This is the first entry of new series of posts focusing on five different things that have influenced me in one way or another. As I consider myself a bookworm, I suppose it’s only natural that I begin this series with books.
First, let me state that I’ve become increasingly annoyed with “Best Of…” or “Top 10 (or 20 or 100 or whatever)…” of any particular thing, be it movies, music, people, etc. I believe it’s pretty superficial to rank certain things as more important or influential than something else based on the criteria of whomever is writing the list, which is all subject to whomever is creating the list. Would Rolling Stone, VIBE, The Source or any other music magazine or television show similar rankings if there were to gauge the bets music videos for each musical genre? I think not, because they’d rank them based on different demographics, sales units, popularity, and so forth. Separate lists may rank one another in those respective categories, but trying to encapsulate them all into a comprehensive list is rather difficult, and never without some degree of oversight.
Therefore, instead of creating yet another list of questionable integrity, I’ve opted to list the five books that have had the most impact on my life in one form or another, in the order in which I experienced them while growing up.
The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Series (1979-1998)
This was my earliest exposure to reading a book that did not start from the first page and end on the last. These books will always hold a special place in my heart because of the variety of ways you could read them, meaning each choice would lead to a different story with a unique outcome almost every time. If you’ve never heard or read one of these books before, here’s how they work: the story introduces you to the role you inhabit as both reader/participant in the story, and during certain points you are given a choice of actions, such as If you want to go through the door, turn to page 11; If you want to run away turn to page 45; If you want to fight, go to the next page and so on. Depending on the choices you made, the story will be long and have a usually satisfactory ending; of course, the wrong choices will lead to a quick end, sometimes including your death (in the story, of course!). The fact that giving readers choices to direct the action certainly led to repeat reread value, and certainly lead kids such as myself to explore reading as a pastime. With over a hundred titles tailored for girls and boys in various genres like science fiction, horror, and adventure, the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure series was revolutionary and unlike anything prior to it’s arrival, and proved a book could utilize a revolutionary form of storytelling to be interactive as well as entertaining.
The Body by Stephen King (1982)
The Body is actually a novella, a short novel in the compilation Different Seasons, which was adapted into the Rob Reiner-directed movie Stand By Me (1986). After watching the movie’s closing credits, I was surprised to find out Stephen King had written The Body, especially since I didn’t know he had written non-horror fiction. Naturally I was curious to see how much the book and film differed from one another, so after purchasing the book I read the novella in about two and a half nights. I was so smitten by the story that a week later I read it again.
What captivated me most about The Body/Stand By Me was the idea of going off into the wilderness to have an adventure looking for a dead body was morbidly fascinating. The thought of myself and my brothers journeying through the woods and having adventures defying death and of self-discovery made the story an instant favorite of ours, even all these years later.
Two of Different Seasons’ other novellas, Apt Pupil and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, were also adapted into movies, and though Shawshank may be superior cinematically to the other films, Stand By Me is, without a doubt, the emotional favorite of the bunch.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954)
I had just entered high school in September 1990, and saw advertisements on tv for the remake of the Lord of the Flies movie. At the time I wasn’t aware the movie was based off the book, and a friend informed me that it was about a bunch of kids killing each other on a desert island. I immediately sought it out in the library, interested by my friend’s simple synopsis of the story but even more intrigued by the innate animal instincts suppressed in us all; I had to read the bloody details for myself. I checked the book out and finished it in a matter of days, not fully understanding or appreciating what I had read, but I have always remembered one particular passage as my favorite in all of literature. The passage describing Simon’s dead body as the tide carries it out to sea is perhaps the most beautiful, sublime piece of writing I have ever read, so much so that I’ve dedicated an entire post to that passage alone.
George Michael’s song Praying For Time had been released a few weeks before I read the book, and happened to coincide with my reading. The song’s subject matter disturbed me as much as the contents of the book because it spoke about how people live materialistically, ignoring poor and needy people around them, and seemingly lose God’s favor in the process. The song and book do not have much in common save for the lack of humanity referenced in both, an unwitting spiritual companion to the loneliness felt in both the book, the song, and in myself during that period of time.
