This guy samurai sword fights. Your list includes Moby dick, which stands out to me as pretty different (much more intense read) than the rest. What'd you get out of it?
I think a lot of people overestimate Moby Dick. It's actually a pretty funny book in many places. There's a fart joke in the first 3 pages!
Still, melville had a lot to say about human nature, abolitionism, philosophy, xenophobia... name a pressing concern of american life in the modern age and you'll find echoes of it here, too.
"For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blankets between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal. "
It's been over 10 years since I read it, but it was very influential at the time - got me hooked on 17th century history. I'm sympathetic to people who say it's too long or "needs an editor", but I actually liked how the book was packed with random digressions geeking out about episodes from the history of science or economics or alchemy or 17th-century political machinations. It's probably the ultimate example of Stephenson's "maximalist" style and, if you look at Baroque or Rococo art, that style kind of matches the spirit of the age.
Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, for a coming of age story, using nanotechnology as a futuristic concept for understanding the differences of being fed one's needs and being given the tools for meeting them.
Steinbeck's East of Eden for coming to grips with a fundamental moral struggle of what is good and what is choice.
Anything ever written by Kurt Vonnegut for the proper cynicism needed to live in this world.
Oscar Wilde for that same cynicism minus the science fiction, plus more witty one liners.
I could have written the same. Would also include The Name of the Rose, The Remains of the Day, Dune, the Master and Margarita, Candide. Probably others.
I read a fair amount of Pynchon, but neither GR or the others jump out as having a "positive impact" on me. It's been too long, and I guess I'm not really clear on what that means. With some books I walk away with positive affirmations or a sense of better understanding. I suppose there was some of the latter, but not the same sort of catharsis. The world is dark and disgusting and confusing. I'd be lying if I said it didn't impact me though, which I'll grant, probably for the better.
I find Gravity's Rainbow to be, in it's ugly way, somehow life affirming. It's also very funny at times, which is always helpful, and very long which might help people right now.
Right now I think maybe people will appreciate being in a zone where the normal rules have ceased to apply (Allied occupied Europe in the novel), and where there is a lot of wrangling about who the winners and losers in the new world will be.
Re: Vonnegut, I think he was great at larger themes of Existential Angst, but using a cynical tone in his main characters. (And I do agree with you, the cynicism is healthy.) If I can make an extension, Bill Murray takes that same Angst but is a master at applying comedy. Vonnegut and Murray for life coaching.
I never finished that book, because about two-thirds of the way through the narrative thread seemed to be coming apart (to me, anyway). But I did find the themes of educational philosophy and social organization intriguing. Yesterday, it occurred to me to give it a second try: specifically, because Stephenson's theme of social organization in "clans" (or whatever he called them) seem to me to maybe give some insight into today's identity politics.
I consider Steinbeck's way of creating a multi-character narrative that so completely encompasses human nature in as many ways as he does one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had reading. I would compare the satirical cynicism of the multifaceted characters of Catch-22 (a recommendation) to the rich characters of EoE.
