I felt it would be nice to try to remember my favourite books - books that have moved me, made me laugh, helped me and inspired me. The storylines of a lot of my favourite books remain fairly vague in my memory but because of this they're even more beautiful and mysterious. I'll write what I remember the story being and anyone out there who remembers the real storyline can post it. Or you can just laugh at my incredible lack of memory for storylines. The rule is - no Wikipedia or Google!
1. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky- I absolutely adored this book. It's about a guy who wants to go to university to study law but is too poor to pay the entrance fees. He lives in a dingy little appartment with a lovely old landlady who is kind to him. He's an upright sort of person. In a moment of madness he robs his landlady. She falls and dies. Although he now has the money to go and study, he also has the crippling guilt of his crime. The guilt is his punishment. And for 3/4 of the book, he sinks into despair...In the end...I think...he kills himself. Or is hanged for his crime. I remember feeling incredibly sorry for the main character. He feels so guilty for what he has done, he ends up telling his friend. There's also a love interest which makes his situation even more touching.
2. The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald - One of the first books I read, I think. At 16/17. I didn't read much before that at all. I remember again being very moved by this story but alas, all I can really remember is a car crash.
3. The Strange Case of Dr.Jeckyl and Mr.Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson - Now this is the book that first got me into reading. I read it on holiday with my family in Marbella in Spain. I was completely hooked. Aside from the basics of the story I don't remember much at all. I remember more about my holiday and sprawling out on the sofa reading as Mum cooked up a rice salad.
4. Vladmir Nabokov - Despair - A mysterious tale of dopplegangers and murder. The final scene as he waits for the police to come for him is awesome. I love the way he writes and the unique stories he tells. After Despair, I read Lolita, Pnin, and various other stories by Nabokov and would list him as one of my favourite authors. But alas, I can't remember enough about any of his stories to hold an intelligent conversation.
5. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami - I haven't read anything but Murakami for years. After reading this, I was hooked on everything he wrote: Norwegian Wood, Sputnik Sweetheart, his short stories, Kafka on the Shore, but the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle remains my favourite. It's a story for David Lynch fans. There are large chapters based on the attrocities the Japanese committed in China during the 2nd World War which initially get in the way of the action but you find Murakami's writing is so good that you become immersed in that story too. It's a real page-turner which reveals nothing at all. It's a little like peeling an onion, in that respect. The main character embarks on a journey to find his missing cat, meeting a series of intriuging characters along the way. He gets weird phone calls, ends up in a well, befriends a young girl, and listens to a lot of Jazz. And yet it is one of the most captivating stories I've ever read. The end is just plain weird though. He manages escape the well by pulling himself through the walls...
6. Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner - The book that made me practice Zen rather than just talk about it. It's nice to have someone writing about something seemingly mysterious in a straight forward and normal way.
7. 3 Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau - I read this before HZ. Er...the 3 pillars are...Practice, Dharma, and Sangha. Nah, can't remember. When I first moved to Japan and started getting into Zen I'd constantly have questions bouncing around my head. I made loads of notes in the back of my copy which I still have now. Reading them back now it's quite funny. Things like, "Thoughts aren't the problem. It's the attachment to them that causes a problem. Without attachment thoughts are just energy. This energy is Buddha-Mind." Be afraid. Be very afraid. I don't write things like that anymore! Great book though!
8. L'etranger by Albert Camus and Nausea by Jean-Paul Satre - Existence precedes essence. A stone. I can't remember when my mum died. Could've been yesterday! Yup, well worth reading those two existential classics. I remember my best friend wrote a review of L'etranger for our French class and the teacher was so impressed she thought he'd plagiarised it. Cool! At university I really got into Satre thanks to a very clever friend of mine. I focused mainly on the idea of freedom, bad faith, and responsibility. Which is interesting considering that is kinda what attracts me to Zen too. I still don't really understand Nausea though...
9. Maupassant and Flaubert - I spent 1 year in France during my degree at University and I spent it reading as many French classics as I could and snowboarding. It was a great year. I love Maupassant the best but can't remember anything about any of his stories. Woops. They were good though.
10. From Esme with Love and Squalar by J.D Salinger - My favourite story of his is Teddy, in which a young boy goes on about how stupid humans are for attaching feelings to the weather. In the end, he maybe dies in an empty pool...
11. Anything by Hermann Hesse - I really got into Hesse too, another author inspired by Eastern thought. The Glass Bead Game is fantastic as is Siddartha...
Phew. I'm tired. I lost my passion towards the end...