5 Books I Couldn't Do Without

A good book is rich, entertaining, or even informative; A truly great book is all of these and also shapes the way you perceive yourself and the rest of the world. Great books shapes whole cultures, personalities and attitudes towards life itself.

I was never a very good reader as a child, preferring to keep my hands glued to a SNES, Playstation or N64 controller. The only masterpiece I ever knew back then was Mario Kart. But as I got older, towards my late teens, I began to appreciate the value of a truly classic read (although I do still frequent video games consoles more often than I probably should), and this simple enjoyment of reading the result of someones experiences and energy, pored in ink onto a few hundred small pages, is possibly what guided me towards completing a degree in English & History. The words within a magnificent book are skillfully tailored to paint a canvas so spectacular, you can't help yourself but be swept up into their mesmerising spell. So in no particular order, in homage to some of the very best books that I have been lucky to dip my mind into, I bring you 5 books that without, I wouldn't be the same person you see here today. (Any trilogies/series/compilations will be condensed into one 'book' for this list)

1) 'Fahrenheit 451' by Ray Bradbury
 
I first read Fahrenheit 451 at university, and I don't think I'll ever read another book which makes quite so much sense. What's even more remarkable is the way that this book has endured, nay, become even more relevant since it was first published way back in 1953. Back then, Ray Bradbury (who will be turning 91 this August) was highly critical of the period of McCarthyism - hysterical anti-Communist sentiment that was sweeping the USA, as well as the emergence of mass communication, and so wrote this novella in response to the direction that he believed America was heading. It's short as great works go, but it says everything it needs to say and is perfectly streamlined to presenting Ray Bradbury's position.

In Bradbury's dystopian view of America, he takes something that is universally recognised by the reader - the fireman - and from the get-go turns it upside-down into a grotesque parody of its original form. The main character (a fireman called Guy Montag) is now tasked with the job of incinerating things - books mainly - as the state pursues a violent campaign against people caught to be harbouring them. The fire department also possess a wicked robotic hound that is used to track down transgressors and put them down swiftly with a deadly toxin delivered from a hypodermic needle. Here is the opening few lines, some of the most memorable pieces of writing I've ever known: 

It was a pleasure to burn.

It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. 

In the destruction of books through fire, Bradbury symbolises the manner in which censorship is essentially destroying history; the history contained within our culture through books and the arts. The sheer numbers of people in the world has led to a society that looks disapprovingly on individuality or controversy, the very foodstuffs of progress.

Through the character of Montag, we see how this culture is distorting society drastically. People crave instant, abstract satisfaction through television and music, they drive fast in super-cars for the sheer thrill of it, often endangering themselves and others in the process. No one has time has stop and think because no one wants to have time to stop and think - they don't want to know anything that could make them feel inferior to another individual. Montag's relationship with his wife, Mildred, isn't really a relationship at all - she lies transfixed with headphones pumping nothingness into her ears whilst anonymous people - dubbed 'family members' - chatter inanely on televisions that span entire walls. All the while a war rages between the USA and an unknown adversary, but rarely does anyone desire to openly discuss or question it, if only to complain of the noise. It is only when Montag meets his new, inquisitive neighbour, a young girl called Clarisse, that the seeds of doubt are planted in his mind and he disentangles himself from the trappings of his own society.

Today, Fahrenheit 451 still feels uncomfortably familiar to me, more so than Bradbury's other peers in the dystopian genre - Orwell and Huxley to name but a few. The way that international conflicts, humanitarian disasters and deep social problems are drowned out by the media and the slew of mindless entertainment  programs and sports events on TV shows how people would rather forget about the issues confronting our world than actually having a pop at solving them. How social interactions - such simple things such as just sitting and talking to a loved one, are a thing of the past especially now that the Internet has firmly taken a grip on us. Why people would much rather go out and get pissed then stay at home and chat with friends, and why so many teenagers take their own lives in despair of having no-one to turn to, because no one has any time. There is never a day goes by where I see something that makes me shake my head and think of the messages contained within this portentous book. It is a book about reading itself; why we do it, and why it is so important for shaping our characters. A true Masterpiece with a capital M. Just don't watch any of the crap films. 

