BookRiot’s 100 must-read classics by “people of colour”

I personally detest (identity-obsessed, anti-white) BookRiot. I also don’t like the phrase “people of colour”, especially outside the West—a Japanese person in the US or elsewhere in the West may be called a person of colour, as white people are the dominant group—why would you call a Japanese woman in 11th century Japan a person of colour? she didn’t even know other races existed!—that phrase places white people in the centre of the world and everyone else is just vaguely “people of colour”. 

Anyway…  having said that, I find this an interesting list. The anti-Western canon philistines usually attack classic literature and, in the name of decolonisation and all that, promote contemporary fiction including YA. For the past several years, I have wanted to, and urged others to, read non-Western classics. So this list is interesting. 

I use a strikethrough for the books I have read, and add some comments.  

 

The Analects by Confucius (476). “A collection of Confucius’ sayings, compiled by his pupils shortly after his death in 497 B.C., and they reflect the extent to which Confucius held up a moral ideal for all men.”

(Di’s comment: The list includes a few poetry collections, then where is Tang poetry? Li Bai, Bai Juyi, Du Fu, Wang Wei, etc. I myself should read more, and will try to get hold of Vietnamese translations).

One Thousand and One Nights by Anonymous (800). “These are the tales that saved the life of Shahrazad, whose husband, the king, executed each of his wives after a single night of marriage.”

(Di’s comment: I have read some of them as a kid). 

The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon (1002). “Moving elegantly across a wide range of themes including nature, society, and her own flirtations, Sei Shōnagon provides a witty and intimate window on a woman’s life at court in classical Japan.”

The Diary of Lady Murasaki by Murasaki Shikibu (1008-1010). “The Diary recorded by Lady Murasaki (c. 973 c. 1020), author of The Tale of Genji, is an intimate picture of her life as tutor and companion to the young Empress Shoshi.”

(Di’s comment: No, the book to read is The Tale of Genji. That is Japan’s greatest work of literature. Murasaki Shikibu’s diary is of interest only to people who have read Genji). 

Theologus Autodidactus by Ibn Al-Nafis (1277). “This work, written sometime between 1268 and 1277, is one of the first Arabic novels, may be considered an early example of a science fiction, and an early example of a coming of age tale and a desert island story.”

The Confessions of Lady Nijō by Lady Nijō (1307). “A tale of thirty-six years (1271-1306)in the life of Lady Nijō, starting when she became the concubine of a retired emperor in Kyoto at the age of fourteen and ending, several love affairs later, with an account of her new life as a wandering Buddhist nun.”

On Love and Barley by Bashō Matsuo (late 1600s). “Bashō’s haiku are the work of an observant eye and a meditative mind, uncluttered by materialism and alive to the beauty of the world around him.”

(Di’s comment: I have read some Basho. Is he good? Yes. But I can’t help thinking that haiku is to blame for the silly is-that-really-poetry poems I keep seeing on the internet). 

Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling (1740). “In his tales of shape-shifting spirits, bizarre phenomena, haunted buildings, and enchanted objects, Pu Songling pushes the boundaries of human experience and enlightens as he entertains.”

(Di’s comment: I’ve marked it as read even though I have not read all the stories—has anyone?—there are nearly 500 of them. I also grew up with screen adaptations of these tales. Enjoyable, though I don’t think there’s much to them artistically).

Phyllis Wheatley, Complete Writings by Phyllis Wheatley (1761). “This volume collects both Wheatley’s letters and her poetry: hymns, elegies, translations, philosophical poems, tales, and epyllions—including a poignant plea to the Earl of Dartmouth urging freedom for America and comparing the country’s condition to her own.”

Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano (1789). “The first slave narrative to attract a significant readership reveals many aspects of the eighteenth-century Western world through the experiences of one individual.”

The Golden Days (The Story of the Stone, part 1) by Cao Xueqin (1791). “This rich, magical work sets worldly events—love affairs, sibling rivalries, political intrigues, even murder—within the context of the Buddhist understanding that earthly existence is an illusion and karma determines the shape of our lives.”

(Di’s comment: Why would you read only Volume 1? That’s 26 chapters out of 120. I’ve read 85—the first 80 chapters are by Cao Xueqin and the last 40 are disputed—perhaps some day I will return and read the last 40 chapters out of curiosity, but 81-85 felt different enough for me to lose interest. But reading Volume 1 alone is not enough. Cao Xueqin’s qualities are not immediately obvious—it’s not the kind of genius that hits you right in the face like Melville’s or Tolstoy’s—I also think that it takes Cao Xueqin longer than Tolstoy or other major European novelists to give life to his characters, to give them a vivid existence).  

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1845). “Dumas’ epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialised in the 1840s.”

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass (1845). “Douglass’ own account of his journey from slave to one of America’s great statesmen, writers, and orators is as fascinating as it is inspiring.”

Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Sojourner Truth (1850). “Truth recounts her life as a slave in rural New York, her separation from her family, her religious conversion, and her life as a traveling preacher during the 1840s.”

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup (1853). “Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history.”

(Di’s comment: I have seen the film). 

Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter by William Wells Brown (1853). “A fast-paced and harrowing tale of slavery and freedom, of the hypocrisies of a nation founded on democratic principles, Clotel is more than a sensationalist novel.”

Biography of an American Bondman, By His Daughter by Josephine Brown (1855). “Josephine Brown (1839-?).was the youngest child of the abolitionist and author William Wells Brown (1814-1862).and his wife Elizabeth. She was moved to finish the book when she discovered that her father’s autobiography was out of print.”

Our Nig by Harriet E. Wilson (1859). “The tale of a mixed-race girl, Frado, abandoned by her white mother after the death of the child’s black father.”

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (1861). “A rare firsthand account of a courageous woman’s determination and endurance, this inspirational story also represents a valuable historical record of the continuing battle for freedom and the preservation of family.”

(Di’s comment: I’m not sure if I’ve read all of it, but I’ve definitely read at least some of it).

The Curse of Caste, or The Slave Bride by Julia C. Collins (1865). “The first novel ever published by a black American woman, it is set in antebellum Louisiana and Connecticut, and focuses on the lives of a beautiful mixed-race mother and daughter.”

Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley (1868). “Traces Elizabeth Keckley’s life from her enslavement in Virginia and North Carolina to her time as seamstress to Mary Todd Lincoln in the White House during Abraham Lincoln’s administration.”

Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims by Sarah Winnemucca (1883). “Sarah Winnemucca, daughter of a Paiute chief, presents in her autobiography a Native American viewpoint on the impact of whites settling in the West.”

Wynema: A Child of the Forest by S. Alice Callahan (1891). “The first novel known to have been written by a woman of American Indian descent. … it tells the story of a lifelong friendship between two women from vastly different backgrounds—Wynema Harjo, a Muscogee Indian, and Genevieve Weir, a Methodist teacher from a genteel Southern family.”

Iola Leroy by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1892). “The story of the young daughter of a wealthy Mississippi planter who travels to the North to attend school, only to be sold into slavery in the South when it is discovered that she has Negro blood.”

A Chinese Ishmael and Other Stories by Sui Sin Far (1896). “Fictional stories about Chinese Americans, first published in 1896, were a reasoned appeal for her society’s acceptance of working-class Chinese at a time when the United States Congress maintained the Chinese Exclusion Act.”

Hawai’i’s Story by Hawai’i’s Queen by Queen Lili’uokalani (1898). “Possibly the most important work in Hawai’ian literature, Hawai’i’s Story is a poignant plea from Hawai’i’s queen to restore her people’s kingdom.”

Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South by Pauline Hopkins (1900). “Like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Pauline Hopkins writes of the injustices suffered by blacks at the hands of whites. But her novel penetrates deeper than Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington (1900). “Washington reveals his inner most thoughts as he transitions from ex-slave to teacher and founder of one of the most important schools for African Americans in the south, The Tuskegee Industrial Institute.”

The Heart of Hyacinth by Onoto Watanna (1903). “The coming-of-age story of Hyacinth Lorrimer, a child of white parents who was raised from infancy in Japan by a Japanese foster mother and assumed to be Eurasian.”

The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois (1903). “Du Bois penned his epochal masterpiece … in 1903. It remains his most studied and popular work; its insights into life at the turn of the 20th century still ring true.”

I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki (1905). “The chronicle of an unloved, unwanted, wandering kitten who spends all his time observing human nature—from the dramas of businessmen and schoolteachers to the foibles of priests and potentates.”

(Di’s comment: I have not read I Am a Cat, but I would pick Kokoro. Some people might pick Kusamakura). 

The Soul of the Indian by Charles Alexander Eastman (1911). “Brings to life the rich spirituality and morality of the Native Americans as they existed before contact with missionaries and other whites.”

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson (1912). “Narrated by a man whose light skin allows him to ‘pass’ for white, the novel describes a pilgrimage through America’s color lines at the turn of the century.”

The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore (1916). “Set on a Bengali noble’s estate in 1908, this is both a love story and a novel of political awakening. The central character, Bimala, is torn between the duties owed to her husband, Nikhil, and the demands made on her by the radical leader, Sandip.”

The Plays of Georgia Douglas Johnson by Georgia Douglas Johnson (1920s). “This volume collects twelve of Georgia Douglas Johnson’s one-act plays. … As an integral part of Washington, D.C.’s, thriving turn-of-the-century literary scene, Johnson hosted regular meetings with Harlem Renaissance writers and other artists, including Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, May Miller, and Jean Toomer, and was herself considered among the finest writers of the time.”

American Indian Stories by Zitkala-Sa (1921). “One of the most famous Sioux writers and activists of the modern era, Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin) recalled legends and tales from oral tradition and used experiences from her life and community to educate others about the Yankton Sioux.”

A Dark Night’s Passing by Naoya Shiga (1921). “Tells the story of a young man’s passage through a sequence of disturbing experiences to a hard-worn truce with the destructive forces within himself.”

The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China by Lu Xun (1921). “Lu Xun is arguably the greatest writer of modern China, and is considered by many to be the founder of modern Chinese literature. Lu Xun’s stories both indict outdated Chinese traditions and embrace China’s cultural richness and individuality.”

(Di’s comment: Have I read Lu Xun? I must have). 

Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral by Gabriela Mistral (1922). “Poems by the late Chilean poet who, in 1945, became the first Latin American author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.”

Cane by Jean Toomer (1923). “A literary masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance, Cane is a powerful work of innovative fiction evoking black life in the South.”

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (1923). “A collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and, above all, inspirational.”

There Is Confusion by Jessie Redmon Fauset (1924). “Traces the lives of Joanna Mitchell and Peter Bye, whose families must come to terms with an inheritance of prejudice and discrimination as they struggle for legitimacy and respect.”

Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey Or, Africa for the Africans by Marcus Garvey (1924). “The most famous collection of Garvey’s speeches and essays.”

The New Negro edited by Alain Locke (1925). “From the man known as the father of the Harlem Renaissance comes a powerful, provocative, and affecting anthology of writers who shaped the Harlem Renaissance movement and who help us to consider the evolution of the African American in society.”

Chaka by Thomas Mofolo (1925). “Tells the classic story of the Zulu hero Chaka.”

The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes (1926). “Hughes spoke directly, intimately, and powerfully of the experiences of African Americans, at a time when their voices were newly being heard in our literature.”

(Di’s comment: I have read a bit of Langston Hughes. When he’s good, he’s really good).

Rashomon and Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1927). “Writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa created disturbing stories out of Japan’s cultural upheaval.”

(Di’s comment: Great choice. Akutagawa is one of my favourite short story writers. Possibly my favourite Japanese writer of the 20th century). 

Quicksand by Nella Larsen (1928). “Larsen’s powerful first novel has intriguing autobiographical parallels and at the same time invokes the international dimension of African American culture of the 1920s.”

Some Prefer Nettles by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki (1928). “It is a tale of sexual passion and disorientation that explores modern Japan’s conflict between the values of Western culture and Occidental tradition.”

(Di’s comment: I will not dismiss Tanizaki till I have read The Makioka Sisters, but so far I’m not particularly impressed. Some Prefer Nettles is rather flat and forgettable). 

Home to Harlem by Claude McKay (1928). “With sensual, often brutal accuracy, Claude McKay traces the parallel paths of two very different young men struggling to find their way through the suspicion and prejudice of American society.”

My People the Sioux by Luther Standing Bear (1928). “A landmark in Indian literature, among the first books about Indians written from the Indian point of view by an Indian.”

The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman (1929). “One of the most widely read and controversial works of the Harlem Renaissance, The Blacker the Berry was the first novel to openly explore prejudice within the Black community.”

