![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatI've been reading the "books that have influenced me" memes on others livejournals. Interesting meme. But difficult. So I started thinking about books and what they mean to me and all sorts of other things that I seem to be struggling with finding the right words to convey.
Speaking of books, I've stumbled upon a lovely one, called The Three Junes by Julia Glass. Falling a little bit in love with this book, which is a story about a young man and his family. How they relate to each other, the misdirections, desires and longings. Also with the idea of mortality and passages through life.
Here's a sample:
"Satisfying, he thinks, the way the sea is stirred up, churned so briskly, then returns to its original calm - though not quite: for a moment, if you look hard, the water sparkles there with a little more brillance. Ahead and behind, always islands, more islands; one fades away, another draws near. Turning full circle to take them all in, Paul sees each one as a welcome mystery, a choice to be weighed without prophecy or speculation."
This book speaks to me - something inside me is responding to it. As I read, and it took a while for me to get into it, memories, thoughts bubble up from within me in response.
In reading this book, I've realized something - which may have a lot to do with being raised by bibliophiles (one of which considers Television to be a primitive art form), is that of all the entertainment and art forms out there - I prefer books. They are the things I treasure and cannot easily part with. Between their covers is passage to worlds I cannot imagine, thoughts I've never known. Books haunt me in a way that no movie or tv show ever can. It's hard to put into words this life-long love, but it's there. Books have always made me feel less alone. I honestly don't think I could live without them. Also, I think the books that haunt me the most, the ones I love the most are the ones that pull at some memory, idea, feeling, emotion inside me. The ones that don't do that seem to be forgotten quickly. Floatsam on the waves of my brain.
At any rate, this got me to thinking - what books in my 37 years of life would I distinguish as most influential? Impossible to limit to ten. And the lists changes constantly. I've read more books than I can count, and remember about 65% of them. How do we define "influence"? Is it - influence as in politics and beliefs? Influence - as in love of reading? Influence as in career choices or paths? As much as I'd love to be able to blame a book with the current path I am on - I doubt it's that simple.
Like it or not we live in a cause and effect universe with so many other variables, random and not so random, playing a hand in what happens that it is literally impossible to determine how we got to where we are today, much as we'd like to.
So back to the meme: how do I define influence? And which books should I include? The ones in the last ten years, the complete 37, or only the ones in the very beginning -the first 20 years? I think the first 20, since those years are, in some respects, the point of our lives where we are just forming our imaginations, our beliefs, our desires. And I'm picking those books that continue to haunt me, the ones that in some way, shape or form motivated me in a certain direction - whether it was merely to learn to read, to dream, or to tell my own stories. Who I am today may or may not have something to do with these books that haunt me still.
The ten books that influenced me in the first 20 years or my formative years:
1. Stuart Little by EB White
2. Lisa Bright and Dark by John Neufeld
3. The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
4. My Side of The Mountain by Jean Craighead George
5. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
6. The Bible
7. The Veldt by Ray Bradbury (a short story)
8. Farwell to Manzanar by Jeanne Houston
9. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
10. The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson
1. Stuart Little by EB White.
I remember my father reading this book to me over a period of time. It was one of several they read to me as a child. But it stands out - because there was something about Stuart that captivated my child's heart and made me realize that I wasn't alone. I was a lonely child. Imaginative. But had difficulty learning to speak and read. Neither came easily for me. I was always bigger than the other children my age. So I felt in many ways an outsider. Stuart, if you've read the book, is about a mouse attempting to fit into a human world and who falls in love with a bird. It is about being different and appreciating that uniqueness. I ached to be able to read more books like this.
2. Lisa Bright and Dark by John Neufeld.
This is one of the first books that I read which wasn't a Nancy Drew mystery or read to me. I think I was in the Third or Fourth Grade at the time. I found the book on a book mobile which came to our neighborhood and was how one of my best friends found her books. She suggested this one. The friend and I parted ways years ago, yet the book and my memories of her remain.
The book is described on Amazon.com as follows:
"Lisa Shilling is 16, smart, attractive--and she is losing her mind. Some days are "light," and everything is normal; during her "dark" days, she hides deep within herself, and nothing can reach her. Her teachers ignore what is happening. Her parents deny it. Lisa's friends are the only ones who are listening--and they walk with her where adults fear to tread. This classic novel of a teenager's descent into madness, in the tradition of Go Ask Alice and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, has remained a best seller for close to thirty years.The critical point of this book is when Lisa gets up from the couch and walks through a sliding glass door. Alarmed, the girls notify her parents who by then have to confront the truth."
