1001 Books: You Must Read Before You Die

by Boxall, Peter

  In Bel-Ami, individual stories are women to be seduced, whose bodily presence is described with phenomenological exactitude. However, each woman also represents a calculation, where sexual desire is measured against practical benefit. The “bright silky kimono” of Clotilde de Marelle thus translates into a need that is “brutal” and “direct,” a woman to be quickly discarded. But her successor’s “loose white gown,” represents the longer rhythm of his desire for social worth: she will be ravaged equally, but in a process that exploits her political as well as erotic value. Love, or authentic emotion, moves in inverse proportion to the cynical force of ambition. Maupassant encourages us to enjoy the latter for what it is, as long as we are not tempted to draw any more lasting lessons from his work. DT

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  1800s

  Marius the Epicurean

  Walter Pater

  Lifespan | b. 1839 (England), d. 1894

  First Published | 1885, by Macmillan & Co. (London)

  Full Title | Marius the Epicurean: His Sensations and Ideas

  Walter Pater is perhaps best known as the author of The Renaissance (1873), ostensibly an overview of art and culture from that period, but in effect a manifesto for aesthetic existence that was to profoundly influence the artistic temperament of the fin de siècle. His contemporary, Oscar Wilde, enthusiastically adopted “the love of art for its own sake,” as the principle that art never expresses anything but itself. Pater wrote Marius the Epicurean not only to imply the inadequacy of this Wildean reading, but also to provide a general model for the experience of art within the form of a life.

  The subject matter of Marius is less important than the ideas with which it is concerned. It describes the education of the young Roman of its title, through several varieties of pagan philosophy, culminating in Christian faith and martyrdom. Marius develops, however, not through the events of his life, but as a reader, and the form of the novel sets out to reproduce that readerly experience. Reading, in this case, meaningfully connects past, present, and future, becoming itself a process of redemptive moral growth. The carefully constructed temporal simultaneity of Pater’s novel makes us feel this as readers, as well as observing its effects in his hero. The relative neglect of Marius is demonstrated by the fact that no modern edition of the work exists. But if we are to see literature as a process of spiritual as well as sensual formation, respecting both sides of Pater’s equation, then reading it remains crucial. DT

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  1800s

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

  Mark Twain

  Lifespan | b. 1835 (U.S.), d. 1910

  First Published | 1885

  First Published by | Dawson (Montreal)

  Given Name | Samuel Langhorne Clemens

  The first edition of Huckleberry Finn was illustrated by Edward Kemble, who created an unforgettable image of the young hero.

  Like many of the titles found in the “Children’s Classics” section of bookstores, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not a children’s book as we understand the term these days, and it is not surprising that adaptations of Twain’s work aimed at children are usually quite heavily edited. Sharing with Tom Sawyer (1876) a vivid portrayal of Mississippi small-town life, replete with colorful characters, superstitions, slang, and river lore, these adventures are of a different kind. The contrast becomes clear quite early on, when the bloodthirsty boys’ game of “highwaymen” and ransom organized by Tom is echoed in Huck’s escape from his drunken, violent father. In order to avoid being followed, Huck fakes his own murder. Early on in his flight, he links up with the escaped slave Jim, and together they travel down the Mississippi. Along the way they meet an assortment of locals, river folk, good and bad people, and get mixed up with a pair of con men. Many of their adventures are comic, and Huck’s naivety in describing them is frequently used to humorous effect. However, the straightforwardness with which Huck relates his experiences allows the narrative to shift unexpectedly from absurdity into much darker terrain, as when he witnesses a young boy of his own age die in a pointless and ridiculous feud with another family.

  It is these sudden shifts and the contrasts they produce that make this more than an adventure novel. Huck is not necessarily an innocent, but in telling his story he tends to take conventional morals and social relations at face value. By doing so, he brings a moral earnestness to bear on them which exposes hypocrisy, injustice, falsehood, and cruelty more subtly and more scathingly than any direct satire could. DG

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  1800s

  Germinal

  Émile Zola

  Lifespan | b. 1840 (France), d. 1902

  First Published | 1885

  First Published by | Charpentier (Paris)

  Original Language | French

  “He was unemployed and homeless, and had only one thought in his head; the hope that the cold would be less keen after daybreak.”

  Anyone interested in the intersection between literature and politics should know this famous, explosive novel of class conflict and industrial unrest, set in the coalfields of northern France in the 1860s. Émile Zola’s uncompromising presentation of an impoverished, subterranean, and vulnerable working existence, paralleled by bourgeois luxury, leisure, and security, provoked controversy.

  The title recalls the seventh month of the French revolutionary calendar, associated with mass insurrection, rioting, violence, poverty, and starvation. All feature in Germinal’s central story: the eruption and failure of a general strike and its universally negative outcome. The main narrative charts Étienne Lantier’s emotional and political assimilation into a mining community, illuminating a dark disenfranchized world, ripe for revolt. His progression from neutral outsider to committed strike leader mobilizes a collective struggle, subtly presented in tandem with the contradictions and compromises of individual belief and aspiration. The narrative is permeated with significant oppositions, but capitalism subjugates all of the protagonists.

