Clash of the... sequential displays of information

Haruki Murakami: if you have read one of his books, you will understand the cat

Lists. The internet enjoys lists. The editor in me throws up a red light: 'the internet' is an inanimate repository; it cannot enjoy anything, much less walk, talk or create memes. It's shorthand, you pedant - the author is dead, the reader has gone AWOL and the medium itself is becoming AI, apparently. Bulb in red light broken, there are lists of troll names, swimming pool shapes and someone's favourite malls in Bangalore. Lists are content developers' way of filling space and users' way of sharing of themselves without having to worry about grammar or spelling.

My point (not the Point): please read to the bottom before you judge. You, discreetly coughing into hand ... before you judge which of the above this post is. I prefer you AWOL.

My favourite books
1. People's Act of Love, James Meek
2. Seizure of Power, Czeslaw Milosz
3. Possession, AS Byatt
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

My favourite authors
1. AS Byatt
2. Hilary Mantel
3. Truman Capote
4. Haruki Murakami
5. Virginia Woolf
[Reserve]Peter Hoeg

AS Byatt, with The Children's Book

Both lists are in order of 'favourite'. If I were better at HTML, I would put the list in two columns so you could compare easily (the reader is lazy and AWOL). Then I would also have to do fancy footwork to make sure the columns hold, like pottery - and who has time for that? The only point that correlates is 4, Murakami. The only other author on both lists is AS Byatt. If you had asked me the same question three years ago, only Byatt, Rushdie and Woolf would recur.

Interestingly (to me at least), I read People's Act of Love many years ago, but for all those years, I was terrified of it. I vowed never to lend it out or recommend it. Upon which, I promptly lent it out. Luckily the person never finished it. So it's a late addition, based on a friend's willingness to dive into the abyss with me and reread it. See the many, surprisingly popular posts, bottom right. Not now!

The obvious point is that tastes change. Also (does this really need to be said?) experiences along the way help change said tastes. I think I would have hated Murakami five years ago (with the same passion I hate Michel Hollebeque and Aryan Kaganoff. No, actually, not possible, but a lot).

Czeslaw Milosz

My favourite authors are richly symbolic. Even The Seizure of Power, which is a political and historical novel, about the presence of Russian soldiers in Poland after the First World War. (Regular readers may remember the main character is me - he verbalises the things I cannot, precisely as I would if I could!) Byatt, Murakami and Rushdie... Enough said. This symbolism extends wonderful, core-gripping themes throughout the novels, but makes the novel accessible (to those who don't understand the illuminatingly empty terms such as trope, palimpsest and simulacrum).

They meet (and define) my criteria for good literature - my good, not literary good - who has time for that? Every one of these books is 'contained' - the only loose ends are the ones that trail from the symbols. They are not 'and-they-all-live-happily-ever-after' novels (although the Murakami could be classed as a happy ending; I found it distressing, which is good evidence it was happy). There are no weddings, only funerals - in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, there are only funerals.

Truman Capote, being suitably dramatic

Reading down the lists to flesh out the Point (no, no, keep reading, I know exactly where we're going. Exactly. Exactly.) I want to add notes on why I favourite these books, when I read them, the context in which I read them, how they settled afterwards and why you should favourite them too. But who has time for that? (Except on Goodreads. There's a link up to your left. Finish reading first!)

I just realised, I have ignored non-fiction. I don't often read non-fiction, but there were a few goodies in the pile of boredom - I can't think of a replacement description. I won't list them, because I don't have enough titles and because (don't swear at me! It's unlady/gentleman-like) it's not rankable (stop! I warned you). I live a life of fiction - I mean, imagination - I mean, in my own head - these all sound like committable offences. Ok, fine, I'll list them. (See what I did there? I snuck in a third list and you're complicit.)

• The Emperor of Scent, Chandler Burr
• The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Frederik Engels
• The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks
• How Proust can Change your Life, Alain de Botton

This paragraph and the next contains sharing but has no link with the previous or next, so you can skip it. Each of these books traces my often frantic attempts to deal with a condition that hadn't been diagnosed yet. Only one dates after my diagnosis (not by me, myself, because this dreamer could think of something way more interesting) and I haven't listed the book, but another by the same author. Why? Because although it made me feel I am not alone, in the real world I am.

Virginia Woolf

The remaining titles were straws to clutch, taught me strategies I could use, even if not entirely healthy ones. They worked at the time. Unfortunately none of these strategies included becoming an olfactory genius and luckily I didn't find myself a soapbox (although read Trotsky too and you will be tempted to teach the Occupy-ers a thing or two about revolution). Done. You can bin the tissues.

Like those all those needy writers before me, the ones I snubbed in the introduction, who really cannot spell or construct a sentence or even use a comma correctly, while I can, I wanted to understand more about Now Self, thinking I knew my Old Self. (I also wanted you to know, because I could have just written this in my journal.) Now I realise I can't know either, because both selves are rolling around, picking up moss (har!) and insects and dirt, and getting chipped and incised as they do. (I'm assuming this is a forest, because of, you know, the moss and dirt, and because I live I life of fiction and forests are the home of myth.)

The assumptions I am making are ones I knew before. I have become more political - no, more revolutionary. Or, more appropriately, I have been able to verbalise my refusal to accept things the way they are. (Just because there are homeless people at intersections, doesn't mean they must or should be there, or that we know their stories. How can a democratic nation, that vows to accept all lifestyles, within reason, not accept or even find out the potential of a people that blanket the nation?! Rant to be continued, when you least expect it.)

Hilary Mantel

After all this, I am going to confess, they are the books I wish I had written. Except the non-fiction. If I ever do that, it's an attempt to win the Nobel. Keep your friends close... and... you know the rest. (A 'no' and 'yes' volleyball game is being staged in my mind. Ok, I concede, the answer is the net, not the teams. Which, yes, is a foul.) Enough about this!

Do you forgive me for my lists? They were useful, no? I found them useful. In consolidating the things I knew about myself. At least, this was an interesting post to write. Again, I found it interesting. I do wonder though, about the nature of posting these lists on the internet. Have I shared too much? To a faceless audience (by which I don't mean robots). This is a blog and not a formal forum. And I own this piece of land (no, Blogger lets me use it gratis. But I haven't been evicted for excessive... sharing yet).

Peter Hoeg

There are some fairly ridiculous things being posted about the growth of the internet in the long-term (seriously, has anyone even looked at a typical growth chart since they were in Grade 10, or even then?). Apparently, we're going to wear clothes made of laser sensors, and have catalogues of every damn thing, down to swimming pools and our own daily movements (exciting, huh?). I'm not worried though, about future AI ... AIers .... reading my 'sensitive' information. Unless they develop the skills of reading metaphor and sarcasm.

Best start reading these books before the robots use them to refuel themselves (oil ran out yonks ago and I'm suspicious of more things running on air and electricity). If you're reading this and I'm already deceased (and you're wearing clothes made of lasers (haha sorry for you)), hide copies of these books quickly. You'll thank me.