The Five Novels You Should Read

Teaching college writing has been great so far this semester.  I really enjoy it and have a good rapport with the students.  We try to make college writing as fun as possible.  Sometimes we need a break from talking about paragraph structure or topic sentences, and the students ask me questions sometimes.  One class I was asked what my favorite novel was, and I said you can’t really ask an English professor that because there are too many.  I said my favorite was Lord of the Rings, which is really three, so that didn’t count.  I changed the question a bit and made it what five novels you should read: to enjoy, to think, or to expand your horizons.  It made for an eclectic list:

Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Waiting for the Barbarians or Foe by J.M. Coetzee
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

I chose Farenheit 451 because its a dysutopian novel that doesn’t always get the credit it deserves and can be overshadowed by Brave New World or 1984.

I chose Jayber Crow because anyone worth their salt must read Wendell Berry.

I chose Pride and Prejudice because I must confess that it is a great story, it’s funny, and it’s romantic in the best way possible.  The movie versions can get sappy and gushy but the book is realistic and frustrating: just like real love.  One of my male students wrote back that he had picked up a copy and was laughing out loud as he read.

I wanted to have a post-colonial novel in the mix so I said read Coetzee, either Waiting for the Barbarians or Foe.  It might have been a safe play to go with Conrad’s Heart of Darkness here but I wanted to spice things up.

And lastly, The Great Divorce is an overshadowed C.S. Lewis novel that is quite brilliant.  It has the best qualities of the Space Trilogy in its theological allegory but shows greater literary strength in its allusions to the Divine Comedy.