Dec, 2012
While searching for a book review, I came across a Guardian piece entitled 1000 books everyone must read.
Suddenly, I felt I was never going to live long enough. While I was gratified at how many books on the list that I had read, I was dismayed at how many more I hadn't. And dismayed further at how many more that should've been on the list but weren't, that I also hadn't read.
On the list is Lady Chatterley's Lover, which I first read as a precocious teenager. To an aficionado of Penthouse Forums, the book was a huge let-down. But even through the fog of disappointment, I felt the beauty of the writing, and became a lifelong D.H. Lawrence fan.
Lawrence's Sons and Lovers is, sadly, not on the list. The book contains one of my favorite Lawrence lines: "it doesn't matter whether your life is happy or not, as long as it is full". Counter-intuitively, this is an uplifting notion because while one may have little control over happiness, one does have a degree of control over life's fullness.
Suddenly, I felt I was never going to live long enough. While I was gratified at how many books on the list that I had read, I was dismayed at how many more I hadn't. And dismayed further at how many more that should've been on the list but weren't, that I also hadn't read.
On the list is Lady Chatterley's Lover, which I first read as a precocious teenager. To an aficionado of Penthouse Forums, the book was a huge let-down. But even through the fog of disappointment, I felt the beauty of the writing, and became a lifelong D.H. Lawrence fan.
Lawrence's Sons and Lovers is, sadly, not on the list. The book contains one of my favorite Lawrence lines: "it doesn't matter whether your life is happy or not, as long as it is full". Counter-intuitively, this is an uplifting notion because while one may have little control over happiness, one does have a degree of control over life's fullness.
So without taking away from any of your happiness, I wish you a full life, an eventful New Year and spare time enough to read (and re-read) all the books on that confounding list.
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