“Tell me the truth,” I said.
“What truth?” he echoed. He was making a rapid sketch in his notebook and now he showed me what it was: a long, long train with a black cloud of black smoke swirling over it and himself leaning out the window to wave a handkerchief.
I shot him between the eyes. (p. 163)
This is the beginning of Natalia Ginzburg’s The Dry Heart, a love story that Merve Emre thinks should have many more readers. In fact, all the writers who submitted essays on B-Side books, think the books they’re recommending should be widely read.
Ursula K. Le Guin thinks John Galt’s Annals of the Parish has aspects that Jane Austen would appreciate. Lorraine Daston believes that we should all indulge in The Vehement Passions by Philip Fisher. Kathryn Lofton tells how reading Edith Hamilton’s Mythology launched her on a course to become an academic.
Reading B-Side Books: Essays on Forgotten Favorites once again resulted in generating a list of books to buy. Do you see anything here you’d like to read? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Foreword, by Sharon Marcus, series editor — xv
Acknowledgments — xxi
Introduction, by John Plotz — 1
Part I: Childhood, Through a Glass Darkly — 5
1. A Girl of the Limberlost (Gene Stratton-Porter), by Rebecca Zorach — 7
2. TheYoung Visiters (Daisy Ashford), by Caleb Crain — 12
3. The Diary of “Helena Morley” (Elizabeth Bishop, trans.), by Elizabeth Ferry — 18
4. Brown Girl, Brownstones (Paule Marshall), by Adrienne Brown — 23
5. An American Childhood (Annie Dillard), by Salvatore Scibona — 29
6. The Last Samurai (Helen DeWitt), by Toril Moi — 34
Part II. Other Worlds — 41
7. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by Seeta Chaganti — 43
8. The House on the Borderland (William Hope Hodgson), by Namwali Serpell — 49
9. Lolly Willowes (Sylvia Townsend Warner), by Ivan Kreilkamp — 57
10. Mythology (Edith Hamilton), by Kathryn Lofton — 62
11. Other Leopards (Denis Williams), by Emily Hyde — 68
12. Solaris (Stanislaw Lem), by Kate Marshall — 74
13. Riddley Walker (Russell Hoban), by Paul Saint-Amour — 78
Part III. Comedy — 85
14. The Beggar’s Opera (John Gay), by Yoon Sun Lee — 87
15. Lady Into Fox (David Garnett), by Maud Ellmann — 92
16. Prater Violet (Christopher Isherwood), by Stephen McCauley — 98
17. “Rogue’s Gallery” (Mary McCarthy), by Sean McCann — 103
18. Gringos (Charles Portis), by Carlo Rotella — 109
Part IV. Battle and Strife –115
19. The Road to Calvary (Alexei Tolstoy), by Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee — 117
20. The Forbidden Zone (Mary Borden), by Steven Biel and Lauren Kaminsky — 122
21. Nikola the Outlaw (Ivan Olbracht), by Jonathan Bolton — 128
22. The House of Hunger (Dambudzo Marechera), by Isabel Hofmeyr — 134
23. The Short-Timers (Gustav Hasford), by Steven Biel — 140
24. A Flag at Sunrise (Robert Stone), by Ben Fountain — 145
25. TheVehement Passions (Philip Fisher), by Lorraine Daston — 152
Part V. Home Fires — 157
26. Annals of the Parish (John Galt), by Ursula K. Le Guin — 159
27. The Dry Heart (Natalie Ginzburg), by Merve Emre — 163
28. Life Among the Savages; Raising Demons (Shirley Jackson), by Sharon Marcus — 169
29. My Uncle Napoleon (Iraj Pezeshkzad), by Pardis Dabashi — 174
30. We Think the World of You (A. J. Ackerley), by Kevin Brazil — 179
31. All Aunt Hagar’s Children (Edward P. Jones), by Elizabeth Graver — 184
Part VI: Mysteries and Trials — 189
32. The Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford, by Ramie Targoff — 191
33. The Riddle of the Sands (Erskine Childers), by Margaret Cohen — 197
34. Stamboul Train (Graham Greene), by Penny Fielding — 203
35. The Hours Before Dawn (Celia Fremlin), by Leah Price — 211
Part VII: Journeys of the Spirit — 219
36. A Life of One’s Own (Marion Millner), by Vanessa Smith — 221
37. Butcher’s Crossing (John Williams), by John Plotz — 226
38. Journey in Search of the Way (Satomi Myōdō), by Theo Davis — 233
39. I Remember (Joe Brainard), by Andrew H. Miller — 239
40. Transformatrix (Patience Agbabi), by Stephanie Burt — 246
List of Contributors — 251
Again I have to admit that I know almost none of the authors’ names – except Ursula LeGuin of course.
Might that be to a kind of censorship in The America House in the early 60s?
At that time I didn’t have the money to buy books by unknown authors so I relied on their offers.
