I ruminated on which novel to begin reading (in this instance, rereading) for the new year. There are, I am embarrassed to say, an ungodly amount of dusty ol’ masterpieces I have not yet touched, including both of Tolstoy’s big, hulking tomes. I promise myself each year to read them. More than one friend has told me that War and Peace constituted the greatest reading experience of their life. Likewise, I’d love to finally read The Tales of Genji, which has the prize of being a fan favorite of both Alice Notley and Jarrett Earnest.
Meanwhile, yesterday morning a little package was left at my door in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Where I live for now. It’s the Norton critical edition of The Wings of the Dove, a novel I’ve already read, but feel called to reread again. Why? For context, I think the greatest premise for any story—whether film, novel, play—is the story of people abandoned on a deserted island. Islands speak to memory, adventure, colonization, resistance, but also our dangers, terrors, and that ultimate fear. A fear greater than death or dismemberment even. Banishment. Think of all the memorable creations that the trapped-on-an-island theme has generated:
Classics—like Tempest (a Shakespeare play that makes me so angry), Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, Lord of the Flies, etc.
Films and TV shows never too far from my mind: Gilligan’s Island (a childhood favorite); Lost, which I never watched when it originally air but became obsessed with years later for how reckless and cockamamy its evolution turned out to be (it was directly inspired by Cast Away, the Tom Hanks feature from 2000, and Mist the video game, which took the Mac CD-ROM world by storm in 1993).
Personal favorites: Hart Crane’s “Voyages” and “O Carib Isle!,” poems suffused with the light and music of the Caribbean, where many of his best lyrics take their imagery and preternatural associations (Crane’s family had an estate on the Isle of Pines); Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police; many of Elizabeth Bishop’s travel poems, foremost “Crusoe in England,” one of her longest efforts and good candidate for one of the great poems of the last century.
Aside: Crane’s original published version of “O Carib Isle!” from Poetry magazine released ca. October 1927, still many years before his suicide at sea: