Books that made me, feat. @bulgakovs_cat

Conor and Ethan are the inimitable constituents that make up the much loved Instagram page, @bulgakovs_cat. They are in each their own way, astute readers, making them a rewarding follow.

Conor is a 26 -year-old Irish bibliophile who recently located to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Although a reader, he is not much of a writer, nor does he aspire to be, but he enjoys, and is very adept at, expressing his thoughts on books every now and again. His curiosity has been pulling him in different directions his whole life. He is currently starting a new web and graphic design company (known as Cartenio) to get back in touch with a creative side long neglected.

Ethan is a 24-year-old Anglo-Spanish writer, currently on a sabbatical year after completing his undergraduate in French and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen. He has three poems published by the now disappeared Holon Project and self-published his first poetry collection in 2022. Since then, he has been working on his craft and honing future projects.

The book I am currently reading

Conor: Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur. Platonov first came to my attention when the owner of a second-hand bookstore that I frequented recommended I read The Foundation Pit. Each time I went I would get his take on what I was reading, which was usually followed by some of the best recommendations I’ve been given to date. Platonov holds a higher importance for me because of this, and I’m glad to say NYRB did a fantastic job with this new release. 

Ethan: I am currently reading Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano. A book that every time I open I have a little ritual to immerse myself completely, I look at the cover and say “This is a book of infinite sadness.” About rock bottom, about what alcoholism is really about, about failed dreams in a hostile land where everything seems to erupt from the depths of hell to haunt the Consul. Under the Volcano will surely stay with me forever, I often find myself rereading previous passages. It is the most sublime expression of hardship. The most meticulously written book I have encountered since Ulysses.

The book that changed my life

Conor: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. This was the book that got me back into reading, and I owe Ethan for it as he was the one who recommended I try it shortly after we both started university together. Thanks to this book, reading has become an integral part of my life. Ethan and I created the Bulgakov’s Cat page about a year after that and have been interacting with passionate readers ever since.  

Ethan: The book that changed my life was The Count of Monte Cristo. I read it at 14, at a time when I was bullied at school and had few enough friends to read an 800-page book in a week. It resonated in a very interesting way for I feel like I accompanied Dantes in every bit of his journey from imprisonment, to learning the power of knowledge (I wasn’t a reader before, but after meeting Abbe Faria in the Chateau d’If I think I also embarked in a similar journey to Edmund). I first sympathized with Edmund’s revenge but also the futility of it. I think I linked it to what I was going through at the time in a very direct and literal way, being lucky to reach its end before I was to meet mine at school, and so found a strange peace within my whole ordeal.

The book that I wish I’d written

Conor: Musil’s The Man Without Qualities. Never had I felt like I needed to write down every line of each page more than when reading this book. It completely floored me how someone can produce such an intricate and timeless outlook on a time period that is seemingly so different from the present. 

Ethan: The book I wish I’d written is the one I wish to write.

The book that changed my idea of what literature can do

Conor: This was a hard one to answer, experimental literature has always been an interest of mine so my mind drifts to things like Arno Schmidt’s Bottom’s Dream or Joyce’s Finnegans Wake but I’d have to go with Ulysses. What was achieved in that book is truly stunning and will continue to be studied long into the future. Being Irish there is a certain relatability throughout the text that makes it that much better.

Ethan: Anything by Borges. I didn’t know infinity was contained within a few pages.

The last book that made me laugh

Conor: Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Absolutely loved the book and all its absurdities. Pynchon managed to make me laugh out loud at multiple points which is much more than the usual strong exhale through the nose. 

Ethan: Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman had me in absolute stitches the entire way through, every page got me.

The book that had the most influence on me

Conor: That would have to be William Gaddis’ The Recognitions. I picked up this  book at a time in my life when I wanted to read more deeply in an effort to get more out of my reading. I was frustrated with how little I was remembering of books that I’d only finished months ago so this was a big pivot in how I approached reading in general. The scrutiny of authenticity within the novel still comes to my mind often and tends to make me think twice when exploring “new” art forms. Is anything every truly original? 

Ethan: Hard to say, every book seems to influence some aspect of my judgment or character, but if I had to pick one (or maybe two) it would be Antonio Machado’s poetry book Fields of Castile one of the most profound philosophy books written in verse. With it I learned not only what can be achieved through poetry and introspection, but it is also my one-way ticket to the feel and smell of the countryside I grew up in every time I feel homesick. 

Another honorable Spanish mention would be  The Tree of Science¹ by Pio Baroja, a mandatory reading in the last years of high-school in Spain. 

The book I think is most overrated

Conor: This will be a hot take but for me Roberto Bolaño’s 2666. There were things in each section of the book that I enjoyed with the final section being my favourite. However, I felt that there was a high level of effort needed to trudge through some sections and very little pay off in return. I read deeper, I went in search of answers to the loose ends but realised for the most part this was futile. There were no answers. Undoubtedly Bolaño is a very talented writer but I was never sucked in. I was always teattering on the periphery. There may have been a combination of times for me at the time of reading that tainted my experience but I’m not in any rush to find out. 