My Soul’s High Song: The Collected Writings of Countee Cullen by Countee Cullen (1920s-1940s). “A generous introduction to new readers of Countee Cullen and a more than generous offering to those of us who hold the poet dear.”

Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells by Ida B. Wells (1930s). “This engaging memoir tells of her private life as mother of a growing family as well as her public activities as teacher, lecturer, and journalist in her fight against attitudes and laws oppressing blacks.”

Black No More by George S. Schuyler (1931). “What would happen to the race problem in America if black people turned white? Would everybody be happy? These questions and more are answered hilariously in Black No More, George S. Schuyler’s satiric romp.”

Jonah’s Gourd Vine by Zora Neale Hurston (1934). “Tells the story of John Buddy Pearson, ‘a living exultation’ of a young man who loves too many women for his own good.”

Native Son by Richard Wright (1940). “Tells the story of a young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.”

Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang (1943). “Written when Chang was still in her twenties, these extraordinary stories combine an unsettled, probing, utterly contemporary sensibility, keenly alert to sexual politics and psychological ambiguity, with an intense lyricism that echoes the classics of Chinese literature.”

Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (1944). “The seventeen pieces in Ficciones demonstrate the whirlwind of Borges’s genius and mirror the precision and potency of his intellect and inventiveness, his piercing irony, his skepticism, and his obsession with fantasy.”

Where There’s Love, There’s Hate by Silvina Ocampo and Adolfo Bioy Casares (1946). “Both genuinely suspenseful mystery fiction and an ingenious pastiche of the genre, the only novel co-written by two towering figures of Latin American literature.”

The Street by Ann Petry (1946). “The poignant, often heartbreaking story of Lutie Johnson, a young black woman, and her spirited struggle to raise her son amid the violence, poverty, and racial dissonance of Harlem in the late 1940s.”

The President by Miguel Ángel Asturias (1946). “A story of a ruthless dictator and his schemes to dispose of a political adversary in an unnamed Latin American country usually identified as Guatemala.”

The Living Is Easy by Dorothy West (1948). “One of only a handful of novels published by black women during the forties, the story of ambitious Cleo Judson is a long-time cult classic.”

The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato (1948). “Sabato’s first novel is framed as the confession of the painter Juan Pablo Castel, who has murdered the only woman capable of understanding him.”

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai (1948). “The poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas.”

Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone (1952). “A Japanese American woman tells how it was to grow up on Seattle’s waterfront in the 1930s and to be subjected to ‘relocation’ during World War II.”

The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola (1952). “Drawing on the West African (Nigeria), Yoruba oral folktale tradition, Tutuola described the odyssey of a devoted palm-wine drinker through a nightmare of fantastic adventure.”

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952). “As he journeys from the Deep South to the streets and basements of Harlem, from a horrifying ‘battle royal’ where black men are reduced to fighting animals, to a Communist rally where they are elevated to the status of trophies, Ralph Ellison’s nameless protagonist ushers readers into a parallel universe that throws our own into harsh and even hilarious relief.”

(Di’s comment: My second choice for the Great American Novel title, after Moby Dick). 

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin (1953). “With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy’s discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935.”

The Dark Child by Camara Laye (1954). “A distinct and graceful memoir of Camara Laye’s youth in the village of Koroussa, French Guinea.”

The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima (1954). “A timeless story of first love. It tells of Shinji, a young fisherman and Hatsue, the beautiful daughter of the wealthiest man in the village.”

(Di’s comment: The only Mishima I have read is Spring Snow. He’s a madman, but stylistically he’s much more interesting than Tanizaki and Kawabata. More visual. Great metaphors).  

Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz (1956). “The first novel in Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz’s magnificent Cairo Trilogy, an epic family saga of colonial Egypt that is considered his masterwork.”

The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi (1957). “In a series of colorful, unforgettable scenes, Enchi brilliantly handles the human interplay within the ill-fated Shirakawa family.”

Memoirs of a Woman Doctor by Nawal El Saadawi (1958). “Rebelling against the constraints of family and society, a young Egyptian woman decides to study medicine, becoming the only woman in a class of men.”

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958). “Tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a ‘strong man’ of an Ibo village in Nigeria.”

Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburō Ōe (1958). “Recounts the exploits of 15 teenage reformatory boys evacuated in wartime to a remote mountain village where they are feared and detested by the local peasants.”

The Guide by R. K. Narayan (1958). “Formerly India’s most corrupt tourist guide, Raju—just released from prison—seeks refuge in an abandoned temple. Mistaken for a holy man, he plays the part and succeeds so well that God himself intervenes to put Raju’s newfound sanctity to the test.”

(Di’s comment: I have read The English Teacher, The Bachelor of Arts, and Mr Sampath. Loved Narayan’s prose, struggled with certain Indian beliefs and customs). 

Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall (1959). “This beloved coming-of-age story set in Brooklyn during the Depression and World War II follows the life of Selina Boyce, a daughter of Barbadians immigrants.”

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (1959). “Hansberry’s award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America—and changed American theater forever.”

Down Second Avenue by Es’kia Mphahlele (1959). “A landmark book that describes Mphahlele’s experience growing up in segregated South Africa. Vivid, graceful, and unapologetic, it details a daily life of severe poverty and brutal police surveillance under the subjugation of an apartheid regime..”

God’s Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembène (1960). “In 1947-48 the workers on the Dakar-Niger railway came out on strike. This novel is an imaginative evocation of how those long days affected the lives of people who lived along the hundreds of miles of track.”

The Ambiguous Adventure by Cheikh Hamidou Kane (1961). “This long-unavailable classic tells the tale of young Samba Diallo, a devout pupil in a Koranic school in Senegal whose parents send him to Paris to study philosophy.”

A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul (1961). “When he marries into the domineering Tulsi family on whom he indignantly becomes dependent, Mr. Biswas embarks on an arduous–and endless–struggle to weaken their hold over him and purchase a house of his own.”

The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe (1962). “After missing the last bus home following a day trip to the seashore, an amateur entomologist is offered lodging for the night at the bottom of a vast sand pit. But when he attempts to leave the next morning, he quickly discovers that the locals have other plans.”

(Di’s comment: Very good book, but I prefer the film). 

Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks (1963). “Showcases an esteemed artist’s technical mastery, her warm humanity, and her compassionate and illuminating response to a complex world.”

A Backward Place by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1965). “Six colourful, comic characters inhabit A Backward Place. All but one are Westerners who have come to Delhi to experience an alternative way of life.”

