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Anne E.:
I made a similar
list of "great reading experiences" to a Norwegian newsgroup a couple
of years ago. These were mostly all "storytelling" books - I guess that's
what I tend to prefer. If I cut out the ones that have already been mentioned
(Tolkien, Le Guin, Keri Hulme) and a few of the Norwegian books which
I don't think have been translated, I get:
- "Lillelord"
by Johan Borgen
A chilling and vivid portrait of a young boy of good family growing
up in Oslo around 1900, an impeccably behaved small gentleman, adult
for his years, with a scary dark side and a charm with which he manipulates
his family and surroundings. First part in a trilogy which by many is
considered Borgen's main work.
- "A Scanner
Darkly" by Philip K. Dick
- "Sandman"
by Neil Gaiman
- "Lord
of the Flies"
by William Golding
- "Growth
of the Soil" by Knut Hamsun
Hamsun was awarded the Nobel Prize after publishing this book, which
is a celebration of the old-fashioned, hard-working people which he
saw as the "backbone" of Norway. Many attacks and much ridiculing of
modern city societies and all other things modern. I hardly agree with
any of Hamsun's viewpoints as they come across in this book, but I love
it for the way it is written, for the warmth with which he describes
his characters - something he does not always do in his other books
- and for his characteristic wit, which hopefully comes across to some
degree in translation, too.
- "Angela's
Ashes"
by Frank McCourt
About the author's childhood growing up in horrible poverty in Limerick,
Ireland. The funniest sad book, or saddest funny book, I have read in
a long time.
- "The Egyptian"
by Mika Waltari
Tells the story of Sinuhe, "He who is alone," a royal physician who
sees great changes as he lives through one of the most turbulent periods
in Egyptian history, the reign and fall of the pharaoh Akhnaton.
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