  Germinal’s much-debated ending resonates with a challenging question: what is the potential for social change and transition? The final images of destruction and renewal suggest possible political evolution through the germination of individual and collective working-class endeavor. It is significant though, that this remains inconclusive. GM

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  1800s

  King Solomon’s Mines

  H. Rider Haggard

  Lifespan | b. 1856 (England), d. 1925

  First Published | 1885

  First Published by | Cassell & Co. (London)

  Original Language | English

  H. Rider Haggard’s phenomenal best seller was intended to rival Treasure Island, and its hero, Allan Quartermain, has proved an enduring figure in popular literature, being memorably recreated as an opium-raddled wreck in Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2002). The tale itself is classic fantasy; Quartermain and his aides venture into uncharted reaches of Central Africa to discover the infamous King Solomon’s Mines, repository of a legendarily huge treasure. Of course, the journey is fraught with peril and excitement. Quartermain encounters the Kukuanas, ruled by King Twala and the witch Gagool, who become increasingly more villainous as tension between the tribe and those intending to purloin the diamond mines intensifies.

  Haggard’s writing displays a deep knowledge of African, especially Zulu, cultures, which he had observed, and often admired, firsthand. Quartermain is an imperialist, but he is more tolerant and open to change than other contemporary characters, and it is notable that several of his adventures, including this one, involve attempts to save tribes from disappearing. This is possibly why his texts have survived—they identify a more generic threat to mankind through the destruction of an entire race. Haggard’s central characters are bombastic and brash, yet Haggard makes the reader aware of this, and it is Quartermain who emerges as the culturally resourceful hero rather than
his less observant, and more stereotypically belligerent colleagues. EMcCS

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  1800s

  The Quest

  Frederik van Eeden

  Lifespan | b. 1860 (Netherlands), d. 1932

  First Published | 1885

  First Published by | De Nieuwe Gids (Amsterdam)

  Original Title | De kleine Johannes

  Frederik van Eeden was one of the founders of a psychotherapeutic clinic in Amsterdam. Both as a writer and as a doctor he concerned himself with social wrongs. The Quest was first published in De Nieuwe Gids (The New Guide), an epoch-making and innovative literary periodical started by the Tachtigers (Eighties Movement). Van Eeden’s ideas, however, diverged from the guidelines of the Tachtigers, which favored pieces conforming to the principle of l’art pour l’art: art for art’s sake. Van Eeden distinguished himself through his religioethical sympathies and he focused more on content than on form, an outlook that eventually led to a rift.

  Van Eeden’s novel describes the experiences of Johannes, a protagonist who displays many similarities to himself. As a child, Johannes has every opportunity to play and to give his unbridled imagination free rein. His primary interest is in nature and animals, but in the course of time, he also experiences less pleasant aspects of life, such as illness and death. Johannes makes a spiritual journey in which he learns that most people’s lives contrast sharply with his idyllic childhood.

  The Quest is constructed as a symbolic fairy tale, in which imagination eventually loses out to rationalism and materialism. The religio-ethical undertones resolve toward the end of the novel, where Johannes is given a task among mankind. Read against the background of the Aesthetic Movement, The Quest an extraordinary and poignant tale. JaM

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  1800s

  The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Lifespan | b. 1850 (Scotland), d. 1894 (Samoa)

  First Published | 1886

  First Published by | Longmans, Green & Co. (Lon.)

  Original Language | English

  In this illustration from the first edition, Dr. Jekyll transforms into his evil other self, to the horror of the unfortunate Dr. Lanyon.

  This novel begins, quietly enough, with an urbane conversation between the lawyer, Mr. Utterson, and his friend, Mr. Enfield. The latter tells how, returning home in the early hours of the morning, he witnessed a “horrible” incident: a small girl, running across the street, is trampled by a man who leaves her screaming on the ground. “It sounds nothing to hear,” Enfield concludes, “but it was hellish to see.”

  Such reticence is characteristic of Robert Louis Stevenson’s retelling of this classic gothic story of “the double,” the notion of a man pursued by himself, of a second personality inhabiting the true self. Stevenson gradually discloses the identity of the “damned Juggernaut,” Mr. Hyde, who disappears behind the door of the respectable, and well liked, Dr. Jekyll. But identifying Hyde is not the same as knowing how to read the conflict, the double existence, unleashed by Jekyll’s experiments with the “evil side of my nature.” Notably, in 1888, the psychological phenomenon explored here was invoked to explain a new, and metropolitan, form of sexual savagery in the tabloid sensationalism surrounding the Ripper murders. This is an early example of the ongoing role in public of Stevenson’s story, and its critical reflection on the many discontents of modern cultural life. VL

