I must admit once again that it took me way too long—fifteen years, I reckon—to finally read Michael Chabon’s brilliant tour-de-force, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. But I freely admit that once I did I was so astonished by every aspect of the novel that I resolved there and then to become a Chabon completist,… Continue reading Michael Chabon’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay”
Author: Jay Ruud
Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass”
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a book that captures your imagination when you first read it as a child of ten, and continues to stir your delight and your intellect when you read it for the last time as a senior citizen of 99. There are very few books in English that appeal to such a… Continue reading Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass”
A.S. Byatt’s “Possession”
A.S. Byatt’s Possession: A Romance won the 1990 Booker Prize for Fiction. It appeared on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 greatest novels since 1923, and came in at #49 on the BBC’s list of the 100 Greatest British Novels. And for me, Byatt’s novel comes in at #15 (alphabetically) on my own list of the “100 Most Lovable… Continue reading A.S. Byatt’s “Possession”
Anthony Burgess’s “A Clockwork Orange”
Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange may not at first seem like a “lovable” novel, as I’ve titled my list, since it seems to glorify violence—or at least it seems to do so for people who only know Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film version of the book, after viewing which nobody will ever innocently hear “Singin’ in the… Continue reading Anthony Burgess’s “A Clockwork Orange”
Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights”
What’s always hooked readers and kept them coming back to this dark story is the unrestrained passion and wild undercurrents of brutality in the fierce love between Heathcliff and Catherine, the protagonists of the novel—a fierceness that reflects the harsh natural world of the rugged west Yorkshire moors on which the story takes place. The… Continue reading Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights”
Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre”
Okay, well, this was a no-brainer. Charlotte Bronte’s novel has been a favorite with both critics and readers ever since its publication in 1847 under her pen name of “Currer Bell.” The novel has been adapted as a stage play, several film and television versions, and two operas, and has inspired popular literature as varying… Continue reading Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre”
Saul Bellow’s “Henderson the Rain King”
In 1976, Saul Bellow became the seventh American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (if you don’t count T.S. Eliot, who had eschewed his American citizenship well before his award). Bellow had just won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Humboldt’s Gift. He had already become the only writer in the history of the award to… Continue reading Saul Bellow’s “Henderson the Rain King”
John Barth’s “The Sot-Weed Factor”
When I think of John Barth, I can’t help thinking of those lines in A.E. Housman’s famous poem “To an Athlete Dying Young”: “Now you will not swell the rout / Of lads who wore their honors out, / Runners whom renown outran, / And the name died before the man.” Barth, the darling of… Continue reading John Barth’s “The Sot-Weed Factor”
