Mentor Me: Suggested Reading and Such.........

I have always loved Utopian/Dystopian literature as well as books that have their base in psychology and/or criminology. I also have a fascination with existentialism and nihilism, although, admnittedly, I don't entirely understand them.

I am probably going to read "Island" by Aldous Huxley and then "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Knowing this about my interests, what else would you suggest I absorb? I hope to read as many books (particularly "classics") that deal with society, anarchy, nihilism, psychology, philosophy, criminality, etc.

Of course, Brave New World, but you may have already read that. I got more out of it than Island. I thought it interesting that our minds rebel against a world where, as in 'Brave', everybody has a niche and crime and disease is almost non-existent. Where many saw 'Brave' as a Dystopia, I saw it as a Utopia, but not one our current collective psychology could embrace. Also try The Trial by Kafka. It's a dream-scape of bureaucracy and a court system gone awry. And rather funny if you have a dark sense of humor.

Another true classic among dystopian novels is We by Yevgeny Zamyatin ... as I recall this actually came out before 1984 and Brave New World ... it's fantastic.

Blimey ! That`s quite a range of interests.

It`s a long shot, but if you can track it down, you might like Personal Identity by C H Rolph. The author was a writer of non-fiction books and articles for progressive periodicals. Apparently, `Rolph` was a pen-name used to disguise his identity as a serving Police Officer. You might find a second-hand copy on sale online.

As for anarchy/society, I can`t help, but I know someone who can ! Try Five Leaves, a UK independent publisher. You should find their web site easily enough. Fortunately, their overseas postage rates are amazingly cheap !

As a teenager - I`m old and boring now - my interests were very like yours. I recall I was very partial to the short stories of H G Wells, and still am.

Lastly, non-fiction crime is a wide field. I personally like old-style works by , e.g.Leonard Gribble and the legendary spycatcher Lt Col Oreste Pinto - but they may not be your sort of thing.

You must read a positively delightful short story in a collection called Men and Cartoons by Jonathan Lethem. The name of the story is “Dystopianist, Thinking of His Rival, is Interrupted by a Knock on the Door”. You'll love it.

Read the other stories while you have the book. Each story is different and not about the topic(s) of which you wrote, but all are good. It's just that your topic "utopia/dystopia" reminded me of this one particular story.

newer stuff that might be of interest

Drop City by T.C. Boyle
Set this House in Order by Matt Ruff
Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey

Classic psychology

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman

I LOVED 'The Yellow Wallpaper'. I read it in school and it's still with me.

There's the new Cormac McCarthy book, The Road (not showing up in touchstones yet), about a post-apocalyptic world. Reviewed in this Sunday's New York Times Book Review. and probably much too depressing and grim for me.

A classic dystopia:

Golding's Lord of the Flies

Hi, Will.

You might want to check out the books of Colin Wilson, particularly The Outsider and The New Existentialism.

Within The Outsider there are several references to other books/authors you may also find interesting.

Not that they were my favorites, but they haven't been mentioned yet. Walden Two by B.F. Skinner and The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield.

Then there is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is you want philosophy qua philosphy.

For dystophia I would recommend King Rat by James Clavell.

a noble quest, o epopt. Criminality is the occasion of civilization - at least if you believe the bible.

These are the gospels:

J.K. Huysmans: Against the Grain
J.K. Huysmans: La-Bas
Friedrich Nietzsche: Beyong Good and Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche: The geneology of Morals
Norman O. Brown: Love's Body
Hermann Broch: The Sleepwalkers
Paul Leppin: Severin's Journey Into the Dark
Octave Mirbeau: The Torture Garden
Arthur Rimbaud: A Season In Hell
Henri Barbusse: Hell
David Madsen: The Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf
Camilo Jose Cela: The Family of Pascal Duarte
Tayeb Salih: Season of Migration to the North
Charles Baudelaire: The Flowers of Evil
Lord Rochester (John Wilmot): Complete Writings
Ivan Turgenev: Fathers and Sons
Elias Canetti: Auto-da-Fe
Robert Musil: The Man Without Qualities
Geza Roheim: Magic and Schizophrenia
The Gnostic Bible
Hans Jonas: The Gnostic Religion
Martin Heidegger: Discourse on Thinking (Gelassenheit)
Albert Camus - The Stranger
Witold Gombrowicz: Pornografia
Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory
Will Self: My Idea of Fun
Rex Warner: The Aerodrome