Totally OT (or not?):
A fascinating essay on one of my favourite SF authors:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/pioneering-sci-fi-writer-octavia-e-butler-joins-pantheon-celebrated-futurists-180978255/
Wolf, thanks for the link! I remember reading Ursula LeGuin’s THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS back in the late 1960s and being amazed!
A lot of unknowns here. I have read Mythology by Edith Hamilton, Gringos by Charles Portis, Solaris by Lem and Robert Stone’s A Flag At Sunrise.
Steve, the authors of the essays make you want to read all of these forgotten books! Like you, I’ve read the Hamilton, Portis, Lem, and Stone books.
Solaris of course I read too – and later watched the movie, fantastic!
In West Germany I got a lot of SF from the Communist Block (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia, East Germany, even Hungary and Romania …) really cheap – it was printed in East Germany and they needed the money. Some people even smuggled the books to get Deutsche Mark – the East German money was worth nothing.
Interestingly enough there was a lot of SF written in the Communist Block – as long as it avoided politics, no problem, so it was a kind of loophole for authors.
A bit OT – fun fact:
My Hungarian wife also read a lot of SF, she’s a big fan like me. Even books by people like Asimov were published in Hungarian (probably translated by fans, not much money in it …).
I’ll never forget when on our first date (which had been arranged by a common friend: I have the perfect partner for you!) I brought her home (no kisses, just a friendly good bye – though the next day was different …) and while she got me a glass of water I looked at her bookshelf and saw Asimov …
I’ve read a handful of them—GIRL OF LIMBERLOST, LOLLY WILLOWES, WE THINK THE WORLD OF YOU (which I read because I saw the movie adaptation with my late secret husband, Alan Bates), and a few others. I guess all of us have special books that mean so much to us and we wish had a wider readership.
You went to the movies with Alan Bates? Cool!
😉
Yeah! We made out in the back row through the whole movie—that’s why I ended up having to read the book! Lol
Deb, exactly! All of these essay writers love the books they’re recommending!
I’ve read three of the titles here, and your post intrigued me with SIR GAWAIN….
Dan, I read parts of SIR GAWAIN back in my College days, but this essay in B-SIDE BOOKS makes me want to read the whole thing.
The movie The Green Knight opens today. It is based on Sir Gawain.
Steve, today’s WALL STREET JOURNAL has a positive review of THE GREEEN KNIGHT:
An eye for an eye is kid stuff compared to the equivalency set forth near the beginning of “The Green Knight,” David Lowery’s mysterious, fantastical and astonishingly beautiful retelling of the 14th-century epic poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” The knight in question is a towering creature with a tree-like head and face that might remind sci-fi fans of Groot from “Guardians of the Galaxy.” He appears at the gates of Camelot at Christmastime, rides his horse right up to King Arthur’s Round Table and asks if anyone present will engage him in combat, the proviso being that whatever injury he may sustain will be returned in kind at his far-off Green Chapel on the following Christmas Day. The challenge is accepted by Gawain ( Dev Patel ), who lops off the knight’s head with a single stroke of his sword, then embarks on a yearlong journey of honor that seems destined to end with his own beheading.
Why does Gawain volunteer? It’s tempting to say that he’s headstrong because he is—a young man, not yet a knight, who is a spoiled, lusty and blithely charming nephew of the king. Gawain wants to prove that he’s made of sterner stuff and aspires to goodness if not greatness, a concept he finds intimidating. Put more simply, he feels the need to discover himself.
Simplicity was the magical ingredient in Mr. Lowery’s 2017 feature “A Ghost Story,” a poetic, unexpectedly affecting meditation on loss and yearning in which the ghost is nothing more than a Halloweenish presence, an indeterminate form beneath a white sheet with empty eyeholes. “The Green Knight” is many things—hypnotic, cryptic, dramatic, occasionally funny, certainly poetic and often magical in its way—but simple isn’t one of them. I was puzzled by several of the apparitions Gawain encounters along his route. I wasn’t certain about the function of a white-haired woman who turns up in a blindfold from time to time, or the purpose of a rather pushy talking fox, or why Alicia Vikander plays dual roles, though she’s wonderfully warm and strong in both of them—stronger and smarter than Gawain, who has lots of growing to do. I even had trouble reading some of the stylized and possibly whimsical Gothic script that’s used to announce the story’s successive sections.
What’s clear, however, is that Gawain does grow, in spirit as well as physical prowess, and that Mr. Patel makes him alluring and endearing, never mind broodingly handsome. A subtly modern figure at the center of a medieval Christian allegory, Gawain is a hero who has no use for heroics and arrives at courage by way of circuitous self-doubt. And by way of darkly sumptuous settings and sweepingly expansive landscapes. “The Green Knight” doesn’t aspire to the bedazzlements of John Boorman’s 1981 Arthurian classic “Excalibur,” but the production, designed by Jade Healy, and the cinematography, by Andrew Droz Palermo, bespeak the solitude of the period.
