On the prowl for new reads, I discovered a gold mine of literary insight in an unlikely place—in an art magazine. To be fair, frieze Magazine is known to be on the cutting edge of arts and culture, and I often look their way for some of the most provoking and relevant writing being published in contemporary periodicals, critical or not, “art-genre” or not. Their “Ideal Syllabus” series is, in their words, an ongoing series that “asks an artist, curator or writer to list the books that have influenced them.” Contributors include writer and academic Maria Fusco, visual artist Carol Bove, and painter Monika Baer, to name a few. Though at first expecting to see manifestos, philosophy, or other canonized essays (which indeed populate several if not many of the subjects’ lists), I perked up when I came to Tom McCarthy’s list of books—a bounty of fiction.

McCarthy, whose artistic pursuits include the spearheading of an avant-garde organization and a novel (the highly touted Remainder) and a critical study of the work of Hergé, shows a compelling appreciation for both narrative classicism and innovation, with his colorful—dare I say good humored?—sequencing of titles. Praise for Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are is sandwiched in between Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. The Adventures of Tintin made the list, as did Pynchon’s chef d’oeuvre. He hails The Sound and the Fury as the “single best novel ever written.” And although I don’t share McCarthy’s enthusiasm for all of his picks, I was absolutely inspired to investigate those that were foreign to me⎯most notably, Alain Robbe-Grillet’s The Voyeur.

You can find the article series in print and online at www.frieze.com/magazine.

by Mallory Farrugia
a writer and freelance editor living in Venice, CA