Five best novelists on grief

Adam Haslett is the author of You Are Not A Stranger Here, a short story collection, which was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, and won the PEN/Winship Award. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, Zoetrope, and Best American Short Stories as well as National Public Radio’s Selected Shorts.

His debut novel Union Atlantic was published last year.

For the Wall Street Journal, he named a five best list of deathless accounts of mourning. One novel on the list:

The Good Soldier
by Ford Madox Ford (1915)

'This is the saddest story I have ever heard," says the narrator, John Dowell, at the beginning of Ford Madox Ford's masterpiece about the disintegration of two marriages. Written on the eve of World War I and set in the medicinal spas and hotels of a vanishing world of British and European aristocracy, the book has plenty of loss to go around. By the end, Dowell's wife is dead, along with another girl, but in this deeply elegiac book it turns out the real grief isn't for the deceased but for the lost love and innocence of the Ashburnhams, the couple that the narrator and his wife met nine years earlier, whose lives they imagined to be perfect. It is the unraveling of this illusion, uncannily presaging the larger unraveling of Europe, that gives this novel its force. "It is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city," Dowell says, "to set down what they have witnessed ... just to get the sight out of their heads."

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Good Soldier also appears on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best spas in literature, ten of the best failed couplings in literature, and ten great novels with terrible original titles, and on the Guardian's list of ten of the best unconsummated passions in fiction. One line from the novel appears among Stanley Fish's top five sentences.

The Page 99 Test: The Good Soldier.

Visit Adam Haslett's website.

The Page 69 Test: Union Atlantic.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best: birthday poems

At the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best birthday poems.

One title on the list:

"A Birthday Present" by Sylvia Plath

In Plath's poetic world, birthday gifts are not exactly cheering. "I will only take it and go aside quietly. / You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle, // No falling ribbons, no scream at the end. / I do not think you credit me with this discretion."

Read about the other poems on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 tales of metamorphosis

Thomas Bloor is the author of the three book series that begins with Worm in the Blood, continues with Beast Beneath the Skin, and concludes with Heart of the Serpent.

A few years ago he named a top ten list of tales of metamorphosis for the Guardian, including:

The Owl Service by Alan Garner

Mysterious and unsettling, Garner's classic novel is based on the old Welsh myths found in The Mabinogion. The threat of enforced metamorphosis hangs in the air throughout. Set in an unspoilt Welsh valley, the story suggests an unbroken curse, an ancient conflict that has been allowed to seep into the land itself and will not fade away. A triangular relationship lies at the heart of the tale. The end is uncertain. Will the transformation be into owls or flowers?

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books: America's unsung war heroes

Robert Coram, a military historian, is the author of Brute: The Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine.

For the Wall Street Journal, he named a five best list of books about America's unsung war heroes.

One title on the list:

The Peasant Prince
by Alex Storozynski (2009)

Few foreign volunteers in American fights have been as consequential as Thaddeus Kosciuszko was during the Revolutionary War. The Polish officer designed the cannon firing positions at Saratoga and the fort at West Point. (It was Kosciuszko's design for the fort that Benedict Arnold tried to sell to the British.) As Alex Storozynski notes in his excellent biography, "The Peasant Prince," Kosciuszko was an impassioned idealist who yearned to see the end of slavery in America; later, when he returned to Poland, he undertook the protection of Jews and serfs. When Kosciuszko made his second trip to America in the 1790s, George Washington welcomed him "to the land whose liberties you had been so instrumental in establishing."

Read about the other books on the list.

Also see: Sandi Toksvig's top ten unsung heroines.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten dirty old (literary) men

"Anyone who has taken English 101 knows that literature has its share of dirty old men — the lascivious, the leering, and the lewd, the men who concern themselves with the baser instincts and darker drives, the author equivalent of the creep in the corner, stroking his chin and staring at the rears of the teenagers," writes Nina MacLaughlin. Her top ten list of "some of the dirtiest, most salacious and scandalous men in letters" includes:

James Joyce

Ulysses has its share of gutter talk, but it’s in his letters to his wife Nora that Joyce proves himself scatologically inclined. “I think I would know Nora’s fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart I imagine fat wives have ... I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also.”

