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| Billie Silvey |
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| 10 Most Influential Books |
| A recent issue of Books and Culture magazine featured an editorial about influential books in the context of the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible, probably the most influential book ever written in the English language.
The editor discussed ten books that had influenced his life and writing and suggested that his readers compile their own lists. I took his challenge, and here is my list: 1. I would have to agree that the King James Version of the Bible was the most influential book in shaping both my thoughts and my style. Its cadences formed my background music—that and the rhythm of the old “snapper job press” that I ran for hours in our newspaper shop and office. The KJV was read and discussed from the pulpit, in Bible classes, at the dinner table, and in our living room. I read it straight through the first time when I was in high school. By the time I started college, I graduated to the American Standard Version, which was the text for Everett Ferguson's overview classes on the Old and New Testaments at ACC. I’m sure the KJV had an impact on my writing style, from my frequent parallelism to the rhythm of the words I choose. 2. After that would have to come Shakespeare. We read a play a year in English class all four years of high school and in our English literature overview class in college. It was followed by a semester on Shakespeare’s tragedies and another on the histories and comedies. We have owned collections, individual plays and a complete Shakespeare since my cousin Loyd Dean gave me my first little volume of Midsummer Night's Dream for high school graduation.. 3. Probably the third most influential book is the Collected Works of Lord Byron. I first encountered Byron in high school, then studied him in a college class on the Romantic Writers. I researched and wrote an unpublished book about his life and works. Too many other people had done the same, but it did get me into the Huntington Library for research. I loved Byron because of his facility with language. He could write five consecutive rhyming lines without sacrificing either brevity or sense—and even make a joke out of it. His life and works opened up the world of the Romantics, a world of stormy emotions and daring deeds for democratic principle that made my heart soar. 4. Fourth would be Hemingway. His stripped, spare style fit well with my journalistic training and seemed deliciously up-to-date after the historical works I’d spent so much time on. I read all the short stories and most of the novels, reveling in the dirt and grit of wartime and of my grandparents’ generation in Europe. The romance, daring deeds and colorful scenes and characters influenced my early attempts at fiction. 5. Fifth is Greek classical drama—Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. I studied it with Wade Ruby my first year at Pepperdine, and I’ve enjoyed it ever since--the classic balance, the characters fated for a tragic end and the introduction to classic theater. 6. Next is the English mystery writer P.D. James. I met her through the BBC productions of her books, and my family gave me most of them as presents over a period of years. In fact, the rest of my most influential books are mysteries, my favorite genre. James was notable for her ability to set a scene and use distinctive features of the landscape to give emotional life to the story. 7. Martin Cruz Smith’s bleak, cold stories of Communist Russia and Cuba and his graphic portrayal of life on a canning ship brought me back to Hemingway’s more masculine style and to the Red Menace of my 50s childhood. 8. I read a lot of Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey books, both in book and BBC movie form. The genteel British characters and settings bring a certain two-dimensional life to the '20s. 9. Walter Mosley was important both for his fast-paced style and his loving recreation of Los Angeles from the end of World War II to the Watts Riots. I was surprised and pleased to realize that we must have been neighbors when we first moved here. 10. Steven Saylor is a more recent discovery--a writer who combines history and mystery in a provocative manner, bringing the long-dead culture of ancient Rome to vibrant life. |
| July 2011 |