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  1800s

  The Manors of Ulloa

  Emilia Pardo Bazán

  Lifespan | b. 1852 (Spain), d. 1921

  First Published | 1886

  First Published by | Daniel Cortezo (Barcelona)

  Original Title | Los pazos de Ulloa

  With this scabrous novel, continued a year later in Mother Nature, the Countess de Pardo Bazán achieved her best work and one of the peaks of Spanish naturalism. In it she contrasts the barbarism and primitiveness of rural Galicia with the standards that regulate civilized life. The young priest Julián Álvarez arrrives at the ancestral home of Don Pedro Moscoso, the illegitimate Marquis of Ulloa and authentic feudal overlord. Don Pedro has found out that the effective running of the estate depends on the brutal Primitivo, whose daughter, Sabel, works as a maid. The marquis indulges his erotic affection with Sabel, the result of which is a child, Perucho.

  Soon the well-behaved Julián, who is trying to tidy up the organization of the estate, clashes with the violent Primitivo. Julián remains at the house and tries to redeem the marquis through marriage. To this end they travel to Santiago, where Don Pedro can select a wife from among his four cousins. He chooses Nucha, the favorite of the priest. The first months of marriage are happy, until Nucha gives birth to a girl. The marquis, who wanted a boy, quickly resumes his relationship with Sabel. Julián’s plan for Nucha and the girl to flee is discovered, and he is expelled from the house. Ten years later, he returns to find the tomb of Nucha and two children playing: the boy, Perucho, elegantly dressed, and the girl, dirty and ragged. DRM

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  1800s

  The People of Hemsö

  August Strindberg

  Lifespan | b. 1849 (Sweden), d. 1912

  First Published | 1887

  First Published by | A. Bonniers Förlag (Stockholm)

  Original Title | Hemsöborna

  A feat of straightforward, folksy storytelling, The People of Hemsö is set on an island in August Strindberg’s beloved Stockholm archipelago. Written during a difficult period in exile from Sweden, the novel, paradoxically, has a strong sense of place, and is like a sunny, carefree summer holiday in comparison with some of Strindberg’s more psychologically intense work. Its mood is generous and forgiving, and the naturalism, so often used for painting in bleak colors, is here affirmative and bright.

  The detailed description of nature and characters is authentic and genuine, and free from social and political indignation. Mrs. Flod, a widow of some means, hires Carlsson to run the farm on the island. As a newcomer and a landlubber among sailors and fishermen, who prefer the boat to the field, Carlsson is immediately and implicitly distrusted by the locals. His main rival is Gusten, the son and heir, and a struggle for control of the farm develops between them. Although it may be possible to see traces of a Nietzschean power struggle in their confrontation, the novel is far too light and happy to carry any sustained philosophical weight. Nevertheless, this contest is a clever, pageturning device: is Carlsson a slippery confidence trickster preying on the lonely widow, or an honest, hard-working man revitalizing the neglected farm? This question, also debated by the other characters in the novel, still enthrals readers today. Together with the magnificent passages describing the sea and the islands, the broad rustic comedy, and the dramatic final twists and turns of the plot, the lure of this fundamental question is why The People of Hemsö retains its prominent position in Strindberg’s oeuvre, and why it has achieved its status as one of the most popular Swedish novels. UD

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  1800s

  Pierre and Jean

  Guy de Maupassant

  Lifespan | b. 1850 (France), d. 1893

  First Published | 1888

  First Published by | V. Harvard (Paris)

  Original Title | Pierre et Jean

  “Jean . . . was as fair as his brother was dark, as deliberate as his brother was vehement, as gentle as his brother was unforgiving . . .”

  Set in 1880s Le Havre, Pierre and Jean is a highly charged, gripping tale of a family breakdown. The title refers to two brothers, children of a respectable middle-class ex-jeweler and his wife, whose lives are torn apart by an unexpected inheritance. Jean, the younger son and an aspiring lawyer, discovers he is the sole beneficiary of a family friend’s estate. All of the family except for Pierre are overjoyed at this sudden godsend. Pierre is at first plagued by simple feelings of jealousy, but his moro
se condition worsens when he begins to question his mother’s honor and fears Jean may be the benefactor’s illegitimate son. He is tormented by doubts and the jealousy turns to fear, guilt, and anger. He becomes deeply confused and his anguish forces him to probe deep within himself, thereby furthering his isolation from both his family and society at large. The port of Le Havre and the Normandy coastline form an integral, illustrative backdrop to Pierre’s fear, agony, and ultimate yearning for escape.

  Widely considered to be one of the masters of the short story, Guy de Maupassant was a highly prolific and successful writer. Pierre and Jean, his fourth novel, is illustrative of a shift in both Maupassant’s own work and in French literature generally; a shift away from the social realism typified by authors such as Balzac and Zola, and toward a greater concern with the fundamental workings of human psychology. AL