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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Books to help my godbrother, the reprobate

iconoplast

11:01 / 27.09.04

My godbrother is on a five day furlough from his reform school. I want to send him back with some books. He's seventeen.

What did you read when you were seventeen that you'd reccomend?

My list so far:

1. Kerouac - On The Road - If he waits much longer, he'll never like it.
2. Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
3. Camus - The Stranger
I'd add 4. Steal This Book, but I don't think it'd make it past the 'censors'/whatever.

Sax

11:59 / 27.09.04

Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger.

Women on Top, by Nancy Friday.

grant

19:25 / 27.09.04

The Invisibles. Definitely.

1984 maybe.

at the scarwash

19:34 / 27.09.04

You Can't Win by Jack Black, if you can find it. Amazingly written bio of turn of the century hobo and prison life in Canada and America.

sleazenation

21:02 / 27.09.04

One flew over the Cuckoo's nest?

unheimlich manoeuvre

02:06 / 28.09.04

Old man and the sea by Ernest Hemingway

iconoplast

03:17 / 28.09.04

Jesus! Neither he nor any of his friends had ever so much as HEARD of Kerouac.

Lord Morgue

08:46 / 28.09.04

Musashi, by Eiji Yoshikawa
Shibumi, by Trevalian
A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess (the British version, with the censored chapter 21 restored, and no Nadsat glossary)
The Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:41 / 28.09.04

Is it me, or is this turning into "books I feel I should have read at 17, when I *wasn't* in reform school"?

What sort of reading level is your godbrother at, dude? What sort of books does he actually like?

iconoplast

12:44 / 28.09.04

He doesn't really read comics, he says. He's a smart kid who smoked far too much pot for his own good for a while. He's still kind of burnt, but mostly he just doesn't have any kind of literary... drive. So I'm trying to think of 'Pop' books - the kind with hooks.

Clockwork Orange was a really good call.

He says that he has recently read: A People's History, by Zinn. 1984, by Orwell. He's read some Vonneguy and sort of liked him.

Jesus. I can't believe I never thought of _Letters to a Young Poet_. I wonder if he'd read it.

Lord Morgue

13:33 / 28.09.04

Should have read? Not to wave my literary dick around TOO much, but I was hitting Harlan Ellison's Deathbird Stories when I was eight. I thought The Bleeding Stones was the funniest thing I'd ever seen... "The kingdom of God is within you" indeed! (chortle)

grant

17:22 / 28.09.04

doesn't read comics?

Oh, Invisibles even moreso.

Prolly appreciate Illuminatus! too.

Benny the Ball

18:20 / 28.09.04

Diary of a Super Tramp - can't remember the author's name.

Haus of Mystery

18:35 / 28.09.04

Something punchy and fast I reckon, if he's not all that into reading. Joe Lansdale? His Hap and Leonard stuff is fast, rude, funny, violent and has a real pace and verve to it's dialogue. I've read 'Two-Bear Mambo' and 'Bad chilli' so I'd recommend either of those.

astrojax69

23:54 / 28.09.04

hey iconoplast, u named the three books i immediately thought of when i read the thread!

i'd mebbe also add kafka's 'metamorphosis and other stories'? sure. and perhaps knut hamsun's 'mysteries'. fab-o! where's my yellow cordurouy suit??

wow, 17 again.... hmmmmm.......

good luck!!

grant

14:29 / 29.09.04

charles bukowski. Definitely.

grant

14:44 / 29.09.04

Definitely.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:03 / 29.09.04

Should have read? Not to wave my literary dick around TOO much, but I was hitting Harlan Ellison's Deathbird Stories when I was eight.

Gosh. That may be the least impressive boast ever.

unheimlich manoeuvre

22:22 / 29.09.04

Haus, did you mean to sound so cutting? when I was seventeen I was still on David Eddings and Fighting Fantasy. you couldn't have got me to read a book when I was eight, for all the sweets in the world.

once again i recommend "old man and the sea" as it's just a short story, concise and full of punch.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:16 / 30.09.04

I didn't mean to be cutting at all, merely utterly bewildered - it's such an odd thing believe one is boasting when saying, is all.

Back to juvie... If he liked Clockwork Orange, and so might enjoy some language work, how about James Kelman - How Late it Was, How Late?

The Strobe

11:31 / 30.09.04

BS Johnson, Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry. It's not too tough, but just weird enough in the way of meta-text, and very, very funny. It's very subversive, and it's about accountancy. And short-ish, too.

Alex's Grandma

00:07 / 01.10.04

I'm guessing the kid would like long, well-written, interesting material that's not too hard to get through, and also gets him away from his present circumstances, so on that basis anyway, I'd go for these five;

Storming Heaven - Jay Stevens

Watership Down - Richard Adams

The Stones - Philip Norman

Glamorama - Brett Easton Ellis

Brightness Falls - Jay McInerney

Alex's Grandma

00:49 / 01.10.04

Then again, I could be totally wrong, so otherwise:

Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas - Hunter S Thompson

Post Office - Charles Bukowski

Filth - Irvine Welsh

Confederacy Of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

The Basketball Diaries - Jim Carroll

Lord Morgue

07:55 / 01.10.04

Bob Geldof's autobio "Is That It?" is pretty good reading.
So is David Carradine's "Endless Highway", especially the bit where he goes bugfuck on peyote and trashes his neighbor's house, and when he goes after Drew Barrymore's brother with a three-sectional staff when the little shit stole a pile of pre-signed cheques to pay his dealer, and when he was arrested for bestiality in South Africa, not for shagging an aardvark or buggering a meercat or whatever, but for hugging Tina Turner.

grant

20:25 / 05.10.04

So what's he reading? What's he reading?

iconoplast

02:09 / 07.10.04

I'm waiting for his dad to give me his address. I plan on sending:

Clockwork Orange
On The Road
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
And the cheapest 'best of' of Ginsberg I can find.

It's sort of a limited selection in terms of who and when and where they were written, but I think the druggie/beat stuff is a nice hook to turn young minds from delinquncy to decadence.

Jack Vincennes

10:31 / 07.10.04

Following MacGyver's Something punchy and fast recommendation, I was going to suggest LA Confidential. But that's probably not the book to actively encourage a turn from delinquency.

grant

16:47 / 07.10.04

but I think the druggie/beat stuff is a nice hook to turn young minds from delinquncy to decadence.

Bukowski! Bukowski!

small conversation in the afternoon
with John Fante

he said, "I was working in Hollywood when Faulkner was
working in Hollywood and he was
the worst: he was too drunk to stand up at the
end of the afternoon and so I had to help him
into a taxi
day after day after day.

"but when he left Hollywood, I stayed on, and while I
didn't drink like that maybe I should have, I might have
had the guts then to follow him and get the hell out of
there."

I told him, "you write as well as
Faulkner."

"you mean that?" he asked from the hospital
bed, smiling.

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