world’s conventions. The story has the feel of Gothic horror and in it you can feel the landscape which Shirley Jackson would explore 30, 40 years later.
45. A House of Pomegranates, by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde wrote fairy tales which often had sad endings. “The Birthday of the Infanta” is very sad. “The Young King”, here, is not sad, but suffused with Christian imagery and a strong moral: this is not so much a fairy tale as a cautionary tale, a moral tale. A young king, who loves jewels and riches, has three dreams one night – where he is given visions of all the unpaid labor and misery that has gone in to providing him with jewels: the downtrodden people who dig the jewels, the seamstresses huddled over their work, etc. In a way, it’s very modern. The story is a critique of capitalism, although the words are never said – and wouldn’t be said. But “we” buy goods that were made in sweatshops far away, and we bear responsibility for that. We all participate. “The Fisherman and His Soul” is wild, and does not go where you expect it to go. It’s Little Mermaid-esque, but with a Soul wandering the earth, a Soul cut away from the Fisherman’s body. “The Star-Child” is about a foundling child grows up cruel and heartless. He discovers his parentage and is redeemed, and also made a King. He ruled over a peaceful land. The final sentence of the story tells us he died three years later and another King took over and he “ruled evilly”. So there rarely is a “happily ever after” in his stories, which is quite interesting. As I said, I am doing my best to approach this project chronologically. He has written two full plays, which weren’t successful at all, and there are other fragments in existence of other plays he started but did not finish. The plays are in the future. And in the very near future. I’ll get to them in 2025.
2024 tally
22 fiction
2 poetry
22 non-fiction
18 books by women
28 books by men
6 rereads
(I count by books, not author. If the same author appears multiple times, I count the author each time)
Countries represented: Ireland, America, England, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Germany
Previously
2023 books read
2022 books read
2021 books read
2020 books read
2019 books read
2018 books read
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Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.
