The Education of Henry Adams
Written in the third person as a study of failure (how the grandson of presidents was wholly unprepared for the modern world), this is among the most intellectually restless books in the American tradition. Adams grapples with the shift from medieval unity to modern multiplicity with unprecedented sophistication.
Adams narrates himself in the third person, poses as a failure while dining with presidents, and silently deletes twenty years from the middle of his life, including his wife's suicide, never mentioned. The diplomatic chapters drag, the dynamo chapters mystify on first reading, and the self-deprecation is a rich man's flirtation. What the book omits is more honest than its pose.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
