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 Mark
Bowden
You ask me to list the books that have changed my life,
no small task. I have been reading continually since
I was about six years old, Bible stories, fairy tales
and comic books were first, along with regular doses
of LIFE magazine, which I looked forward to every
week like a candy bar. From there it was on to books.
Here are a few of the ones that come to mind immediately:
Samurai!, by Martin Caidin and Saburo Sakai,
an account of WW2 through the eyes of Japan's leading
fighter pilot, fascinating for both its action and its
perspective on that war, which was startling and eye-opening
for a Midwestern boy raised on John Wayne and Audie
Murphy.
Hiroshima, by John Hersey, which demonstrated
the power of great reporting and simple, straightforward
writing. What is most amazing about the book is that
it is not a tract or polemic, just a shocking and eloquent
presentation of fact.
Politics and the English Language, by George
Orwell, not a book but an essay, which notes the direct
connection between clear writing and clear thinking,
and argues for the deep importance of both.
Paradise Lost, by John Milton, the epic poem,
for the inspirational richness and power of its narrative.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark
Twain, and Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding. Two
of the funniest books ever written, demonstrating how
good writing connects minds over centuries, asserting
the universality of human experience.
Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls,
by Ernest Hemingway, for the powerful clarity of their
language and stories.
As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, for the
hypnotic intensity of life imagined second by second.
Abraham Lincoln, The Prairie Years and The War Years,
by Carl Sandburg, which introduced me to this country's
most important politician and one of its best writers
and thinkers, and ignited a lifelong interest in history.
Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon, a dazzling
display of plotting and language, research and imagination,
dauntingly brilliant, profound, profane and dense, I
read it in 1973 upon graduation from college with an
English degree, and learned how little I knew.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Right
Stuff, by Tom Wolfe, which applied an eccentric
and original writing style with extraordinarily talented
reporting. Particularly The Right Stuff, which
took a subject matter that everyone assumed had been
exhaustively covered, the original seven astronauts,
and effectively told their story for the first time.
I was a young reporter when I read both of these books
and was thrilled to the core by the potential they revealed
for nonfiction. Wolfe's narrative skills, his descriptive
powers, character development, with and insight outstripped
any of the contemporary fiction I was reading, and convinced
me that nonfiction could be literature of a very high
order, perhaps the best work being done in English in
my lifetime. I was struck particularly by Wolfe's ability
to make something of the material he reported. His voice
was the central character of both books, even though
he never appears as a character in The Right Stuff.
Caught in the demands of reporting and writing for a
newspaper, Wolfe's books inspired me to look past the
hasty efforts of daily journalism and continue to inspire
me to this day.
A Fire on the Moon, by Norman Mailer, once you
get past the first 50 pages of Mailer's self obsession,
offers a virtuoso example of technical writing.
Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy, a powerful
re-examination of the frontier myth.
The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen, an account
of the author's spiritual journey into the Himalayas
and his struggle to accept the death of his wife, and
example of writing as crisp as the air at those high
altitudes.
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, by Roddy Doyle, with
its fully-realized creation of a 10-year-old boy alive
in an emotionally hazardous world illustrates for me
again the potential of writing to connect lives and
experience.
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