#4: In the Beauty of the Lilies

The quest for the Great American Novel has possibly been going on for as long as there have been great American novels; and it's probably not a quest that will ever have an objective conclusion. Martin Amis believes it ended with Saul Bellow's Adventures of Augie March, which I haven't read, although I do own it, and like the band. Does that count? No, I figured it didn't.

I suppose a Great American Novel needs to capture something deep inside the American spirit, and needs also to have a grandeur of vision that we tend to associate with various Large and Significant works, like Moby Dick or The Grapes of Wrath. It probably also needs to stand the test of time, so we generally opt for works that have continued to be held in high esteem decades, even centuries, after they were written.

But a recent contender - written a mere 11 years ago - would have to be John Updike's In the Beauty of the Lilies. It's one of my all-time favourites; I did, in fact, write my Honours thesis on it. And it certainly has a grandeur of vision, spanning almost all of the 20th century, covering, in essence, the decline of an American family, and possibly the decline of a century, and a nation.

Updike has often been placed in the elated company of the great 19th century American novelists like Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the comparison is easy enough to understand. Both Updike and Hawthorne, at their best, wrote fable-like, sometimes almost magical narratives of an America that was torn apart by fundamental tensions; and these tensions would be played out in the lives of their heroes and heroines, whether Hester Prynne, the Pyncheon family, Rabbit Angstrom, or, in the case of Lilies, the vast and directionless Wilmot family.

The story of the Wilmots in the 20th century is utterly unforgettable, incorporating, in Updike's magnificent style, global and local events, politics, religion and popular culture, and capturing with perfect pitch the spirit and feel of each age that the story covers. Each of the novel's substantial four chapters - each one covering a new generation of the Wilmot family - stands alone as a compelling story, and yet together these chapters create a narrative of heartbreaking urgency and majesty. And the conclusion, in a Waco-type religious "community" in the mountains, is both the devastating culmination of all that has occurred in the Wilmot family up to this point, and a deeply challenging indictment upon the spiritual deadness of late 20th-century Western society.

There is always going to be too much to say about a novel like this. I once wrote more than 12,000 words on it, and even then felt like I was barely scratching the surface. The only way, really, to do it justice, is to read it. You may decide that Moby Dick is still the Great American Novel, but this recent addition to the American literary canon is, if nothing else, a great American novel. And, as such, it needs to be read.

#3: Villette

A female friend once told me that girls either love or Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre. They cannot love "both Brontës". (Which makes me feel a little bit sorry for poor Anne, who's always the forgotten one; but sadly, having never read her, I cannot comment on the quality of her books.) I'm not sure if the Brontë rule applies to males. I suppose it's rare enough for a guy to read any Brontë that no-one's ever taken the time to make a rule for us.

I'm not sure what the rule would look like if someone did create it. I've read both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. I liked Wuthering Heights and really liked Jane Eyre. But I loved Villette, and it's to that less commonly read masterpiece that my heart truly belongs.

Although I'm not trying to order the books in this list, I suspect Villette would be in my Top 5 books, perhaps higher. It's certainly one of the first books I think of when I list my favourites. I first read it in my fourth year at University, my Honours year, in a subject on Victorian fiction. I was skeptical. I had only read Wuthering Heights at the time, and, having liked it, doubted I could be all that fond of Charlotte. How wrong I was. Where Emily is gothic, melodramatic and largely implausible, Charlotte captures humanity almost perfectly - and her characterisations are definitely at their most refined here. Lucy Snowe, the heroine, is the sort that you fall absolutely in love with. She is enigmatic, and quite emotionally complicated, but what Brontë (Emily, Charlotte or probably even Anne) heroine isn't complicated? They were complicated girls. Lucy is lonely, and yet chooses loneliness because it brings with it a kind of independence. And yet she longs to love, and be loved, and we long for her to be loved, and we love her. And yet... she longs to determine her own life, and we feel her pain. And yet... she hates drawing attention to herself, but seems constantly like something within her is just bursting towards the surface.

This isn't a clear-cut book, and I suspect it isn't for everyone. But I felt for Lucy at every moment of the book; felt all her happiness, and her loneliness, and her hope, and her sorrow. Lucy is an ambiguous heroine, but an unforgettable one all the same. And the ending - I wish I could talk more about the ending. Let it suffice to say that, at a time when books usually only finished with marriage or death, Brontë chose a path never taken before, and the book is all the more wonderful and exquisite for it.

I love this book. Evidently.

Pagan Poetry

Just a brief rant, and then I'll get over it.

So, I love The Dark is Rising. It's beautifully written and incredibly exciting. And yet it, like so many books that are now being written thirty years on, seems to think that, because paganism came before Christianity, it is somehow a purer form of spirituality, unfettered by religion, and so on...

Now, I'm not going to get too caught up in issues of truth, and who's right, who's wrong, etc. That's not the point. My issue today is the way that, at every age, there is some new reason developed for why that age knows better than to believe in God; and each reason usually contradicts the last one. 150 years ago, Christianity was discarded because science had "disproved it". Then it was discarded in the twentieth century because it was too "Modernist", and based on objective ideas of truth; that is, it was rejected along with science. Now that we're over the whole postmodern thing, we reject it because paganism came first and was thus better than empiricism, science and, yes, Christianity, which has never had anything to do with empiricism, and has always had an uneasy relationship with science.

Come on guys, make up your minds.

And, to annoy me that little bit more, there's that suggestion in The Dark is Rising that the really important things exist outside of time; which, from memory, is part of how most Christians see God - not belonging to a set time, but outside of time, and of all times, and, most importantly, the creator of time. And yet there's still this implication that the "Old Ones", who carry knowledge, wisdom and lore that predates Christianity, somehow know better. If the most important knowledge exists outside of time, why is it so important to predate anything? Surely dates are constructs that have little to do with anything?

And yet I know that the viewpoints Susan Cooper described in this, admittedly fictional, and still wonderful, fantasy classic in the 70s, are only growing in popularity today. And it just serves as a reminder that, while the world will always say that Christianity belongs to a "previous age" and is "now outdated", no age has ever really accepted it. It has always contradicted many of the values and assumptions of each age, and has required each age, and the people of that age, to change; something that few are willing to do. Yes, it has a date in history: Jesus' appearance on earth 2000 years ago. And yet he wasn't accepted then, and still isn't accepted now. He was not of that age any more than is of our age today. And every age will find reasons to reject him, for that precise reason; he will never sit comfortably in our living rooms, unless we are willing to change - if necessary - everything to fit him in.

That's my rant. I'll get back to reading the book now.

#2: Rebecca

Last summer holidays, I started reading Jane Eyre. I'd loved Villette, an underrated gem by Charlotte Brontë, and was at first a bit reluctant to read anything else by her, doubting that it could compare. But I started Jane and liked it a lot. For some reason, though, I lost focus about 150 pages from the end - probably got distracted by a million and one other books to read, as always happens. I picked it up again last night, determined to finish it these summer holidays, and am enjoying it again. It makes me think, of course, of Rebecca, which was so clearly inspired by it. And yet, anyone who thinks that Daphne du Maurier's masterpiece is little more than a copy of the Brontë classic is sadly mistaken.

There's so much suspense and tension woven into this brilliantly gothic and deeply Romantic novel, it's almost unbearable at points. Du Maurier writes brilliantly, capturing every emotion - large and small - that her unnamed narrator is capable of feeling. This is one of the most emotionally complex books I have read, and a magnificent exploration of love, jealousy, guilt and compromise. Critics are divided over whether or not this is a feminist novel. I'd rather not comment. But it's a deeply feminine novel, a book that allows the female perspective to flourish where the world of its time might have been more inclined to see things from the man's position.

This is much more than a minor romance. This is a book of great depth and sophistication. I can't believe that my favourite director was able to make such a botch of adapting this novel for the screen - a book that really should have been so suited to his values and style. But there were no doubt constraints on him that he couldn't get past, despite having the lovely Joan Fontaine in the lead role - a great bit of casting in an otherwise lacklustre film. Certainly he had to change the incredibly ambiguous ending, one of the best aspects of the novel, but not something that the film industry of the day tolerated. But, where the film contracts, reduces and ultimately restricts the storyline, the original novel flourishes in the imagination long after the final page is read. This is truly an unforgettable read.

Some of the best #1: A Farewell to Arms

There are so many wonderful books that it can be very difficult to know where to start in listing and talking about my favourites. But I've been in a bit of a Hemingway mood lately, so this classic, one of the first I read, comes to mind. I just finished reading Hemingway's 1950 novella, Across the River and Into the Trees, which turned out to be a kind of older, jaded uncle to A Farewell to Arms. It was a very engrossing read, beautifully written in that inimitable Hemingway style (which you either love or hate, I suspect), and very moving. I haven't read a novel or story by the man that I haven't liked. But nothing that he wrote before or after Farewell carries the same extraordinary emotional urgency and depth. This is, quite simply, one of the most beautiful love stories of all time, and by far one of the most tragic. I've read very few books by anyone that grabbed me by the heart and tore me up like this one.

It's hard to know what to believe in at the end of a Hemingway story. You come to believe deeply in love, and then find that even that seems to fail. That was quite possibly how Hemingway saw the world. He wasn't a happy man, after all. I don't agree with everything he says; at some points, I agree with very little. But there's an incredible emotional truth to all his stories, and his understanding of human brokenness is almost unparalleled.

If I were to give some order to a list of my favourite books, I'm not sure where this would come, but it would have to be near the top. There are few books like it in the world. You may not feel happy when you finish reading it, but you will feel enriched. Just try reading it without being deeply, profoundly moved.