The collected short stories of Jorge Luis Borges. Particularly: "The Library of Babel", "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" and "The Immortal".
Italo Calvino's, "If on a Winter's Night a Traveller".
Melville's "Moby Dick" (I do not think this is a good book but it had a significant impact.)
Cormac McCarthy's, "Blood Meridian".
Together these works revealed a vanity in traditional intellectualism that is propped upon a facade of 19th century values which are easy to idolize. These works also made me keenly aware of the folly of of reactionary anti-intlectualism (which is easy to fall into once the shine has come off the collegiate apple). I know a lot of my contemporary peers did not need this same transition of values but I very much did.
It has become my life's philosophy to revel in the power of intellectual activity to reveal and rejoice in the beauty and complexity of life but to shun any intellectualism that will not connect itself to life in a fundamental way.
Curious why you think Moby Dick is not a good book. I thought it was going to be a long drag, but found the writing extremely enjoyable. Apart from the obvious "literary merit", reading this book feels like being at sea, isolated from the world, where life is subject to the rhythms of much more powerful forces, and you can look around and study deeply the rich detail present even in a closed system like a ship.
To those skeptical that "old books" can have aesthetic relevance even today, I highly recommend reading the first chapter or even the first paragraph:
> Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
The language is great. Melville is definitely one of those 19th century Americans who could work the run-on sentence for good. My complaints are almost purely structural. I really enjoy the begining of the book which establishes the unlikely relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg. I especially enjoyed the speech that gets the Quakers to allow the pagan Queequeg to join the voyage.
But around page 200 the book diverts for hundreds of pages to discuss historical whaling voyages, whaling implements, whale anatomy and whale processing methods. The book ramshackle bounces back into the narrative and kind of takes for granted that you'll still be invested in the characters.
I enjoyed all this content and am not at all opposed to a 19th century diversion or two. But the book just really drops the thread from Ishmael and kind of comes back in hard on Ahab.
Les Miserables has quite the diversions (80 pages or so describing the battle of Waterloo) but it returns consistently to the characters and resumes their previous connections.
I just really felt that I was introduced to a great character driven narrative then the book switched to become a technicalnmanual for several hundred pages and then jumped back in to a wow finish presuming upon the fact that my previous engagement with the characters would automatically resume.
Anyway, sorry to drag a book you clearly really enjoy.
I'm with you on Moby Dick, though I always feel guilty about that. I was loving that book, up until the whaling and "whiteness" chapters. I never got past that. Les Miserables, by contrast, I absolutely loved — even the essay-digressions. Hugo is an absolutely genius at dropping what seems at the time like the most inconsequential seed into the plot and then having it flourish into a great reveal a hundred or so pages later.
Italo Calvino's, "If on a Winter's Night a Traveller".
Melville's "Moby Dick" (I do not think this is a good book but it had a significant impact.)
Cormac McCarthy's, "Blood Meridian".
Together these works revealed a vanity in traditional intellectualism that is propped upon a facade of 19th century values which are easy to idolize. These works also made me keenly aware of the folly of of reactionary anti-intlectualism (which is easy to fall into once the shine has come off the collegiate apple). I know a lot of my contemporary peers did not need this same transition of values but I very much did.
It has become my life's philosophy to revel in the power of intellectual activity to reveal and rejoice in the beauty and complexity of life but to shun any intellectualism that will not connect itself to life in a fundamental way.