This question is one that I loathe, and also one that I often hear; especially when people discover that I study English.
“What is your favorite book?” Someone will ask.
“Uh,” I typically start the response. Really articulate for an English major, right?
But what is my favorite book?
Out of the hundreds of books I’ve read since the inaugural See Spot Run, what would I deem my favorite? For some people, the response may be quite easy and straightforward.
“Ah, yes, that’s rather simple—Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses.” Now just imagine the person giving his response with an air of smugness. Usually, a person who states that any novel by Faulkner is his favorite is a douche, which accounts for the smugness factor.
(I had to get in my Faulkner jab.)
But anyway, back to my favorite book. I do have a prepared answer to this question. If I know that the inquisitor really wants a to-the-point reply, I say, “I would have to say Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse,” which is partially true. Yes, in my opinion, I think that Woolf truly perfected the art of prose. For example, here is the passage that made me fall in love with the novel when I first read it my senior year of high school:
There’s something terribly intimate about this passage, and something tragic. In just a handful of lines, Woolf captures the internal conflict of Mrs. Ramsay. Whenever I reread this passage, I get chills, which is rare for me, so maybe To the Lighthouse is my favorite book.
But then again, there are so many wonderful books that could usurp Woolf’s place as my stock answer favorite book. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer is a possibility. Or what about Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout? The Hours is my favorite movie (hands down), but is the novel by Michael Cunningham my favorite book? And what if I said something like Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, would I be judged because of its lack of “literary merit?” I mean Brown is great at crafting a plot, but the level of writing is, well, questionable.
So, I guess I really haven’t arrived at any definitive solution. When asked the favorite book question, I continue to roll my eyes and respond with To the Lighthouse because truthfully I haven’t discovered a book that can replace it.
“What is your favorite book?” Someone will ask.
“Uh,” I typically start the response. Really articulate for an English major, right?
But what is my favorite book?
Out of the hundreds of books I’ve read since the inaugural See Spot Run, what would I deem my favorite? For some people, the response may be quite easy and straightforward.
“Ah, yes, that’s rather simple—Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses.” Now just imagine the person giving his response with an air of smugness. Usually, a person who states that any novel by Faulkner is his favorite is a douche, which accounts for the smugness factor.
(I had to get in my Faulkner jab.)
But anyway, back to my favorite book. I do have a prepared answer to this question. If I know that the inquisitor really wants a to-the-point reply, I say, “I would have to say Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse,” which is partially true. Yes, in my opinion, I think that Woolf truly perfected the art of prose. For example, here is the passage that made me fall in love with the novel when I first read it my senior year of high school:
Only she thought life—and a little strip of time presented itself to her
eyes—her fifty years. There is was before her—life. Life she thought—but she did
not finish her thought. She took a look at life, for she had a clear sense of it
there, something real, something private, which she shared neither with her
children nor with her husband. A sort of transaction went on between them, in
which she was on one side, and life was on another, and she was always trying to
get the better of it, as it was of her. (59)
There’s something terribly intimate about this passage, and something tragic. In just a handful of lines, Woolf captures the internal conflict of Mrs. Ramsay. Whenever I reread this passage, I get chills, which is rare for me, so maybe To the Lighthouse is my favorite book.
But then again, there are so many wonderful books that could usurp Woolf’s place as my stock answer favorite book. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer is a possibility. Or what about Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout? The Hours is my favorite movie (hands down), but is the novel by Michael Cunningham my favorite book? And what if I said something like Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, would I be judged because of its lack of “literary merit?” I mean Brown is great at crafting a plot, but the level of writing is, well, questionable.
So, I guess I really haven’t arrived at any definitive solution. When asked the favorite book question, I continue to roll my eyes and respond with To the Lighthouse because truthfully I haven’t discovered a book that can replace it.
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