It was fun to see Act One included in the list. I accidentally stumbled on the book as a nerdy high school student in N.C. far away from the the bright lights of Broadway and interested only in being a lawyer. Great book.
Well-written summaries by Mr. McNally. Unfamiliar with the Monette and the Hart books, but the others are classics by great writers.
Nice series, thanks. I like McNally's reasons as well as his choices, and I agree on Moncrieff, though Enright, Davis & Kilmartin are just fine. Love! Valor! Compassion! would show up on many folks' lists.
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I share Mr. McNally's love of "The Great Gatsby" and found his brief review spot on: "They are ghosts of the American dream who continue to haunt us. Their laughter seems long ago, but their sadness is contemporary." Perfect. Also a good explanation of attempts to film this book just don't seem to work.
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A great and interesting, eclectic combination. Re-reading books which were originally read 40 years ago is illuminating of one's self, for sure. For example, reading "Kidnapped" by Robert Louis Stephenson at age 14 was a terrifying experience. At age 54, not so much.
Thank you, Mr. McNally, for this information.
Thank you, Mr. McNally, for this information.
I was astonished by how close this list is to mine, which includes the indelible Act One, Ellman’s Oscar Wilde, Pride and Prejudice, Huck Finn, Gatsby, and Lolita. (I’m a prairie girl, born in the 50s. Huck Finn, in particular, got me out of that time and place, and Act One set me on a life connected to the stage.) As for Lear, I’ve never read it, but I’ve seen it. The pity and terror of it all was so effective that I’ve never returned to it. It’s simply that great--and it’s simply too much me to bear.
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How wonderful to read a major American playwright's thoughtful comments on his favorite books. I think I like this better than the NYTBR feature about famous people's reading because it allows the interviewee to go more in depth on the books.
Keep this series going, please, and thank you, Mr. McNally, for your insights.
Keep this series going, please, and thank you, Mr. McNally, for your insights.
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I bought all seven books in "Remembrance of Things Past" and read parts of most. Does that count? Probably not. I was more impressed with Proust, the man, and how he wound up in a cork lined room to block out the sound of the world. (My excuse, anyway.)
As for "Huckleberry", even in extreme youth I realized how much better it was than the flat "Tom Sawyer". Tom Sawyer might have been every boy's hero at some point, but "Huckleberry" had much more impact all the way around.
I was struck by this phrase in regard to "Huckleberry": "This is the book that codified American English..." Indeed. The power of literature to define and encode patterns of speech and give them near wide usage among the populace is something that I never recall being mentioned in high school and seldom in college. Since more than half the epigrams we use without thinking come from either Shakespeare or the Christian Bible, we should recognize this fact.
When Italy was being lumped into the modern nation we now know, not much more than 150 yrs. ago, they needed a common language to promote and tie the nation together. They settled on the Italian used by Dante, making a clear choice rather than a meandering journey toward commonality. As Mr. McNally indicates, we got Mark Twain to do it for us. This same task has been something of the self assigned duty of Bob Dylan, although in his case he's been trying exhume phrases and attitudes from 100 yrs. earlier, a more authentic, vital version of America.
As for "Huckleberry", even in extreme youth I realized how much better it was than the flat "Tom Sawyer". Tom Sawyer might have been every boy's hero at some point, but "Huckleberry" had much more impact all the way around.
I was struck by this phrase in regard to "Huckleberry": "This is the book that codified American English..." Indeed. The power of literature to define and encode patterns of speech and give them near wide usage among the populace is something that I never recall being mentioned in high school and seldom in college. Since more than half the epigrams we use without thinking come from either Shakespeare or the Christian Bible, we should recognize this fact.
When Italy was being lumped into the modern nation we now know, not much more than 150 yrs. ago, they needed a common language to promote and tie the nation together. They settled on the Italian used by Dante, making a clear choice rather than a meandering journey toward commonality. As Mr. McNally indicates, we got Mark Twain to do it for us. This same task has been something of the self assigned duty of Bob Dylan, although in his case he's been trying exhume phrases and attitudes from 100 yrs. earlier, a more authentic, vital version of America.