The part that sticks with me most is Lisa walking through the sliding glass door. This book hit a nerve inside me - the complexity of the human mind and human behavior. Why we do what we do. Why we respond to others. Also a fear - of losing one's mind.
3. The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
This was my introduction to fantasy and occult fiction through my Aunt a sixth grade librarian, who is dead now. I was in the Fifth or Sixth Grade at the time. The book puzzled me and haunted me. It still does. After reading it - I became obsessed with fantasy books and books dealing with paranormal. But more importantly the book touched on something else - it was about not taking things at face value, looking beneath surfaces. The love story between the girl and the cat is both moving and horrifying.
This book haunts me in the same way that another book, more well-known does: Bridge To Terribetha - which is about a boy dealing with the death of a young friend and their magical world - it's sort of an odd coming of age tale that I greatly identified with since I'd just lost my best friend because of a move across the country. Not the same thing I know. But something happens in Bridge that was very similar to something that happened before I moved which haunted me and wracked me with guilt. My friend had given me a tailsmen of sorts and I'd lost it the moment she'd given it to me - I was 11. The tailsman was supposed to show how we'd be friends forever. The loss of it...seemed to indicate how that wasn't true. The last time I saw her was five to six years after the move, in 1985. I haven't seen or heard from her since. But as much as Bridge haunts and moves me, it did not influence me in the same way Witches of Worm did.
Here's the description from amazon.com :"A lonely girl, Jessica, finds a blind, almost hairless cat that she calls Worm. Worm seems to have a terrible hold on her, making her do mean things, but Jessica feels she has no one who can help her break free of the cat. PW found this Newbery Honor Book "acutely perceptive and compelling." " I discovered Madeline D'Engle because of this book, which while D'Engle's books had an effect on me they don't haunt me in quite the same way.
4. My Side of The Mountain by Jean Craighead George.
A book about surviving on your own. Living off the wild. This book captivated me. I remember searching out similar books to it as a child - such as Island of the Blue Dolphins. And to this day still find myself reading books about surving in the wild. It also made me love the woods. Bringing back memories of long walks in the woods with my Dad as a child.
Here's the amazon.com description:"Every kid thinks about running away at one point or another; few get farther than the end of the block. Young Sam Gribley gets to the end of the block and keeps going--all the way to the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. There he sets up house in a huge hollowed-out tree, with a falcon and a weasel for companions and his wits as his tool for survival. In a spellbinding, touching, funny account, Sam learns to live off the land, and grows up a little in the process. Blizzards, hunters, loneliness, and fear all battle to drive Sam back to city life. But his desire for freedom, independence, and adventure is stronger."
5. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
I thought about putting the Chronicles of Narnia here, since I did read and love those books. Actually read them long before the Hobbit and obsessed over them. But they didn't influence me in any way. Not like this one did. They didn't reach inside me and pull out something. The Hobbit was an entry-way into a complex world that I became enamored of. I think I even sort of tried acting because of the Hobbit. I read it in the sixth grade. Because of the Hobbit I searched out more complex fantasy and science-fiction. In The Hobbit I discovered friends. Memories of it comfort me to this day.
6. The Bible - possibly The Holy Bible or King James Verison, although the one I've looked at the most in the past ten years is The New Catholic Bible.
I'm hesistant to state the Bible, but it did influence me. Or rather stories taken from it and told in different ways did. I know my mother's reading from the Gospel of St. Luke every Xmas until I was about 14 had a huge influence and colors Xmas as a particularly warm holdiay for me. Other tales from it hit me - the Exodus, very much so - having studied it in depth as a history in High School (not religious, more historical account of the Hebrews)
and having read Exodus by Leo Uris (? not sure that's the right name) which haunts me and is about the settlement of Israel after 1945.
And I've studied so many versions of it in so many different contexts - scholarly, religious, historical, personal. I own at least four different versions. Yes, it is an influence.
7. The Veldt by Ray Bradbury
I know this isn't exactly a book - it's a short story. I read it in the 6th Grade and I can't forget it. It continues to haunt me. The story is an incredibly complex morality tale about parenting, childhood and technology. It was one of my first forays into science fiction. How'd it influence me? Not sure - I think it made me very picky about short stories, including my own, and it also made me curious about exploring darker human emotions. I continue to be haunted by the children in this story and how they kill they kill their parents.