Read about another entry on the list. 

Ulysses appears on John Mullan's lists of the ten of the best parodies, ten of the best Hamlets in literature, ten of the best visits to the lavatory, and ten of the best vegetables in literature. Unsurprisingly, it appears on Frank Delaney's top ten list of Irish novels and five best list of books about Ireland.

--Marshal Zeringue

The 19 best-read U.S. presidents

The Daily Beast "scoured biographies, presidential libraries, and available records to come up with [their] list of the presidents who were the most avid readers. The list is based on the size of their libraries, references to their reading habits, and what the types of books they read."

One president to make the top ten:

2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“A second-class intellect but a first-class temperament,” Oliver Wendell Holmes is supposed to have remarked about FDR, who was nevertheless among the best-read presidents. One of the wealthiest men to serve as president, FDR had ample means with which to build a 22,000-volume personal library—and a collection of 25,000 stamps. His tastes ran toward history and biographies though he wasn’t above the occasional detective novel. By size of library alone, he comes in second place.

Read about the other presidents on the list.

Also see: the five best biographies about FDR.

--Marshal Zeringue

Reading list about revolutions

For the Independent, Alice-Azania Jarvis came up with a brief reading list on revolutions.

The novel on her list:

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

Dickens' epic work dwells the plight of the peasantry in pre-Revolutionary France – as well as the post-Revolutionary violence – drawing comparison with London's poor. He follows several protagonists, including Charles Darnay, a French aristocrat who, despite his virtue, falls victim to ill-treatment at the hands of the Republicans.

Read about the other entries on the list.

A Tale of Two Cities also appears on Paulette Jiles's list of her 12 favorite books and John Mullan's list of ten of the best doppelgängers in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Ulin's six favorite books

David L. Ulin is book critic of the Los Angeles Times. He is the editor of the award-winning anthology Writing Los Angeles and author of The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time.

He named his six favorite books for The Week magazine.

One title on the list:

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Not just for adolescents, Salinger’s landmark novel is, among other things, a portrait of a teenager losing his grip. “You don’t like anything that’s happening,” Holden Caulfield’s sister, Phoebe, tells him, and as the book progresses, Holden, adrift in Manhattan with no idea of how to navigate the world, experiences the fallout of that alienation, as his possibilities get stripped from him one by one.

Read about the other entries on Ulin's list.

The Catcher In The Rye appears on Nicholas Royle's list of the top ten writers on the telephone, TIME magazine's list of the top ten books you were forced to read in school, Tony Parsons' list of the top ten troubled males in fiction, Dan Rhodes' top ten list of short books, and Sarah Ebner's top 25 list of boarding school books; it is one of Sophie Thompson's six best books. Upon rereading, the novel disappointed Khaled Hosseini, Mary Gordon, and Laura Lippman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best fictional poets

For the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best fictional poets.

One entry on the list:

Randolph Henry Ash

AS Byatt's Possession tells the story of two 19th-century poets: the imperious Ash and the elusively sexy Christabel LaMotte. Byatt also provides the poetry written by her two poet lovers. To Ash she gives imitations of Browning (with a stir of William Morris); to LaMotte she lends the cadences of Emily Dickinson with the imagery of Christina Rossetti.

Read about the rest of the list.

Possession also appears on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best locks of hair in fiction, ten of the best graveyard scenes in fiction, and ten of the best lawyers in literature, and on Christina Koning's top six romances critic's chart and Elizabeth Kostova's top ten list of books for winter nights.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five political novels to change the world

Ellen Meeropol holds an MFA in creative writing from the Stonecoast program at the University of Southern Maine. Her stories have appeared in The Drum, Bridges, Portland Magazine, Pedestal, Patchwork Journal, and The Women’s Times.