Ethan: Kafka on the Shore by Murakami. This may be an unpopular opinion but I found the book overtly sexist, unnecessary, empty. A simple rip off of 100 Years of Solitude. Magical realism shouldn’t be degraded to random images conjured up for no sake at all. I found Murakami to try too hard and not be the master he claims of his craft. Anyone can write that fish rained from the sky, but few people can write about a spell of amnesia that forces a community to overcome the obstacle through cooperation and creativity. Márquez 1 - Murakami 0.

The book that changed my mind

Conor: William Vollmann’s Fathers and Crows completely changed how I viewed historical fiction, with John Williams’ Augustus being close in tow. Previously, this was a genre that I tended to avoid and Vollmann was an unknown so I’m grateful to the group read that I joined at the time focusing on reading through the Seven Dreams series. Vollmann’s vivid imagination, herculean effort when researching and talent with the pen provided me with one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I had that year. 

Ethan: The Great Gatsby. I read this when I thought that every famous book in the canon had to be great. It may indeed be a great book, but I just couldn’t. I couldn't. And thereafter I started to be critical about the cannon, not everything there is either “good” or more accurately for you.

The last book that made me cry

Conor: Although I’ve never shed a tear over a book, I’ve definitely been overcome with a depression like state after finishing some books. Most recently for me that was due to Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. I really wasn’t expecting that novel to be as good as it was. The ending had me in a funk for at least a day or two. 

Ethan: I cry easy, very easy. I have shed a tear at El Prado; I cry with music; I cry, above all, with films. But as I was once telling Conor I don’t think I have cried with a book. I don’t know what it is, I may indeed have cried at some point with a book, but I don’t remember doing so at least. 

The book with the best prose

Conor: This is probably going to be the only one I can’t answer. There are far too many to choose from, narrowing it down to one would be impossible.

Ethan: I always found Virginia Woolf to have the best prose I have ever read. And yet, I found her prose too pristine, too good I think. I often struggle reading Woolf because I just read beautiful sentences and I can't see through the aesthetic into the core. It’s a weird thought.

The book that I couldn’t finish

Conor: I typically (for better or for worse) stick with a book even if I’m not entirely enjoying it. So I don’t have many DNFs under my belt. If anything, I’ll put a book on pause and pick it up a little later. I find that the only time I have not finished a book it has been due to the dread of not being able to maximise my reading. The notion that so many books are waiting and I’m spending my time on something I don’t even like. A couple years ago this was Calvino’s praised If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller. I think at the time I was being far too impatient with it, and the book is definitely designed in jest of the reader so maybe I’ll revisit it and join the Calvino enthusiasts. 

Ethan: Gravity’s Rainbow. In my defense, I was writing my dissertation at the time when I, unrealistically hopeful of my work load, started it. I was defeated not by Pynchon but by myself. It is still on the bookshelf with the bookmark on page 245.

The book I gave as a gift

Conor: Recommending books is definitely a talent. I’ve found that within a world of such variety, even knowing someone personally isn’t enough when it comes to choosing a book they might like. In such cases, I fall back to a couple of blind recommendations that everyone would be better off reading regardless of their tastes. The one that has been best received is most definitely John Williams’ Stoner. Once you have prefaced that your gift isn’t about a pot smoker, it tends to land better. 

Ethan: Book gifting is my love language. I have given most of my friends a book that I think they would enjoy, the most recurring one of these has to be The Master and Margarita.

My earliest reading memory

Conor: As a child I has very fond of Joseph Delaney’s Spook series and distinctly remember reading the first book in the series The Spook’s Apprentice and it having a faux leather cover much like a bestiary. This would also be my earliest memory of wanting to collect books as I remember wanting the rest of the series before I’d even finished the first one haha. 

Ethan: My earliest reading memory is not so much a reading one rather a listening memory. My dad always read to me, every night, he didn’t fail for years whether he got home late or was too tired he always read for an hour, I would always want to hear more and more and an hour became two or three. The earliest memory of these is him reading The Wind in the Willows.

My comfort read

Conor: Any Russian classic.

Ethan: I have mentioned it before, it is and always will be The Tree of Science by Pío Baroja. This is an odd one. It is objectively a bad book. Baroja was a medical doctor whose strengths lie not in writing but his x-ray vision of Spanish society and character. The tree of science is a bildungsroman, Andrés Hurtado studies medicine (like the author). The book follows his studies, his release into a hostile world which he tries to make sense of through early 20th century philosophers. Hurtado is for me one of the most resilient, admirable characters I have ever read. He tries, oh boy does he try. But Baroja is a cynical writer, who although clearly cherishes the character of Hurtado, who is himself, he doesn’t allow him to succeed but by letting him reach rock bottom and making a home in this deep and dark cave. It is one of my ambitions to translate this work into English, maybe even amend the terrible writing, although I am scared the terrible prose is what indeed makes this book so oddly powerful - in the opposite way of what I mentioned on Virginia Woolf. 

The last book that made my top 10

Conor: Beating a dead horse with a stick at this stage, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary but to offer more variety Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons was very close to joining my top 10 (which feels like 30 books at this stage). 

Ethan: Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry which, for me, stands controversially just a half step down from Ulysses.

1. Also translated as The Tree of Knowledge.