Favorite Books & Authors

Here are some of my favorite books and authors. Painfully aware of my limitations, I have decided to write about them in summary form, rather than try for intelligent, critical reviews. Many of the books I plan to talk about over the coming weeks, months, and years are titles from my own collection, the bulk of which resides in a sturdy bookshelf made by my brother and me long ago in a night woodshop class. Some were given to me for safekeeping by my mother, who, bless her heart, has since given up on their return. Most can still be found in libraries, used bookstores, or purchased online. All are important to me, and have to some measure, I suspect, influenced my own work. If not, they continue to remind me of the great opportunity and responsibility a writer has, each and every time he sits down to work, to see himself and life more clearly, and to communicate what he sees to others. That much said, I hope you enjoy this rather haphazard section of the website. Your comments are most welcome. Please check in often for new material.
                                                                                                               � William Michaelian

My Name Is Aram
The autobiographical tales that comprise this enduring collection are set in Fresno, California, where the author was born in 1908, and the surrounding area. The book makes a good bedside companion, because the stories can be read in any order � though I recommend reading them from start to finish at least once. I also recommend them for children. Stories like �The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse,� �The Pomegranate Trees,� and �The Journey to Hanford,� just to name three, are refreshing for their innocence, and are a beautiful reminder of what life was like before television. In my opinion, all of the stories owe their success to the long storytelling tradition Saroyan inherited from his family and his Armenian background. This is interesting, because the characters have been widely hailed as quintessential American, defined as they are by the Great Depression and their common goal of making good. At the same time, they are rooted in the ways of the Old Country, and spend their time telling stories, sipping Armenian coffee, and smoking cigarettes in parlors and coffeehouses, and longing for what was left behind. Last, but not least, is the book�s classic humor. Saroyan�s humor is great because he understands and is willing to admit his own insignificance. Neither does he run from sorrow. His laughter comes from a deep well.

The Human Comedy
Saroyan�s first novel, The Human Comedy (1943) was a bestselling wartime classic. In its pages, he professed the ultimate innocence of mankind, and refused to let his characters be spoiled by the hideous crime humans were committing against each other on such a grand scale. Set in the fictitious town of Ithaca, California, the author drew on his own youthful experience as a telegraph messenger to paint a nostalgic picture of his hometown, Fresno. The story centers on Homer Macauley, a fourteen-year-old boy determined to be the fastest bicycle messenger in the San Joaquin Valley, and his widowed mother, his sister, Bess, and his little brother, Ulysses. His older brother, Marcus, is away at war � a separation made all the more painful due to the absence of their father. While delivering telegrams, Homer sees many things that cause him to laugh and think. He sees life as a dance of small things that are significant because of their very simplicity. In real life, Saroyan�s messenger rounds took him to offices, bars, and brothels, revealing to him a world of posers and performers. This is beautifully captured in the book. More than anything, though, what transforms Homer is having to deliver telegrams from the War Department, and having to witness the personal horror of a mother who learns from him that she has forever been deprived of a son. This is all the more troubling and poignant, because he realizes the same thing could happen to his family. It is a good reminder of war�s true cost � that for every soldier wounded, maimed, or killed, there is a family and circle of friends that is changed forever. The Human Comedy was illustrated by Don Freeman, who also did the artwork for My Name Is Aram. Freeman, also born in 1908, is well known for his book for children, Corduroy. His drawings are outstanding and perfectly suited to Saroyan�s message and style.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky
One thing I especially like about Dostoevsky is that he can go almost an entire book without mentioning the weather or the landscape. The landscape he is concerned with is the vast and often densely populated space between a man�s ears. When he does take time to mention the weather, it is usually to enhance some dreary aspect of one of his characters or the predicament he is in. Everyone wrestles with his conscience. There is a great deal of nervous pacing and gesticulating that goes on, a great deal of questioning of one�s own existence and the existence of God. But this is all done within clever plots worthy of the best suspense and mystery writers, in some cases with political overtones. Oddly enough, the first novel I read by Dostoevsky was the last he wrote. I picked up a paperback edition of The Brothers Karamazov, considered to be his masterpiece, in a bookstore in Visalia, California, prior to hopping a plane to Jerusalem. By the time I�d arrived, I knew life would never be the same. Back home a week later, I began a serious Dostoevsky marathon that went on for several novels, including Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed, and A Raw Youth. Then I read a book containing quite a bit of his short work, plus The Gambler, Notes from Underground, and The House of the Dead. The latter recounts the time he spent in Siberia after enduring a mock execution for his involvement in a radical political circle. Fully expecting to be shot, at the last moment his sentence was reduced to exile. Talk about a rough day. My favorite translations of Dostoevsky�s work are by Constance Garnett and David Magarshack. I think Dostoevsky is one of the greatest writers of all time. For just a taste, read his short story, �The Dream of a Ridiculous Man.� It is a triumphant, melancholy work that reveals his concern for the human race.
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Kahlil Gibran
The Prophet
First published in 1923, this is Gibran�s masterpiece. It has been widely translated and has sold millions of copies. Gibran, also an artist, was born in Lebanon in 1883. During the last twenty years of his life he called the United States his home. During that time he learned English and developed a unique writing style that blended poetry and prose. He died in 1931. In The Prophet he sets forth his rich philosophy of life within the context of a simple tale told about a wise man who, ready to set sail for the land of his birth, is called upon to speak to the people. Deeply moved by their love and concern, he answers their questions about love and marriage, children and giving, the meaning of work, friendship, time, and law. On giving, he says, �You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. . . . There are those who give little of the much which they have � and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome. And there are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.� The Prophet is a book that can and should be read many times, and at different periods of one�s life. It is a book that cannot be understood by the minds of petty politicians and warmongers. It is a literary, artistic achievement that is about as close to a friend and companion as a book can be. After reading it, I would also recommend The Madman, Spirits Rebellious, and two of his plays, Lazarus and His Beloved and The Blind. The prior two titles are widely available. The plays are contained in a book called Dramas of Life, published with an interesting introduction by Gibran�s cousin and namesake and his wife, Jean.
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Guy de Maupassant
The Collected Stories of Guy de Maupassant (Avenel, 1985)
Back in 1985, I had the good fortune of stumbling on this massive collection of short stories, written by a nineteenth century author whose work I had heard about, but never read. The book, a hefty hardcover edition set in an old-fashioned double-column format, contains 1003 pages, with 223 stories divided into 10 volumes. The collection was originally published by Walter Black, Inc., around 1903. The translations were done by M. Walter Dunne.

