There are some books that endure, because - because - well, because even though they may have a bit of mileage on them, they don't "date", they will still be here and still be good when the rest of us are gone.
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"LORD OF THE FLIES" - William Golding (UK 1954)
A good read, but not the great one you somehow expect, from all the myth and talk and literati stuff you can't help running into over the years.
It ticks along nicely, gets you hooked okay, a bit "can't put down", and difficult to resist the temptation to have a quick peek ahead, which is always a novel-reading no-no, but a positive sign. But it's hard not to know a lot about it in advance, as it's been everywhere, and turned into a couple of movies, and made compulsory English reading in many schools, and maybe that ups the expectation too much.
Ostensibly it's a plane load of boys marooned on a Pacific atoll, in modern-ish times, who set about degenerating into what Golding presumably considers as primitive underlying adult human behaviour when outside of the boundaries of "civilised" moral restraints. Although bear in mind that he wrote this in the early 1950s, while the memory of WW2 was still thick on the ground.
If you have aspirations to write fiction (and get published!), the background to this is well worth reading (below), as the book had a bit of a bumpy ride to the final printing. BUT, if you haven't read the book or seen either of the movies, and would like to get the most from the novel, resist hitting the tag below until you've read it.
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"THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA" - Ernest Hemingway USA 1952
This is one of those classics that I'm ashamed to say I've only ever experienced via film - the great Spencer Tracy movie (which I've had for as long as I've had a DVD recorder) - and the loss is all mine, the book easily as good as the movie.
This was the last major work of Hemingway published while he was still alive, and a very slim one at that, something like 22k words only, barely more than a long short story, about a crusty old fisherman's fight (and relationship) with a giant marlin he catches off Cuba, and told in the simple language of the old fella himself. Wonderfully crafted. Just love it.
I grabbed this one down off the shelf while I was waiting for my Library to let me know that the latest batch of three on order had turned up, been a long time since I read it. It's fairly thin, at 33k words it's really in the novella class so an easy read while I wait. And over all, a pretty decent read.
Real name Eric Arthur Blair (1903-1950), Orwell I find just a bit - well - Orwellian! He's either a dreadful cynic or a galloping realist, depending on whether you're an optimist or a pessimist! And okay, it was written back in 1945 just as Stalinism was cranking up so I guess they all felt a bit closer to that kind of a "reality" at the time. And I should add that the only other work of his I've read is "1984", but none of his other stuff. (Apparently in 1946 he was commissioned to do an essay on British food, describing the Brit diet of the time as "...simple, rather heavy, perhaps slightly barbarous...", so not entirely obsessed with anti-authoritarianism).
See the piece "More Wise Words" down there to the right under "The Work Bench" for some of Orwell's rules for good writing. And if you'd like to read up on the very colourful life of this guy, tag to Wiki is below...
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"THE CORAL ISLAND" - R. M. Ballantyne (UK 1857)
We were doing a little exploring in NSW a few months back, and stopped off at Hay on the Murrumbidgee. God I do so love these outback river towns, and it's always a must to park and find a caff and then do a trawl of their main street. And in Hay's there's an Op Shop, so it's a compulsory dawdle through, me to the book shelves and Herself to everything else.
That's where I picked up this novel. It's always great to fall over something I want, and in a well-travelled copy, sometimes with margin notes, sometimes with a name in the fly-leaf, sometimes a bit worst for wear. Or as I see it, best for wear. That way it feels - what? - personal? - y'know, has that small feeling of connection to the unseen and unknown people who've handled this book before me. Love it love it love it!
Anyway, I spotted it on the shelf and remembered back 67 years to when I read it the first time, as a gawky pimply 13 year old. And loved it. At the time it'd not long since I devoured "Treasure Island", and while totally enjoyable, I think I needed something a bit more "grown up". And this was it - three young guys, 13 to 18, marooned on a coral atoll in the Pacific, discovery and murder and savages and pirates and some literally bloody reality - ah, I was there!
Reading it again now, with older eyes, you have to get past the archaic 1850's language, especially the supposed way three teen boys spoke to each other, which grates on the ear at times, although I don't remember it that way when I was 13. Pragmatically, it's an interesting study in comparative prose, and I have a copy of "The Hound Of The Baskervilles" (c1900) next, which I must confess I've never read, so I'm looking forward to seeing how the writing styles changed in the fifty years between these two best sellers of their day.
"BEOWULF" (Anonymous c1000 AD)
This is one of those literary classics that you'd guess only about 25 people in the history of the world have actually read word by word from end to end. I'm not one of them.It was originally written in (said to be a West Saxon dialect of) Old English in about 1000AD, and is probably the oldest surviving long poem in that language, but as best as I understand it, the "author" was actually writing down - possibly for the first time - what was a much older saga that, till then, was kept alive in the oral tradition. (I can never get my head around the concept of someone memorising stuff like this, word perfect, in this case 3,000-odd lines! I have enough trouble with passwords!)
I've heard a snatch of this poem spoken on the History Channel, in (what was said to be) Old English, and while you can guess a word or two in passing, there's no way it sounds like today's English. So I'd think that the original would be impossible to read except for a handful of very learned people. My copy is a freebie off Kindle, translated in 1910 by USA English teacher Francis Barton Gummere, but Francis has tried too hard to keep the flavour of the original and it's tough going. But it's one of those books that you have on your bucket list. Like "Moby Dick" and Joyce's "Ulysses". Because, as a "serious" literary type, it's expected of you. Or something.Anyway, it's set in Scandinavia in about the 6th century and Beowulf is the superhero of his tribe (the Geats) and he does the King of the Danes a huge favour by doing away with not only Grendel (the hideous baddie and all round damn nuisance) but Grendel's mother as well so they make Beowulf the King of the Geats but fifty years later it's back on again and Beowulf has to despatch a dragon but the dragon sort of gets the last laugh as Beowulf is mortally wounded in the affray.
Like all of those old folk sagas, it's heavy on endless fine detail, gets a bit repetitive, but is nonetheless worth a look. But do yourself a favour and find a more modern translation, as it could probably be condensed down into a 20k word novella. Okay, not the same thing, but there's a great yarn in there if you can only cut through the tough stuff. Or maybe check out the movie (although I have a lot of trouble getting my head around Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother!)