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Define “cool”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What makes a book cool?
“A Tale of Two Cities” is a classic, but I don’t think anyone would call it cool, particularly kids forced to read it in eighth grade. “The DaVinci Code” is popular, but falls way short of cool. “Ulysses” is a masterpiece, and there was a time when it was arguably cool, but that time has passed.
This reverie on cool is inspired by the new book “In the Know: The Classic Guide to Being Cultured and Cool,” by Nancy MacDonnell, an editor at style.com. It’s a slim paperback designed to give a crash course in coolness in film (“8 1/2,” “Roshamon,”), fashion designers (Halston, Dior), restaurants (nothing in Atlanta, sorry) and a bunch of other categories, including books.
“Cool is maddeningly elusive to define,” MacDonnell writes. “For purposes of this book, I’ve thought of it as cultural literacy combined with a refined aesthetic sense.” Alrighty.
Here are MacDonnell’s “Ten Books You Should Read:”
“Madame Bovary” by Flaubert.
“The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Wilde.
“The Metamorphosis” by Kafka.
“Orlando” by Woolf.
“Tender is the Night” by Fitzgerald.
“The Portable Dorothy Parker.”
“The Bell Jar” by Plath.
“In Cold Blood” by Capote.
“Lolita” by Nabokov.
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Marquez.
That’s an impressive list, but I just don’t feel the coolness, do you? If she had wanted to argue “most influential” or something, fine. But not cool.
Cool implies that a small group understands and cherishes something, but the larger group does not. Coolness is innate. Those books are worthy, but I’m hard-pressed to defend most of them as cool. Maybe Parker and Plath, and Nabokov if you get what he’s doing.
So what would a list of quintessentially cool novels look like, if we cared about true coolness over quality? How about some of these?
“Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison. Chilliest book ever.
“Walden” by Henry David Thoreau
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams
“The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger
“Naked Lunch” by William S. Burroughs
“On the Road” by Jack Kerouac
“Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert Heinlein
“Catch-22” by Joseph Heller
“Gravity’s Rainbow” by Thomas Pynchon
“Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” by Tom Robbins
I think MacDonnell’s list may be of a higher literary standard than mine, but mine is way cooler.
What do you think makes a book cool? What are some cool books you would add to the list?
Permalink | Comments (24) | Categories: News and Reviews
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By Kate
November 1, 2007 9:10 AM | Link to this
And here I thought I was sooo cool. I think I’ve read three total from both lists. I’ve read parts of alot of them.
Hitchhikers Guide was cool until it became too mainstream and everyone was answering questions with “42.”
Dave Eggers would want to be on your list, but he works too hard at being cool. [Though, on a side note, he edits a compilation of Non-Required Reading that is verra cool]
Ya gotta have a graphic novel…maybe Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. And a philosopher—kinda like Dwayne carrying a Nietzsche book around in Little Miss Sunshine. Something by Sherman Alexie, maybe the Loneranger one.
Great topic, Phil! I’ll have to get my cool on and think about this today.
By Jeff
November 1, 2007 9:34 AM | Link to this
OK, I saw the Hitchhiker’s movie. Zoe Deschanel was the bright spot (and probably why I watched it in the first place).
I’ve heard of precisely THREE of the books on the “official” list and most of the ones on your list, Phil.
Of the ones that I have any experience with, I’d rate Invisible Man and Walden as two genuinely good books. The rest, I’ve had little interest in. (Though I should probably give Hitchhiker’s more credit, as it tends to look at things in that loopy/zany way that we programmers are known for!)
Kate, I’ll nominate practically anything from Frank Miller for your graphic novels of cool. While my only interest in his work is his Dark Knight version of Batman (which I believe is the basis of the next movie -fortunately this one will continue after Batman Begins and keep much of its artistry, or so I’ve been led to believe thus far), that ALONE ranks him as pretty dang good in my book.
Phil, to your list I may add Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. While some may say that his Headless Horseman is more of a Halloween tale, I think it makes the perfect story for campfires year round, and that makes it ULTRA-“cool” in my book.
By Phil Kloer
November 1, 2007 10:23 AM | Link to this
Well, if it’s any consolation, I havent even read all the books on my cool list. I tried “Gravity’s Rainbow” and Kerouac and for different reasons didn’t make it very far in either.
(Rainbow = too much work. Kerouac = too dumb.)
Point well taken Kate on Dave Eggers. I think his first book should be on the Cool List. And have you read “What is the What?” Not cool in this sense, but worth your time.
