10. Lemoney Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events"O'Conner insists that our best fiction is void of the author's voice and character. O'Conner, though penetratingly accurate in most areas, is uncharacteristically facile in this regard. The quality of a story is often enhanced by the interruptions of its teller. Such is the case with The Chronicles of Narnia; and such is the case with A Series of Unfortunate Events. Lemoney, whoever he may be, is hilarious and charming.
9. Paul Ricoeur, "The Symbolism of Evil"Ricoeur's second naivety provided me with the vocabulary to make sense of my own journey. I cannot say just yet how influential he will be to my future, but i can say that i need to reread this book to find out.
8. Harold Bloom, "The Best Poems of the English Language"Bloom is a pedant and self-appointed authority of everything. He is also a brilliant poetry critic. I've read the majority of the poems in this collection, and found only a few insights with which i disagreed. He rightly titles Shakespeare as our greatest poet and Poe as our most atrocious. Everyone in between receives a succinct, perspicacious analysis. I suggest it to any and all who love poetry.
7. Cervantes, "Don Quixote"This book is silly. This book is fabulous. Somehow amidst madness and frivolity, Cervantes touches on all the greatest parts of narrative: inevitability, mystery, soliloquy, tragedy, morality, and individuality. It is supposedly the first modern novel. Whatever the case, it recapitulates the old hero epic. It is the story of Odysseus without his wits. It is a man in search of something he has already found.
6. Nietzsche, "The Will to Power"Normally, reading Nietzsche is like reading the ravings of a flabbergasted whoopee-cushion. Until now, I have never read a work of his which made coherent sense, or for that matter, demonstrated intellectual honesty. Perhaps the Nietzsch simply lacked the time to edit (and therefore ruin) his magnum opus. For my part, i am glad to see him abandon the project. It now turns out to be more than tolerable. His prophetic analysis and diagnoses of Western nihilism seems to me his greatest achievement. Whatever the milieu of the 21st century, Nietzsche is the premier philosopher to help us understand the current decline in our culture.
5. William Faulkner, "The Sounds and the Fury"This book is about as unilateral as a roller coaster traveling through the mountains of Switzerland. Chronology has nothing to do with it. It is a book filled with characters and poetry. Even though at times it proves excruciatingly difficult to read, it remains, without question, the par excellence and sui generis of all Southern Literature. I have read and recited quotes which will haunt me the rest of my life. Faulkner once again revives my hope for American literature.
4. Iris Murdoch, "Existentialists and Mystics"Whatever i know of Plato, i have learned either from the horses mouth or from Murdoch. Whatever i believe concerning a theory of art, i have had Murdoch to teach it to me. I have read "The Sublime and the Good" at least ten times, gleaning more each run through. "The Fire and the Sun" summarizes everything i have adopted for myself from the works of Plato. Though Murdoch's affection for Freud sometimes limits her perspective, her knowledge of Kant and Wittgenstein illuminate Plato in light of the changes in philosophy. She is also, hands down, the easiest philosopher i have ever read.
3. Augustine, "Confessions:I have read the first half of this book at least 20 times, and only this go around did i discover the richness of Augustine's discussion of moral psychology. Whatever i think of ordinate and inordinate emotions i have derived directly from the passages concerning the deaths of Nebridius and Monica. Augustine remains the most influential thinker in my life.
2. Jung/Segal "Jung on Mythology"I thought i'd love reading Jung simply from what i heard others say about him. I was right. Both he and Freud have the tendency to generalize. The difference is that Jung is better at it. My intuitions have, as long as i remember, always been in line with his. Archetype, however unclear a word, carries something profound in its implications. Myth (whatever that thing is) is rightly treated as a positive, instead of a negative force in human culture. Jung takes Freud's discovery of the unconscious and puts it to proper use.
1. Mircea Eliade, "The Sacred and the Profane"No scholar has influenced me as much as Eliade. Concepts like: nostalgia for paradise, axis mundi, in illo tempore, threshold, and Sacred and Profane space and time have already and shall forever alter my view of religious phenomenon. He comes from a Greek Orthodox background, yet writes with as unbiased, though still a religious, point of view one can possibly expect from a man. He has a classic case of thoroughgoing universalism, which, according to me, adds to his credit. He rightly points out the phenomenological consistencies amongst variegated religious communities, and systematizes them into a coherent and provocatively insightful whole.
