В разделе «Литература» http://house-md.net.ru/forum/22-230-2 еще в прошлом году были размещены сканы из “Oprah Magazine” о литературных предпочтениях Лори (причем с комментариями именно от первого лица) - «Hugh Laurie's Bookshelf». Но в журнале перед этим списком было небольшое предисловие от Хью. Этого предисловия я на сайте не видела, хотя были некоторые перепевы из других статей. Может быть, имеет смысл перевести всю эту небольшую статью. Если она уже, все-таки, здесь была, то удалите этот пост. Books That Made a Difference to Hugh Laurie
What good is reading without memory? Come to think of it, what good is anything without memory? A vertical slice of experience that can't be accessed on the horizontal—is it actually worth anything? Did it even happen? If you can't remember the tree falling in the forest, did it make a sound?
I worry about this because my own powers of recall are failing fast. It alarms me to think of all that I have read and how little of it has stayed with me. My current nightstand companion—an eminent author who shall remain nameless because I can't remember his name—has been with me for months. I crawl into bed and stare at the finely wrought sentences that I know I read last night, and they mean nothing. I retreat a few pages, or a few chapters, pick up the thread, re-advance to the same point, perhaps squeeze a sentence or two ahead—although how can I be sure?—and then I'm asleep. It's trench warfare, and I doubt I will be in Berlin by Christmas.
Then there are the books that shine in my memory, milestones along the horizontal course of my life. I remember not just the books themselves but the chair I sat in, the shoes I wore, the woman I loved, what song was on the charts at the time. None of which makes them good books, exactly, although all of them are—it just means that they are mine. They really happened.
Hugh Laurie's Bookshelf
The Grapes of Wrath
By John Steinbeck
Novels that set out to describe grand historical events sometimes struggle with scale: too big, and they lose the particular, the personal; too small, and they lose the immensity, the connectedness of all things. Steinbeck describes the experience of migrating "Okies" during the Depression, and makes you weep on both scales.
Moby-Dick
By Herman Melville
I believe some people have already remarked on this novel. Unflaggingly brilliant and stunningly modern. Besides learning a huge amount about whales and seafaring, you can also impress your friends with the origin of the name Starbuck.
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
By John Le Carré
There are few things quite as beautiful as a well-constructed thriller. This, the coldest of Cold War novels, describes the journey of Alec Leamas, burned-out spy, on his final mission behind the Iron Curtain. It has the symmetrical, mathematical precision of a piece of Bach, and to this day, I get all tingly thinking of the line: "And suddenly, with the terrible clarity of a man too long deceived, Leamas understood the whole ghastly trick."
Darwin's Dangerous Idea
By Daniel C. Dennett
Dennett looks at Darwin's idea of evolution in a philosophical and logical framework instead of a biological one. The book points out that if we truly wish to know what we are in the scheme of things, Darwin is the place to start. You think you can grasp the magnitude of Darwin's leap and its implications for all human life and thought. And then Dennett shows you that you're only on the ground floor of a majestic skyscraper. Beautiful.
Catch-22
By Joseph Heller
A satire on war, I suppose, but that's a pretty broad and uninteresting category by itself. Catch-22 plays with the first principles of existence: Out of a million possible examples, how about this? One soldier named Dunbar notices that time passes more slowly when you're bored; he therefore sets about cultivating a state of perfect boredom in which time will actually stop, allowing him to live forever. Except that thought itself is interesting, and so hastens his death. And so on. Breathtakingly brilliant stuff.
The Code of the Woosters
By P.G. Wodehouse
Over the years, wise men and women seem to have more or less agreed that Wodehouse is unmatched as a writer of comic fiction. This book is where my love affair with Wodehouse began.
In this tale, wealthy if intellectually negligible man-about-town Bertie Wooster and his manservant, Jeeves, retrieve a silver creamer in the shape of a cow. Doesn't sound like much, does it? But I warn you, on no account should you drink milk while reading this novel in public. (You probably shouldn't be drinking milk in public anyway.)
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зато проще для тех, кто не понимает на инглише)