Classic lit

[swee'pea99]

Don Quixote - one of the most boring books I've ever attempted to read.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Don Quixote - one of the most boring books I've ever attempted to read.

It is a wee bit, but soon you feel for the deluded guy and have to read on.

 

[insouciant]

I second the mentions of 'Candide' by Voltaire and 'Brave New World' by Huxley.

Also, 'Crime and Punishment', 'The Idiot', 'The Brothers Karamazov' and 'Notes From Underground'.

Guess who my favourite author is...

 

[Yellow Fang]

Lord of the Flies has killed my daughter's love of reading, I don't think she's picked up a book since being forced to read that for school.

I read it at school and thought it was horrid.

Ditto. I haven't read a work of fiction since an agent of the state coerced me, under threat of punishment, into reading -and, worse, writing about- that pile of BS. "Bored of the Flies" we called it.

Just finished reading it yesterday. Although a powerful piece of writing and psychologically perceptive, it was rather unpleasant, a chore to read and felt like homework.

 

[Yellow Fang]

I read way too much but my favour book is the complete works of oscar wilde...

just finish a tale of to cities, which I really enjoyed..

would highly recommend don quixote funny and cruel in equal parts, most people don't realise it's 2 books...

the books on my to read list..that I've never read..
the great gasby
to kill a mocking bird
catch 22

re-reads
1984
I am david (from my school days)

moby dick.... ok book not as good as I hoped...

Two of those were on my reading list, The Great Gatsby and 1984. 1984 was very clever, I thought. Wasn't sure about The Great Gatsby. It was good, but was it as good as it is cracked up to be? I remember reading I am David from childhood. It was good too, but I wouldn't read it again. I read the first part of Don Quixote, but I thought it was a joke that was flogged to death. I want to read Tale of Two Cities and To Kill a Mocking Bird. Moby Dick seems to split opinion.

 

[smutchin]

I've come to the conclusion that there are not so much books I want to read as books I want to have read.

I know what you mean. When I got a Kindle, I downloaded all of those books (the ones that are out of copyright and therefore free) but I know I'll probably never get round to reading most of them. Fortunately, there are plenty of books I genuinely do want to read to keep me going.

I won't bother with On the Road.

Good. I tried Kerouac when I was 16 and impressionable, but even then I found it to be unreadable tosh.

Longer term my reading list will include:
Emma, which would conclude 19th century British romantic fiction
Maybe something by Virginia Woolf
Maybe Middlemarch by George Elliot

I totally agree with swee'pea99 about Jane Austen. I've read Pride & Prejudice and Emma several times over but I'd say my favourite of hers is Persuasion (though it's more poignant and less funny).

Middlemarch is probably my favourite book ever. Utterly wonderful. You MUST read it.

I've never read any Virginia Woolf but I'm on a Modernist tip at the moment so I may well have to give her a try. If you like Modernist stuff, I can wholeheartedly recommend the book I'm currently reading, which is Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford. I put it on my to-read list after watching the recent BBC adaptation. It's a tough, tough read but utterly brilliant.

Also books on my bookshelf waiting to be read:
New Grub Street by George Gissing

I read this about six months ago and loved it. It's quite long but a very easy read and you will fly through it. Not exactly a barrel of laughs though. I mean, there are funny bits in it but also a hell of a lot of bleakness, poverty and despair.

Then I want to read some more Dickens:
David Copperfield
A Christmas Carol
A Tale of Two Cities
The Pickwick Papers
Oliver Twist
Another, possibly Barnarby Rudge

I read Pickwick Papers last year too. That is definitely more one I'm glad to have read than enjoyed reading. It's very, very funny in places but it's just too damn long and has far too much filler. Favourite Dickens would be Our Mutual Friend. Definitely read that one if you haven't already - some of his most caustically satirical writing.

Here are another couple of authors for your list who you might not have considered because they're not very fashionable:

EF Benson - I started reading the Mapp & Lucia novels in October and finished the sixth just after Christmas. They're an astute study of middle class snobbery in 1920/30s provincial England and are a sheer unadulterated joy to read. Very, very funny.

Arnold Bennett - a much underrated writer. I'd recommend The Old Wives Tale, the epic life story of two sisters, one who spends her whole life in the Midlands market town where they grew up, the other who runs away with a man to France and has adventures... but more than that I can't really say without spoilers. Deeply poignant and affecting, beautifully written.

 

[smutchin]

A few more that spring to mind...

Diary Of A Nobody - short, easy to read, hilarious.
Dubliners - the easier end of the Joyce spectrum but still exquisite writing.
A Room With A View - if you're done with 19th century romance and moving on to Edwardian romance, this is definitely a must-read.
A Dance To The Music Of Time - Anthony Powell's semi-autobiographical 12-volume series spanning most of the major events of the 20th century up to the 1970s, bit of a homage to Proust but much funnier, although a bit patchy.
Vile Bodies, Decline And Fall, Scoop, A Handful Of Dust, The Loved One, Brideshead Revisited - surprised no one has mentioned Evelyn Waugh in this thread before now. Not a nice man but arguably the greatest English writer of the 20th century (though I'll grant that Greene and Orwell have a case for that title too).

 

[ColinJ]

I read 1984 for my English Lit O-level. At the time, I thought it was a scary book, but a bit far-fetched. With some of the technology that we have now, however, the telescreen concept seems old hat!

I'm pretty sure that most telephone calls and emails are monitored by GCHQ.

Google knows exactly what information we search for, and which sites we visit.