The Interpreters by Wole Sowinka (1965). “The Nobel Laureate’s first novel spotlights a small circle of young Nigerian intellectuals living in Lagos.”

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley (1965). “In this riveting account, he tells of his journey from a prison cell to Mecca, describing his transition from hoodlum to Muslim minister.”

The River Between by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1965). “Christian missionaries attempt to outlaw the female circumcision ritual and in the process create a terrible rift between the two Kikuyu communities on either side of the river.”

Efuru by Flora Nwapa (1966). “Efuru, beautiful and respected, is loved and deserted by two ordinary undistinguished husbands.”

A Handful of Rice by Kamala Markandaya (1966). “The novel depicts the hard struggle of life in a modern city and its demoralization. Ravi , son of a peasant, joins in the general exodus to the city, and, floating through the indifferent streets, lands into the underworld of petty criminals.”

The Doctor’s Wife by Sawako Ariyoshi (1966). “This novel is really two stories: on the one hand, the successful medical career of Hanaoka Seishu, the first doctor in the world to perform surgery for breast cancer under a general anesthetic; on the other hand, the lives of his wife and his mother, who supported him with stoic resignation, even to the extent of finally volunteering to be used as guinea pigs in his experiments.”

Jubilee by Margaret Walker (1966). “Tells the true story of Vyry, the child of a white plantation owner and his black mistress. Vyry bears witness to the South’s antebellum opulence and to its brutality, its wartime ruin, and the promises of Reconstruction.”

The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa (1966). “Set among a community of cadets in a Lima military school, it is notable for its experimental and complex employment of multiple perspectives.”

Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse (1966). “The story of a young woman who was caught in the radioactive ‘black rain’ that fell after the bombing of Hiroshima.”

Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono (1966). “Toundi Ondoua, the rural African protagonist of Houseboy, encounters a world of prisms that cast beautiful but unobtainable glimmers, especially for a black youth in colonial Cameroon.”

Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih (1966). “A rich and sensual work of deep honesty and incandescent lyricism. In 2001 it was selected by a panel of Arab writers and critics as the most important Arab novel of the twentieth century.”

Silence by Shūsaku Endō (1966). “Father Rodrigues is an idealistic Portuguese Jesuit priest who, in the 1640s, sets sail for Japan on a determined mission to help the brutally oppressed Japanese Christians and to discover the truth behind unthinkable rumours that his famous teacher Ferreira has renounced his faith.”

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez (1967). “Tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of a mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family.”

Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata (1967). “While attending a traditional tea ceremony in the aftermath of his parents’ deaths, Kikuji encounters his father’s former mistress, Mrs. Ota. At first Kikuji is appalled by her indelicate nature, but it is not long before he succumbs to passion.”

(Di’s comment: I have read The Sound of the Mountain and Snow Country. Very Japanese. Prefer Naruse’s film adaptation of the former). 

Again, I have read very, very little. What do you think about this list? 

The Guardian’s 100 greatest novels of all time

The 1899 list yesterday made me want to look again at a more modern list of greatest novels of all time. So below is the list from The Guardian, published in 2003.

I use a strikethrough for the books I have read.

1. Don Quixote Miguel De Cervantes

2. Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan

3. Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe

4. Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift

5. Tom Jones Henry Fielding

6. Clarissa Samuel Richardson

7. Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne

8. Dangerous Liaisons Pierre Choderlos De Laclos

9. Emma Jane Austen

10. Frankenstein Mary Shelley

11. Nightmare Abbey Thomas Love Peacock

12. The Black Sheep Honoré De Balzac

13. The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal

14. The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas

15. Sybil Benjamin Disraelif

16. David Copperfield Charles Dickens

17. Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë

18. Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë

19. Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray

20. The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne

21. Moby-Dick Herman Melville

22. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert

23. The Woman in White Wilkie Collins

24. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland Lewis Carroll

25. Little Women Louisa M. Alcott

26. The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope

27. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy

28. Daniel Deronda George Eliot

29. The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky

30. The Portrait of a Lady Henry James

31. Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain

32. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson

33. Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome

34. The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde

35. The Diary of a Nobody George Grossmith

36. Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy

37. The Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childers

38. The Call of the Wild Jack London

39. Nostromo Joseph Conrad

40. The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame

41. In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust

42. The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence

43. The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford

44. The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan

45. Ulysses James Joyce

46. Mrs Dalloway Virginia Woolf

47. A Passage to India EM Forster

48. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald

49. The Trial Franz Kafka

50. Men Without Women Ernest Hemingway

51. Journey to the End of the Night Louis-Ferdinand Celine

52. As I Lay Dying William Faulkner

53. Brave New World Aldous Huxley

54. Scoop Evelyn Waugh

55. USA John Dos Passos

56. The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler

57. The Pursuit Of Love Nancy Mitford

58. The Plague Albert Camus

59. Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell

60. Malone Dies Samuel Beckett

61. Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger

62. Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor

63. Charlotte's Web EB White

64. The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien

65. Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis

66. Lord of the Flies William Golding

67. The Quiet American Graham Greene

68 On the Road Jack Kerouac

69. Lolita Vladimir Nabokov

70. The Tin Drum Günter Grass

71. Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe

72. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark

73. To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee

74. Catch-22 Joseph Heller

75. Herzog Saul Bellow

76. One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez

77. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor

78. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy John Le Carré

79. Song of Solomon Toni Morrison

80. The Bottle Factory Outing Beryl Bainbridge

81. The Executioner's Song Norman Mailer

82. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino

83. A Bend in the River VS Naipaul

84. Waiting for the Barbarians JM Coetzee

85. Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson

86. Lanark Alasdair Gray

87. The New York Trilogy Paul Auster

88. The BFG Roald Dahl

89. The Periodic Table Primo Levi

90. Money Martin Amis

91. An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro

92. Oscar And Lucinda Peter Carey

93. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera

94. Haroun and the Sea of Stories Salman Rushdie

95. LA Confidential James Ellroy

96. Wise Children Angela Carter

97. Atonement Ian McEwan

98. Northern Lights Philip Pullman

99. American Pastoral Philip Roth

100. Austerlitz W. G. Sebald

The main thing I’ve learnt is that I’ve read very little. But there are some odd choices. Omission of War and Peace? Daniel Deronda instead of Middlemarch? David Copperfield instead of Bleak House? The Woman in White instead of The Moonstone? Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, rightly, but not Through the Looking-Glass? As I Lay Dying instead of The Sound and the Fury? 