Maupassant was born in Normandy in 1850. Guided in his early efforts by French writer Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary), his first story to appear in print was �Ball of Fat,� published to huge critical acclaim in 1880 by Emile Zola (The Earth, Germinal, L�Assommoir). During the next eleven years, he published some 300 stories and 6 novels, as well as essays, poems, travelogues, and critical articles. Plagued by increasing mental instability brought on by syphilis, he was hospitalized for the last two years of his life. He died insane in 1893.

Maupassant was a keen observer who gave himself to living without reservation. Often, in one paragraph, he revealed more about a character than many other writers accomplish in an entire book. Take a look at the following few lines, from his story �Waiter, A Bock�:

Soon after making these observations, the narrator is addressed by the man he has just described, and discovers he is an old friend from college. How the man arrived at his current state of disintegration constitutes the rest of the story, which hinges on a terrible domestic scene his friend witnessed as a child.

Maupassant was also adept at making use of current headlines, turning many news stories of his day into works of fiction. In story after story, he exposed the hypocrisy of the powerful in a way that makes the reader hate them and love them at the same time. He excels equally in his portrayal of the simple and downtrodden, the wayfarer and the wage earner, the rural and urban. All of this is accomplished in a flowing, poetic style.

Another benefit of reading Maupassant�s stories, as well as his novels, which I�ll also write about as we go along, is their historical value. A great deal can be learned about the time and society in which he lived � practical, everyday matters, as well as people�s outlook on life. It is also possible to trace the author�s encroaching madness, as some of his narratives take on an almost desperate quality of self-searching and self-justification. It is worth a trip to the library to see biographies containing photographs taken of this great writer when he was handsome, robust, and athletic, and when, just a few short years later, he was thin and drawn, his talent sacrificed to his disease.

If you haven�t read any of Guy de Maupassant�s stories, don�t wait any longer. Read �Waiter, a Bock.� Read �Ball of Fat.� Read �A Piece of String.� Read �The Inn,� �A Family,� �A Vagabond,� and �Simon�s Papa.� These are just a few stories, taken at random. There are many more that are worth your time. And while the style isn�t exactly twenty-first century, the predicaments and concerns of his characters are often painfully contemporary.
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The Rub�iy�t of Omar Khayy�m
Translated by Edward FitzGerald, First Edition, 1859
This poem divided into seventy-five short verses is said to have originated in eleventh century Persia. Its resignation to fate and embrace of earthly pleasures was brought to the English-speaking world by a Victorian recluse who gave himself the freedom to blend Eastern and Western thought to suit his own outlook and temperament. When it first appeared, the poem made hardly a ripple. All but forgotten, it was discovered by following generations of booklovers, whose appreciation transformed it into one of the best-selling second-hand books of all time. Here are a few of my favorite verses:

Alexander Pushkin
The Poems, Prose and Plays of Alexander Pushkin
(Random House, 1943)
I was lucky enough to find this Modern Library edition twenty or so years ago during a one-day book-buying trip with my wife�s brother in Berkeley, California. We visited so many used bookstores that day, I can�t remember them all. But I know I paid six dollars for the book, because the price is written on the inside cover. Quite a bargain. Another bargain was being able to avoid, at the last possible second, a small pile of lumber that had fallen off a truck in front of us on the freeway as we were nearing Berkeley. Apparently that was a good omen, because I found several great books that day, including a beautifully illustrated hardbound copy of Victor Hugo�s Les Mis�rables, a book that weighs about forty pounds. (Anyway, it�s heavy.)

