KJV

The King James Version of the Bible contains some of the most beautiful poetry and prose in the Western canon. Good shit, in other words, Crusher says. Anyone interested in cadence, flow, imagery--i.e., anyone interested in being able to read and write well--should study at least parts of this text carefully. Read it aloud, especially. So Crusher is pleased to find Mary Rakow, author of the remarkable novel The Memory Room, credit the KJV for its "literary effect" on her:

L.A. WEEKLY: Your background is primarily theological and academic -- was it literary as well?

RAKOW: It was literary only to the extent of having, since childhood, a consistent exposure to the Bible in its King James Version. I did not read fiction or poetry until my mid-40s, after I started writing.

She also rightly notes that the Bible is, in a very real sense, "experimental" literature:

L.A. WEEKLY: Surely, though, you have literary influences.

RAKOW: I am still thinking about the Bible as I knew it -- two columns side by side on the page with the numbered chapters and verses, the names of each of the books contained ä in the Bible, the table of contents. These are forms and certainly not the forms of the original texts, the scrolls. Seeing written words organized in this way probably had an effect.

Also, the Bible, without apology and without effort, combines poetry, prose, law, narrative, biography. So it feels very natural to me to have between two covers of a single book, multiple books, multiple voices and multiple forms. You have Levitical law, gospel, psalm, creation myth, the anger of the prophets, all in one book. It never occurred to me that this would be a problem or that it was new or unique or creative or anything. I wrote The Memory Room so that what was on the page embodied what I felt inside and didn't ask myself these questions.

If you're asking Crusher what to read from the KJV, and why shouldn't you be?, Crusher would urge you to start with Genesis and the Gospel of St. Luke. Then try some of the prophets (Crusher finds himself again and again reading Jeremiah and Amos, for what that's worth), the Gospel of St. Mark, and Job. The Psalms, of course. No matter what, read it aloud and slowly. Find the rhythms, let yourself be carried along by them.

Penguin Classics has a superb new edition out, which includes the Apocrypha as well as a good introduction and notes.