Hey, no problem. Ten years from now the only thing we'll be interested in reading is our Pac Man scores, so why bother? Well, if you're one of the half dozen true believers in the Western Hemisphere hepped to the sanctified joys of, like, the pursuit of real literature, there's something you oughta know. It can still be had.
You've got to be careful, though. Set a few ground rules, or before you know it, you'll be booked at the Hotel New Hampshire overlooking Gorky Park and making choices for Sophie. The following should be carved in stone: Nothing on any bestseller list anywhere is worth reading. Period. Never touch anything with (a) an embossed and/or peekaboo cover, (b) a title that sounds even vaguely like The Anthrax Hyperbola (no Syndromes, Covenants, or Manifests). Ignore any book with its own display rack. Finally, and most important, never read anything less than 700 pages long.
Yeah, we've heard it all before--Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and all those other exalted primitives who laid it out in 120 pages or less. Forget it. Ask yourself ... you looking for something to do while the coffee cools or do you want to read a book?! Anyone who needs less than 700-minimum-to say what he's gotta say isn't worth his sales tax.
This doesn't mean every fat tome's worth your attention. Shogun clocks in at 1200 plus-we wouldn't use it to wrap sushi. The key here is density, big, hulking slabs of dwarf -star-thick prose that takes as much out of the reader as it does the author. Staying power's what counts. There's no free lunch. You get out what you put in, and any writer who makes us work for our literary kicks, bucking the Book of the Month Club assembly line, is worth his weight in meaty metaphors. You want to be entertained? Watch Merv. You want some words that stick to your ribs? Sink your frontal lobes into these massive masterpieces:
1. Gravity's Rainbow-Thomas Pynchon (Viking Press). The best long read ever. Tyrone Slothrop takes on WW 11, Black Nazis, Seaman Bodine, and I Ching Feet. A monster masterpiece, denser than a dwarf star and twice as bright. Do yourself a favor: Take a year and read it.
2. The Recognitions-William Gaddis (Alfred A. Knopf hardcover; Dell paper). The grandaddy of 'em all. Written in '52 and still light years ahead of the field.
3. JR-William Gaddis (Alfred A. Knopf). Ninety-eight percent unattributed dialogue. We think it's about business and moral decay. You tell us.
4. The Flounder-Günter Grass (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). Immortal German fish witnesses rise and fall of Western Civ. Gulp. (OOP)
5. Letters-John Barth (Putnam's). Epistolary romp through American history. Postage due.
6. D'Arconville's Cat-Alexander Theroux (Doubleday). Guaranteed twenty three-syllable words per paragraph. Good use of vocabulary. (OOP)
And for you classics buffs ... anything by Dickens, most of Tolstoy, and selected works by Melville and Hawthorne.