If I were to make a list of 100 greatest novels of all time, I would also name Hadji Murad by Lev Tolstoy, Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, maybe Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman… 

I would also include a few non-Western titles such as The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, Hong lou meng/ Dream of the Red Chamber/ The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin, Kokoro by Natsume Soseki, etc. 

What do you think, folks? 

Joseph Andrews and other books, or The development of the novel

Hello friends, fans, and foes, I have just returned from Berlin. Joseph Andrews and Parson Adams were my companions on the work trip. Let’s jot down some thoughts. 

1/ The English novel is said to have two founders in the 18th century: Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding. As my friend Tom (Wuthering Expectations) explained, there were two major tracks: Richardson – Fanny Burney – Jane Austen – etc. and Fielding – Smollett – Dickens – etc. This divide seems to fit Himadri’s brushstroke metaphor: the Richardson novelists paint with small brushstrokes and focus on subtle things; the Fielding writers use broad brushstrokes and vivid colours, and have great vigour. 

As I’m interested in tradition and influence, I read Joseph Andrews and think of 19th century literature and find that the novelist closest to Fielding seems to be Thackeray. Just compare. Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot… don’t particularly sound like Fielding. But if you look at Fielding and Thackeray, both Joseph Andrews and Vanity Fair are not very visual; both novels are not rich in metaphor; both novels have a warm, good-humoured narrator who constantly addresses the reader. Even Dickens feels further apart: he is visual (who doesn’t remember the fog in Bleak House?), and his novels abound in metaphors. 

I love Vanity Fair, I’m enjoying Joseph Andrews. Both have vitality.

Then if you look back chronologically, Joseph Andrews owes its existence to two novels: Pamela and Don Quixote. Its starting point is to parody Richardson’s novel, as Fielding himself has done in Shamela: Joseph Andrews is a brother of Pamela and, like her, has to defend his chastity from an older employer. Joseph Andrews rejects Lady Booby and thus loses his job, because he only loves Fanny. 

But that’s only the starting point. Joseph Andrews grows into something else, and even without the acknowledgement on the title page (“written in imitation of the manner of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote”), the influence would still be obvious. I’m gonna have to revisit the Fielding section in Fighting Windmills, the book about the greatness and influence of Don Quixote (how annoying to borrow books from the library and not have them right at hand for a quick check). Fielding takes from Don Quixote not only the form of the picaresque novel, he also includes interpolated tales, has a comic vision of life, and creates a quixotic character—Parson Adams is not a madman like Don Quixote, but he is naïve and absent-minded and idealistic, and he too is a combination of goodness and ridiculousness. 

(Isn’t it cool that many 18th century writers loved and took something from Don Quixote? I’m gonna have to read The Female Quixote, Tristram Shandy, and Humphry Clinker). 

Unlike Cervantes, Fielding doesn’t play with multiple narrators and unreliable narrators, but he expands the role of the narrator—like another character—something Thackeray later also does in Vanity Fair. 

2/ Pamela came out in 1740. Joseph Andrews, 1742. 

If we compare them to the works of 19th century novelists such as Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoy, George Eliot, and so on, they appear a bit primitive, in both character development and the novel form. I’m not denigrating Richardson and Fielding—their masterpieces are said to be Clarissa and Tom Jones—I’m saying that at this point they were developing the novel and trying new stuff so there were a few things they didn’t quite figure out till presumably later on. Pamela for example uses the epistolary form in a very clumsy, awkward way. Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos, perhaps the most well-constructed of epistolary novels, was published in 1782. 

As for Joseph Andrews, I will quote my friend Himadri (Argumentative Old Git): 

“… despite many fine things, Joseph Andrews does, it must be admitted, have its longueurs. In the later Tom Jones, the better qualities of Joseph Andrews are consistently in view, and the flaws entirely absent. For one thing, Fielding, when he came to writing Tom Jones, realised that the kind of novel he was attempting required an interesting plot: otherwise, the final chapters would merely provide resolution for a plot that the reader has long lost interest in, and become merely tedious; and the rest of the novel would become merely a sequence of more or less unrelated set pieces.” 

(The piece as a whole, I should say, is positive about Joseph Andrews—I just picked out the negative bit, as journalists do).

The thing I find strange and fascinating is that Don Quixote (Part 1: 1605; Part 2: 1615) does not at all appear primitive in comparison. Of course, the descriptions are a bit basic. Of course, writers didn’t quite see colours in the 17th century. Of course, the supporting characters aren’t very complex. But if you consider its form and techniques, Don Quixote is spectacularly innovative and ingenious, especially in Part 2—look at the multiple narrators and the concept of the unreliable narrator, look at the dazzling layers of lies and fantasy, look at the meta aspect. Next to Don Quixote, even masterpieces such as Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary come across as conventional. 

3/ Yesterday I came across The Daily Telegraph’s 1899 list of “100 Best Novels in the World”. 

I’m sure you all would have lots of opinions about the list. See for yourself. I’m just gonna make some brief comments. 

First of all, “the world” naturally means the West. This is to be expected—the list is from 1899—even the majority of “greatest novels of all time” lists today ignore non-Western novels, especially those written before the 20th century. On this particular list of 100 best novels, only 10 are in a language other than English (I know). 

Tolstoy’s on the list—only Anna Karenina, not War and Peace—Dostoyevsky isn’t. But we shouldn’t be so harsh on it. At this point, Crime and Punishment was available, but The Brothers Karamazov wasn’t translated until 1912. 

The list has Dumas, Hugo, Balzac, and Eugène Sue (who’s this?) but not Flaubert or Zola. Madame Bovary was available in 2 English translations at this point.  

The most shocking part is the exclusion of Don Quixote—what’s wrong with these people?

If we ignore all the stuff about “foreign languages” and translations, it is in many ways still a curious list. The Dickens novels on the list are Martin Chuzzlewit, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Dombey and Son, and Oliver Twist—not Bleak House, not Little Dorrit, not Great Expectations. I’m not surprised that they name Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility for Jane Austen, rather than Emma or Mansfield Park, but to name Scenes of Clerical Life rather than Middlemarch as the George Eliot novel is absurd. The same about the three Thackeray novels not including Vanity Fair. Richardson isn’t on the list (I guess even in the 19th century, people didn’t read the over 950,000-word-long Clarissa), but Fielding is: Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews. Melville isn’t included, which does not surprise me, but even Henry James is absent. Charlotte Bronte is on the list with two novels—Jane Eyre and Shirley—but Emily, the genius of the family, isn’t. 

