Columnist Scott Dickensheets: A shortcut through top novels list

Scott Dickensheets

Friday, July 31, 1998 | 10:35 a.m.

AS A MAN who fancies himself a man of letters, there's nothing like a good "top novels" list to make me feel really stupid. Of last week's much-discussed Modern Library Top 100, for instance, I've read exactly four. It's not that I don't want to read the Great Big Books, but hey, I'm busy. What, I ask you, is the time-pressed man of letters to do?

The answer came to me in a flash of inspiration perhaps best summed up by the phrase easy way out: Cliffs Notes! Of course! If exposure to great literature is in some way good for you, then exposure to scholarly summaries of great literature should at least be pretty OK for you. Mere hours after this revelation, I emerged from Borders Book Shop with the Cliffs Notes of four of the Modern Library's top five. My brain swelled in anticipation of all the literary goodness it was about to receive.

1. "Ulysses." It's obvious that this James Joyce novel deserved its No. 1 ranking -- at 125 pages, its Cliffs Notes is twice as long as that of the No. 2 book. "Ulysses" is the story of one day in the life of Irishman Leopold Bloom, and this pamphlet has all the hallmarks of being about serious literature: The list of characters numbers a whopping 111, including two horses, two dogs and people named Lamppost, Boody and Dilly. There are lots of allusions to Greek mythology and Irish legend. "One must never forget that 'Ulysses' is a vast symphony of symbols and recurring images," Cliffs Notes tells us needlessly. I, for one, won't ever forget.

2. "The Great Gatsby." American lit finishes a strong second with this slim F. Scott Fitzgerald book. More than simply the story of a crazy Jazz Age dreamer who thinks money can buy him love, it's the story of America itself, back in the days when money really couldn't buy you love. Like "The Great Gatsby" itself, the Cliffs Notes sparkle with 1920's ... er, sparkle: "The dinner party itself is an example of Fitzgerald's dramatic technique." Sparkly! F. Scott himself would have raised a cocktail in tribute.

3. "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." More Joyce! You can't stop this intellectual Irishman, you can only hope to contain him. This is surely the only Cliffs Notes in the top five in which a little boy is shoved into an open cesspool, but it's really about an artist seeking creative maturity. Although the Cliffs Notes doesn't say so, it's probably a vast symphony of symbols and recurring images.

4. "Lolita." Amazingly, there is no Cliffs Notes for Vlad Nabokov's classic. Fortunately, with Showtime airing the movie version beginning Saturday, who needs Cliffs Notes?

5. "Brave New World." The Cliffs Notes of Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel about a repressive future could easily describe our repressive present! For instance, this society's motto -- "Community, Identity, Stability" -- could be a Summerlin marketing pitch. Rarely has the synopsis of a great book touched me so deeply.

Cliffs Notes insist they're "in no way intended to serve as a substitute for the actual reading" of the novel, but don't believe it. I experienced much of the moral growth I'd have gained from reading the books themselves -- and in a fraction of the time! Why, already I'm noting the many ways in which life is really a vast symphony of symbols and recurring images. I can only wonder at what awaits me in the remaining 95 Cliffs Notes.