8. Farwell to Manzanar by Jeanne Houston.
Here's the amazon.com summary:"Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment camp--with 10,000 other Japanese Americans. Along with searchlight towers and armed guards, Manzanar ludicrously featured cheerleaders, Boy Scouts, sock hops, baton twirling lessons and a dance band called The Jive Bombers who would play any popular song except the nation's #1 hit: "Don't Fence Me In.""
I read this book in the 7th grade. It changed my views on certain things, made me rethink things in a new way. For the first time Americans weren't the good guys. This book affected me deeply. Also made me realize the power of words. The play version of The Diary of Anne Frank and The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton had an equal affect on me at the time I read them. The idea that people could be equally kind and cruel in extreme circumstances.
9. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
I read this novel when I was 20 years of age. I can no longer remember which book came first One Hundred Years of Solitude or Ulysses. I think One Hundred Years and I think One Hundred Years played a large role in me reading Ulysess. There were other factors. It also made me fall in love with stream of consciousness writing, the flow of words like poetry on a page.
10. The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson
I discovered it as a child, maybe 6th or 7th grade. This fairy tale in a nutshell explains my own romance genre leanings. I think the Snow Queen may explain why I adored some of the gothic novels by Mary Stewart such as Touch Not The Cat which I read so many times that I can't forget it. A novel about telepathy. But none of these touch what Christian Anderson's tale does which is about a brave little girl journeying to the ends of the earth to save her friend. Also the idea of duality - good and evil in us all. A story that captured my imagination and I think like many such stories remains more interesting in my own imagination than it actually is on the page. That's the wonder of a story - how it changes and transforms in our minds.
Honorable mentions go to: Ethan Fromme by Edith Wharton, The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, the short story Petrified Man by Eduora Weltly andDune by George Herbert. All of these did influence me in some way and haunt me still but not to the same degree as the above books did.
Speaking of books, I've stumbled upon a lovely one, called The Three Junes by Julia Glass. Falling a little bit in love with this book, which is a story about a young man and his family. How they relate to each other, the misdirections, desires and longings. Also with the idea of mortality and passages through life.
Here's a sample:
"Satisfying, he thinks, the way the sea is stirred up, churned so briskly, then returns to its original calm - though not quite: for a moment, if you look hard, the water sparkles there with a little more brillance. Ahead and behind, always islands, more islands; one fades away, another draws near. Turning full circle to take them all in, Paul sees each one as a welcome mystery, a choice to be weighed without prophecy or speculation."
This book speaks to me - something inside me is responding to it. As I read, and it took a while for me to get into it, memories, thoughts bubble up from within me in response.
In reading this book, I've realized something - which may have a lot to do with being raised by bibliophiles (one of which considers Television to be a primitive art form), is that of all the entertainment and art forms out there - I prefer books. They are the things I treasure and cannot easily part with. Between their covers is passage to worlds I cannot imagine, thoughts I've never known. Books haunt me in a way that no movie or tv show ever can. It's hard to put into words this life-long love, but it's there. Books have always made me feel less alone. I honestly don't think I could live without them. Also, I think the books that haunt me the most, the ones I love the most are the ones that pull at some memory, idea, feeling, emotion inside me. The ones that don't do that seem to be forgotten quickly. Floatsam on the waves of my brain.
At any rate, this got me to thinking - what books in my 37 years of life would I distinguish as most influential? Impossible to limit to ten. And the lists changes constantly. I've read more books than I can count, and remember about 65% of them. How do we define "influence"? Is it - influence as in politics and beliefs? Influence - as in love of reading? Influence as in career choices or paths? As much as I'd love to be able to blame a book with the current path I am on - I doubt it's that simple.
Like it or not we live in a cause and effect universe with so many other variables, random and not so random, playing a hand in what happens that it is literally impossible to determine how we got to where we are today, much as we'd like to.
So back to the meme: how do I define influence? And which books should I include? The ones in the last ten years, the complete 37, or only the ones in the very beginning -the first 20 years? I think the first 20, since those years are, in some respects, the point of our lives where we are just forming our imaginations, our beliefs, our desires. And I'm picking those books that continue to haunt me, the ones that in some way, shape or form motivated me in a certain direction - whether it was merely to learn to read, to dream, or to tell my own stories. Who I am today may or may not have something to do with these books that haunt me still.
