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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Classic Literature

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12:59 / 10.12.01

I've decided to read something outside of the genre I usually read, that being sci-fi fantasy. Can anyone recommend any decent "classic literature" ? The few novels I was forced to read in high school and actually enjoyed were The Great Gatsby, Candide, and Grendel. I thought they were excellent because none of the authors needed an entire chapter to describe a stupid bush outside a prison.

13:14 / 10.12.01

'Crime and Punishment' is actually really readable. 'The Portrait of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde, has, rightly, found favour with a lot of people, though I personally prefer his plays (can you stand to read plays? 'The Importance of Being Earnest' is fantastic. And I like Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot', too). More modern classics-wise: Jean Genet wrote very good stuff. As did James Baldwin. Read any Kerouac? Not sure if it counts as a classic yet, but Patrick Suskind's 'Perfume' is one of my favourite books - it is about an amoral perfumer with no personal scent, and much, more more than that...

[ 10-12-2001: Message edited by: Cholister ]

13:22 / 10.12.01

I like plays. Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Importance of Being Earnest were plays I thought were really great. I just get overwhelmed when I go over to the classics section of one of the book stores and see all these books I've never heard of let alone read.

13:27 / 10.12.01

I tried to read Moby Dick, I really really did, but it seemed kind of well....boring.
As to the type of story, I don't really have any preference, I'm just looking for something different to read. I'd rather not read something too wordy, like The FountainHead. Good God, that was a horribly long book.

13:35 / 10.12.01

A lot of ‘classic’ novelists are, as you rightly say, very punchy and to the point (I’ve always felt the serial nature of Dickens’ work shows – there seems to be some padding to me…). Some of the better ‘classic’ works I’ve read are :

Invisible Man : Ralph Ellison – good solid read on racial issues, not to be confused with the Wells novel of the same name (though that’s not bad either)

The Man Who Was Thursday : GK Chesterton – Sparky and fun read, fairly often mentioned on the ‘lith, there’s a cheapie Wordsworth edition available if you live in the UK (and maybe even if you don’t)

The Lost World : Conan Doyle – Surprisingly good fun, and not at all like the Crichton novel of the same name

The Grapes of Wrath : John Steinbeck – quite a lot of description, but usually important to plot or atmosphere, so don’t let it put you off

1984 : George Orwell – I may be alone in thinking this, but I think Orwell’s not actually that good a writer, but he carries you along by the force of his ideas, and this one’s probably his best

Brighton Rock : Graham Greene – Rather a cold heart at the centre of this one, but great evocation of viciousness in contract to mundane everyday life

Heart of Darkness : Joseph Conrad – very short, and to the point. And, I feel, very effective.

Those are off the top of my haircut, I’m sure there are more … and apologies if I’m suggesting ones you’ve already read.

DBC

13:48 / 10.12.01

I hated Moby Dick too, though my husband always rolls his eyes at me when I say so.

I love reading "classic" novels (and plays) and realizing that they are actually quite juicy.

What would a list of my favorite novels be, without, at the top, Howard's End...

all Jane Austen, but to save time you can skip Northhanger Abbey and Mansfield Park,

also I love Trollope, The Warden and Barchester Towers, and in general the Barchester series and the Palliser novels (which I think start with Phineas Finn),

Barbara Pym, but only the first two (maybe three), I think called One Fine Gazelle (?) and Excellent Women,

Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, and The Age of Innocence,

Anna Karenina, very juicy. War and Peace, not as juicy but still good (and I always skip the historical bits, eliciting again the aforementioned reaction by husband),

presently re-reading Samuel Butler, The Way Of All Flesh.

Thanks for starting this thread, btw... I am starting on a new course of reading myself & will be picking up suggestions from here.

13:58 / 10.12.01

'Turn of the screw' by henry James - the recent film 'the others' is a pale imitation of this.

14:02 / 10.12.01

I've got War and Peace sitting on my shelf somewhere, and quite frankly its length frightens me. I would have read it before, but I'm just trying to get my feet wet in the classical literature genre not be drowned.

14:17 / 10.12.01

Tom Jones is quite good fun in a red-cheeked, buxom, squire-in-the-library way...

I like Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone and The Woman in White very much, though you may find them a little long-winded (they were written as serials, which sometimes has that effect).