My favourite dystopias (but perhaps that's the wrong adjective):

Orwell's 1984

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

RE : My earlier message (number 4 in this listing) - you might be interested to know that I looked up C H Rolph on the internet.

He was indeed a serving Police Officer (after attending state school (what Americans call public school) , he worked his way up the ranks to Cheif Inspector) but was also associated with a variety of causes, including holding a position on the editorial board of the left-leaning New Statesman. No doubt he was placed under some pressure to separate his role with the police and his other interests, but he seems only to have made a token effort - his real name was Cecil Rolph Hewitt, his pen-name was Cecil Hewitt Rolph.

He wrote many books and articles, quite a few connected with criminology and/or psychology. There seem to be a few of his works for sale online, including an autobiography Two Lives, and another Believe What you Like, which may be a biography of him by someone else.

I read Lord of the Flies in 8th grade I think, and it gave me nightmares. The Disney version movie is stupid, because it negates the whole plot by having adults on the island with them, but the old B&W movie is disturbing and true to the feel of the book. This is probably my perverted side showing, but I'm kind of surprised that we haven't been hearing a bunch of people pissed off about the movie. Throughout the whole thing the kids are mostly naked, and all the younger kids (like young elementary age) are running around completely nude, and there is a bit of full frontal. Still, anyone who loves the book should check it out.

Brave New World is a great read, especially given your interests. (I know it was already mentioned before, but I just thought I should reiterate). My brothers and I have spent many an hour discussing it so if you haven't already read it-pick it up.

I, as well, recommend The Handmaid's Tale, Anthem, Alongside Night, A Clockwork Orange and Gun, with Occasional Music (one of my all time favorites, I just finished it a few months ago, Lethem is such a great writer).

I also just bought The Road and while I haven’t read it yet, I’ve read nothing but praise for it.

What about Utopian works? Anbody? There's probably a lot of science fiction that deals with the dystopian/utopian subjects pretty seriously, but I'm not strong in that area.

These aren't utopian works, but I think they are classics that could fit the rest of your bill: Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels and The Plague. The last is one of my favorite books. I bet you would really like Hunger by Knut Hamsun. I'd also recommend Battle Royale, for the anarchy/society topics and Coin Locker Babies for the psychology/criminality topics.

I liked the Ball and the Cross which is, perhaps, a little quirky and too far off the beaten path to be a "classic." The Brothers Karamazov is probably overall a better fit into your scheme (and a better book in my opinion) than Crime and Punishment. You might check out some J.G. Ballard. I'll probably think of more as soon as I "submit" this comment. Oh well. Good luck. Let us know how it goes if you care to.

Oakley Hall's Warlock

Arthur Schnitzler's Night Games

William T. Vollmann's The Rainbow Stories or Butterfly Stories

John Banville's The Book of Evidence

Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy

Carole Maso's Defiance

Pretty much anything by Philip K. Dick.

Here's Thomas Pynchon on Warlock.

Excellent list Benwaugh. I would add

Nausea - Jean Paul Sartre
The Fear and the Trembling/Sickness unto Death - Kierkegaard
Hopscotch - Julio Cortazar
Notes from the Underground/ The Brothers Karamozov - Dostoyevsky
The Hermit - Eugene Ionesco
Three Novels (Malloy, Mallone Dies, The Unnamable) - Samuel Beckett

A well-known post-apocalyptic novel that gets into high school reading lists is A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr..