TITLE TK: Yep, another post about good titles–and this time I don’t even have a good title for it!

First off, I’ve been reading many author-bloggers’ theories about titling, and I haven’t yet found anything especially illuminating. Maybe there’s nothing to be said about titling, and the only way to learn what works is to ruminate on a list of beloved titles? But I’d be interested to see if you all have more articulated thoughts.

Second, God of the Machine has a good post here, although I should point out that he misreads my “in context” note on some titles. I don’t mean that these titles are great if you’ve read the work already–I think that’s a separate, third category–but rather that the titles are great once you know a basic, one-sentence statement of the plot or theme. I haven’t read several of the books whose titles I listed as great in context: Atlas Shrugged, No Exit, The October People; and I read Childhood’s End so long ago that all I remember is that it’s about First Contact. But that’s all I need to know to like the title. (Wow, I hope I’m remembering that right!) Admittedly, I did fudge a bit on A Winter’s Tale–for that title to be as great as it is, you have to not only know the very basic plot outline, but also know the line, “A sad tale’s best for winter.” So I was sloppy with my “in context” notes…. Anyway, I just say all this to point out that there are at least three categories of great titles: great before you know anything about the book; great once you know a tiny bit; great only once you’ve read it.

And finally, an anonyreader (of whom more presently) points out that she sent me THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN yesterday, and yet I claimed it as my own discovery! In my defense I must explain that Yahoo Mail only brought her email to me late this afternoon. Why? Like the Trinity, it’s a mystery.

Now, your lists! Nothing that follows is written by me, except for the little asterisks, which indicate titles I love.

GOTM gives us a Wyndham Lewis-fest:

The Apes of God (which used to be the name of my fantasy baseball team. Not that I have a thing about omniscience.)

Snooty Baronet

Malign Fiesta

Revenge for Love

* The Vulgar Streak

The Doom of Youth

Men Without Art

* The Art of Being Ruled (The last three are non-fiction, so they may not be official, but I mean, come on.)

Lewis, I note impartially, can also lay claim to possibly the worst title ever, The Jews: Are They Human? His answer, incidentally, was yes.

The Anonyreader:

* The Life You Save May Be Your Own

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

* Brave New World

Infinite Jest (stealing from Shakespeare seems to be a good strategy)

Something Wicked This Way Comes (more theft!)

The New Atlantis (Bacon and Ursula LeGuin)

* “Aubade” (Larkin, in context)

“Love Draws Us to the Things of This World”

“Love Minus Zero/No Limit” (Bob Dylan)

“The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” (ibid)

The Sound and the Fury

The Dragons of Eden (Carl Sagan)

Paradise Lost

* The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Fear and Trembling

All Quiet on the Western Front

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Le Morte D’Arthur (when you realize it’s several hundred pages and Arthur only dies at the very end)

* Stranger in a Strange Land

* The World Is Not Enough (too good for a Bond movie)

Gravity’s Rainbow

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Woman Beware Woman

“The Circus Animals’ Desertion”

Things Fall Apart (stealing from poetry in general seems to work well)

* “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed”

* “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids” (Melville)

* Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (no desire to read the book, but the title is a great rhetorical device with a Greek name I’ve forgotten)

From Don at Mixolydian Mode:

M/F

The End of the World News

Snow Crash

Titus Groan

Hexwood

Loitering with Intent

* Cold Comfort Farm

At Swim-Two-Birds

* His Monkey Wife

Morte d’Urban

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

thinks . . .

Free Live Free

Neverwhere

The Miner’s Pale Children

The Holy Thief

Not to Mention Camels

* The Pedant and the Shuffly

The Egg and I

Iron and Silk

* Fabulous Small Jews

Stormbringer

Lion Country

* The Demolished Man

The Eve of St. Venus

Lost in the Funhouse

Rogue Moon

Neuromancer

[Eve notes: Ooh, he has another post here, with titles of SF short stories, Frank Zappa songs, and Celtic tunes!]

And from Sara Asmann: Douglas Adams had a great series with : Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Life, the Universe and Everything (overly general if you ask me)

So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish