Twenty-six ways I'm making the universe a more sensible place

There's this book all the hipsters are talking about, titled 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Curiously, the list (which is available online) does not include the book in which the list appears. The meta-ness of this gives me a headache, so I try not to think about it. Actually, I try not to think much at all. Life's easier when you spend less time thinking and more time knowing. Confrontation is for the weak-minded. Self-assurance is where it's at.

So when the book hit earlier this year I dismissed it because I don't need any people telling me what's good for my brain. I am my own man. My own dog. The tree barks up me. No doubt: I do what I want.

Still, Jessa Crispin got everyone talking about the book again, and people are comparing their scores like high schoolers on SAT day, and lest you think I'm an intellectual party pooper denying you assurance of my well-grounded authority on the subject of literature, I printed up a copy of the list and did my thing. Instead of checking off the books I had read, though, I figured it would be easier to cross off the books I hadn't read. Because surely no list could be a match for my superfluous prowess, right?

Four dead markers and one sore hand later, I ran the sheets through the Cray, went to stick a couple pairs of my smarty pants in the washer, then came back just as the computer spat back the final number: 900. I've read 900 of the listed books. At the risk of being modest: I rule.

Like you were in doubt.

Then I noticed that the second zero was actually a coffee splotch. 90? I've only read 90 of the listed books? What the deuce? That's not even 10 percent! That's terrible.

At this point I could only ask myself one of two questions:

1. What am I doing with all my time?
2. Man, how totally crap is this list?

Naturally, I chose the path of truth and light. It's true: I set the list alight. With a match.

Then I set my considerable intellect to the task of theorizing a universe in which it's possible to construct such a list from which I'd read less than 10 percent of the suggested books; pretending, for a moment, that that universe is the universe in which I truly live, then, it's only possible to conclude that the list we've been given is flawed, broken, because surely I'd get past 10 percent, even in the deepest, darkest theoretical breaches of reality. With that in mind, I've set about the almost Colbertian task of fixing the list so as to better reflect the nature of our beloved Wikiality. I present the results of my studied labors below.

For those of you keeping score at home, this marks another win for me, and another loss for the forces of darkness and evil. And please, hold your applause until the final name is called.

Thirteen books that I've read that were obviously somehow accidentally (if not perversely) left off the "1,001 books" list:

1. Interstate, Stephen Dixon. Duh.


2. Europe Central, William Vollmann. Duh. Seriously, no Vollmann anywhere on the list? Who thought it was a good idea to slight the crack-smoking gun-shooting maniac? Don't worry, Papa Billy: Bloggers got your back. You keep firing, we'll keep loading. Our posts. With paeans. To you.


3. Look at Me, Jennifer Egan. Uhm, yeah. Duh.


4. The Gunslinger, Stephen King. Yeah, that's right: I'm going there.


5. Vurt, Jeff Noon. I've read it like eight times, but I'll be nice and I'll only count it once.


6. Because They Wanted To, Mary Gaitskill. Because I want to.


7. Paradise Lost, John Milton. Yeah, hello, it's only the single greatest epic poem ever written. Plus it makes Satan look totally awesome. It's like the world's first heavy metal album. Parents, keep this one locked up and away from your kids. You thought Grand Theft Auto had them acting bad? Wait until this one gets them casting themselves out of heaven. Just saying, there's no such thing as a hell-proof parachute.


8. American Gods, Neil Gaiman. It's not even that I'm a big fan of Gaiman's stuff, I mean I like him well enough and all, but what's really got me worried is his fan base, which is, to say the least, moderately hardcore. If they find out that Gaiman didn't make the list, they'll unleash some serious voodoo all up on this world, and I am so not going down with that ship.


9. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany. Sure, James Joyce invented the circular narrative. But Delany perfected it. Plus Dhalgren, unlike Joyce's little experiment in stark raving madness, is written in real English, a language spoken by 100 percent of the people who know what I'm sayin'.


10. The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier. Everybody loves candy. Mmm. Candy.


11. Aurora Leigh, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. EBB? She ain't no hollaback girl.


12. Snow, Orhan Pamuk. Say it with me, Dorothy: "There's no bell like a Nobel..."


13. The Poky Little Puppy. Because everyone's gotta crawl before they become totally awesome like me.

Thirteen books that somehow made it on the "1,001 books" list that I have not read that will have to be erased from existence to make room for the thirteen books that I have read:

1. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway. It's short. Nobody will miss it.


2. The Sea, John Banville. Maybe I'm still bitter that this guy beat Kazuo Ishiguro for the Booker last year, but come on, man, you wrote a book about water? Congratulations, big guy, that's only been done before and better by every single poet of the Romantic era. What are you going to do for a sequel? The Sea, Part II: Heavens Me, There's a Lot of Water Out There?


3. Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Sure, it was the first novel ever written, but come on, it's not like there haven't been some huge advances in novel writing technology since then. Is your computer still running Windows 3.1? No. So would you run your brain on Novel: The Beta Version? I think not.


4. Smilla's Sense of Snow, Peter Høeg. I don't like snow, and my list has only got room for one book about snow, and this one ain't it.


5. Finnegans Wake, James Joyce. Please. Not even the people who sit by themselves at the Elitist Bastards Convention can pretend they've read this one with straight faces.


6. Whatever, Michel Houellebecq. What, whatever? What? Look, pal, if you can't be bothered to come up with a title for your book, I sure as hell can't be bothered to read it. At least Banville bothered to slap a real label on his book, making it that much easier for me to decide not to read it. What. Whatever. Whatever yourself, buddy.


7. Glamorama, Bret Easton Ellis. There's three of Ellis's books on this list, and only one of Stephen King's books. What kind of happy crappy were the listmakers smoking? Anyway, I'm just evening the score.


8. If Not Now, When?, Primo Levi. Good question. How about never?


9. The Recognitions, William Gaddis. I've got enough gigantic modern novels sitting on my bookshelf, staring at me with sad puppy dog eyes, trying every moment of every day to guilt me into reading them immediately. Guess what: I don't need another one. You can talk this one up all you want, people. I'm not buying it. No way. No sir. No how.


10. Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Here's a confession: I've never read any all of any book from the 1700s section of this list. Here's another confession: I don't feel bad about that. Seriously, Restoration & 18th Century literature was crap. Let me summarize all of it for you: "Blah BLAH blah BLAH blah BLAH blah BLAH da DUM/Blah BLAH blah BLAH blah BLAH blah BLAH da PUM." Repeat ad infinitum. Congratulations, you can now ignore that entire era.


11. Mason & Dixon, Thomas Pynchon. I've read The Crying of Lot 49. I've read V. just recently. And I really do plan on reading Gravity's Rainbow sooner rather than later. Isn't that enough Pynchon for one life? Yes, in fact, that is enough Pynchon for one life. Heck, maybe even three or four lives. When I die and my undead soul returns to wander the lands of the living for an age and eternity, I'll let you know for sure.


12. Saturday, Ian McEwan. Saturday, as we all know, is the best day of the week. So why, then, did it give rise to the dullest book ever? I'm zapping this one just so I can rid myself of the memory of what portion of the book I did read. Blech.


13. Correction, Thomas Bernhard. Good idea. Corrected!