Pushkin was born in 1799 in Moscow. He died in 1837, two days after being wounded in a duel with the husband of his wife�s sister. According to an anonymous letter, Pushkin�s in-law was guilty of having a rendezvous with Pushkin�s wife, Natalie. The poet�s short time on this earth was enough to secure him a place of high honor in the pantheon of Russia�s great writers. He lived a reckless life and was a constant concern to the state, which found it necessary to read his incoming and outgoing mail and censor what he wrote. He loved women, he loved nature, he loved literature, he loved to gamble, and he had little patience when it came to politics or business affairs. On several occasions he begged to leave Russia, but to no avail. Instead, his movement was restricted and he was closely watched.

Above all, Pushkin is remembered as a poet. He wrote many lyrics and ballads, and is best known for his narrative poems, �The Bronze Horseman� and �Eugene Onegin.� He also wrote folk tales (�The Tale of the Golden Cockerel,� the basis of an opera by Rimsky-Korsakov); plays (�Boris Godunov,� �Mozart and Salieri,� �The Stone Guest�); and prose (�The Tales of Belkin,� �The Queen of Spades,� �The Captain�s Daughter�). Written in 1833-4, �The Queen of Spades� is considered a humble ancestor of Dostoevsky�s Crime and Punishment. �The Captain�s Daughter,� practically the last thing he wrote, was, according to Tolstoy, Pushkin�s greatest achievement.

The following poem, �Remembrance,� was written by an already world-weary Pushkin in 1828. The translation is by Babette Deutsch.

Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Portable Hawthorne (The Viking Press)
I value this book as much, I think, for editor Malcolm Cowley�s fascinating introduction, written in 1948, as I do for the fine work of Hawthorne himself. In it we learn of the countless hours spent by Hawthorne alone, observing nature, talking to himself, and creating his rich, flowing fiction:

Nathaniel Hawthorne, best know for his novel The Scarlet Letter, was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. He died in 1864, in Plymouth, New Hampshire. He wrote several romances (The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun, The Dolliver Romance); and a number of tales (�An Old Woman�s Tale,� �Feathertop,� �Rappacini�s Daughter,� �The Celestial Railroad,� �Ethan Brand�). He also filled many notebooks and penned many revealing letters, examples of which are included in this volume.

If you are new to Hawthorne, don�t try to read him in short bursts. It takes time to appreciate his pace and style, which, once you are in tune, is very much like taking a leisurely walk with him through the woods. The details and observations are important. He wants you to see, to feel, to notice. So be patient. You will be impressed by his symbolism, and caught up in his still pertinent themes of loneliness and alienation.

The following excerpt is from The Scarlet Letter, his Puritan-based story of adultery, defiance, and shame:

This Is My Best
Edited by Whit Burnett (The Dial Press, New York, 1942)
About ten years ago, I paid two dollars for this unusual 1,180-page anthology. I still haven�t finished it and, at the rate I�m going, I probably never will. The book features a very diverse selection of work by ninety-three American authors. What sets the anthology apart is that the work was chosen by the authors themselves, as each was asked to include his or her favorite piece of writing. Some choices are predictable, others surprising. As an added bonus, each piece is prefaced by the author�s letter to editor Whit Burnett, explaining why the piece was chosen. In many cases, the letters are every bit as enjoyable as the writing that follows. In others, they are stuffy and dull, not unlike the writing that follows. All, though, help form an interesting record of the times.

As a sampler of diverse talent, a book like this is hard to beat. There are stories by Theodore Dreiser, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Morley Callaghan, Willa Cather, Dorothy Parker, Erskine Caldwell, William Faulkner, Katherine Ann Porter, and Booth Tarkington, just to name a few. There are poems by Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, William Carlos Williams, and Marianne Moore. There are novel excerpts, several essays, and excerpts from biographies about Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Beethoven. Drama is represented by Robert E. Sherwood, Eugene O�Neill, Thornton Wilder, and Clifford Odets. There is even a preface by William Saroyan, who confidently states that his is �a lucky piece, as Saroyan is a lucky writer,� and then, �I doubt you will find a luckier piece in this whole book.� The preface he chose was to �Hello Out There,� a one-act play he dedicated to George Bernard Shaw.

