Lift Up Your Hearts!

SFSignal asked of several present-day science fiction writers, "What non-sf/fantasy books would you recommend to someone whose reading was predominantly in sf/fantasy?"  I found the responses notable for two reasons:

One of the respondents was John Kessel, whom I remember from the Science Fiction Society of the University of Rochester.  (I remember him as Jack, rather than John, but that could be either a no-longer-used nickname, or my own faulty memory.  In any case I'm sure it's the same person.)  Although an avid SF fan for much of my early life, I've been away from the genre for a long time and have read none of Kessel's books, but it was a pleasure to see that he succeeded in turning an avocation into a vocation.

The most delightful response to the question, however, came from John C. Wright.  It is neither typical of the responses nor what most people would expect from a science fiction writer.  I excerpt it here for those of my readers who care very little about science fiction but a lot about book lists and good reading. 

[I]t is a common experience to come across readers, especially readers of the generation after mine, who have read science fiction and fantasy so exclusively that they do not know what it is that they are reading. For them, the book is taken out of context, and is not part of that great conversation where the books of one generation speak to the books of another. The reading of the science-fiction-only reader becomes insular, and he does not recognize what he is reading. This kind of reader is the kind who thinks the trite ideas of Kurt Vonnegut are profound, merely because he has not come across them before in mainstream books, and (more to the point) has never come across the rebuttals. With fantasy the insularity is even worse: the fantasy reader who has not read the original ancient epic poems of which modern fantasy is merely a variation or imitation runs the risk of being unduly impressed with a watered-down and modernized version of a rich and ancient literary tradition.

He may be addressing current generation science fiction/fantasy readers, but what he says about lack of understanding of context and the "great conversation" probably applies to 95% of the American public, myself included.

1. The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. These are the seminal works of which all successive Western literature merely forms a footnote. The fantastic elements, gods and monsters, curses and destinies and princes in disguise, the fall of mighty cities in the ruin of war, and all which form the backbone of modern fantasy, are present in their original forms here. These elements here serve a strong literary purpose usually absent from a tale of wonder.
2. The Aeneid of Virgil. The Roman poet and magician Virgil had a sense of history absent from blind Homer: his hero served a fate that would shape the world. It would be difficult to read about Conan of Cimmeria, Gandalf the White, Jommy Cross, Michael Valentine Smith, Paul Atriedes , or Ender Wiggins without an appreciation of the archetypical tale of a hero's journey, from the destruction of Troy, across cursed and monster-haunted seas, to the underworld and back again, through Punic love and Palatine wars.
3. Various Greek tragedies: Aeschylus: Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound; Sophocles: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone; Euripides: Hippolytus, Bacchae. These are the mighty and majestic writings of which modern fantastic literature is at best a variation on a theme, or, at worst, merely a pale imitation. One could make the argument that all science fiction follows in the footsteps of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (indeed, this is the gist of the argument made by Brian Aldiss). Frankenstein, also known as Prometheus Unbound, is a riff or reversal of Prometheus Bound. With apologies to classical scholars, I will not recommend any Greek Comedies: their influence on successive generations have been minimal.
4. The Biblical books of Genesis, Exodus, Chronicles, Kings, Psalms, Job. A reader would be grossly uninformed not recognize the overwhelming impact the Biblical writings have had, not merely on the religion of Europe, but upon the literature. The basic difference between Greek and Biblical epics can be seen in the contrast between Oedipus and Jacob, or between King David and Prince Orestes. The ancient Greek cannot escape his fate; the ancient Jew can repent and choose again. No Greek hero would have spared King Saul when finding him asleep in a cave, as David did, for example.
5. The Peloponnesian War of Thucydides. There is no point in reading or writing military SF if you do not have an idea of why battles are fought. No writer has ever been clearer on the causes of war. Merely reading Starship Troopers is not going to tell you what the military is all about.
6. Paradise Lost of Milton. The Puritan poet pre-empts the entire field of English epic poetry in this work, and he suborns the motifs and tropes of Homer and Virgil, reversing the role of heroics to display the difference between Christian and Pagan themes. The modern world view which you, dear reader, have absorbed with your mother's milk, has been influenced, like it or not, by these themes, so you might as well know whence they come.
7. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. The Modern SF tale is a variation of the traveler's tales of old, a genre that Swift expropriates for his own didactic and satiric purposes. Merely reading Stranger in a Strange Land is not going to tell you what satire is all about.
8. Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. This is the original for Asimov's Foundation, and is one of the books that founded the literature of history. At the same time, I might also recommend some of the historical novels of Alfred Duggan, such as Knight with Armor or Little Emporers. I have read far too many fantasy novels by writers whose knowledge of the Middle Ages comes from playing Dungeons and Dragons, and a little bit of realism comes in handy.
9. Plato's Timaeus and Critias. The origin of the Atlantis story. Also, the first attempt to use fiction as a vehicle for presenting a political theory.
10. Sir Thomas Moore's Utopia. All Utopian and Dystopian SF springs from this fountain. It makes for interesting reading, since what is being described is a Puritan, and not a Communist, communism.
11. Plutarch's Lives, especially : "Caesar," "Cato the Younger," "Antony," "Brutus."
12. Dante's Divine Comedy. This is what Niven and Pournelle were copying in their Inferno.
13. Tolstoy's War and Peace. Obviously.
14. Mallory's Le Mort d'Arthur. Modern fantasy should know its roots.
15. Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. Again, modern fantasy should know its roots.
16. Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It is good practice learning how to read and to write a good book. Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is the germ from which endless SFF stories of time travel, first contact, and high-tech meets low-tech derive.
17. Shakespeare's Richard II, Henry IV, The Tempest, As You Like It, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Julius Caesar and various Sonnets. If you have not read the Bard, you are a Philistine.

I cannot end the list without giving honorable mention to Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton, and Napoleon of Notting Hill by the same author. These are not science fiction, but they pass close enough that our watchmen on the boundaries can see them plain without a spyglass. Napoleon of Notting Hill, by no coincidence, takes place in the year 1984. In both these books we see some of the conventions and assumptions common to science fiction turned on their head to comical, and even philosophical, effect. (For example, the opening line of Notting Hill contains what could be a warning for science fiction writers: The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at one of the games called "Keep to-morrow dark," and which is also named "Cheat the Prophet." The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.)

The reason why it is important to have a grounding in these great books, whose fame will never pass away...is that perspective matters....The modern reader who reads modern books by authors who only read modern books runs the risk of merely accepting the assumptions of the modern age without examining or questioning them. Since we live in an age particularly addicted to narrative propaganda fastidiously divorced from reality or reason, this danger is not harmless.

An unexamined idea is not worth having! (This is an idea of mine I have always accepted without question.)