2025-05-13
• fifty-in-fifty • 887 words
What are my favourite books and why?
Actually, I have been meaning for a good while to put a page on the website which tells of my favourite books, so this is actually a really good opportunity!
I'll limit this post to five books for brevity's sake.
This I have to say is one of my favourite books of all time; generally, it acts as a fantastic leap from general "agnostic spirituality" to a better conception of the absolute (or, Quality, as referenced in the book).
I have read it a mere three times, and always want to read it again. I actually haven't read it for a while, and would like to, to rejig it in my head.
Lila, the sequel, I disagree with, and the book generally makes for a fairly dull read (for example, I don't believe I agree with the separation between static and dynamic Quality). Still, if reading ZAMM, Lila is also worthwhile reading.
By Matthew Lewis, this book tells of the descent of a monk Ambrosio into sin. Initially beginning with the fairly tame sin of allowing a girl into the monastery, by the end of the book Ambrosio has racked up sorcery, rape, incest, paedophilia, kidnap, murder...
In the end (spoilers!) he, in terror of the approaching guards, agrees to sell his soul to the Devil for freedom from the cell. Yet: the Devil, upon freeing him, alerts him that the guards were coming to pardon him; yet further, Ambrosio only agreed with the Devil to the freed from the cell, and not to be truly free... He is then dropped from the sky and dies slowly, with crows pecking his eyes out for six days until his eventual death...
It is a strange book. However, I love it for the message about sin: the Devil's work may have wages, but it certainly never pays.
Honestly, I could have put any of Schumacher's books here. Good Work is a fantastic treatise of what constitutes... good work. A Guide for the Perplexed actually complements ZAMM quite well, introducing a similar hierarchy (it must have been a zeitgeisty concept around that era) and, in particular, introducing the incredible concept of adaequatio.
However, on a more practical level, I feel Small is Beautiful is probably his best work. Despite the name, it actually deals more with things that are scale appropriate, decrying the obsession with expanding things to be ever larger and larger, irrespective of whether such size is actually more efficient, or more appropriate given the context. We have this problem everywhere in the world: huge operations to deal with the fallout of other similarly huge operations, where we would do much better to simply operate on a smaller, more local scale.
The book (as the author himself acknowledges) is somewhat misnamed. Better would be something like Size-appropriate is Beautiful, but that isn't as catchy...
Again, it is hard to go wrong with just about any Nabokov. Nabokov's Dozen is a brief, but extremely pleasant, introduction to his writing: right from the first sentence it is incredible. Lolita is of course very famous, and well written, but far from his best I would say. Pale Fire is a fascinating take on story-writing, unique in that it is written through the medium of an analysis of a 999-line poem.
Yet, if I had to give one that stands out, it would be Ada or Ardor. This book exemplifies Nabokov's rather captivating but rather uncomfortable writing perfectly. In fact, it is really hard to say what it is about. The main story is about one Van Veen and his relationship with his sister Ada (ardor and arbors) - this, however, does the writing of the book no good. It really has to be read to be appreciated.
What I find absolutely incredible about Nabokov's writing is that it can be so poetic that one doesn't realise what is being told until reflection after the fact. For instance, one chapter (early on - I believe some sixty pages in) depicts, essentially, Van and Ada playing a "game" with Ada's younger sister where they tie her to a tree, and then leave to go have sex - the sister is supposed to try to escape, and much to their chagrin, she succeeds in it. It is thoroughly weird - and yet, in the pure poetry of Nabokov's prose, it seems greater than it is, I suppose. It's very hard to describe, and definitely not to everybody's tastes - you have to somewhat suspend disgust a little with his writing, and focus on the sheer quality of the prose - but the quality of the prose is undoubtable.
This book is very interesting mainly as it shows the parallels of the civilization of this time with the civilization that we have now. It shows how deeply interconnected were the civilisations of that time, with extensive trade between different nations. It shows how these civilisations faltered, partly through their interdependence and also through a complex series of factors, such as drought, natural disaster, and the appearance of a certain Sea Peoples, who may very well not have been so malevolent as otherwise implied.
A joyful read of the historical record of this time, with fascinating notes passed between rulers of the various nations, giving a humanity to people otherwise too temporally and socially removed from ourselves as to be thought of in any other way than conceptually.