Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum!

Scanning through Daniel S. Burt’s choice of greatest novels of all time in The Novel 100, I counted more than 25 titles that I read. However, reading through his commentary on the books, I realized that I remember little of the hundreds of pages I claim to have read over the years. I recall vivid images, like blood trickling down the woman’s thigh in The Fixer, the artificially bright quarters of The Invisible Man, the dead man at the bottom of the swimming pool in The Great Gatsby, but unless I read the book more than once (which has the amazing effect of at least quadrupling my memory of its contents), I can evoke little more than select images and the general tone from most of the novels I’ve read. But I suppose my readings served a “greater purpose” in not only inspiring me to ponder the meaning of life at an early age, but for better or worse, through reading the works of a whole lot of disillusioned, cynical, twisted, and often brilliant individuals, my thought process was forever altered...Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied? (William Makespeace Thackeray in Vanity Fair).