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Sep
10
The Bare Necessities—Michael Knight (THE TYPIST)
2010 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
The Bare Necessities is a series in which writers and bookish folk share annotated reading lists of the books they love.
Michael Knight’s latest novel The Typist is a deceptively quiet, enthralling read, and I’m happy to welcome him today to share his “Dudes Abroad” reading list.
I’ve recently published a novel called The Typist narrated by a young man from Alabama named Francis Vancleave who is attached to General Macarthur’s headquarters in Tokyo during the American occupation of Japan after WWII. Van, as he’s know to his fellow soldiers, is more than a little adrift in this alien culture at a very complicated time in that culture’s history. With this in mind, I thought I would do a list of “Dudes Abroad” books, novels in which the protagonist finds himself a fish out of water, lost, rootless, in search of something he doesn’t always understand. Not a half-bad metaphor for life on earth in the last hundred years, says me.
The following is not meant as a top 10 list exactly, merely as 10 really really really fine examples of the kind.
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway—An obvious choice for such a list and despite more recent critical assessments of Hemingway’s work, the story of Jake Barnes, a reporter in 1920s Paris, remains an amazingly powerful work of fiction, certainly a novel that defined a particular moment in history and maybe the best first novel of all times.
Money by Martin Amis—John Self is a working class London schlub who makes it big in advertising and is delivered with all his coarseness intact to Manhattan with an opportunity to direct a big budget American movie. Like John Self, this book is rough around the edges, downright mean-spirited in places but always funny and ultimately redemptive. Money might also be the most skewering look at American culture by a non-American ever written.
Daisy Miller by Henry James—Almost certainly Henry James would have picked another of his own books for this list, The Ambassadors or The American maybe. And it seems like I once read somewhere that James himself considered Daisy Miller a bit of a trifle but it remains, for me, in the simplicity of its telling, in its portrayal of flirtatious Daisy and uptight Winterbourne, my favorite of his books about Americans on the loose in the old country, in this case Switzerland and Italy. Though Daisy is the ill-fated innocent, ex-pat Winterbourne is the character most truly lost, whether he realizes it or not.
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin—Another Paris book, this one about young American David who is romantically involved with both a woman and man in the 1950s. Sentence for sentence, you won’t find a more beautifully written book anywhere and the novel’s dignified but passionate rendering of the material, especially given that it was published in 1956, is nothing short of masterful.
The Quiet American by Graham Greene—Here we have a pair of Dudes Abroad, the English reporter, Fowler, and the American CIA agent, Pyle, who is masquerading as an aide worker on the eve of American involvement in Vietnam. The novel is quiet but potent as both men are doomed by their misunderstandings of people and place.
The Dissident by Nell Freudenberger—A celebrated Chinese artist and political dissident named Yuan Zhao accepts a position as artist-in-residence at a girl’s school in Lo Angeles. Yuan Zhao is bunked with the wealthy family of a student and just about everybody has their say on the page so the Dudes Abroad theme is complicated by multiple point of view narration but its Zhao’s first person accounts of his past in the Beijing art underground and his perception of both contemporary LA and his fractured modern American host family that brings the book to life.
Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow—Dissatisfied with his life for reasons he doesn’t understand, millionaire American, Henderson, sets off to Africa in an effort to fill a kind of spiritual void. Bellow at his wacky and philosophical best.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov—Humbert Humbert is the sophisticated, predatory and wildly entertaining European narrator at large in the USA. What a remarkable reading experience to find oneself so moved by and taking such pleasure in the voice and company of a pedophile.
The Dog of the South by Charles Portis—When Ray Midge’s wife Norma runs off with her first husband, Ray sets out to track her down, eventually winding up in Honduras in the company of a con man called Dr. Reo Symes. These two blaze a hilarious but meaningful trail—sort of like Don Quixote and Pancho Sanza on a postmodern quest.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad—Marlow, Kurtz, Africa. The ultimate Dudes Abroad novel. Do I really need to say anything about this one?
Michael Knight will discuss and sign The Typist at Fountain Bookstore Tuesday, September 14, beginning at 6:30pm. Event details here.
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Michael Knight will discuss and sign The Typist at Fountain Bookstore Tuesday, September 14, beginning at 6:30pm.
he will also discuss the various trials experienced behind the wheel of a talking sapient car, how unusual it is to be good buddies with a creepy billionaire, and why he feels the six million dollar man is a pussy.
discussions will only be available after you purchase his book however.
erisian23´s last [type] ..Review- Draw the Dark- Ilsa J Bick surgeon wannabe
What a great idea: “Dudes Abroad” The is like the second time in a week someone has mentioned ˆGiovanni’s Roomˆ, a book I have yet to read. Must be a sign. And some old school bisexuality peaks my interest, must admit.
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