The following excerpt from Whit Burnett�s introduction gives an idea of what This Is My Best accomplishes:

. . . In no small, single way, this book is America. America in its many moods, its various colors, its many aspects. It is the New England of Frost and Coffin and Mary Ellen Chase; and the South of Glasgow, Stuart, Rawlings and Faulkner; the Middle West of Tarkington and Ade; and the Far West of Steinbeck�s old pioneer, stopped and baffled forever at the Pacific Ocean and the end of the frontier, in a later day. It is dinner with the Babbitts, a scared Negro washerwoman in Mississippi, the stockyards of Chicago. It is a preface to a Saroyan fantasy, an editor in Kansas writing an editorial on the death of his daughter and projecting a wisp of a girl into a kind of immortality. . . . It is another side, less lovely, but exerting its power always throughout the land, the America of the jungle, of wasted lives and lost illusion; it is America Was Promises, the American Dream, and contrastingly it is Studs and Bigger in the black slums of Chicago. . . .

If I live long enough, I�ll probably get around to writing a little about some of the individual writers and pieces in this book. For now, I am content to be overwhelmed by such a large collection of good writing, and authors so worthy of further investigation.
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Honor� de Balzac
So much has been said of this great nineteenth century French writer that anything I add here is likely to seem superfluous. My first taste of his grand style came through the Penguin Classic edition of his novel Lost Illusions, which he completed in 1843 seven years prior to his death. In the introduction to his English translation, Herbert J. Hunt said

This is truly an understatement. Balzac�s frantic pace of living, keen power of observation, and exhaustive knowledge of almost any subject make reading his work feel like one has been caught in a literary whirlwind. At one moment, his vigorous narration (often directed at the reader) reveals a character�s appearance, thoughts, and motivation; at the next he is off on a fascinating history of printing and paper-making, or a scalding condemnation of the devious world of journalism and newspaper publishing. That he personally tried his hand at these various enterprises (and failed, like so many of his characters) adds depth and verisimilitude.

If I remember correctly, Balzac wrote somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred novels, most of which he gathered under the general title The Human Comedy. According to Herbert J. Hunt�s introduction to Lost Illusions, it was Balzac�s idea to present the social and moral history of his times in a series of novels and short stories that would also include his interpretation of life and society as he saw it. His massive undertaking was loosely divided into scenes of private, provincial, Parisian, political, military, and country life. Whenever he sensed something missing or discovered an unturned stone, he quickly inserted another novel. He accomplished this feat by drinking huge amounts of coffee and working twenty hours at a stretch, killing himself in the process. He was driven by debt incurred from failed business ventures and extravagant living, as well as the certain knowledge that he was the one person most qualified to explain and judge society. The extent to which he succeeded spawned an entire Balzac industry that occupies, like his own work, many miles of library shelves.
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The Giant Book of Scottish Short Stories
Edited and introduced by Carl MacDougall
Peter Bedrick Books, New York, 1989 (first American edition)
I found this 568-page volume here in town at the public library, in the little bookstore operated by the library�s Friends. Editor Carl MacDougall presents an assortment of delightful writers who have tapped into Scotland�s rich storytelling tradition, which has its roots in the spoken voice and in first person narration.

There is a sense of immediacy and familiarity in these stories that make them hard to resist. Last night in bed, for instance, I started a story by Duncan Williamson when I was tired and should really have turned out the light. �Death in a Nut� had no trouble keeping me awake. The story, transcribed by the author�s wife, captures the Scots� travelers� dialect that Williamson was immersed in for much of his life. In a lesson about accepting the inevitability and importance of death, the narrator tells about a son and his mother, and what happens when the son, Jack, refuses to let his mother die. Here is a passage from the story:

In more straightforward English, the book also features many fine tales of the supernatural. From the editor�s introduction:

The Giant Book of Scottish Short Stories includes work from eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century writers. Each story is accompanied by an interesting note on its author�s background and his or her place in Scottish literature. The collection is an excellent introduction to Scotland�s literary wealth, and its contribution to world literature.
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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Dover, New York (1970)
This poem is a harrowing story told by an ancient mariner to a young man who is on his way to his relative�s wedding. Powerless to resist, the young man is horrified to hear how, years earlier, the mariner lost his crew after he�d shot an albatross that had brought them luck after the ship had been swept violently off course into a frightful land of ice and snow-fog never before seen by man. Abruptly, upon the good bird�s death, their fortune changed and the ship was blown into still, warm waters. A drought ensued, leaving them parched and speechless. To the very last man, the crew died, leaving the mariner alone and tortured by their condemning gaze. A �death ship� approached; two women, �Death� and �Life-in-Death,� cast dice for the mariner�s life; �Life-in-Death� won. . . . and the ancient mariner�s riveting story goes on, and the young wedding guest learns what finally happened to the crew, and to the mariner, and why, to this day, the mariner must wander from land to land, teaching his awful tale.

Coleridge, an English poet and critic, was born in 1772. He died in 1834. His major works include Lyrical Ballads (1798), a landmark volume of poetry published in conjunction with his friend, William Wordsworth, and which contained the first great works of the Romantic School; Kubla Khan; and a tragedy, Remorse. Later, in 1816, estranged from his family and addicted to opium (a battle he fought most of his life and lost), he occupied himself with Biographica Literaria (1817), a wide-ranging series of autobiographical notes that included philosophy and literary criticism, many of which were considered brilliantly perceptive. That same year he also published Sybylline Leaves and delivered his last lecture. Later, while in seclusion at the home of physician James Gillman, he published Aids to Reflection (1825) and Church and State (1830).

I like The Rime of the Ancient Mariner as much for its illustrations by Gustave Dor� as I do Coleridge�s poem. Like most of Coleridge�s poetry, Ancient Mariner has a supernatural theme, to which Dor�s temperament and talent were ideally suited. Dor� (1832-1883), born in Strasbourg, began drawing as a young child. At fifteen, he�d already begun his career as a professional artist in Paris. He had an exceptional memory, worked quickly, and was in great demand, both professionally and at parties, where he performed tricks and various acrobatic stunts such as walking on his hands. The first edition of Ancient Mariner featuring his inspired, unearthly woodcuts appeared in 1875.
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Webmaster�s Reading List
When he isn�t busy with computer programming or website maintenance, my son, Vahan, is either playing basketball, listening to music, or reading. His self-taught basketball skills are phenomenal; his knowledge of Classic Rock from 1966-1975 is encyclopedic and rapidly growing; and his sustained, systematic attack on my book shelf is inspiring. All this, and he�s only eight years old. (Just kidding. He�s in his early twenties.) I wish I could say he gets it from me, but everyone knows his mother is the brains of the outfit, as proven by her ability to fix bicycles and figure out math homework. This is also why I won�t be reading his collection of technical books any time soon.

At right is a fairly inclusive list of what Vahan has read so far. The titles are grouped by author. This list also gives an idea of how far I have yet to go in this section. Vahan just started reading Victor Hugo�s Les Mis�rables. I�ll give an occasional update on his progress. . . .

Update #1:
Les Mis�rables is almost done. In fact it would be, if Vahan hadn�t taken time out to read all fifty-six Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. The stories are in a nice volume published by Chancellor Press, of London, and are accompanied by the original illustrations that appeared with the stories when they were first published in The Strand magazine. It turns out I also forgot to mention some other things Vahan has read: Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, published by Penguin and translated by J.M. Cohen; and The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, published by Avenel. The latter book contains sixty-seven tales, plus Poe�s novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, as well as �The Raven� and thirty other poems.

Update #2:
Well, that takes care of Les Mis�rables. About the edition: published by The Heritage Press, New York, 1938; translated by Lascelles Wraxall, authorized by Victor Hugo; introduction by Andr� Maurois; illustrations by Lynd Ward. Vahan�s next project is Homer�s Iliad, translated by E.V. Rieu and published by Penguin Books in 1950. Frankly, I�m jealous. After the Iliad, he will read the Odyssey. . . .

Update #3:
The Iliad and Odyssey are history. They already were, of course, but now they are also part of Vahan�s reading history. And the books seem to have had quite an effect on him. Instead of continuing as a computer programmer, he is thinking about building a stout vessel and sailing it on the wine-dark sea in search of adventure � or new Classic Rock CDs. After Homer, he took me up on my suggestion to read The Shade Returneth, a poetic drama in two acts by John Berbrich. You will find a brief discussion of this title and information on its whereabouts well along into the forum page. Next up: The Winter of Our Discontent, by John Steinbeck. I also read this book recently, and commented on it in the September 21, 2003, entry of my daily journal, One Hand Clapping.

Update #4:
Vahan said he really enjoyed Steinbeck�s The Winter of Our Discontent. When I asked him what he thought of the ending, he agreed with my opinion that it wasn�t quite up to par, but that the novel is still good in spite of it. The next book he read was Not Dying, by William Saroyan. He didn�t enjoy it as much as most of the other Saroyan books he�s read, but seemed to think it was okay. You can read my comments on Not Dying by visiting my second page about the author, More Saroyan.