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While I share most of Mr. Terry's views, I beg to disagree on one point he makes. The Italians did not settle on Dante's Florentine dialect as the standard speech 150 years ago when the Risorgimento led to the Republic of Italy in the 1860s. Dante's Italian was already considered standard centuries before, especially in the mind of the Tuscans. The writer and book that is more an expression of the Italian that came forth in the mid 19th century (much less ornate than Dante) was Alessandro Manzoni and his novel "I Promessi Sposi" (the Betrothed), usually thought of as the great Italian novel in the 19th century context. Manzoni set the book in Lecco, on Lake Como in Lombardy, and that speech and usage was more like what came to be used in Italy for about 100 years. Television came to Italy in 1954 and gradually the speech and usage of Rome (where RAI was based) predominated. Certain dialects persisted in theater (especially), film and literature, including those of Naples, Sicily, Tuscany (though Tuscans would not think of their speech as dialect), Lombardy and the Veneto.
I saw King Lear at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival when I was thirteen and it changed my life. Since then I seen several other productions, performed as a musician in a production at the California Shakespeare Festival, and still re-read the play every couple of years. I absolutely agree with McNally's assessment.
I'm glad the first adjective he offered about Lolita was "funny." It's a comedy, people. Yes, like any great comedy it's grounded in the truth and folly of human emotions, but anyone who uses somber tones and refers to it with a straight face as a "great love story" (which I have heard from some of the Very Important People of Letters) is a pervert.
I do take issue with is dismissal of Moby-Dick as "literature." The genius of the book is that it takes the form of the kind of long, digressive tale one might tell on a very long boat ride. Like Joyce's Ulysses, it should really be read aloud. However, I read it to myself shortly after 9/11 and was devastated - the book is so prophetic and powerful in its depiction of the American psyche. Ahab and Ishmael are also America.
Which brings me back to Lear. If Moby-Dick is an extended monologue in the form of a novel, with an implicit performative aspect, King Lear feels like a novel in the form of a play. There's a richness and complexity - especially if you conflate the sometimes contradictory quarto and folio versions - that cannot be fully presented on the stage. It's problematic theatre, but great literature.
I'm glad the first adjective he offered about Lolita was "funny." It's a comedy, people. Yes, like any great comedy it's grounded in the truth and folly of human emotions, but anyone who uses somber tones and refers to it with a straight face as a "great love story" (which I have heard from some of the Very Important People of Letters) is a pervert.
I do take issue with is dismissal of Moby-Dick as "literature." The genius of the book is that it takes the form of the kind of long, digressive tale one might tell on a very long boat ride. Like Joyce's Ulysses, it should really be read aloud. However, I read it to myself shortly after 9/11 and was devastated - the book is so prophetic and powerful in its depiction of the American psyche. Ahab and Ishmael are also America.
Which brings me back to Lear. If Moby-Dick is an extended monologue in the form of a novel, with an implicit performative aspect, King Lear feels like a novel in the form of a play. There's a richness and complexity - especially if you conflate the sometimes contradictory quarto and folio versions - that cannot be fully presented on the stage. It's problematic theatre, but great literature.
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If for no other reason, I admire Mr. McNally for actually reading all seven volumes of Proust. I've tried to do so numerous times but never got beyond the seventh page--let alone volume. Nice article
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So, what's this about "PBS and Masterpiece Theatre are already filming the umpteenth version of" Pride and Prejudice?? Got any links you can share, any more details??
"...and I’ve reached that age when I don’t take lightly the suggestions of people who are smarter than me."
than I.
than I.
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Wonderful list. Brain food for a rainy day. Thank you.
I so appreciate your explanations of why you love these ten books. I makes me want to read or re-read them all.
This is a great list and I agree with so much of it! I would add Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the two great works wielding such a profound influence on all of Western literature; they've never been surpassed. Fagles' translations are excellent.
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Nice interview. I have read Lolita and love it. Read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in high school, I think, and certainly read Pride and Prejudice. But I'm not comparing what I read and trying to equate my reading choices with Terence McNally's. McNally writes touchingly about Wilde and especially Paul Monette. Thanks for a very pleasant read on a Sunday.
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