Same with graphic novels, which are not my area of expertise. But “Watchmen” by Alan Moore should be there.
And Jeff, I am with with you on Zoe Deschanel. But this is a book blog, and I’m not gonna get started down that road!
By FCM
November 1, 2007 10:31 AM | Link to this
Well I have it on good authority I am not ‘cool’ (don’t you hate when your parents and your children agree?) However, since I consider the source, and ‘cool’ is really in eyes of the group…..
By dc
November 1, 2007 12:17 PM | Link to this
Ditto on “A Wrinkle in Time” - timeless for any age
By dc
November 1, 2007 12:17 PM | Link to this
Ditto on “A Wrinkle in Time” - a classic for any age
By Jason
November 1, 2007 12:32 PM | Link to this
The Catcher in the Rye in middle school, Beat writers in high school, Bukowski in college, Pynchon in your mid-twenties. Then you realize what a massive hipster assbag you are, take off your ironic glasses, and stab yourself in the eye with a pencil.
By Maria
November 1, 2007 12:53 PM | Link to this
Cheers, Jason.
Jason’s comment, revised for those of the female persuasion:
J.D. Salinger in middle school. (Oh, that Glass family.)
The Poetic Suicidal Triumvirate of Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, and Anne Sexton in high school. Woe.
Joan Didion in college. (Actually, I still love her. But at least I’ve quit trying to recite “Goodbye To All That.”)
A variety of Brooklyn-based literary Jonathans and Davids, with a side of Miranda July, in your early to mid-20s.
… And then, if you’re me, you regress completely and start reading picture books again.
By Kate
November 1, 2007 12:54 PM | Link to this
Bukowski!!! I forgot about Bukowski! Thanks, Jason. He definitely has that Hunter Thompson fear and loathing thing goin’ on. Oh, yeah, and how about Hunter Thomspson?
Phil—I haven’t read What is the What, but I thought Eggers’ Staggering Work was excellent and worthy of the cool list. Now if he would just stop the posturing!! And, yeah, it makes me feel better that you did not read everything on your own list. I won’t mention what this says about your cool quotient :)
Jeff—I’m oh so proud of you for including a graphic novel. I think we should celebrate by putting a copy in the school library, don’cha think?
Re: the ironic glasses (heh), I am donning them once again…this time with 1.75 magnifiers. Librarian Chic.
By Phil Kloer
November 1, 2007 1:14 PM | Link to this
Jason and Maria: Dang, you guys are so good I ought to just resign and turn the blog over to you!
I think there’s a whole ‘nother topic here, books that rock your world at one age, and then leave you cold when re-read later. I touched on this with the “going through an Ayn Rand phase” blog, and I had a similar experience with “Catcher in the Rye.” When my then-teenaged daughter got into it, I picked up my extremely worn paperback and started to re-read it. I totally got what Salinger was doing, but it just didn’t speak to me any more.
As for Hunter Thompson, I think “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” definitely deserves to be on there, even though I was thinking of novels. Who will ever really know how much of “Vegas” was true and how much invented?
What about FCM’s comment? Is “Harry Potter” cool, even though it’s popular?
By Jeff
November 1, 2007 1:16 PM | Link to this
Kate:
Just be glad Miller did Dark Knight and that the current Batman movie series gets its tone from that work. Otherwise, I truly would have no use for graphic novels.
(I’ve personally always favored the more tortured Bruce Wayne/ Batman saga rather than the simple kick-bad-guy’s-tail tales ala Superman. Easier to identify with someone who STRUGGLES to do the right thing!)
By Maria
November 1, 2007 1:53 PM | Link to this
Harry Potter. Modern classic? Yes. Good fun for all ages? Yes. Cool? No. People who don’t read books read Harry Potter.
I think it’s funny when adults still act sheepish and shamed when admitting they like Harry Potter. There’s nothing taboo about it. For one thing, books 4 - 7 are on a much higher reading level than James Patterson’s fiction, and yet, in most of the American adult world, it’s considered acceptable to be seen reading one of his books.
That said, there’s a tangible coolness factor among children’s and young adult books, too. Junie B. Jones? Not cool. Mo Willems’s Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus!, however, is very cool. Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance trilogy has gotten way too much attention and scorn to be cool. But Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy? Definitely cool.