The ten books that influenced me in the first 20 years or my formative years:
1. Stuart Little by EB White
2. Lisa Bright and Dark by John Neufeld
3. The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
4. My Side of The Mountain by Jean Craighead George
5. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
6. The Bible
7. The Veldt by Ray Bradbury (a short story)
8. Farwell to Manzanar by Jeanne Houston
9. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
10. The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson
1. Stuart Little by EB White.
I remember my father reading this book to me over a period of time. It was one of several they read to me as a child. But it stands out - because there was something about Stuart that captivated my child's heart and made me realize that I wasn't alone. I was a lonely child. Imaginative. But had difficulty learning to speak and read. Neither came easily for me. I was always bigger than the other children my age. So I felt in many ways an outsider. Stuart, if you've read the book, is about a mouse attempting to fit into a human world and who falls in love with a bird. It is about being different and appreciating that uniqueness. I ached to be able to read more books like this.
2. Lisa Bright and Dark by John Neufeld.
This is one of the first books that I read which wasn't a Nancy Drew mystery or read to me. I think I was in the Third or Fourth Grade at the time. I found the book on a book mobile which came to our neighborhood and was how one of my best friends found her books. She suggested this one. The friend and I parted ways years ago, yet the book and my memories of her remain.
The book is described on Amazon.com as follows:
"Lisa Shilling is 16, smart, attractive--and she is losing her mind. Some days are "light," and everything is normal; during her "dark" days, she hides deep within herself, and nothing can reach her. Her teachers ignore what is happening. Her parents deny it. Lisa's friends are the only ones who are listening--and they walk with her where adults fear to tread. This classic novel of a teenager's descent into madness, in the tradition of Go Ask Alice and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, has remained a best seller for close to thirty years.The critical point of this book is when Lisa gets up from the couch and walks through a sliding glass door. Alarmed, the girls notify her parents who by then have to confront the truth."
The part that sticks with me most is Lisa walking through the sliding glass door. This book hit a nerve inside me - the complexity of the human mind and human behavior. Why we do what we do. Why we respond to others. Also a fear - of losing one's mind.
3. The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
This was my introduction to fantasy and occult fiction through my Aunt a sixth grade librarian, who is dead now. I was in the Fifth or Sixth Grade at the time. The book puzzled me and haunted me. It still does. After reading it - I became obsessed with fantasy books and books dealing with paranormal. But more importantly the book touched on something else - it was about not taking things at face value, looking beneath surfaces. The love story between the girl and the cat is both moving and horrifying.
This book haunts me in the same way that another book, more well-known does: Bridge To Terribetha - which is about a boy dealing with the death of a young friend and their magical world - it's sort of an odd coming of age tale that I greatly identified with since I'd just lost my best friend because of a move across the country. Not the same thing I know. But something happens in Bridge that was very similar to something that happened before I moved which haunted me and wracked me with guilt. My friend had given me a tailsmen of sorts and I'd lost it the moment she'd given it to me - I was 11. The tailsman was supposed to show how we'd be friends forever. The loss of it...seemed to indicate how that wasn't true. The last time I saw her was five to six years after the move, in 1985. I haven't seen or heard from her since. But as much as Bridge haunts and moves me, it did not influence me in the same way Witches of Worm did.
Here's the description from amazon.com :"A lonely girl, Jessica, finds a blind, almost hairless cat that she calls Worm. Worm seems to have a terrible hold on her, making her do mean things, but Jessica feels she has no one who can help her break free of the cat. PW found this Newbery Honor Book "acutely perceptive and compelling." " I discovered Madeline D'Engle because of this book, which while D'Engle's books had an effect on me they don't haunt me in quite the same way.
4. My Side of The Mountain by Jean Craighead George.
A book about surviving on your own. Living off the wild. This book captivated me. I remember searching out similar books to it as a child - such as Island of the Blue Dolphins. And to this day still find myself reading books about surving in the wild. It also made me love the woods. Bringing back memories of long walks in the woods with my Dad as a child.
