Jane Dark of Evensong Martini Club points to, and responds to, the best meme ever: if you were going to a literary speed dating evening, what three books would you bring?
It's the sort of question that immediately provokes second-guessing, because one has to think carefully about the the impression one's books make. Will my Renaissance-era favorite authors make me look way too academic? If I show up with Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red, fond as I am of that book, will everyone assume I'm ripping off the idea from "The L Word"? And so on.
And there's the question of how familiar the books are, as well. If books are a common language, then bringing books nobody's heard of would be like trying to converse in Latin.* And bringing books everyone has a copy of would be like limiting the conversation to extremely well-worn catchphrases. I'm suddenly reminded of how LibraryThing calculates the relative obscurity of people's collections. (I feel another LibraryThing post coming on! Maybe later.) On the other hand, unfamiliar books are good for starting conversation, wouldn't you say?
So here's my provisional list: Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges; Shadow Train by John Ashbery; and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.** I tag anyone and everyone, but especially Bane, Cleis, the dynamic duo of About Last Night, and Clancy.
* Actually, I would date someone who could converse in Latin. Though I know from having tried it that forming complete Latin sentences on the fly is well-nigh impossible, so we would have to switch to English after exhausting our stock of dialogue from Latin for All Occasions.
** Is it cheating to post runners-up? Probably. But I also considered The Faber Book of Opera, A. S. Byatt's Possession, and Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities.
It's really a pity about "The L Word," which I loathe, and Anne Carson, whose work I adore. And given your, ahem, "target audience," they're likely to get the "L Word" reference and wonder if you're a poseur. Alas.
I'm game. Let me give this some thought.
Posted by: Cleis | February 07, 2006 at 09:28 PM
I love the second-guessing angle, so: Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, for its relationship to the reader (and that wonderful poem), though it is, yes, such a male-sounding book; Lydia Davis, The End of the Story, for its charm and complexity (and maybe even its oh-dear-is-s/he-really-that-freaky frisson); Richard Powers, The Gold Bug Variations. Runner-up: something overheated by Carole Maso. And, yes, another Anne Carson fan here.
Posted by: Mike | February 07, 2006 at 11:08 PM
I did it; did you see?
Posted by: Clancy | February 11, 2006 at 08:45 PM
Yes, and I love your "people I'd back away from" list!
Posted by: Amanda | February 12, 2006 at 12:13 PM
Ha! I hope you'll come up with some of those too. I have a feeling that yours would be especially funny.
Posted by: Clancy | February 12, 2006 at 02:58 PM
I have not yet read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell; I am really looking forward to it, someday.
Posted by: Jane Dark | February 13, 2006 at 12:30 AM
jonathan strange.. i just love that book by susanna clarke :)..
Posted by: guile | February 14, 2006 at 10:15 PM