The Best Book Ever?













That was what I was asked after reading. . .

"Have you ever read a book that is soooo good it blows all the others out of the water? Last month this happened to me. Seriously every book I reviewed on my blog the year prior went down a notch in my five-star rating system."

What about you, my reader, the BEST? I thought about a bit about this, myself.

As I had learned to type by retyping The Catcher in The Rye, no matter how great another book is, this will always retain its own special dimension.

Cummings' 95 poems comes close to perfection in its category.

Recently, Victory Finlay's non-fiction, Color, introduced me to our world as if for the first time; and also The Cello Suites by Eric Siblin. Read it even if you aren't a musician.

Perhaps I will write elsewhere of music books - of the only theory/composing book to consider; about a book that Julliard wishes wasn't; and on a book that is an advanced technical study on how to play the recorder, but which remains very human.

Not the book itself, but now listening to the text and fine explanations by Jean, a brilliant friend and teacher (in his 90s and dying of cancer), as he explains the stories in a book by Aragon; by it teaching us French at his dining room table. But the book itself too; for Aragon's way of expressing himself is, among any writer's I have encountered, the most similar in thought process behind some of my own poetry. It makes me feel less lonely. And more so too, with Jean reading to us.

My most intimate facts have been learned privately with teachers, but one or a few.

Surely, I exaggerated just now. And one exception was Tides and the Pull of the Moon, where I learned the moon does not circle the earth but the moon and earth, each other; and so, apples do not fall, they and the earth merely are trying to circle each other's center; the center of the earth being so down deep, the apple appears to be falling straight towards that middle.

For sheer depth and breath, the immense Torah commentary, MeAm Loez is unrivaled, building upon Rashi, the Talmud and other tomes.

In the other direction, there is this tiny, Beatrix Potter sized book, odd as small, in translation from Japanese, The Illustrated Book of Living Things by Momoko Sakura. Just get it. Intimate recountings of her meeting various species and wonderful, amateur illustrations. (James Thurber once told his "NYer" editor that he was going to take a drawing class. The editor told him it would ruin his terrible style. Likewise, Momoko San's paintbrush is warmly naive in its own way.)

Incidentally, Ms. Potter choose her small book size for small hands, she said. Of hers, I love Ginger and Pickles, whose title characters were a cat and dog. I love it for the following quote, Edward Gorey worthy. . .

"The shop was also patronized by mice - only the mice were rather afraid of Ginger. Ginger usually requested Pickles to serve them, because he said it made his mouth water. 'I cannot bear.' said he, 'to see them going out at the door carrying their little parcels .' 'I have the same feeling about rats,' replied Pickles, 'but it would never do to eat our own customers; they would leave us and go to Tabitha Twitchit's.' 'On the contrary, they would go nowhere,' replied Ginger gloomily.

As firstborns of man get birthrights and double blessings, the same holds true for novels. Don Quixote says it all and so well that all the authors in all the lands could have stopped there. We struggle within what we believe is happening, but with grave delusions of what is, though this does not decrease the import of our quests.

(OK, "first western novel," the appellation of first novel is more accurately awarded to Lady Murasaki's pen.) I love The Tale of Gengi's beginning. But when my wife was given a choice to study that or The Pillow Book, she choose the latter, a great little work by a horrible court lady and so much more interesting. My wife chose well.

And I see no need for me or any to attempt to write "The Great American Novel." It was already written and has Atticus Finch in it and a real guest appearance of Truman Capote as a child. It is so America.

The early Peanuts books, The Hobbit, 100 Years of Solitude, Moby Dick, the first Harry Potter for it's escorting us into another, here world, flawed though its world structure is. The Dark is Rising series, maybe partly because my wife introduced it to me. The greats have been well thumbed and acolladed with good reasons.

(Well, I guess "Moby Dick" was a previous "The Great American Novel," and it could be time for a third.)

I can't imagine another book that would notch down Bilbo's tale.

And my favorite quote in any of these or between some other covers? It comes from the book on how to play the recorder. You will have to write me if you want it. It's not earth shattering, but important.

(Ohh, I just had a thought. Imagine, as a child, being tucked into the covers of your bed; and the top cover is an imprint of the cover of your favorite book. Or even now, what book would you choose?)