The best five novels that I have read so far and why. This is entirely subjective. You'll (hopefully) see that I have an eclectic taste.
(NOTE: The order does not pertain to any ranking.)
Dylan Day's Five Favourite Novels -
NUMBER 1 - The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett, 1989.
Synopsis:
A Mason with a Dream
1135 and civil war, famine and religious strife abound. With his family on the verge of starvation, mason Tom Builder dreams of the day that he can use his talents to create and build a cathedral like no other.
A Monk with a Burning Mission
Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, is resourceful, but with money scarce he knows that for his town to survive it must find a way to thrive, and so he makes the decision to build within it the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known.
A World of High Ideals and Savage Cruelty
As Tom and Philip meet so begins an epic tale of ambition, anarchy and absolute power. In a world beset by strife and enemies that would thwart their plans, they will stop at nothing to achieve their ambitions in a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother . . .
Why I Love this Novel:
At over one-thousand pages and taking three years to write, it was clearly Ken Follett's passion project. His agent was worried that it would not sell, but is has proven to be his most popular book, enchanting millions of readers since its publication in 1989 - including a twelve year old Dylan Day. Being young and curious, I found the biggest book on my father's shelf and challenged myself to read it. It took months, but it was an amazing experience.
The characters are richly drawn. The world is crafted with meticulous detail. There is action and ambition, failure and triumph, hatred and love - it truly is an Epic. My writing has forever been inspired by the freedom and depth to which Ken Follett was allowed (although reluctantly by his agents) to write. It is what I am searching for myself. Because as The Pillars of the Earth has shown, no matter how much experience an agent has, they cannot predict what readers will fall in love with.
NUMBER 2 - The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick, 1962
Synopsis:
It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war — and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.
This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake.
Why I Love this Novel:
My interpretation of the novel is slightly blurred by the Amazon TV Series, which I had watched before reading the book. However, they are very different beasts (the TV series takes the novel and expands where Philip K. Dick alluded.)
The novel isn't an easy read. It is full of complex philosophical ruminations. But as someone who loves the complicated and sometimes existential, combining that with a World War Two dystopia, and Japanese culture, I naturally fell in love.
The book weaves multiple characters seamlessly, exploring how the new world (of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany) affects them. The world is painted in intense detail and imagination. And the science fiction element (of there being a parallel world, expressed in the Grasshopper Lies Heavy - a fictional novel within the novel - and which Mr. Tagomi "sees") adds to an already intriguing premise. The novel will not give you any answers, but I don't think that's the point. It is set in an imagined, fictional universe based on one of the most haunting questions of the twentieth century 'What if the Axis had won?', and it calls for us to use our own imagination to conjure countless possibilities.
NUMBER 3 - The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger, 1951
Synopsis:
The Catcher in the Rye is the story of Holden Caulfield, a teenage boy who has been expelled from his prep school and is wandering through New York City over a few days, struggling to come to terms with the complexities of growing up and the seeming phoniness of the adult world.
Why I Love this Novel:
I only read this book recently (February, 2024), and I can see why it is a classic. I'm not usually a fan of coming-of-age novels, but The Catcher in the Rye is well-crafted; both simplistic and complex. The plot focuses on Holden Caulfield's struggles with adolescence: he has little identity, no purpose in life. Despite being written in 1951, any young man of today can relate to these themes.
The narrative voice is what makes it so memorable. Written from Caulfield's perspective, we read his thoughts in an intriguing, unique vocabulary. Only Caulfield could say phoney several hundred times (it seems.) I am usually wary of first person works because (for the most part) they all sound the same. They are the writer's words, not the character's. In The Catcher in the Rye, there really is the sense that Caulfield is real and this is his story.
I also love plots that revolve around a character going on a journey and meeting several idiosyncratic characters along the way. The play, I Found God in Vegas, that I am currently working on revolves around this premise. Caulfield, in The Catcher in the Rye, meets various characters in New York, and it creates the illusion of there being a world beyond the novel.
NUMBER 4 - Hard Times, Charles Dickens, 1854
Synopsis:
Published in 1854, the story concerns one Thomas Gradgrind, a "fanatic of the demonstrable fact," who raises his children, Tom and Louisa, in a stifling and arid atmosphere of grim practicality.
Without a moral compass to guide them, the children sink into lives of desperation and despair, played out against the grim background of Coketown, a wretched community shadowed by an industrial behemoth. Louisa falls into a loveless marriage with Josiah Bouderby, a vulgar banker, while the unscrupulous Tom, totally lacking in principle, becomes a thief who frames an innocent man for his crime. Witnessing the degradation and downfall of his children, Gradgrind realizes that his own misguided principles have ruined their lives.
Considered Dickens' harshest indictment of mid-19th-century industrial practices and their dehumanising effects, this novel offers a fascinating tapestry of Victorian life, filled with the richness of detail, brilliant characterisation, and passionate social concern that typify the novelist's finest creations.
Why I Love this Novel:
I couldn't write this entry without mentioning Charles Dickens.
As so many of Dickens' characters are, those in Hard Times are bold, memorable, hilarious, and larger-than-life. From the blusterous Mr. Bounderby who is colourfully described, to Thomas Gradgrind and his emphatic "Facts!", to Mrs. Sparsit's staircase, and Sleary's lisp - the characters in Hard Times are some of the most idiosyncratic of Dickens' works.
If Ken Follett inspires my plot writing; Charles Dickens inspires my characterisation.
I also love Hard Times because it is a proper, scathing satire, with deeply unsettling social commentary - that of Victorian Utilitarianism, the rise of Industrialisation turning the working-class into slave-drivers, and the corruption and selfishness of trade unions. Dickens leaves no institution or class unscathed. They are all illustrated to be broken.
I found Hard Times so fascinating that I wrote an essay comparing it to the Amazon TV series of The Man in the High Castle for my English A-Level Coursework. This compared the nuclear family and American Dream of Nazi America with the Utilitarian perspective of the Victorian Family. I really loved that essay, but, alas, I have no access to it now.
NUMBER 5 - American Gods, Neil Gaiman, 2001
Synopsis:
Days before his release from prison, Shadow's wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.
Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.
Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, American Gods takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what - and who - it finds there...
Why I Love this Novel:
There is a recurring theme that the books I like have colourful, larger-than-life characters. American Gods is no exception.
This is the only Neil Gaiman book that I have read (this might be blasphemy to some people!) And I hope to read more in the future. Gaiman has the power to tackle complex and - ultimately - whacky ideas whilst making them accessible. I have great interest in American History and the "mythological" conception of its Culture, and so a book exploring the "Gods" of America - the "heart" of the Land of Dreams - was always going to fascinate me.
Again, as with The Pillars of the Earth, I admire the freedom that the writer was given. This book transcends genres. It includes elements that embellish the plot and could probably have been cut, but that help the reader to immerse in the world of the novel.
Conclusion
My favourite novels have larger-than-life characters, usually complex or large plots, and they are the products of an author's creative freedom - not books constructed for the mainstream.
P.S: If you couldn't tell, I don't read contemporary works.
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