YOU know on Facebook when you're asked to list your 10 favorite whatevers—food, music albums, films?
I got tagged in one of those, and I was asked to list my 10 favorite books. It was difficult to choose just a few from the innumerable books I've read over the decades, so I decided to make a list of books that most in uenced me as a writer because of their structure, style, or content.
• Sixty Stories and Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme: The stories are often non-linear, some are freeassociation, many surreal. They don't all make sense and the ones that do don't make all that sense either. As a writer it was freeing to read these and realize that one could actually write like this and be published.
• Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo by Jose Rizal: Still considered the Great Filipino Novels, they are to this day unsurpassed in prestige and value as literature, social commentary, and documentation of life in colonial Philippines.
Its characters and scenes are ingrained in the Filipino psyche—one knows exactly what is meant should another say, "Napaka-Maria Clara mo naman" or "Para kang si Sisa."
• She by Henry Rider Haggard: I love Victorian writers. Rizal could be considered one of them because he was around during that era. It's quite possible he was influenced by them to some extent.
I'm attracted to Victorian writing because there's something about the cadence of their language, the intricate plots, the adherence to structure and style. Think Dickens and Conan Doyle. There were many other writers of the era who were not as technically adept but they wrote rip-roarin' yarns.
HRH was one of the foremost writers of the "lost world" genre. 'She' has all its hallmarks—lost city in Africa! Lost white race! Lost white race queen of lost city with immense power! White savior-slash-love interest!
Yes, it's not politically correct but it's a product of its time. Read it in the context of 'empire-building Englishman' to get where Rider Haggard was coming from. I find the Ayesha character most interesting—a strong woman na tanga sa pag-ibig.
Her steadfast loyalty and eternal love are what characterize her and she could have been better fleshed out, but then HRH is no Dickens. Still a great read though.
• Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man by Marshall McLuhan: One of the communication discipline's most influential books. I went into j-school only because I wanted to write. I had no concept of 'media,' its power, its flaws. This book, while dense and hard to read (McLuhan didn't have the best writing style), helped me understand media as a cultural artifact.
• Mythologies by Roland Barthes: Each of the essays here opened my mind to the possibility of applying semiotics to analyze everything cultural, from arts to sports to politics. Mind-blowing.
• Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake: The first book in the Gormenghast series, it is surreal and interesting. Gormenghast is an entire world that makes sense only to its inhabitants. Its characters are unforgettable —the morose Earl Sepulchrave, the ambitious Steerpike, the odd maiden sisters, the flighty Fuschia, the bird-crazed Countess. The Hall of Bright Carvings and the odd curator Rottcodd, the peculiar rituals the Earl performed, and the burning of the library are unforgettable. Baby Titus is born the heir to all this madness, poor him.
• On the Road by Jack Kerouac: He was a male chauvinist jerk in many ways but oh, he wrote like jazz sounds. Inspired by the jazz musicians of his day, he took the rhythms and counterpoints of bebop and hard bop and infused them into his writing. This book taught me to look to music and other forms of art and culture for literary inspiration, because it's all combinatorial. Let it blow…!
• The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon— written by a woman in the ultrasophisticated Heian era, I like this book for its detailed documentation of the culture of a world so di erent from ours that it seems almost alien. I also learned about structure, that novel or creative non-fiction writing doesn't have to be linear nor chronological. This book is written in chunks, some of it lists, some of it anecdotes. What are your favorite books?
Dr. Ortuoste, a writer and researcher, has a PhD in Communication. FB and Twitter: @DrJennyO