House Arrest, her first novel, is out this month.

At Madam Mayo's blog, Meeropol named five political novels to change the world.

One novel on her list:

The Murder's Daughters
by Randy Susan Meyers

The Murder's Daughters finds its subject much closer than Cyprus or Nigeria; this novel of social injustice begins in the small Coney Island apartment of Merry and Lulu on the day their father kills their mother. These are two wonderfully complex characters, stubborn and determined to survive despite heavy odds. The prose is fresh and strong, the story compelling. Despite the shattering event that opens the novel, the narrative shimmers with healing, sisterly love, and hope.

Read about the other books on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Murderer's Daughters.

--Marshal Zeringue

20 mad scientists who turned against their creations

At io9, Charlie Jane Anders came up with a list of twenty mad scientists who turned against their creations.

One literary mad scientist on the list, which is dominated by movies and television shows:

Marisa Coulter (His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman)

Mrs. Coulter invents a method of controlling the "Dust" that attaches to people — unfortunately, this requires severing children from their Daemons, or basically their souls. When Mrs. Coulter realizes her daughter Lyra is in danger, she dedicates herself to protecting Lyra.

Read about the other mad scientists on the list.

His Dark Materials appears among Amanda Donohoe's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five works of contemporary Egyptian fiction

Humphrey Davies is one of the foremost contemporary Arabic-English literary translators, and has translated a wide variety of Arabic works. He has lived in Cairo for the past 35 years. He is a two-time winner of the Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. Days before the revolution ousted long-time Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power, Davies recommended five works of contemporary Egyptian fiction to Sophie Roell of FiveBooks, including:

On Being Abbas El Abd
Ahmed Alaidy

Next you’ve chosen On Being Abbas El Abd, by Ahmed Alaydi.

This book is totally different, conceptually and in style, from [The Yacoubian Building]. It’s a wickedly complex tale. People debate what actually takes place in the book. It’s about a terminally grumpy twenty-something negotiating Cairo’s shopping malls and high-rises. The book as a whole reflects a culture that will be familiar to anybody in Egypt, who sits, as so many here do, at that meeting point between global culture — the internet and the cellphone and so on — and Egyptian street life, the general craziness (and, in the case of this book, the literal craziness) of Cairo. I’ll use a word that will only reveal my age and total squareness when I say it’s very hip. I’m sure there are better words than that now. It’s funny and very smart and fairly weird.

Is it all about madness? What’s the opening line?

The introduction is entitled, ‘An Introduction You Can Suck or Shove’, and it starts off with: ‘She wasn’t a corpse yet.’ But yes: the main protagonist, Abbas El Abd, meets somebody at a psychodrama therapy session that he is attending for reasons that are gradually revealed during the book. (They have something to do with his uncle, who was an experimental psychiatrist who rather overstepped the bounds when he raised his nephew.) So madness is very much at the heart of the book, and there’s a wonderful, several page long list of phobias at one point - most of which, it would seem, the protagonist suffers from himself.

How does the protagonist fit with the stereotype that seems to feature in every newspaper article about Egypt - the disgruntled youth?

I wouldn’t go too far down that route, because the hero, or the anti-hero, is not exactly suffering from serious socio-economic problems. He’s not poor; he’s not unemployed. He works in a video store — which is, of course, slightly dated already. He’s disgruntled, but more in the sense of an underlying anger, which is dealt with in a very non-didactic, non-stereotyped way. But there’s a very strong tension running through the book, which perhaps reflects precisely the class to whom the mobilisation of people today is attributed. This is the class of young people who are savvy with the internet, with global communications, and who are totally disenchanted with almost everything about the system in which they’ve grown up. However, you could never call this, on the face of it, a political book. This is a very personal book, though the politics is there in the texture of it.

Read about the other books recommended by Humphrey Davies at The Browser.

Also see: Eight of the best articles on the upheaval in Egypt.

--Marshal Zeringue