“Ethan Frome” by Edith Wharton
But for me, Wharton’s rendering of this material transcends any of its shortcomings. Even the depressing elements attain a grim beauty (Ethan’s search for Mattie after their failed suicide is a heartbreaking example).
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
The character of Miss Brodie is a blend of bohemianism and fascism, and that latter label is not being applied in the fast and loose manner of our times.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Published in 1962, A Clockwork Orange might soon have been forgotten had it not been made into a celebrated and notorious Stanley Kubrick movie.
“Bend Sinister” by Vladimir Nabokov
Readers should not expect realism from this book. The Soviet and Nazi regimes served only as raw material for a work that is in large part fantastical.
The Priests of J. F. Powers
Though James Farl Powers (1917—1999) focused his fiction on a variety of subjects, he is best known for his depictions of Catholic priests.
“Wise Blood” by Flannery O’Connor
The sheer originality of “Wise Blood” is, for me, one of its strongest attractions. It is an amazing grace tale that is simply inimitable—and amazing.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
James Joyce (1882—1941) was one of the greatest literary geniuses of the twentieth century.
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The gist of the ‘rime’ is the old man’s recollection of the guilty and fateful part he played in a doomed sea voyage.
Aristotle for Everybody by Mortimer J. Adler
I have a certain rule of thumb with respect to the great philosophers of the past...
Exorcism Literature
Stories about the supernatural fascinate and attract, I suppose, because they deal with those realms of human experience that are mysterious.
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