Update #5:
Possibly due to the onset of winter weather, Vahan has returned to the Russian authors. On a recent visit to my book shelf, he was pondering my copy of The Poems, Plays & Prose of Pushkin when Alexandr Solzhenitsyn�s The Gulag Archipelago caught his eye. I told him a little about it and said it was definitely something he should read, but he said he wasn�t quite in the mood for straight nonfiction. So I showed him Solzhenitsyn�s novel, Cancer Ward. He read it in just a few days. Having read Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Goncharov, and Gogol, he found Solzhenitsyn�s style pleasantly familiar, though he prefers Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and nineteenth century writing in general. I asked him if Cancer Ward was as good as Steinbeck�s The Winter of Our Discontent. He said maybe, maybe not, and that they were both good. It was the old apples and oranges thing � or, perhaps, vodka and bourbon, or cabbage soup and clam chowder. The important thing is that he read the book, and that he has already moved on to Doctor Zhivago.

Update #6:
Vahan calls Doctor Zhivago a �dark, chilling epic.� (For a few slightly more revealing details about this poetic classic by Boris Pasternak, you can read my observations.) After that he read The Adolescent, a novel by Dostoevsky given him at Christmas. When I asked him what he thought of it, he said it was a �story too vast and all-encompassing to be summarized in just a few words.� A minute later, he and his brother left to play basketball. I first read the book back in 1987, but now I�ve decided to read it again. Incidentally, the title of the translation I read was A Raw Youth. I like that better than The Adolescent. The translator was probably Constance Garnett, but since the book was from the library and I foolishly returned it, I�m not sure. The present volume was translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

Update #7:
We can now add Balzac�s Eug�nie Grandet and Zola�s Nana to the webmaster�s reading list. Vahan didn�t think Eug�nie Grandet was in the same league as Lost Illusions, or that it was as good as Old Goriot or Cousin Pons, but he still found it enjoyable. He had similar feelings about Nana; while he is accustomed to Zola�s methodical writing style, he found Nana much more predictable than, say, Germinal, which he enjoyed far more. Next up: A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway.

Update #8:
I was interested in Vahan�s opinion of A Farewell to Arms, because the little I�ve read of Hemingway over the years has usually left me cold. He said the writing did leave something to be desired, but that the story itself was good. To confirm this, I read the book immediately after he did. The following is from the April 21, 2004, entry of my daily journal, One Hand Clapping: �I found the sentence structure somewhat annoying, though I got used to it after the first few pages and was able to proceed. Over all, the writing was decent and even shined briefly in spots, but it relied too much on what to me felt like a gimmick of calculated understatement. I think this betrayed the two main characters in the end, mainly because the language didn�t reflect the urgency of their situation. I also think the novel would have been better treated as a short story. � So there you have the short version of my opinion, for what it�s worth. After A Farewell to Arms, Vahan turned to Thornton Wilder�s The Bridge of San Luis Rey. He enjoyed the book, and said the writing was definitely better than Hemingway�s. Now he�s reading Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton.

Update #9:
Vahan wasn�t too excited about Cry, the Beloved Country, but he did say it was a good book, and that he liked it better than A Farewell to Arms. Since he doesn�t blab on and on about things as I do, when he finishes a book I usually ask him to compare it and its author to another. This was the case not long ago when he put down Sixes and Sevens, a collection of twenty-five short stories by O. Henry. �How were they?� I said. �Did you like them as much as Maupassant�s?� He said they were nowhere near as good as that, and that Maupassant is in another league altogether. After that, he read all fifty-six Sherlock Holmes stories a second time. �Well?� I said. �Well, what?� he said. �How were they? Were they as good as O. Henry�s?� No. They were better, especially the earlier stories. �Fascinating,� I said. �So. What are you going to read next?� We went to my book shelf. After considering the possibilities for about thirty seconds, he settled on Thomas Wolfe�s Look Homeward, Angel.

Update #10:
Vahan was thoroughly impressed by Look Homeward, Angel. It took him awhile to get through its 520 pages, because he has been playing his Fender Stratocaster and Gibson Les Paul a lot lately � which only makes sense since he also bought two new Fender amps. I guess this is what happens when you have a real paying job. You can afford all sorts of things. Hmm. I wonder if I should take the hint and � no, that would be ridiculous. Anyway, he agrees with me that Thomas Wolfe is great � all the more so since Wolfe wrote the book when he was in his twenties. After Look Homeward, Angel, Vahan followed my advice and read Steinbeck�s Cannery Row. He loved it. What�s next? I don�t know. I�d ask him, but he�s busy with his guitar and I�d have to shout for him to hear me.

Update #11:
Well, that kid of mine is still reading. We can now add William Faulkner�s The Reivers to the list, as well as Ernest Hemingway�s For Whom the Bell Tolls. He is currently working on another Balzac volume I picked up at a used book store. That book contains three works: The Gondreville Mystery; La Grande Bret�che; and Ferragus, Chief of the D�vorants. It took him awhile to get used to Faulkner�s circuitous writing style, but he said The Reivers was a pretty decent story, and he wouldn�t mind tackling a little more of Faulkner�s work. Hemingway, he said, was still Hemingway. He didn�t notice much difference between A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Generally speaking, he doesn�t mind reading Hemingway, but he doesn�t mind not reading him either � not the greatest recommendation, but one I agree with.

