My 2022 Reading

 My reading completed for 2022.

I divide my reading into classic fiction, current fiction, and nonfiction.

1. The Frozen Deep by Wilkie Collins (Classic)

2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (re-read) (Classic)

3. Rules for a Knight by Ethan Hawke (Current)

4. The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman (Current)

5. “The Mystery of Marie Roget” by Edgar Allan Poe (Classic)

6. Oscar’s Ghost: The Battle for Oscar Wilde’s Legacy by Laura Lee (Nonfiction)

7. The OCD Workbook: Your Guide to Breaking Free from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Bruce M. Hyman, PhD. and Cherry Pedrick, RN (Nonfiction)

8. “The Picture on the Wall” by H.P. Lovecraft (Classic)

9. Verity by Colleen Hoover (Current)

10. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy (Current)

11. Moby Dick by Herman Melville (Classic)

12. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (Classic)

13. “The Black Phone” by Joe Hill (Current)

14. The Trials of Oscar Wilde by H. Montgomery Hyde (Nonfiction)

15. Nightmare Abbey and Crotchet Castle by Thomas Love Peacock (Classic)

16. Ash Wednesday by Ethan Hawke (re-read) (Current)

17. You Can Begin Again by Joyce Meyer (re-read) (Nonfiction)

18. Oscar Wilde: The Great Drama of His Life, How His Tragedy Reflected His Personality by Ashley H. Robins (Nonfiction)

19. Shutter Island by Dennis Lahane (Current)

20. On Writing by Stephen King (Nonfiction)

21. The Well-Beloved and The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved by Thomas Hardy (Classic)

22. The Hollow Ones by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan (Current)

23. The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen (Current)

24. Making Oscar Wilde by Michèle Mendelssohn (Nonfiction)

25. The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan (Current)

26. Never Give Up by Joyce Meyer (Nonfiction)

27. Emma by Jane Austen (Classic)

28. The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde (re-read) (Classic)

29. The Queen of Hearts by Wilkie Collins (Classic)

30. Wilde in America: Oscar Wilde and the Invention of Modern Celebrity by David M. Friedman (Nonfiction)

31. The Motion of Puppets by Keith Donohue (Current)

32. How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster (Nonfiction)

33. Oscar Wilde: An Exquisite Life by Stephen Calloway and David Colvine (Nonfiction)

34. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (Current)

35. White Elephant by Julia Langsdorf (Current)

36. Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy (Classic)

37. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Classic)

38. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Barendt (Nonfiction)

39. The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel (re-read) and Troublemaker by Leah Remini (re-read). (Nonfiction) - both studies my sons and I finished (started prior to 2022)

40. Emotional Inheritance: a Therapist, Her Patients, and the Legacy of Trauma by Galit Atlas, PhD (Nonfiction)

41. The Black Robe by Wilkie Collins (Classic)

42. God is Real (so Is the Devil) by Karis Ens (Nonfiction)

43. Bird Box by Josh Malerman (Current)

44. The Fall by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hagan (Current)

45. The Little Friend by Donna Tartt (Current)

46. Why Argument Matters by Lee Siegel (Nonfiction)

47. Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy (Classic)

48. Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde by Thomas Wright (Nonfiction)

49. Captured by Grace: No One is Beyond the Reach of a Loving God by Dr. David Jeremiah (Nonfiction)

50. Overdue: Reckoning with the Public Library by Amanda Oliver (Nonfiction)

51. Truly Wilde: The Unsettling Story of Dolly Wilde, Oscar’s Unusual Niece by Joan Schenkar (Nonfiction)

52. Brave New World (re-read) and Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley (Classic)

53. Poor Miss Finch by Wilkie Collins (Classic)

54. The Secret History by Donna Tartt (Current)

55. “A Simple Heart” by Gustave Flaubert (Classic)

56. Rediscovering Catholicism by Matthew Kelly (Nonfiction)

57. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Current)

58. Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (Current)

59. The Mammoth Book of True Hauntings (Nonfiction)

60. Babel by R.F. Kuang (Current)

61. Mary’s Christmas by Brian E. Hoover (Current)

62. Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin (Classic)

63. The Maidens by Alex Michaelides (Current)

64. A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins (Current)

65. House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig (Current)

"Speak of the Devil" - Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin

I had promised my next post would be about the classic novel Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin. And so it is. Granted, Melmoth was not the only book I read between my last post (The Secret History) and now. I often read several books (both fiction and nonfiction) at the same time. While reading Melmoth, I also read Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House, R.F. Kuang's Babel, and finished a nonfiction book about true hauntings. You may have noticed a theme of dark academia, which is a genre that has gained my fascination (but that is another post). 

Back to Matruin's Melmoth the Wanderer. Let me begin by saying Charles Maturin was the great uncle of Oscar Wilde. My Oscar Wilde research is how I discovered this particular work, why I purchased it, and why I began the journey of reading it. I say the journey of reading it because a journey is a good way to describe the reading of this work. 

Let me begin the discussion of this journey by saying I can see how Melmoth influenced Wilde. Oscar Wilde scholars know when the playwright and author went into exile after his imprisonment, he took the alias Sebastian Melmoth (Sebastian after his favorite Catholic saint and Melmoth after his great uncle's famous novel). As I read Melmoth, I saw so many ideas that were reflected in Oscar's own life and writing. Perhaps the most striking is how similar the theme of The Picture of Dorian Gray is to Melmoth the Wanderer. As I read the words of the Wanderer, I was reminded of the dialogue of Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Like any good devil (or one influenced by such a devil) both Melmoth and Lord Henry knew how to twist truths to influence their victims (I suppose one could consider Dorian a victim of Henry, after all). At the same time, it seems both Maturin and Wilde made interesting points through these devilish characters. 

I must admit I also see some striking comparisons between Maturin's ideas in Melmoth and in the life of Oscar Wilde. I find it interesting that Oscar took the alias of Melmoth. In the novel, there is more than one Melmoth. There is Melmoth, an old and curmudgeonly miser. There is Melmoth, a curious and determined nephew. Of course, there is also Melmoth the Wanderer, the being who wanders the world looking for souls to gather for his demonic master. Why did Oscar take this name? Was it that he felt he was doomed to wander after his imprisonment? Was it that he believed worse about himself - that he had harmed others beyond their ability to heal? We know he never saw his sons again, and he did express remorse over how his circumstances affected his wife, Constance. I couldn't help but think of Oscar when I read the following quote from the Wanderer, "...I alone must sustain the penalty. If I have put forth my hand, and eaten of the fruit of the interdicted tree, am I not driven from the presence of God and the region of paradise and even sent to wander amid worlds of barrenness and curse for ever and ever?" (Maturin). I find it amazing that this book written thirty-four years before Oscar's birth, could so well describe his possible emotions. 

But Maturin seems to be an expert at understanding human emotions - human psychology. Much of what is written in Melmoth the Wanderer is Maturin's criticism of Catholicism. However, what he writes struck a chord with me. The thoughts and feelings of those affected by Maturin's ideas of cruel religion are reflective of the thoughts and feelings of those who have been affected by legalistic religion and spiritual abuse. I took so many notes over the accuracy of Maturin's analysis of the human mind - the human mind that has been abused and tortured by painful doctrine that induces guilt and frustration. 

I am often amazed at how well nineteenth-century authors understood the human mind. I think this is one of the reasons nineteenth-century literature is probably my favorite fiction. Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer is worth reading for this very understanding. At times, the novel can be somewhat drawn out or dense. However, it is a powerful work that I will be using in my own future writing.