Books That Made a Difference To
Ethan Hawke
Photo: Franco Origlia/Getty Images
With the opening of his new films, Before Midnight and The Purge, we take a look back at when the actor spoke to us about the writers he's most drawn towards.
Go Tell It On The Mountain
By James Baldwin
The background: This is one of the great debut novels in American literature. It's the story of family, movement, and change, and it follows a number of Southern blacks who migrate to the North. A lot of the books that touch me have been autobiographical fiction. I was shattered by the section in the church when the narrative suddenly shifts among the characters' minds, showing how they each see the family's history differently.
Why he chose it: The great power of literature is to expand our vision. Go Tell It on the Mountain is a case in point. You feel as if Baldwin bled over this book, that this book hurt to write. It's not a memoir; it's somebody taking very real feelings and turning them into art. He writes evocatively, but you don't need to have a graduate degree to understand his books—you just need to have a heart.
Hawke's love affair with Danny Deck
Photo: Stuart Tyson/Studio D
All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers
By Larry McMurtry
Background:
Larry McMurtry wrote this novel when he was still figuring out who he was going to be. It's about a young man, Danny Deck, trying to become an author, trying to find his voice, literally and figuratively, and trying to figure out who he is as a man.
Why he chose it:
I've always related to Danny Deck. I've probably read this book more than any other. I love how it just drifts along, and its characters make me laugh.
Hawke's praise of playwright Sam Shepard's short stories
By Larry McMurtry
Background:
Larry McMurtry wrote this novel when he was still figuring out who he was going to be. It's about a young man, Danny Deck, trying to become an author, trying to find his voice, literally and figuratively, and trying to figure out who he is as a man.
Why he chose it:
I've always related to Danny Deck. I've probably read this book more than any other. I love how it just drifts along, and its characters make me laugh.
Hawke's praise of playwright Sam Shepard's short stories
Photo: Stuart Tyson/Studio D
Cruising Paradise
By Sam Shepard
Background:
Shepard gets a lot of credit for being one of the greatest playwrights of his generation, but, like Chekhov's, his short stories are just as vibrant and illuminating as his plays—sometimes more so. He writes about a part of America that lives in all our heads. It's an America you see in an old Coke bottle.
Why he chose it:
Like all great short-story writers, he cuts to the essence of the thing. Some of his stories are ten pages long, and some are two pages. They all penetrate. There's a great line in "Gary Cooper, or The Landscape": A woman asks the narrator whether he avoids highways to take the more authentic roads. And he says, "They're all authentic." That line really struck a chord with me.
"He turned his blindness into an enlightening experience"
By Sam Shepard
Background:
Shepard gets a lot of credit for being one of the greatest playwrights of his generation, but, like Chekhov's, his short stories are just as vibrant and illuminating as his plays—sometimes more so. He writes about a part of America that lives in all our heads. It's an America you see in an old Coke bottle.
Why he chose it:
Like all great short-story writers, he cuts to the essence of the thing. Some of his stories are ten pages long, and some are two pages. They all penetrate. There's a great line in "Gary Cooper, or The Landscape": A woman asks the narrator whether he avoids highways to take the more authentic roads. And he says, "They're all authentic." That line really struck a chord with me.
"He turned his blindness into an enlightening experience"
Photo: Stuart Tyson/Studio D
And There Was Light
By Jacques Lusseyran
Background:
This is a memoir written years after World War II by a man who, as a 16-year-old boy, started a Resistance group made up mainly of teenagers in Nazi-occupied Paris. That alone is incredible, but he was also blind. He was particularly valuable to the movement because he could almost always tell when people were lying. He couldn't see, but he felt "light" coming from people. I find it amazing that he turned his blindness into an enlightening experience.
Why he chose it:
A lot of people don't know about this memoir, and it gives such a unique perspective on one of the most dramatic periods of human history. Also, Lusseyran had a very clear moral compass; he risked his life for the benefit of other people.
"I don't believe in God. I believe in G-O-W"
By Jacques Lusseyran
Background:
This is a memoir written years after World War II by a man who, as a 16-year-old boy, started a Resistance group made up mainly of teenagers in Nazi-occupied Paris. That alone is incredible, but he was also blind. He was particularly valuable to the movement because he could almost always tell when people were lying. He couldn't see, but he felt "light" coming from people. I find it amazing that he turned his blindness into an enlightening experience.
Why he chose it:
A lot of people don't know about this memoir, and it gives such a unique perspective on one of the most dramatic periods of human history. Also, Lusseyran had a very clear moral compass; he risked his life for the benefit of other people.
"I don't believe in God. I believe in G-O-W"
Photo: Stuart Tyson/Studio D
The Grapes of Wrath
By John Steinbeck
This is all I have to say about The Grapes of Wrath: The girl who gave it to me said, "I don't believe in God. I believe in G-O-W. Grapes of Wrath."
Hawke gets surprised by a Melville classic
By John Steinbeck
This is all I have to say about The Grapes of Wrath: The girl who gave it to me said, "I don't believe in God. I believe in G-O-W. Grapes of Wrath."
Hawke gets surprised by a Melville classic
Photo: Stuart Tyson/Studio D
Moby-Dick
By Herman Melville
I found this novel so surprising. I thought it would be a deep, interesting tale like Anna Karenina; instead it's a giant prose poem that, paragraph by paragraph, has some of the most beautiful writing in the English language. But I won't lie; it's homework.
Hawke calls Dostoevsky a "punk rocker"
By Herman Melville
I found this novel so surprising. I thought it would be a deep, interesting tale like Anna Karenina; instead it's a giant prose poem that, paragraph by paragraph, has some of the most beautiful writing in the English language. But I won't lie; it's homework.
Hawke calls Dostoevsky a "punk rocker"
Photo: Stuart Tyson/Studio D
Notes from Underground
By Fyodor Dostoevsky
I didn't realize how alive and hysterical Dostoevsky's work is until I read this. He's a punk rocker—he just whips the carpet out from underneath society.
More Books That Made a Difference
By Fyodor Dostoevsky
I didn't realize how alive and hysterical Dostoevsky's work is until I read this. He's a punk rocker—he just whips the carpet out from underneath society.
More Books That Made a Difference
Photo: Stuart Tyson/Studio D
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