Our mobile phones have position-tracking systems on them. We even download apps which can search through our contacts lists, connect to the internet and use the microphones and cameras in our phones without us knowing about it.

Big Brother is watching you! (If you don't believe me, make a few phone calls where you discuss bomb-making and see how long it is before you get an early morning wake-up call from burly men with guns!)

 

[Yellow Fang]

Middlemarch is probably my favourite book ever. Utterly wonderful. You MUST read it.

Is Middlemarch Elliot's best book? I may well get around to reading it.

I've never read any Virginia Woolf but I'm on a Modernist tip at the moment so I may well have to give her a try. If you like Modernist stuff, I can wholeheartedly recommend the book I'm currently reading, which is Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford. I put it on my to-read list after watching the recent BBC adaptation. It's a tough, tough read but utterly brilliant.

Explain to me again what Modernist means?

I read Pickwick Papers last year too. That is definitely more one I'm glad to have read than enjoyed reading. It's very, very funny in places but it's just too damn long and has far too much filler. Favourite Dickens would be Our Mutual Friend. Definitely read that one if you haven't already - some of his most caustically satirical writing.

I gather Dickens is variable. Pickwick Papers is one of his most famous, but no one seems to think it is one of his best. Readers tend to differ over which is his best book. Some think Great Expectations is his best, others David Copperfield, some Bleak House, and you say Our Mutual Friend.

 

[smutchin]

Is Middlemarch Elliot's best book? I may well get around to reading it.

Not just her best but some have called it the best novel in the English language!

Explain to me again what Modernist means?

In its broadest sense, it just means breaking with traditional conventions. In Parade's End, for example, you get a wildly non-linear narrative, turbulent streams of consciousness, blurring of the boundaries between author's and character's voice, statements presented as fact from one point of view directly contradicted a few pages later from another... It's the story of a love triangle between a man who stands as the last bastion of Victorian values, his vindictive but brilliant femme fatale wife, and his lover, a young suffragette, all set around the turbulent times of the First World War. But really, it's about so much more than that... Like I said, it's a tough read, but it's also a hugely rewarding one. And it's much easier once you get tuned in to its rhythms.

Readers tend to differ over which is his best book. Some think Great Expectations is his best, others David Copperfield, some Bleak House, and you say Our Mutual Friend.

I'd say any of those has a justifiable claim to be his best. It's largely a matter of personal preference though.

d.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I gather Dickens is variable. Pickwick Papers is one of his most famous, but no one seems to think it is one of his best. Readers tend to differ over which is his best book. Some think Great Expectations is his best, others David Copperfield, some Bleak House, and you say Our Mutual Friend.

It's actually A Christmas Carol.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

A few more that spring to mind...


Vile Bodies, Decline And Fall, Scoop, A Handful Of Dust, The Loved One, Brideshead Revisited - surprised no one has mentioned Evelyn Waugh in this thread before now. Not a nice man but arguably the greatest English writer of the 20th century (though I'll grant that Greene and Orwell have a case for that title too).

I thought I had, but it may have been in another thread.

I loved Decline and Fall but the ending was odd. Vile Bodies appeared to rely heavily on the surreal and very casual deaths, although I'm sure that was Waugh's point. Brideshead just plain pissed me off, especially the ending.

I'm going to read Scoop next.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

[QUOTE 2329229, member: 259"]Tiny Tim! [/quote]

He's a simpering milksop, but then there's sentimental tosh in most of them.

 

[ASC1951]

Vile Bodies, Decline And Fall, Scoop, A Handful Of Dust, The Loved One, Brideshead Revisited - surprised no one has mentioned Evelyn Waugh in this thread before now. Not a nice man but arguably the greatest English writer of the 20th century (though I'll grant that Greene and Orwell have a case for that title too).

I would put Aldous Huxley in there, too, and certainly PG Wodehouse - great writers don't have to be serious writers, and Wodehouse was a considerable craftsman. And I'm glad you say 'writer' not novelist, because Orwell was primarily a journalist and IME (not universally shared, granted) the recent BBC series from his writings have diminished not enhanced his standing.

Huxley is an interesting contrast with Waugh. Ten years older and with a similar background and education, but from a long line of rationalists and scientists and to my mind a much more modern writer. Chrome Yellow and Antic Hay could almost be about the same events as Vile Bodies; and Point Counterpoint covers a lot of the same ground as Brideshead Revisited; but Waugh never wrote anything like Brave New World, or Island. Great writers don't have to be nice people, but I've always felt that the humanity of Huxley pervades his work in a way that never happens with Waugh, maybe because it wasn't in him in the first place.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

I would put Aldous Huxley in there, too, and certainly PG Wodehouse - great writers don't have to be serious writers, and Wodehouse was a considerable craftsman. And I'm glad you say 'writer' not novelist, because Orwell was primarily a journalist and IME (not universally shared, granted) the recent BBC series from his writings have diminished not enhanced his standing.

Huxley is an interesting contrast with Waugh. Ten years older and with a similar background and education, but from a long line of rationalists and scientists and to my mind a much more modern writer. Chrome Yellow and Antic Hay could almost be about the same events as Vile Bodies; and Point Counterpoint covers a lot of the same ground as Brideshead Revisited; but Waugh never wrote anything like Brave New World, or Island. Great writers don't have to be nice people, but I've always felt that the humanity of Huxley pervades his work in a way that never happens with Waugh, maybe because it wasn't in him in the first place.

I've never read Huxley but you've piqued my interest. What would be a good starting point?