A rather odd list. See for yourself. But now we see that Joseph Andrews had a very good reputation in 1899. I don’t think most people now, even those who read classic literature, know about Joseph Andrews—those who know about classic literature would mostly be familiar with Tom Jones. 

Recent reads: Primo Levi, Flannery, Pamela, Shamela

In September, I read Moments of Reprieve, my third Primo Levi book after If This Is a Man (aka Survival in Auschwitz) and The Truce (aka The Reawakening). Wonderful writer. Primo Levi writes about the people he knew at Auschwitz—the moments of reprieve—he’s got a gift for portraiture and for images. Certain images get imprinted on one’s mind: a man playing the violin in the camp (at which point the listeners, for a brief moment, have a vision of a better world), the guided tour for Hitlerjugend, the “revenge” of the inmates through “bacteriological warfare”, etc. 

The last chapter, about Rumkowski, is thought-provoking.

The most moving chapter in the book is the one about Lorenzo, which is reminiscent of Vasily Grossman’s idea in Life and Fate about “senseless kindness”. Among my favourite writers, I especially like the temperament of Vasily Grossman and Primo Levi, men who have seen some of the worst horrors of the 20th century and yet still believe in salvation and goodness.  

(Today marks one year since the Simchat Torah Massacre, or the October 7 atrocities). 

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Is Flannery O’Connor the best writer of bigotry? She must at least be one of the best at depicting and dissecting it. 

In October, I read “Everything that Rises Must Converge” and “Greenleaf” from her second short story collection, but I’m also thinking of “The Artificial Nigger” and “The Displaced Person” from A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories. There’s something cold, uncompromising, even harsh about Flannery O’Connor, but she is so good, so striking—she hits you right in the face. Some writers (Tolstoy, Chekhov, Cao Xueqin, Carson McCullers…) depict their characters with love and compassion; some others (Flannery O’Connor, Flaubert, Ibsen…) dissect them. 

Over the past 2 years or so, I’ve discovered a few short story writers: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Isaac Babel, Alice Munro, etc. and Flannery O’Connor is the most striking one, much more interesting than Alice Munro. She’s got a distinct voice, she picks strong images, and her stories are “the axe for the frozen see within us.” 

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Speaking of “the axe, etc.”, I went to the Kafka exhibition in Oxford. Finally got to see the original manuscripts and drawings! 

Last year, on my work trip to Prague, I visited the Kafka Museum and realised, in disappointment, that most of the originals were in Oxford or in Germany. 

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I read and gave up, nearly halfway through, on Pamela. How many times is the wench going to faint? And she goes on and on and on about her virtue.

Is there a Richardson vs Fielding split (like Tolstoy vs Dostoyevsky)? I seem to be Team Fielding. I know I cannot say till I’ve read Tom Jones and Clarissa, but Shamela is a hoot, and I’m now having a blast with Joseph Andrews.

Funnily enough, I’ve noted that both of these works are spin-offs from Pamela, but Joseph Andrews accompanies Pamela rather than Shamela. 

Pamela: “what can the abject poor do against the mighty rich, when they are determined to oppress?”

1/ My first blog post about Pamela, I know, wasn’t very enthusiastic. Around page 100 is when the novel becomes more interesting: Samuel Richardson breaks the epistolary form with the appearance of a narrator and the perspective of other characters; we also hear Mr B’s voice for the first time that is not reported by Pamela. The story at this point also becomes more gripping. The horror! The deception! Pamela is only 15. And helpless. 

For the first 100 pages, Pamela writes letters to her parents about how her master Mr B, after the old lady’s death, has been trying to take her virtue, which she’d rather die than lose. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we now call sexual harassment at the workplace. Around page 100 is when sexual harassment turns into an abduction. 

2/ Pamela, considering that it’s the 18th century, has some surprisingly progressive views that I assume are shared by the author: 

“… for my part, I cannot forbear smiling at the absurdity of persons even of the first quality, who value themselves upon their ancestors’ merits, rather than their own. For is it not as much as to say, they are conscious they have no other?” (Letter 23) 

“… I will only sit down with this sad reflection – That power and riches never want tools to promote their vilest ends…” (Journal) 

“But, O sir! my soul is of equal importance with the soul of a princess, though in quality I am but upon a foot with the meanest slave.” (Journal, but this is from a letter to Mr Williams, the clergyman). 

I’ve read that Pamela was shocking and scandalous at the time not because of the sexual harassment and abduction, but because it ended with the servant marrying her master. 

(I barely know the 18th century though, I have to explore more). 

3/ Pamela makes me think of some other characters: Cécile from Dangerous Liaisons, Fanny Price from Mansfield Park, the titular character of Jane Eyre, Esther Summerson from Bleak House. And the women in Spanish Golden Age literature.

The comparison with Cécile is obvious, especially when they’re the same age. Cécile is more human and more likeable. 

The comparison with Jane Eyre is also obvious: a maid is socially lower than a governess, but they’re both employees and their employers fancy them and treat them abominably, in different ways. Charlotte Bronte even mentions Pamela in her book. 

Pamela makes me think about Fanny and Esther because they’re all morally good characters who are not very popular among readers—I often see readers whine that Fanny is priggish, uptight, self-righteous, and boring; that Esther is passive, submissive, cloying, too modest, too good. Very odd. I have always defended Fanny and Esther and will continue defending them till death. Both are more interesting and more likeable than Pamela—not that likeability is particularly important for literature—Fanny loves nature and poetry, and she is insightful; Esther is funny and a strange, excellent writer. Pamela is not funny. She was getting on my nerves—I read Spanish Golden Age literature and said I was so done with the theme of a woman’s honour—here it is again, only that Richardson uses the word “virtue” instead. In the edition on Gutenberg, the word “virtue” pops up 86 times in the novel, not counting the title; “virtuous” 33 times; “honest” or “honesty” 158 times; “innocent” 66 times and “innocence” 76 times. 

(Did Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte find Pamela irritating? I wonder).

But we—I mean I—shouldn’t be so harsh on Pamela. After all, she is 15 and lives in 18th century England, and she gets this from her parents: 

“… we fear—yes, my dear child, we fear—you should be too grateful, and reward him with that jewel, your virtue, which no riches, nor favour, nor any thing in this life, can make up to you.” (Letter 2) 

With such (insufferable) parents, of course she would turn out like that. 

