Jane Campion on the books to read before you die
During Jane Campion’s press conference at Locarno, the legendary New Zealand filmmaker spoke about how she undertook 1996’s The Portrait of a Lady simply because she loved Henry James—the same way, 25 years later, The Power of the Dog started from her obsession with Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel of the same name. She also shared how the Brontë sisters influenced the harsh landscapes and windswept melancholy of The Piano—so it was high time someone asked for Campion’s take on books we all need to read before we die.
“I can’t believe you asked me this,” she says, pulling a sheet of paper out of her bag, on which she had written a list in preparation for this exact question. “People often ask me, ‘What do you think would be a good book to read?’ So I’m just going to go through some of my favorites.”
“Of course, Middlemarch by George Eliot; Independent People, Halldór Laxness, an Icelandic book; War and Peace, Tolstoy—no surprise there; My Guru and His Disciple, Christopher Isherwood; Charlotte Grimshaw, a New Zealand writer—Opportunity and Singularity; As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner; The Cement Garden, Ian McEwan; Growth of the Soil, a Norwegian book by Knut Hamsun; Marilynne Robinson, Gilead and Housekeeping; I mean, I could go on, but I’ll just leave it there, shall I?”
Campion pauses for a moment, realizing she isn’t finished. “My Brilliant Friend and the whole quartet by Elena Ferrante—that was a great moment for a topic that was not being allowed in the conversation, which is female rage. Those books were amazing for that.” Consulting her list again, she ends with a final two: “The Years by Annie Ernaux; Wellbeing Begins with You—that’s Yuan Tze, who’s my Qigong teacher.” Where’s the watchlist feature for books when you need it?
