So as I was walking home today from work I saw an Erica Jong book out on the dollar rack, so of course I bought it. I read Fear of Flying last week for like gazillionth time. So in honor of finding another Izadora book, Parachutes and Kisses, and of course the memory of Kurt Vonnegut (on of my favorite authors ever!), I have developed a list of five books that will never be boring for me so I continously read them.
1)
Fear of Flying. I didn't read this book until I was a freshman in college, and I think that I appreciated it so much more. At the time I had been going out with my boyfriend for a year and a half and he was beginning his struggle with depression, and everything that Isadora experienced, I also experienced. If not, so much of the book would be have meaningless to me. I, too, was scared to fly and break up with my boyfriend. But seriously, Jong's narratives are so fucking cool, she can relate everything together. And thank god for her psychiatrist husband, she can really psychoanalyze! Seriously, and woman who has been in a boring, longterm relationship should read this book! Plus Jong is just super smart and all her allusions and hope will wear off on you. And for the guys, there are some semihot sex scenes. On a sidenote, the discussion of Existentialism is really hot, too!
2)
Siddhartha. Read it. please. you can do it in like an hour, and your whole week will be better. I just love taking the journey everywhere with Siddhartha. I mean, Hesse is awesome, and I know all his work is translated, but it still works absolutely perfectly. Maybe I'm just some dumb hippie chick, but I loved this book. It's a timeless cool book, will always have near
3)
Into the Wild. This is another one of those books that you can read in one sitting. You literally can't stop, even though the book begins with Alex's death and works backwards, you fall in love with the prose of krakauer so fast! I love that he has broken narratives and swithces freely from his own point of view, to Alexander Supertramps. In one sitting this book makes you cry, shiver and laugh out loud. how fucking awesome is that?!?!
4)
Dharma Bums. This book is a lot like my favorite book,
Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up to Me, in that all its charm is in the syntax and vernacular. I don't know why I love that period, beatnik I guess, but I fucking love it. I even like beat poetry, and I'm not that big-of-a poetry person. I like the laughs it gives me, and I love how surreal the whole situation is, and how perfectly ideal, yet miserable their situation; the dichotomy of alternative lifestyle bleeds through the lines and I suck it up.
5)
Lolita. I can't believe that book was written by a Russian! I know that he was raised in a multilingual household, but my god his vocabulary is superb. Nabakov can say these things that would sound like trite hyperbole anywhere else. I think the line about the "seas of ecru" is one of the best that I have ever read! The first time I sorta knew what was gonna happen, it wasn't really hidden, but the mansion scene was unexpected. The last time I read I was really able to grab a lot of details not looking for the large things.
Some other books I like to continously read are Letters to a Young Poet, anything Collette (although I own no Collette), Woodhouse, The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby (thanks, Mom), Zorba the Greek, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Rushdie.
I'm sorry to hear that Kurt Vonnegut died, but he was old and I know he wouldn't want us to mourn his loss too much. He's too much of an Epicuriean to want us to mourn him. He was and now he is no more. I was first turned on to vonnegut in eigth grade, or maybe seventh, when we read Harrison Bergeron. My mom was like "Oh I have the book that that story comes from" and then she gave me Welcome to the Monkeyhouse. And then I became a fan. and then she bought me like half of the books he ever wrote. and I read them, and I think MAX STILL HAS THEM. most I've read, but a couple I haven't. my favorites are Cat's Cradle, Sirens of Titan and some of his short works, they're so funny. Seriously, Vonnegut was cool throughout his entire lifetime, I loved Man Without a Country, too. He's always been a hipster requirement and always will be, just like the above mentioned Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson.