2) 'A Song of Ice and Fire' by George R. R. Martin 

Most people dismiss fantasy novels as pulpy trash, stuff for teenagers and basement geeks. Goblins, trolls, elves are three images that most people would probably associate with the genre of Fantasy. But George R. R. Martin has been schooling critics on how to write 'real' fantasy for over ten years with his absolutely mindblowing 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series which kicked off back in 1996 with A Game of Thrones and still hasn't actually finished yet (much to the chagrin of many die-hard fans who have been waiting for 6 years for the 5th installment, A Dance with Dragons, out this July). 

These novels are a triumph because GRRM relies more upon the investment of strong human characters that are very much mortal in the harsh world that he has created. The setting is medieval, centred on an island called Westoros, divided into seven kingdoms that pay homage to one seat of power - the Iron Throne at King's Landing. Magic and monsters are almost non-existant in the first novel, so much so that the characters themselves don't believe in it. When extraordinary creatures and magic begin to creep into the sequels they have much more of an impact because of this than in many other fantasy novels, which often throw a huge barrage of gimmicks at you in the hope that you'll like them and ignore the weaknesses in the storytelling. The cast list is vast, and I was still revising it by the time I'd finished A Feast For Crows. What's more, the narrative follows many different characters along the same time-line, substituting one main character for a core set of characters that are swapped and replaced with each subsequent entry in the series. All of these characters, from the brutally honest Eddard Stark, the scheming Cersei Lannister to the young, exiled Daenerys Targaryen have truly individual aspirations and have a real part to play in the development of the series, to an extent to even some of the smaller figures in the story (such as the tough, scarred Sandor Clegane) are very memorable indeed.

There is no one reason why I love A Song of Ice and Fire. The writing is sublime in every aspect; the battle scenes, the dialogue, the interior narration is all outstanding. The themes are many; power, family, war, identity, and despite the medieval setting they still feel very relevant for our more digital age. The overall tone of the books is very dark and brutal; incest and rape occur more frequently than a friendly handshake, 'good' characters are annihilated as they simply fail to understand the rules that the more power-hungry characters play by in their pursuit for dominance. Obviously it is fair to say that they are not books for the faint of heart, or those who love happy endings. On many an occasion I have found myself fuming after a particularly rough chapter in which one of my favourite characters is humiliated and destroyed (I'm not giving away any details in case I drop any spoilers), but I keep reading on because I hope that there is justice in this cruel world of Westoros after all. But that is life; sometimes cruel, harsh, not bound by the same rules that we wish it were, and for that reason these books really stand out for me. Classic novels in their own right. 

'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy
 
My, my, it's all getting a bit grim in here, isn't it? Well things are just about to get a whole lot worse, and that's just looking at the book-cover. In The Road by American author Cormac McCarthy, the world has been turned to ash by a nameless disaster (although presumably one of the nuclear sort) and one man and his son brave a USA filled with cannibals, murderers and the insane with only a pistol, a shopping trolley and their binding love for company. There is an element of McCarthy's novels on the Old West going on here, such as Blood Meridian, but the son and father are negotiating a totally different type of wilderness, one of our own creating. McCarthy is well known for being a particularly erudite sort of gentleman, and his language in this novel is without equal. Combining long-extinct words with very economical sentence construction, Cormac strips down the whole world and makes the very words feel like ash to the reader. Again, like GRRM's novels, don't dip into this novel if you're not prepared to get seriously upset, because the content is very, very nasty. Like baby cannibalism nasty.

The bond between man and boy (both protagonists remain anonymous throughout the novel, maybe to symbolise the death of names and identities in the Apocalypse, or maybe just to make the characters recognisable - they could just be any father or son pair, from any background) in this novel is what keeps you going, otherwise the bleakness that pervades every other sentence would probably compel even the hardiest reader to put down the book and cry for the rest of time. Despite all of the hardships, they keep going, 'carrying the fire', the goodness in man, as they search through the relics of our civilisation for a few modest scraps to eat and the vain hope of a safe haven. The man has to answer questions that no father should hear from their own son, such as: Are we going to die? Oftentimes the only answer they can give each other is a simple 'okay' but McCarthy's deployment of this simple expression changes its tone and meaning every time, sometime in heart-rending ways. The son was born almost on the day of the disaster, and McCarthy is adept at demonstrating how much the boy will never understand about the pre-apocalypse landscape we all take for granted - in one such scene, the boy is introduced to a can of Coca-Cola and marvels at it as through it were an alien artifact.