By Lily Toad
November 1, 2007 2:16 PM | Link to this
I guess I’m a total book nerd, because I’ve read 7 on the top list, and 8 of the books on Phil’s list. I’d add to the cool list:
John Irving, “The World According to Garp”; Susanna Clarke, “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell”; Jeffery Eugenides, “Middlesex”; John Steinbeck, “East of Eden”; Alison Bechdel, “Fun Home” (graphic novel); Sena Jeter Naslund, “Ahab’s Wife”; Truman Capote, “In Cold Blood”; Thomas Wolfe, “Look Homeward, Angel”; and John Barth, “Lost in the Funhouse.”
By Jason
November 1, 2007 2:17 PM | Link to this
Most likely to be named as the idol of the bookish, yet impossibly good looking, teen movie character (who invariably wants to go to Brown): Kurt Vonnegut
By kat
November 1, 2007 2:21 PM | Link to this
Mo Willems is the coolest of the cool when it comes to picture books. How he can convey that much emotion with just line drawings is astonishing to me. Come to think of it, the authors (both adult and children’s) I love are those who can tell a multilayered, emotionally rich story with a minimum of words. Authors like that don’t waste words so I know they’ll never waste my time. So I guess you could say I think mimimalism is very cool in literature.
By Phil Kloer
November 1, 2007 2:22 PM | Link to this
Heck, Lily, I’ve only read 8 of the books on my list.
Jason: As for Vonnegut as idol, I met Vonnegut several years ago. He wasn’t my idol, but I was kinda psyched. Lets just say he was a disappointment in person on the night in question, and not speak further ill of the dead.
By FCM
November 1, 2007 4:19 PM | Link to this
OK so if I get Jason/Kate ‘cool’ = intellectually superior? Yet if you take a poll of the average Joe—not a bookaholic like most of those on the blog—would it be the same?
when you think of things that are cool what do you come up with? Me: Fine wine, Harley, the birth of a child, Silver and Gold Anniversaries, chocolate ice cream shared under the covers, Cpt Jack Sparrow,…..Can you feel me?
The question was to define ‘cool’…to me that would include modern classics…..My top ten intellectually inspiring books would be much different then what I listed as ‘cool’
By Phil Kloer
November 1, 2007 5:43 PM | Link to this
FCM: Cool is a ridiculously elastic word, which is why it prompts a lot of commenting. Long ago, cool meant something out of the mainstream. It morphed over the years to mean “popular” to many, i.e., oh, she’s one of the cool girls.
I would say that the birth of a child, a wedding anniversary and chocolate ice cream, all of which I have experienced, are among the greatest things that this world can offer. And if that makes them cool, I can live with that. Now I just have to convince my Well-Read Wife to let me have a Harley!
By Kate
November 1, 2007 6:01 PM | Link to this
Oh no, I’ve been a book snob. I’m a beer snob as well. Beyond that I have no airs.
FCM~I had to look up your Lennie metaphor. I love that book!
Cool things—Sinking a jumper from the top of the key (or maybe that’s sweeeet), being passionate about something whether it is making your own wine, or researching your family history, whatevah. Volunteering and not bragging about it. Clove cigarettes (not really, but my husband thinks so), Tommy Lee Jones.
By margaret
November 1, 2007 8:06 PM | Link to this
I would put Italio Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, Pynchon, Jean Toomer’s Cane, Marcus’s Zusak’s The Book Thief, Robert Penn Warren’s All The King’s Men… etc etc. There’s a lot of cool books.
To me cool doesn’t automatically mean a book you want to read, but one whose title is a genuine conversation starter.
By FCM
November 2, 2007 9:06 AM | Link to this
Phil, I would agree with that the cool is “ridiculously elastic word” that was why I asked if I understood Jason and Kate’s definition of the word.
Kate, I have no issues with snobs in some ways…I mean if you look down on someone because they read a particular author that is ‘beneath’ you, you may not find that they have read quite a bit that you have too.
That, for me, is one of the reason I like this blog. There are soooooo many books and not nearly enough time, so it is interesting to learn, and occasionally get tuned into a new author!
By Kate
November 2, 2007 11:00 AM | Link to this
FCM—I’ve never considered your reading choices beneath me. I feel terrible that I made you feel that way! Sorry!
Lily—Fun Home is the most ‘literary’ graphic novel out there, I believe. It was a great read, but I didn’t track down all her high falutin’ references. Flaubert?
By FCM
November 2, 2007 1:26 PM | Link to this
Kate—-noooooo, I did not feel that way….you said you were a book snob and I was saying that is ‘cool’ (yet another varient of the word). I only take issue when I see people (not you specifically) who snub…..I am secure enough in being FCM to read what I like. ;o)
It’s all good
By LorilieLee
November 8, 2007 7:30 AM | Link to this
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