Update #12:
After his triple shot of highly caffeinated Balzac, the webmaster switched gears and read Mark Twain�s Life on the Mississippi. Like me, he found the book fascinating and entertaining, right down to the footnotes and appendix. While we were talking about what he might read next, the subject of Hemingway came up again. Now that he�s had more time to think about it, he couldn�t find anything much to like about Hemingway�s characters, and feels the author �copped out� on the endings of A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Interesting. Since I picked up a sturdy used copy recently, I asked him if he wanted to read Norman Mailer�s The Naked and the Dead. (I read the first several pages and found Mailer�s method of describing characters a bit irritating, I�m afraid.) He said no, not at the moment, then settled on The Web and the Rock by Thomas Wolfe � another recent acquisition. So we�ll see where that leads.

Update #13:
Because guitar-playing is taking up more and more of his time, the webmaster has slowed down a bit with his reading. But he hasn�t stopped, and doesn�t intend to. He finished The Web and the Rock and was impressed, though not quite to the degree he was with Look Homeward, Angel. And yet he said it was far better than most books he has read. I�ve yet to start on it myself. Well, I started, but then switched to Ulysses, by James Joyce. I�m about 300 pages into the Joyce tome � only 600 to go. Next up for the kid: Victor Hugo�s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Update #14:
Fascinating � Vahan liked The Hunchback of Notre Dame well enough to go back and re-read Les Mis�rables. That�s a lot of Victor Hugo. To top it off, he picked up a copy of Hugo�s The Toilers of the Sea and has started on that. One thing that impresses him about this author is the sheer amount of knowledge he packs into his pages. The same can be said of Balzac, of course, but Victor Hugo tends to be a bit more level-headed about it. Not that he is shy in any way. It has been years since I read Les Mis�rables, but I still recall the author�s lengthy excursions into history, which almost seemed like novels in themselves.

Update #15:
On a related note, the youngest member of our family, an eighteen-year-old who is also a guitar player (folk-acoustic), has been doing quite a bit of reading himself lately. A few titles I can think of right off hand are Dante�s The Divine Comedy, Whitman�s Leaves of Grass, Jack Kerouac�s On the Road, Dharma Bums, Big Sur, and Book of Blues, and Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (with a great deal of help, apparently, from Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg). He has also read a number of mostly Beat-related poets. It will be interesting to see where this leads.

Update #16:
Well, the boys are still at it. The webmaster finished up with The Toilers of the Sea, and is now reading Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. His brother, meanwhile, devoured and was amazed by Dostoevsky�s classic Crime and Punishment � I forgot to mention in my last note that he had read Dostoevsky�s short story, �The Dream of a Ridiculous Man,� as well � and has since moved on to Twain�s humorous and sarcastic travel account, The Innocents Abroad. A couple of other used volumes he picked up recently are Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck.

Update #17:
As soon as Vahan finished Zorba the Greek, he jumped into Yevgeny Zamyatin�s science fiction classic, We, and polished it off within a few days. He enjoyed both, but he definitely preferred the earthy eloquence of Zorba. Now he is moving into John Steinbeck�s East of Eden. Our other reading musician, meanwhile, is done with Steinbeck�s war-time story, The Moon is Down, which he said made for a day�s nice reading. He�s still working on Mark Twain.

Update #18:
Vahan has officially declared East of Eden to be �excellent.� He is now going to change literary gears and tackle Remembrance Rock, a thousand-page novel by poet Carl Sandburg. Along with The Innocents Abroad, his brother is reading Spoon River Anthology, a collection of poems by Edgar Lee Masters written in 1915 in the form of epitaphs. If I remember correctly, Sandburg and Masters knew each other in Chicago. If I don�t remember correctly, maybe they knew each other somewhere else. Our youngest reader also brought home a massive volume of poetry by William Blake, and has devoured a fair-sized portion of that. Blake died in 1827, the same year as Beethoven. A meaningless coincidence, unless they too met in Chicago.

Update #19:
According to a recent report, Remembrance Rock has been slow-going thus far. But it is going, and that�s what counts. Meanwhile, Guitar Player #2 has read a few other interesting titles, such as Illuminations and Season in Hell by the demented and influential French poet Arthur Rimbaud. He also enjoyed two of William Saroyan�s early prize-winning plays: My Heart�s in the Highlands and The Time of Your Life. And, most recently, he finished Richard Brautigan�s In Watermelon Sugar, Trout Fishing in America, and The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster. He is currently working on Great Expectations.

Update #20:
Vahan is about a third of the way through Remembrance Rock. When I asked him the other day if he liked the book at all, or if it had become more of a job, he said that it is actually quite good, in its own poetic and densely woven way. So that�s good to hear. His brother�s reading adventures also continue. I don�t know if he�s still reading Dickens. He did read Woody Guthrie�s autobiography, Bound for Glory. He also just finished Orwell�s 1984. And since it�s in a similar vein, he�s reading my copy of We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. To satisfy his liking for poetry, he is working his way through the collected works of Yeats, which he says varies from unremarkable to quite good.

Update #21:
Our intrepid webmaster still isn�t done with Remembrance Rock. However, since our last update, he has acquired two more guitars and read One Flew Over the Cuckoo�s Nest by the late Oregon author Ken Kesey. He read it in about three or four days and enjoyed it a lot. In fact, I�m thinking about reading it again myself, possibly after I finish Humboldt�s Gift, a novel by Saul Bellow. Meanwhile, here�s a partial list of what Vahan�s brother is reading, or has recently completed: Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler (quite good, he says); Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant; a New Directions publication of selected poems by William Carlos Williams; Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems by Gary Snyder (Shoemaker & Hoard); Thomas Wolfe�s masterpiece, Look Homeward, Angel; Selected Poems of Ezra Pound (New Directions); and Dante�s La Vita Nuova (Penguin).

Update #22:
I was absolutely delighted when I saw Vahan pack my still unfinished copy of Remembrance Rock in the big suitcase he and his brother took with them on a week-long road trip early this morning. Of course, they also took a couple of guitars, so it�s hard to say how much reading he�ll do. In the meantime, Vahan�s brother is rapidly catching up, with titles such as Windblown World, The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947-1954; e.e. cummings 73 poems; Allen Ginsberg Collected Poems; Kerouac�s The Subterraneans; The Tibetan Book of the Dead; Baudelaire�s The Flowers of Evil; and William Faulkner�s The Sound and the Fury and Light in August. I wonder how many bookstores they�ll visit while they�re away?

Update #23:
Not a one, as it turned out. But since then, many weeks have passed, and Vahan still claims he�s reading Remembrance Rock. Did I say weeks? I meant months � during which time he and I have made several trips to local used bookstores. At the moment he�s almost 500 pages into Thomas Wolfe�s Of Time and the River, which he says is fantastic. And he now has an impressive stack of his very own used books to go through. I really need to make a list. Rugged hardbound novels, mostly.

Update #24:
When I was at Vahan�s house the other day � yes, time has passed and he has his own house now � I asked him point-blank if he�d finished Remembrance Rock. He said he had only thirty pages to go, and that the book has proven to be very worthwhile, very enjoyable. And since I had a few minutes, I started making a list of some of the beautiful old books on his shelves � books that he�s picked up on our visits together to used bookstores in the area. I made only a small dent, but here are the titles I scribbled down:

The Count of Monte Cristo
�Four Volumes in One�
by Alexandre Dumas
illustrated by Lynd Ward
with an introduction by Andr� Maurois
The Heritage Press, New York (1941)

Hallam�s Works
The Constitutional History of England
Volumes 1 and 2 (Volume 3 missing)
by Henry Hallam
W.J. Widdleton, Publisher, New York (1865);
also The Middle Ages
View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages
in three volumes (1866)

The Magic Skin
by Honor� de Balzac
translated by Ellen Marriage
A.L. Burt Company, Publishers, New York (no date)

Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe
Whitman Publishing Company, Racine, Wisconsin (no date)

Emerson�s Essays
First and Second Series
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
J.M. Dent & Co., London
E.P. Dutton & Co., New York (sixth printing, 1909)

Absalom, Absalom!
by William Faulkner
The Modern Library, New York (1964)

By Order of the King
by Victor Hugo
A.L. Burt Company, Publishers, New York (no date)

Dubliners
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by James Joyce
International Collectors Library, Garden City, New York (1964)

Five Great Dialogues
�Apology�; �Crito�; �Phaedo�; �Symposium�; �Republic�
by Plato
translated by B. Jowett
edited with an introduction by Louise Ropes Loomis
Walter J. Black, Inc., Roslyn, New York (1942)

The Complete Works of Rabelais
The Five Books of Gargantua and Pantagruel
translated by Jacques Le Clereq
The Modern Library, New York (1936)

Beethoven the Creator
by Romain Rolland
translated by Ernest Newman
Garden City Publishing Company, Inc., New York (1937)

The Human Comedy
by William Saroyan
illustrated by Don Freeman
Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York (1943)

The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and other Stories
by William Saroyan
with a new preface by the author
The Modern Library, New York (1941)

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