Since then I’ve read Lord of the Flies several times, and have grown to fully appreciate the novel’s insight at how society can devolve to utter savagery given the right set of circumstances. A true classic in literature, this book is.
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (1939)
Being an English Major in college meant I had to read an obscene amount of books and contemplate their meanings, themes, cultural and historical significance, and so on and so on. One of my classes, Narratives of California, explored a variety of novels set in various periods throughout California history that portrayed the state as both a beautiful and unforgiving landscape. We read books on the Donner Party, on John Muir’s adventures in Yosemite Park, and a book describing Southern California’s natural beauty during the early to mid twentieth century, where orange groves signified Eden Revisited on earth.
Then there was Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, the book I wished I could have read while I was a teenager. I always knew there was something fascinating about noir and detective fiction, particularly from the movies of the 1940s through the 1960s, yet I did not have a point of reference to begin exploring this once-great genre of American fiction.
Always a sucker for a good story, I lagged on beginning the book until I realized from lecture that I had a potential goldmine of influential fiction in my hands, and in a handsome new edition to boot! I began reading the book soon as I got home, and I devoured every last page over a four-day period. The corrupt underbelly of the City of Angels became the world where the lone defender of truth, Detective Philip Marlowe, was able to to solve the mystery of the missing guy amongst characters who were shadier than a forest at midnight, all with the style and class of a forgotten era that seems timeless, even today. I have since read most of Chandler’s books and I rue the day when I finish the last two. There is still a wealth of noir and detective fiction left to discover, and I have actually located a great collection simply titled Noir, and the few stories I’ve read were very impressive in their own right. However, moving on past Chandler’s masterworks is like watching Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time, and then watching one of the numerous movies that have tried to emulate it’s unique mixture of action, adventure, romance, and comedy. It’ll take some time and a lot of searching to find a mystery writer whose talents match (or surpass, dare I say?) Chandler’s own skill at the detective novel.
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski (2000)
Where to begin with this book? This book has by far, been the singular most memorable reading experience I’ve ever had. This is not your typical “Once upon a Time…The End” book, instead utilizing frame narratives and contradictory, unreliable narrators in telling the tale of the Navidson family, whose house’s dimensions are larger on the inside than on the outside.
Sound strange? Well, it is. The narrators include a blind man who’s written a film review of a movie that doesn’t even exist, coupled with the recollections of a drug-addled tattoo artist slowly descending into madness weave within one another and sometimes independently, but the central story has references to classical and modern literature, and teases the reader with various tangents and distractions. For example, the footnotes reference both actual works, and cites book, movies and people who are not real or do not exist. These little tricks are intended to get you lost and have you back-tracking through the pages of the book, as if you were reading your way through a maze.
Indeed, this ties into the larger framework of the novel (and a narrative line woven within), which is a labyrinth, which I cannot describe to you except to suggest you read it for yourself. If I had to give an example of a comparative work of fiction, I’d have to say that House of Leaves is a cross-pollination of elements from the films The Blair Witch Project, The Shining, and Poltergeist.
If this sounds like the recipe for a serious mindfuck of a novel, then yes it is. If it sounds too convoluted or confusing, then yes, it is that too.This is an invaluable lesson that books, no matter how old their existence or structure is, cannot be replicated by an e-reader or electronic device. House of Leaves is like a postmodern Choose Your Own Adventure on steroids. The story is highly aware of itself, and of the expectations of the reader, which is why so many twists and turns leave the reader with no idea how the book will end, or the numerous narratives contained within. Easily the most influential, interesting book I have ever read (to date) is clearly House of Leaves.
Eclectic Brew 
Not bad man. I’ll have to check out “House of Leaves”, it sounds like a good read. Keep doin’ what your doin’.
Yes, House of Leaves is definitely going to be the wierdest book you’ve ever read, but that was the whole attraction of it for me. t was actually pretty unsettling too, since you can read a book or passage that may give you the ebbie-jeebies, but since this book takes you through so many turns and twists, you literally don’t know what you’ll read next, since it’s too easy to go off on a tangent and start looking elsewhree through the book, and get lost on the way. The book will fuck with you like that, which no other book has done to me before, or since. A good read, if you have the time and patience! Thanks for checking in cousin Danny!