The Road is definitely one of McCarthy's strongest works of fiction, which isn't an easy boast because so many of his works were competing for this spot on my list (Blood Meridian, No Country For Old Men, Suttree - to name a few). It is a timeless read, one that I will never fail to understand, because its message resonates to the very core of our humanity. It paints a scene of pure horror and throws you straight into the middle of it, alone. One to read, certainly, and the film starring Viggo Mortenson isn't all that bad either, especially for the sets and costumes. 


'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville

I am Ishmael.  

I was first clued onto this veritable giant of American literature through heavy metal band Mastodon's stellar 2004 album Leviathan, which is themed heavily upon Moby Dick. As the album is incredible, it seemed only natural to check out what could possibly inspire such a record.

The novel itself can be a bit excessive, maybe a little too long-winded at times as Melville goes into various aspects of the history of whaling and the natural history of the whale, or what little of the whale was actually understood at the time of writing. In that way Moby Dick could probably stop a reader in his/her tracks about halfway through, as the pace of the novel withers and you realise you're in for the long haul. For me though, these parts emphasise exactly what makes Moby Dick such a triumph. It's a hunt for the white whale, but it's just so much more than that - it's all about the nature of good and evil, it's about humanity itself and what drives it and what can destroy it - it's all these things and more. It's a time capsule of the mid-nineteenth century, an era when hunting for spermacetti oil was one of the biggest industries in the world, a time when we plundered the seas and emptied them - as we have everything else - for resources. And it's such a shame that Herman Melville never got to enjoy the fruits of his labour - his book was not received particularly well by contemporary readers and he went on to die in obscurity.

The crew of The Pequod are representative of all peoples from around the world - a microcosm of the Earth for Melville to play out this grand chase, filled with metaphor and symbolism. The brutal background of the whaling industry and the mysterious nature of the sperm whale and the ocean really add credibility to the story, as it underpins the plot much more so than if it were about a hunt for a white elephant or a white bison. Ahab, captain of The Pequod, the ship pursuing the white whale, is a character hell-bent on revenge after a previous encounter with it deprived him of his leg. The white whale itself appears almost as a metaphor for pure evil, a force so overwhelming that to even attempt it's capture is futile, yet Ahab swears to see it done and drives his crewmembers (and essentially captives by the later stages of the novel) on towards their ultimate fate.

There's so much to Moby Dick that I don't understand and probably never will. There's so much going on in here that you could probably spend your life trapped on a desert island with this book and still be finding new things on your 178th read through. Definitely one to read and revisit often as the years pass by, to see what you can find within the lofty pages.


'Trainspotting' by Irvine Welsh

Quite possibly one of the best modern British books ever written, Trainspotting is so disgusting, vile and crass - yet you barely flinch when reading it because the characters are heroes in their own right, and you'll go through anything to see them get through to the other side. Welsh's creation is also luckily bestowed with the best film adaptation of any of the novels I've listed here. I'd hate to know what a bad adaptation of this film would look like!

The book primarily follows Mark Renton, 'Rents' to his friends, as he and his friends Spud, Sick Boy, Begbie, Second Prize and others try to carve a living through the working-class streets of Edinburgh, at a time when it was the HIV/AIDS capital of Europe and one of the most deprived areas in the United Kingdom. Drug abuse, casual sex, alcoholism, neglect and violence dominate throughout, painting a very grim picture of the reality of Edinburgh in a way never expressed before by anyone. The narrative switches into different styles and different levels of dialect from character to character - Spud's Edinburgh accent is almost impossible to negotiate on your first read-through, whilst Sick Boy has a more refined approach that reflects his arrogant interpretation of himself and his cruel view of others. But each of them is uniquely memorable and the strong Scottish dialect helps these characters carve a fresh identity for themselves throughout the gloom.

Despite the offending content of this book which probably puts a fair few less adventurous readers off, there are genuine laugh-out-loud moments that come thick and fast. There is no real core plot to the book either, and there are even more sub-plots that are found here and there, sometimes featuring in a single chapter before disappearing permanently. Rent Boy's storyline is possibly the most poignant. Addicted to heroine, he struggles to stay clean and often falls back into the trap of his old self-destructive lifestyle, whilst rejecting and opposing the society which has brought him to his knees. What's more, he has an infectious personality and a keen intelligence which adds to his dimensions and transforms him into a cult hero.

You'll be cringing as Rents delves into pub toilets, has unwitting sex with a schoolgirl and goes cold turkey in his bedroom, but you won't be able to put it down. It is the real underbelly of Edinburgh, come to life and expressed artfully at last.