5 Thought-provoking books that won’t leave your mind for ages

MF editorial team 03 May 2016

1/5
High-Rise by JG Ballard
Despite being published over 40 years ago, JG Ballard’s High-Rise still rings true today with its provocatively arresting vision of how modern urbanity can warp society and the human psyche in frightful ways. Set in an apartment building offering all the services needed by its residents (schools, fully-stocked supermarkets, gyms, and restaurants), High-Rise depicts our innate inclination for convenience, privacy, and favouritism.
As the residents grow comfortable in their self-contained vertical city, they retreat from the outside world and begin acting out their basest impulses, ultimately abandoning all social restraints as they descend into a tribal orgy of violence, savagery, and indulgence. As Ballard argues: “People aren’t moving into gated communities simply to avoid muggers and housebreakers, they’re moving into gated communities to get away from other people.” With a growing trend of ‘poor doors’ in major cities and the rising number of integrated developments being built, High-Rise makes you question the direction modern architecture is taking in catering to our growing desire for convenience and seclusion.
2/5
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
In Oryx and Crake, Atwood illustrates a compelling vision of the future in which genetic engineering solves majority of the problems humans face. Being a post-apocalyptic novel however, this results in an all-too-expected downfall of society, and we’re left to follow the main character as he searches for answers. Split across two timelines, the novel is a fascinating read, with past and present mingled together as tenses change mid-paragraph.
In the novel’s pre-apocalyptic world, the potential economic impact of genetic engineering supersedes any moral qualms, raising a number of philosophical questions on the morality of synthetic vs. natural evolution and the definition of a ‘perfect human’. What particularly stands out in Oryx and Crake however, is the all-too-familiar theme of spectacle. Almost anything, from live executions and suicides to animal killings and grotesque pornography can be freely watched online. This idea of instant gratification and complete lack of moral boundaries eerily reflects the consumer-driven direction modern media is taking and its possible impact on what we grow to perceive as acceptable viewing.
3/5
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
The debut novel of Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice won an impressive number of awards when it came out, including the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke award and Hugo Award for Best Novel, and for good reason. The novel follows Breq, the only remaining fragment of a starship controlled by a colossal sentient AI, as she aims to find out what caused the ships destruction. Yes, you read that correctly, she was formerly a spaceship.
While the novel deals with classic sci-fi themes of slavery and questionable means justifying questionable ends, what makes Ancillary Justice particularly interesting is the absence of gender in the universe's Radch society, and thus the lack of gendered pronouns in their language. Leckie conveys this by using female personal pronouns for each character that Breq (a Radchaai herself) encounters. As such, you’re left to either decide for yourself which gender a character might be, or attempt to abandon genders altogether. Either way, it makes you examine how you perceive gender as you struggle to complete your mental picture of the characters.
4/5
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Essentially a story of what happens to the Armageddon when an absent-minded Satanic nun misplaces the newly born Antichrist, Good Omens is perhaps not the best read for the deeply religious. For those a bit more open, however, its harmlessly irreverent humour and cynical commentary on pop culture and traffic wardens ticks all the boxes. Good literary satire that doesn’t border on mimicry is relatively hard to come across, but Good Omens manages to steer clear of cheap comedy in favour of a more subtle and mature approach.
Being of a theological nature, the novel deals with the classic theme of good vs. evil. But rather than taking the biblical black-and-white approach, it makes you examine your preconceptions of what actually makes good good and what makes evil evil. As you follow the two main characters (an angel and a demon, both equally unenthusiastic about the coming end times), you consider the role of free will and consequence in good versus evil, and how one's moral lines can be blurred when there is a job to do.
5/5
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Like most Murakami novels, describing Kafka on the Shore is no simple task. It weaves together the stories of two characters in pursuit of themselves: the 15-year-old Kafka and his series of misadventures as he embarks on a quest to find his mother and sister, and the story of Nakata, an elderly man, who due to his ability to talk to cats, has found part-time work tracking down lost felines.
Though the novel deals with the typical Murakami themes of magical realism, sexuality, the pursuit for one's self, cats, and music, it's the beautifully constructed passages themselves that are the most thought-provoking. Murakami has this wonderful knack of giving life to the most bizarre feelings that would otherwise be left unexplained. Even everyday mundane tasks are described in such a poetic way that it makes you wonder if you’ve really been experiencing them to the fullest. Reading Kafka on the Shore is a truly surreal experience. Murakami’s effortless blending of bizarre fantasy and stark reality constantly leaves you wondering whether the character is actually experiencing the supernatural, or if it’s a beautiful metaphor for loss, love, or desire.

It’s not easy finding a book that will leave you thinking about it for days afterwards – here are a few that might.

Sitting down with a great book and being whisked away to another world is great in and of itself, but finding a book that stays with you long after you turn the last page is truly rewarding. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a story that significantly changes your life, but it’s always a wonderful feeling to come away from a book with a new way of thinking about something, or even having a perspective on something you’ve not yet considered.

Yes, you could turn to the massive slew of self-help and motivational books out there that aim to elicit such emotions, but there’s something so much more rewarding about finding a story that, whether it was the author’s intention or not, teaches you something. And hey, if you don’t get anything life-changing out of it, at least it’s a good novel!

Here are 5 books that managed to change our perspective and stayed with us long after the last page.

James Wooldridge

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