Here's the amazon.com description:"Every kid thinks about running away at one point or another; few get farther than the end of the block. Young Sam Gribley gets to the end of the block and keeps going--all the way to the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. There he sets up house in a huge hollowed-out tree, with a falcon and a weasel for companions and his wits as his tool for survival. In a spellbinding, touching, funny account, Sam learns to live off the land, and grows up a little in the process. Blizzards, hunters, loneliness, and fear all battle to drive Sam back to city life. But his desire for freedom, independence, and adventure is stronger."
5. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
I thought about putting the Chronicles of Narnia here, since I did read and love those books. Actually read them long before the Hobbit and obsessed over them. But they didn't influence me in any way. Not like this one did. They didn't reach inside me and pull out something. The Hobbit was an entry-way into a complex world that I became enamored of. I think I even sort of tried acting because of the Hobbit. I read it in the sixth grade. Because of the Hobbit I searched out more complex fantasy and science-fiction. In The Hobbit I discovered friends. Memories of it comfort me to this day.
6. The Bible - possibly The Holy Bible or King James Verison, although the one I've looked at the most in the past ten years is The New Catholic Bible.
I'm hesistant to state the Bible, but it did influence me. Or rather stories taken from it and told in different ways did. I know my mother's reading from the Gospel of St. Luke every Xmas until I was about 14 had a huge influence and colors Xmas as a particularly warm holdiay for me. Other tales from it hit me - the Exodus, very much so - having studied it in depth as a history in High School (not religious, more historical account of the Hebrews)
and having read Exodus by Leo Uris (? not sure that's the right name) which haunts me and is about the settlement of Israel after 1945.
And I've studied so many versions of it in so many different contexts - scholarly, religious, historical, personal. I own at least four different versions. Yes, it is an influence.
7. The Veldt by Ray Bradbury
I know this isn't exactly a book - it's a short story. I read it in the 6th Grade and I can't forget it. It continues to haunt me. The story is an incredibly complex morality tale about parenting, childhood and technology. It was one of my first forays into science fiction. How'd it influence me? Not sure - I think it made me very picky about short stories, including my own, and it also made me curious about exploring darker human emotions. I continue to be haunted by the children in this story and how they kill they kill their parents.
8. Farwell to Manzanar by Jeanne Houston.
Here's the amazon.com summary:"Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment camp--with 10,000 other Japanese Americans. Along with searchlight towers and armed guards, Manzanar ludicrously featured cheerleaders, Boy Scouts, sock hops, baton twirling lessons and a dance band called The Jive Bombers who would play any popular song except the nation's #1 hit: "Don't Fence Me In.""
I read this book in the 7th grade. It changed my views on certain things, made me rethink things in a new way. For the first time Americans weren't the good guys. This book affected me deeply. Also made me realize the power of words. The play version of The Diary of Anne Frank and The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton had an equal affect on me at the time I read them. The idea that people could be equally kind and cruel in extreme circumstances.
9. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
I read this novel when I was 20 years of age. I can no longer remember which book came first One Hundred Years of Solitude or Ulysses. I think One Hundred Years and I think One Hundred Years played a large role in me reading Ulysess. There were other factors. It also made me fall in love with stream of consciousness writing, the flow of words like poetry on a page.
10. The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson
I discovered it as a child, maybe 6th or 7th grade. This fairy tale in a nutshell explains my own romance genre leanings. I think the Snow Queen may explain why I adored some of the gothic novels by Mary Stewart such as Touch Not The Cat which I read so many times that I can't forget it. A novel about telepathy. But none of these touch what Christian Anderson's tale does which is about a brave little girl journeying to the ends of the earth to save her friend. Also the idea of duality - good and evil in us all. A story that captured my imagination and I think like many such stories remains more interesting in my own imagination than it actually is on the page. That's the wonder of a story - how it changes and transforms in our minds.
Honorable mentions go to: Ethan Fromme by Edith Wharton, The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, the short story Petrified Man by Eduora Weltly andDune by George Herbert. All of these did influence me in some way and haunt me still but not to the same degree as the above books did.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-04-10 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-12 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-12 04:22 pm (UTC)Madeline D. L'Engle
Date: 2004-04-13 07:48 am (UTC)I had some of the same issues with L'Engle's works. I found her later books somewhat preachy. The only two of her books that really captured my imagination were the first three in the Wrinkle in Time series - because I liked those three characters - the brother/sister and the boy who the sister was interested in. Can't remember the name of the sequels. One was I think, Arm of the Starfish. And the first three dealt more with science
in some respects.