That’s not to say the spectacle isn’t fascinating, even delightful now and then. In the very first scene the camera studies a barnyard where nothing special is going on, apart from a goose giving a goat a hard time. But there’s a slow-burning development in the background, a few small fingers of fire that emerge from an upstairs window of a nearby house, then turn into a conflagration that consumes the thatched roof. What’s that all about? A reminder, perhaps, of the dangers of the age, the random, ravaging events that test everyone’s faith.
A brighter note is struck by fleeting glimpses of puppet shows in which a little Gawain does the bloody deed to a suddenly littler stand-in for the Green Knight. News travels fast, even in the Middle Ages: Gawain has barely hit the road and he’s already a local celebrity. But will he keep his head along with his wits about him? Suffice it to say that this tale, romantic and symbolic in equal measure, ends exactly and breathtakingly as it must.
Not all of these are terribly obscure. THE LAST SAMURAI is held in high regard by literary types. Three of them-THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND, SOLARIS, and RIDDLEY WALKER-should be familiar to SF/Fantasy fans. Charles Portis is a literary cult figure, so GRINGOS is hardly forgotten. Robert Stone is too highly regarded for A FLAG FOR SUNRISE to be really obscure, and it’s actually one of his best novels. Hasford’s THE SHORT-TIMERS was the basis for Kubrick’s FULL METAL JACKET. The two by Shirley Jackson aren’t among her most famous books, but they’re still read. In the mystery section the ones by Childers and Graham Greene are surely still read, and Fremlin’s THE HOURS BEFORE DAWN won a Best Novel Edgar.Finally, BUTCHER’S CROSSING is by the author of STONER and is available in an NYRB edition.
Michael, I suspect the impetus behind B-SIDE BOOKS is to encourage people to read more. Some of the books recommended in this volume are obscure–like THE ROAD TO CALVARY–but many of them need just a reminder to readers that these books are worth reading.
I think the only one I’ve read is Edith Hamilton’s MYTHOLOGIES, but I’ve read that one a dozen times or so.
Jeff, I’ve read MYTHOLOGIES a couple of times. I first read it when I was writing a paper in High School. Loved it!
Wait a minute, Deb. Bates was my late secret husband too. Ha! Love Lolly Willows. Read a handful of others (the Jackson books are in my collection THE MAGIC OF SHIRLEY JACKSON) but most i have never heard of. I love books like this and will seek it out. Thanks for being such a good scout, George.
Patti, I’m a sucker for volumes like B-SIDE BOOKS that bring to light books we should be reading!
Patti—I would have been willing to share! Just as my best friend and I shared Francois Truffaut until he had the temerity to die!
Deb, I admire your taste in Secret Husbands!
Don’t forget Stephen Stills is in that number!
Deb, sometimes you have to love the one you’re with.
I’ve read a number of them – the two Shirley Jacksons, the Hamilton, the Hodgson, the Isherwood (at one point I read almost all of his books), the Hasford, the Childers, the Greene. Others have interested me, including the Annie Dillard.
I just started Christopher Fowler’s THE BOOK OF FORGOTTEN AUTHORS which you reviewed last week.
Oh, add GRINGOS. I love Portis and that is next on my list of his.
Jeff, Bill Crider was a huge Portis fan!
Jeff, you’re going to find you’re going to want to read many of the authors Christopher Fowler writes about in THE BOOK OF FORGOTTEN AUTHORS.
All the histories of mystery/crime/spy fiction credit THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS as a foundation book in the spy genre (along with THE GREAT IMPERSONATION & maybe KIM). I read it years ago and found it intolerably dull. Sailing buffs no doubt will revel in the endless scenes tacking about in coastal mudflats, but not I. I also realized that with a small twist it could have had a smash surprise ending.
Art, like you I muddled through THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS. When we next have a phone conversation, you’ll have to tell me what “small twist” could have resulted in a smash surprise ending!
I’ve read 5, maybe 6 of them, but it’s an interesting list. Glad you liked it, I thought you would.
Rick, my READ REAL SOON stack is out of control! All these forgotten books are mounting up!
This looks like the perfect book to curl up with in bed. I read “Sir Gawain-” in my twenties and have some familiarity with the Hamilton. “The House on the Borderlands” is a terrific read by my favorite weird fiction/horror writer who is inexplicably largely forgotten. It starts off as a classic siege horror tale in the vein of “I Am Legend” and “Night of the Living Dead” before veering off into what can probably be best described as an Edwardian “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Hodgson’s stories are even better. He was the master of sea horror tales, particularly the haunting “The Voice in the Night” which was memorably adapted for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Suspicion” television series.
Byron, you would love B-SIDE BOOKS! I have a number of Hodgson’s volumes from NIGHT SHADE BOOKS still to read.
Catching up on blogs after staying off my computer and doing lots of reading while at our cottage on Lake Winnipeg. I also like this type of book, but on first glance at the list, I doubt if I will seek any out. Do have a couple in my to-be-never-read stack.
Kent, I just keep chipping away at my own REAL REAL SOON stack of books. Hope you had a great time on Lake Winnipeg!