Paul Schrader’s All-Time Favorite Novels

Paul Schrader, whose latest film, “Oh, Canada,” is based on Russell Banks’s semi-autobiographical novel “Foregone,” is no stranger to literary adaptations. In 1985, he co-wrote and directed “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters,” a film about the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima that also features dramatizations of his fiction. In 1990, he released “The Comfort of Strangers,” based on Ian McEwan’s book of the same name. Schrader’s serious reading habits stem from his strict Calvinist upbringing—he didn’t see his first movie until he was seventeen—and from his coming of intellectual age before the dawn of prestige TV, in an era when, as he put it recently, there was “an important novel that came out at least once a month that informed people would want to read.” Nowadays, Schrader tends to alternate his reading between such serious works and genre fiction—though the classics are important, too. “Every few years, you should put your toe back in the water—Dostoevsky, Austen, or Hardy—just to reënergize.” A few weeks ago, he sat down with us to talk about some of his favorite novels. His remarks have been edited and condensed.

The Pilgrim’s Progress

by John Bunyan

I was a big reader as a kid, because movies were forbidden by my church. We didn’t go to movies, and we were very late to television. We read books. They were always books on the safe side—because I went to Christian schools—but they were real books. Like Shakespeare or “The Mayor of Casterbridge”—which is a great book whether you’re ten or you’re forty.

The one I remember most, the one that really brought me in, was “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” Because of the beautiful picture of being brave in that story. The first version I read was this wonderful, illustrated version, which I still own.

But then, you know, truth be told, the best stories are still in the Bible. I remember sitting in church just reading the Old Testament stories. The preacher was doing something else, but I would just read one story after another. They are the oldest stories—Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve. We’re never going to stop telling them.

Forbidden Colors

by Yukio Mishima

If there’s one Mishima people should read, aside from the tetralogy, it’s this. It’s my favorite. This is the only one that, when I was making “Mishima,” Madam Mishima wouldn’t give me, because it’s his only overtly gay book. It has a great, great plotline. [Reading a summary from his phone] “An aging, embittered novelist”—well, there’s a good reason I would like it.

There’s a Mishima quote that I always liked, which I put in my film. It was something, like, Long ago, the average life span was twenty. Heaven must have been so beautiful then. It must be so ugly now.

Under the Volcano

by Malcolm Lowry

I’m a collector of modern firsts—these are books from about 1915, 1920 onward, as opposed to antiquarian books. I have a copy of “Revolutionary Road” inscribed by Richard Yates to the couple he based the characters in the book on, and a copy of another book given by Melville to his wife for her birthday. In my house in the country, I have a thousand books, but I don’t have that kind of space in New York, I just have my top shelf.

The ones I like most are the ones that mean most to me. Like my inscribed “Under the Volcano.” This is one of the great books. Lowry had a very tortured life—the novel is a very good biography of him, too. It’s one of these sad cases where there wasn’t enough distance between his life and his fiction.

Wise Blood

by Flannery O’Connor

This is a favorite. First of all, you have Flannery’s writing. But then there’s also the main character, Hazel Motes. Hazel is tormented—in the end, he puts his eyes out with lime and ties himself up in barbed wire, and goes out preaching. I admire all of her stuff, particularly the short stories. “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” “The Artificial Nigger”—which unfortunately is no longer a politically correct title—is a terrific story.

She made an impression on me early on. You find that, in life, those authors that punch you early, punch you for a reason. And they usually hang around. You remember the first time you read “Lolita”: wow. And then you come back to it some years later, and you say, It’s even better than I remember.