Peter Whiffle by Carl Van Vechten

Frugal yet voracious readers will scour books and magazines for any hint of a Books to Read list so they can add it to their ever revolving que.  Such readers may want a Kindle, but books are all $10 on a Kindle and free at the library. Kindlelessness aside, I  found Peter Whiffle (book) by Carl Van Vechten (author) in one such recommended list somewhere within the last 3 years. I therefore thought it would be a typically enjoyable read.  Not so.  It was to be so entertaining I reread parts of it which I never do, and have found myself thinking of it often since.

There are schools of thought, ways of looking at life, etc. Karl Marx has Marxism. Ayn Rand has Objectivism.  Karl Van Vechten, surely then should have some -ism associated with his work Peter Whiffle, but upon a terse search I came up with nothing from the internet. Except Gay Writers. Which doesn't exactly help to categorize him, but perhaps he transcends categorization. Vechtenism is the belief in the power of the individual. Not as a means to anything, but as a reason to exist as an individual, living the life one desires to live. His story of Peter documents Peter from a younger man who dressed fastidiously, living paycheck to paycheck in consequence, to a middle aged man flush with a large inheritance but living in rags and consorting with the lowest wretches in NYC. Peter does not ask anything from anyone except to live life as he wants to. He travels, falls in and out of love, and always, the point is to satisfy his craving for new experiences and life.  Just to follow where his human desires go, (and for him) always collecting information for a potential book to write later on.  Peter never writes the book, but Carl writes it, and through his narrative and relatively typical life (somewhere between 'normal' and how Peter lives) we find out about Peter's journey.  It seems like Siddhartha, the quest of ultimate peace and Seinfeld, a story about nothing combined. It is a delight to read, and Peter extends our literary pleasure by mentioning many books people ought to read.

Before returning Peter to the library I flipped through all the pages with a pad of paper because and I wanted to add those books also to my Books to Read list.

Two full notebook pages, 6 photocopies, and extensive follow up searching via google later (sometimes he mentions authors, sometimes titles), I find myself able to make this list but I feel the need to also post it online. Authors and a brief description are listed unless the fictional Peter Whiffle sought fit to mention specific works.

• Théophile Gautier (French poet & writer)
• Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly (French novelist & short story writer)
• Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (French novelist)
• Oscar Wilde (Irish poet & writer)
• Henry James (American writer)
• Thomas Hardy (English poet & writer)
• Sir Henry Rider Haggard (English writer)
• Lavengro by George Borrow
• Roderick Hudson by Henry James
• Dickens (c'mon, you know him)
• Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russian author/existentialism)
• The Way of all Flesh by Samuel Butler: A unique and ultimately optimistic turn on the Great Expectations theme.
• Sister Carrie by Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (American writer/Naturalism)
• The Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen 
• David Belasco (American playwright)
•  more to come? If i can find the other papers and photocopies?
  

He also mentions many artists, actors, and other influencial people within the book. I will not attempt to list these as well, but two of these are:

• Jan Baptist van Helmont, a Flemish chemist
• Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune specifically by Claude-Achille Debussy, the French composer  

He also goes into the merits of cats at length. I will endeavor to post it but suffice it to say it almost, almost comes close to doing cats full justice.