One can’t help feeling sympathy for Pamela when the dark plot against her unfolds—she is betrayed, abducted, held against her will, completely helpless with no one to turn to. I also appreciate that Pamela is not stupid and the novel is not an idiot plot (one that is “kept in motion solely by virtue of the fact that everybody involved is an idiot”).

But after a while, I have to say that Pamela gets on my nerves again: she faints, she weeps, she professes her virtue and innocence. It is one note. It’s more interesting when Mr B (the master) sends some letters and then shows up, as we get out of Pamela’s head and get another perspective—the character of Mr B puzzles me—but Pamela continues doing my head in. 

Should I continue? Tell me if I should continue. I’m on page 220 (out of about 550). 

Reading Pamela, thinking about Dangerous Liaisons

Samuel Richardson’s Pamela is foundational for the epistolary form. Not the first epistolary novel ever written, but the one to start the craze in the 18th century. Isn’t it interesting to read foundational texts? You read the first modern novel (Don Quixote) and realise it is indeed a contender for the title of greatest novel ever written. You read the first detective novel (The Moonstone) and feel amazed that Wilkie Collins already figured out all the elements of a detective story: locked room, “inside job”, red herrings, professional investigator, large number of false suspects, “least likely suspect”, reconstruction of the crime, plot twist, etc. But then you read Pamela and discover that at this point, in 1740, Richardson didn’t quite know what he was doing, or what could be done with the epistolary novel. 

I can’t help thinking of Dangerous Liaisons (1782), perhaps the most cleverly constructed of epistolary novels.

First of all, Dangerous Liaisons has a range of writers and a range of voices, and some of the characters (Merteuil and Valmont) also adopt different voices for different people, whereas Richardson’s novel mostly has Pamela, and a bit of her parents. I read Dangerous Liaisons and think it has to be an epistolary novel, or at least the form is perfect for it; I read Pamela and think that for a large part, it could just be a standard first-person narrative. Perhaps I’m talking nonsense, as usual, because I’m on page 89 and the book is about 550 pages, but I did leaf through the book. 

Dangerous Liaisons is also more captivating for two other reasons: there are multiple things going on at the same time, and before the reader gets impatient with the slow development of the Valmont – Tourvel plot, Laclos gives us the Prévan plot and grabs our attention again; it is always more interesting when a character may be hiding something, lying to others or lying to themselves, than when a character – narrator is a virtuous girl, a Mary Sue such as Pamela. 

(Frankly, Pamela gets on my nerves). 

As I have recently explained to a friend who didn’t particularly care for the book, I love Dangerous Liaisons because it deals with human complexity and contradictions, because it explores the way people deceive others and deceive themselves, because it’s not always certain whether the characters are telling the truth or playing a role or, whilst joking or being ironic, revealing something about themselves. These are the subjects that interest me in literature. I also like the way Laclos deals with longing, sexual desire, and love. 

Another thing I’ve noted is that Laclos includes the dates (it’s clear that he carefully plans everything), whereas Richardson doesn’t. How much time passes between the letters? How often does Pamela write? How long does it take for the parents to reply? What’s the gap? As Laclos includes the dates, you think about the actions that are happening around the same time; you think about the silence, the gap; you think about the letters that get delayed and perhaps the consequences; you think about the time that an action or a scheme takes, and so on and so forth. 

Such a well-constructed novel, Dangerous Liaisons. 

Let’s hope I later have something interesting to say about Pamela.

Is Dangerous Liaisons a cynical book?

Under my previous blog post about Dangerous Liaisons (or Les Liaisons dangereuses), Michael wrote: 

“I feel odd commenting because I’ve never read the book. But I think I still need some convincing that this is a book I would enjoy.

It sounds extraordinarily well written, but didn’t you find the ugliness and corruption of the characters off-putting? I recall, in reading Madame Bovary, feeling like the novel was extremely well-written and a deeply insightful picture of people whom I didn’t like and didn’t want to know (and maybe I’m wrong, but I felt Flaubert felt the same way.) Corrupt or ugly people can be fun to read about of course, but I find I don’t love books where they are the prime focus. There’s a novel by Trollope called The Eustace Diamonds that suffers from this problem; the main character is more or less a sociopath, and I find Thai [sic] tire of her company. Vanity Fair is a counter example, I suppose, but then Becky Sharp is just one character, and there are some other redeeming central characters in that novel that balance her out. Perhaps I’m just an unsophisticated and puritanical American, I don’t know. But Does [sic] Laclos have any redeeming central characters? I guess I just need some convincing that I’d enjoy it.” 

Interesting question, so I thought I’d answer in a blog post. 

To put it simply: is Dangerous Liaisons a cynical book that just focuses on people’s ugliness and corruption? 

I’d say no. 

Firstly, Dangerous Liaisons is not a celebration of cynicism and corruption. The sex games, the manipulation, the way Merteuil and Valmont play with others’ feelings bring misery to everyone involved, including themselves.

Secondly, Choderlos de Laclos dissects the cruelty and depravity of these two characters, but doesn’t depict these traits as universal or common traits of humanity—Merteuil is seen as exceptionally evil; she is, in the end, condemned and shunned by society. 

Contrast that with Balzac’s vision of life in Eugénie Grandet: “She has the noblest qualities of sorrow, the saintliness of one who has never soiled her soul by contact with the world…” (translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley). In Eugénie Grandet, the world is corrupt; everyone is materialistic, selfish, scheming, dishonest; the father has no humanity; the only good people are Eugénie Grandet, her mother, and Nana, who do not understand society and its lies and deceit, who are not soiled “by contact with the world.” 

That is not the vision of life in Dangerous Liaisons: Cécile de Volanges, her mother Madame de Volanges, Madame de Tourvel, Madame de Rosemonde (Valmont’s aunt) are good people; Danceny is also arguably good-natured, though his infidelity to Cécile is disappointing. 

Thirdly, evil doesn’t triumph. It corrupts, it destroys, but it doesn’t win in the end. Think about King Lear: evil destroys many things in its wake and kills Cordelia (and arguably Lear), but the evil characters of the play—Cornwall, Oswald, Goneril, Regan, Edmund—are all defeated. It is similar with Dangerous Liaisons. 

