EPTThe First 7
DISCLAIMER
Sometimes I'll be reading books by the same author, but not those on the list, simply because my city has a dearth of books in it. Despite it being a large city, it has probably one of the most underfunded public works systems in the country. This amounts to me not being able to get many of the books on the list.
Sometimes I'll be reading books by the same author, but not those on the list, simply because my city has a dearth of books in it. Despite it being a large city, it has probably one of the most underfunded public works systems in the country. This amounts to me not being able to get many of the books on the list.
Here are the first 7 books I've read in order
- L'etranger - Albert Camus
- Journey to the End of the Night - Ferdinand Celine
- The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupéry
- The Trial - Franz Kafka
- Man's Fate - André Malraux
- For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
- One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
Here are the first 7 books in order of enjoyment
- One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
- L'etranger - Albert Camus
- Man's Fate - André Malraux
- The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupéry
- Journey to the End of the Night - Ferdinand Celine
- For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
- The Trial - Franz Kafka
I'm going to explain why my list looks the way it does, but first let me say a quick thing about these books. They were all fantastic to read. All the books reached a point where I could not put them down, but the way I marked them for enjoyment was based on whether or not I enjoyed them all the way through. Some of the books, like The Trial were tedious in the beginning and didn't get good until quite a ways to the end. Other books, like For Whom the Bell Tolls had such a foreign style to their writing that I just couldn't get into it until much later in the novel, when the style begins to become more comfortable and at home with the reader. All of these books by 2/3 of the way were enthralling, and all of these books had an ending that either made me feel for the protagonist(s), or at least made me think about the finer points of the book.
With that said, three books stood out to me.
- One Hundred Years of Solitude was the best book I've ever read. The style of magical surrealism took me, as the reader, on a dreamy experience from start to finish. While the first 50 pages were the worst of all the books on the list, once the reader begins to see the relationship between Jose Arcadio Buendia and Melquiades unfold, the book begins to get really fucking good. The beginning and end, and the final lines of the book contribute to the style of history that Ursula had been some-what quietly pushing into the readers mind earlier in the book. The characters take on mythical feels. I can go on, but the book was splendid, and it felt rewarding to read.
- L'etranger was the second best book I've ever read. Meurseault and Marie along with the rest of the relationships in that book more than pulled me in; I couldn't put the book down. I don't have much to say for this book except that if you haven't read it, read it, and that his descriptions of the atmosphere (the sky looked of shattered gold and the like) along with his ultimate argument with an emotional chaplain (to which our protagonist deduces the stupidity of dying for the French justice system or for God) made the book for me.
- Finally, I had a tough decision putting Man's Fate over Journey to the End of the Night. Honestly, I enjoyed both of them equally: their flawed assasins characters in Robinson and Chen that made me think about the dangers of fitting philosophy to an act, rather than an act to a philosophy; their detached protagonists in Kyo and Ferdinand who really don't seem to be too charmed by life; finally their supporting casts did a realy great job of making the plot move for character growth. The reason I picked Man's Fate over Journey to the End of the Night was because the latter failed to curb its nihilism with any sort of redemption for the assasin or the main character. I enjoyed Journey to the End of the Night, and when Robinson lost his sight late in the book, I really thought I would get the ending I wanted, but in reality I did not. Leaving Ferdinand with some slutty nurse was frustrating, and less touching than Kyo's last stand.
The books that did not make the top three are still books I would recommend anyone read. This was a difficult decision beacuse all of the books were masterfully done. All of them are worth a read, and if you are going through a particularly serious part of life, doing things of consequence, I would suggest reading The Little Prince above all.
The next 7 books on the list (for me) are
- In Rememberance of Things Past: Book I, Swann's Way - Marcel Proust
- If This is a Man (Survival in Auschwitz) - Primo Levi
- Memoirs of Hadrian - Marguerite Yourcenar
- The Blue Lotus - Hergé
- The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Two books yet to be chosen/Mystery box. (Going to see about Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace and/or Taipei by Tao Lin as added parts to the list, or I might just go back to the list and find some other books that my library has)
Thanks for reading guys, the book list is right here if you want to look it over to check the progress. I will also use some other top 100 list because the lack of books in my library is really perturbing me. I was looking forward to reading Zeno's Conscience and Froth on the Daydream but neither were in the library, pretty soon I'm going to start looking on the classics section of iBooks on my laptop to see if I can get the rest of these books in e-book form, despite the fact that I really dislike e-book format on a laptop or non-e-reader.
. His magical surrealism is the most fun style I've ever seen in writing. AuirZ told me to read Taipei by Tao Lin because the style is similar. I'm actually really excited to read his books.
