My last post was ranting on about the books that despite my best intentions still seem to remain a total anathema to me. In the interests of representing both sides of the argument, these are the books that I have read multiple times, and I dare say I'll read a few more times for good measure.
Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder, was my introduction to philosophy as a teenager. It is safe to say I have read this book on average about once a year since. Intertexual references made in this book, I have subsequently read some of the most amazing French Existential novels, such as Nausea and The Outsider. So what is it about Sophie's World, that keeps me re-reading it ? As a teenager it was about the philosophy, and how it lead me to question the world I was living in. (more than once the book mysteriously vanished when my incessant questioning got a bit to much for my Mother) Re-reading it as an adult, although now I can see how the philosophy links together, it still creates more questions, and more often than not sends me off to read the philosophy that it is based on. I remember reading in the preface to the novel, that Gaarder had written it for his students, to help them understand the history of Philosophy. As much as I love my copy of Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, I have to admit, I will always look in Sophie's World first.
Perfume: The Story of a Murder, by Patrick Suskind, is a book I fell in love with at the first page. The novel, comfortably sits in the realms of Magical Realism, and has hints of the absurd to it. The chilling final lines of the gang being 'uncommonly proud. For the first time they had done something out of Love', are like the rest of the novel beautifully constructed, yet darkly chilling. I won't detail the plot, as it is a novel that has to be read to fully understand the power of it. Unsurprisingly I loathe the film of it.
The final is a set of short stories. The Bloody Chamber, by Angela Carter. The collection of stories, are like Perfume, fairy-tale like in their composition. Loosely based upon the fairy-tales of Perrault, they take traditional tales, such as that of Bluebeard, and slightly twist them, usually with a feminist meaning. In the title tale of The Bloody Chamber, it is the mother that rescues the daughter from the cad Bluebeard. She then swiftly dispatches him with a gunshot. My favorite story of the collection is easily The Erl-King. The levels of narrative in the story, and how the story speaks is curious to say the least. It also gives elements of nature a voice, which is something I always find intriguing to say the least, it also speaks to my own interest in Eco-Criticism.