Choderlos de Laclos depicts two characters who like pulling the strings and manipulating other people and having power over them, but they gradually realise that many things are beyond their control. Despite their cleverness, despite their manipulation, despite their understanding of psychology, Merteuil cannot control Valmont, Valmont cannot control his own feelings for Tourvel, Merteuil cannot triumph over Cécile. Their little games are all futile. 

Contrast Laclos’s vision of life in Dangerous Liaisons and the vision of life in Naomi: Tanizaki’s book is a picture of perversity, control, and baseness; the manipulative character triumphs in the end; Naomi left a bad taste in my mouth. That is not the case for Dangerous Liaisons. 

Most importantly, Dangerous Liaisons is a masterpiece. Choderlos de Laclos’s psychological insight and talent for characterisation are astonishing. Even if it doesn’t end up as one of your favourite novels (which after all is personal), it is very much worth reading. 

Love, lust, and Les Liaisons dangereuses

1/ It was clearly a mistake to neglect French literature for so long. 

Up till now, the writer I’ve read who seems to have the best understanding of longing and sexual desire and especially female sexuality is Chekhov. But as a writer in Tsarist Russia, he couldn’t be very direct, and Laclos also has an advantage over him that we follow his characters for 400 pages. 

(Went for the original title in my headline so the alliteration works better—see, I think about little things). 

2/ Under my previous blog post about Dangerous Liaisons, Cathy Young wrote: 

“It took me several readings to notice this, but I think Valmont’s actions toward Cecile are very substantially motivated by the need to have a “victory” to counter Merteuil’s victory over Prevan.

[…] I think he waits to write back to Merteuil after he has a “success” of his own to report, especially since she’s been zinging him so much about his lack of success with Tourvel. Also notable: he starts putting the Cécile plan into action shortly after Merteuil sends him the long autobiographical letter in which she is absolutely brutal in putting him in his place and affirming her superiority, and which she concludes with, “As for Prévan, I want him, and I’ll have him; he wants to tell, and he won’t. That is our story.” That letter is sent on Sept. 20; Valmont presumably receives it Sept. 21; his letter to Cécile is sent Sept. 24, presumably after he’s had a bit of time to come up with the scheme with the second key. So I think he knows by then that Merteuil will succeed and is planning his own “victory” to match hers and maybe even beat her to it (but his plan is delayed because Cécile initially refuses).” 

That’s a very good point. 

Cathy also pointed out the parallels between the Valmont – Cécile scene and the Merteuil – Prévan scene, and between the Merteuil – Prévan plot and the Valmont – Tourvel plot. Again, these are great observations—you should read her comments for yourself.

Nothing to add, so I’ll make a different point: I think Merteuil seduces Danceny partly because she’s jealous of Cécile; partly because she wants to test her own power of seduction (as some women out there steal someone’s man just to prove that they can); partly because she wants Valmont to be jealous; and partly because she wants to triumph over Valmont, who won Cécile’s body but not her heart and not even her head.   

3/ Since Hadrian’s comments under my first blog post about Dangerous Liaisons, I’ve been toying with the idea that Valmont is not as attractive and seductive as he portrays himself to be.

Let’s see. Valmont is meant to seduce Cécile and Tourvel. Even if you don’t want to say Valmont rapes Cécile, he lays a trap for her, puts pressure on her, threatens her about reputation, and essentially forces himself on her. 

Now look at his “conquest” of Tourvel: 

“At this last word she threw herself or rather fell into my arms in a faint. As I was still doubtful of such a happy outcome, I pretended to be dreadfully alarmed. But at the same time I was leaving her or carrying her towards the place I had designed before as the field of victory. And, in fact, she only regained consciousness having already submitted and surrendered to her happy conqueror.” (Letter 125) 

(translated by Helen Constantine) 

Is that victory? In both cases, they yield after he forces himself on them—Cécile previously had no interest in him and Tourvel was resisting—it’s only after the sex that they yield, but Cécile is a 15-year-old virgin and Tourvel is sexually unfulfilled (where is the husband?) and vulnerable. They’re vulnerable like Natasha when separated from Andrei. Yes, Tourvel has fallen for Valmont, but you may have feelings for someone and not act on them.

Having said that, I still think John Malkovich is wrong for the role—Valmont has to be attractive—I’m merely pointing out that his two victories are not quite triumphs as he presents them to be.   

4/ For some time, I thought I understood Merteuil better than I understood Valmont. What kind of woman, however self-assured, would enjoy hearing a man with whom she has been involved speak in such praise about another woman? What kind of woman, however slutty, would enjoy being taken for granted and expected to run like a dog whenever some man calls? Laclos depicts so well her jealousy, her sense of rivalry, her wounded pride, her competitiveness and vengefulness, her need to triumph over Tourvel and to have control over Valmont, her love of freedom and of power. I even get why, when Valmont gives her an ultimatum, Merteuil chooses war, knowing it would ruin everybody involved. 

So for some time, I didn’t quite get Valmont, but now I do. To steal Hadrian’s ideas, this is a twisted love triangle—Tourvel appeals to the human side of Valmont and Merteuil attracts the demonic side, but that demonic side is so ingrained in him that he suppresses and denies and rejects his own love for Tourvel, to a disastrous end. He thinks he knows himself, but he does not—until it’s too late. 

5/ In Dangerous Liaisons, the characters all change. The most fascinating change is the deceitful, manipulative Valmont becoming more human, as his foil—the supposedly romantic and noble Danceny—turns out to be a false lover. Look at his letters to Merteuil! What kind of love does he have for Cécile that she is so easily supplanted? Cécile may be unfaithful to him physically, but he betrays her physically and emotionally. 

(With whom does he mean when Danceny writes in Letter 174 that he’s no longer in love?) 

6/ Now that I have finished reading Choderlos de Laclos’s book, I can say that it’s the greatest epistolary novel I’ve read, and the greatest novel about sexual desire, manipulation, and power.

It is also better than the films. It’s no wonder that Dangerous Liaisons has been adapted so many times, as Laclos creates two of the most devious, cunning, and memorable characters in fiction, and there’s a timeless appeal about their sex games—manipulating others for each other’s amusement and then manipulating each other. But it’s in the book where you can see the subtlety of characterisation, the different voices these characters adopt for different readers, the lies they tell others and tell themselves, the uncertainty about whether they’re being honest or playing a role. Laclos exploits the full potential of the epistolary form. 

Magnificent novel.