Books That Have Gotten Better With Age

Find me a literature student whose not obsessed with this book. I’ve literally never met one. Reader, do you know how rare it is to give a book you had to read for class five stars? The Picture of Dorian Gray is my only one, and when I ended up having to read the book twice for two different classes taught by the same teacher, I gladly reread it, because it’s that good. Believe the hype. Dorian Gray, a 19th century aesthete, has his portrait painted by friend and admirer Basil Hallward. Soon realizing that his own beauty will fade while his portrait will remain young and beautiful forever, he wishes to sell his soul in order for his portrait to age while he will obtain immortality. But what he doesn’t bank on is that, while his portrait ages, it also begins to record and reflect each and every one of his sins.

Noted for its complex and realistic portrayal of homosexuality and bisexuality in an era where identifying as LGBTQ+ was illegal, Giovanni’s Room casts a wide net of characters, centered on an American man named David living in Paris who narrates his frustrations and disillusionment with men and the world around him, primarily a bartender he meets at a gay bar named Giovanni. Although the subject of occasional controversy because Baldwin, a Black gay man, wrote a novel whose cast of characters are entirely white, Giovanni’s Room only improved with age since it remains a heart-wrenching novel filled with deeply beautiful prose that still articulates the perils and contradictions of same-sex desire, as well as any kind of desire. As Baldwin himself famously put it in his final interview in 1984, the novel is “not really about homosexuality…It’s about what happens to you if you’re afraid to love anybody. Which is much more interesting than the question of homosexuality.”

While the 1961 film adaptation starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard would soon eclipse its source material in terms of popularity (much to Truman Capote’s chagrin, I’m sure), its original novella is still very much worth the read — mostly because Paramount turned what was essentially a predecessor to Will & Grace into a heterosexual romantic comedy. Although never overtly stated, it’s highly implied that the narrator of Breakfast at Tiffany’s is gay, the man who meets his new neighbor Holly Golightly and is immediately inspired to write about her. Capote based the novel off of his experience with his “swans,” rich socialite women who despite having all of their materialistic desires satisfied, were in fact sad and lonely people. The novella has aged well in that Holly Golightly’s fervor was wrestling with the anxieties of the decades to come, aided by Hepburn keeping her alive on the screen.

Zora Neale Hurston’s most beloved work is a Southern love story that centers on Janie Crawford, a fiercely independent young woman who refuses to live in the bitterness and sorrow that seems to define her existence. Through the trials and tribulations of three marriages and a life unfortunately weighed down by poverty and struggle, Janie fights for the right to enjoy her place in the world. A highly regarded novel in the canon of African American literature, Their Eyes Were Watching God earns and retains its praise over time simply for its depiction of a strong, Black female character who refuses to let a world obsessed with labels and prejudice keep her down, and it’s nothing short of inspiring.