I also enjoyed Vanity Fair - much the best place to start with Thackeray and though it looks like a doorstop it's actually quite a fast read.

You might like to try some Meyrink - The Golem is probably the best, and relatively easy to find (Dedalus publish it in the UK - they do loads of good 'decadent' stuff).

You might enjoy Flannery O'Connor, or William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.

Or if you want something more recent, I absolutely l-o-v-e A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

The Return Of Rothkoid

14:26 / 10.12.01

I second Kit-Cat's last. Something almost makes me want to be Ignatius...

On the other hand, I did find the Wilkie Collins stuff to be a bit longwinded at times.

Have you read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote? It was shocking as hell when I read it - gripping, gripping stuff.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:30 / 10.12.01

If you liked The Great Gatsby, I heartily recommend The Sun Also Rises (sometimes known as Fiesta) by Ernest Hemingway.

The Return Of Rothkoid

14:38 / 10.12.01

Just another thought - have you considered cruising through Bartleby or any other collections of online books? (Project Gutenberg, etc?)

You could probably check out a few of the names mentioned here, there. It'd at least let you see if you liked 'em, with only your surfin' time as the cost - based on that, you could decide which to pick up, and which to never think about again...

No star here laces

14:38 / 10.12.01

All you southerners probably won't be familiar with it, but Lewis Grassic Gibbon's "A Scots Quair" is, I think, a fantastic piece of literature. It comes in three books representing, in turn rural, small town and urban settings and is very readable (although with a touch of scots dialect, but not an indecipherable one). Many themes are covered, the ones writ largest are labour relations and class politics, but the characters are also incredibly human and likeable, and not ciphers for the political points.

Personally I love War and Peace, especially the historical bits, and if you're a fan of sci-fi/fantasy type stuff, you might actually find this surprisingly readable due to its military bent.

No star here laces

14:39 / 10.12.01

Euch. Hemingway. Flyboy, I'm disappointed.

15:52 / 10.12.01

Hemingway! Yes! Bah!

And I'll gladly second "Moby Dick" and "Invisible Man". If the first bores you, the second oughta grip you.
And there’s ALWAYS room for Mark Twain. Any of it. “Innocents Abroad” is hysterical travelogue, “Huckleberry Finn” is social satire on top of solid plotwork.

You liked "Candide"? See if you can find an agreeable translation of "Don Quixote." You might like it - but I've never been able to finish an unabridged version.

The Russians (Crime & Punishment, War & Peace) are also often intimidatingly long. I’ve only read excerpts of Tolstoy, but my early exposure to Dostoevsky left me scarred.
If you want to stay within genre while exploring its history, get ye to H.G. Wells’ short stories. Wonderful stuff, it'll get you in the prosey mood for the 1800s/early 1900s style. Then head for Ambrose Bierce & Guy de Maupassant - excellent shorts.

Oh, and I recently read Toole's “Confederacy of Dunces” – a more recent, much easier-to-read classic. In 100 years, it’ll be taught in classes alongside Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” Kerouac’s “On The Road,” and Pynchon’s “Crying of Lot 49.”

autopilot disengaged

16:02 / 10.12.01

pretty certain these are all under (or around) 100 pages: notes from underground by doestoyevsky, the outsider by camus, 'kaddish' by ginsberg, the driver's seat by muriel spark and... if you're willing to extend this exercise, maybe the dhammapada. also - wilde's de profundis.

in terms of short stories - chekhov'sare almost unbearably perfect, joyce's (in dubliners, perhaps the best intro to his work) and -

wait - when you say 'classic' are you asking for stuff that predates the 20thC? if so, much of the above is of no use.

well, regardless - if you're looking to get into more (mostly post-war) drama i'd recommend sarting with beckett, osborne, pinter and churchill.

16:29 / 10.12.01

I like Jean Rhys a lot, particularly the short story collection Tigers are Better-Looking.

19th-century stuff: I like George Eliot, but she's pretty long. Middlemarch is great, though.

12:17 / 11.12.01

I liked Jean Rhys's novels quite a bit, though my least favorite was what husband --goodness, I don't know why he's coming up so much in this thread-- *must* persist in calling Wide Sarcastic Sea.

All of George Eliot.

Also, Iris Murdoch, my favorites are Under the Net and A Severed Head.

Which reminds me, I was going to mention to June that one way to organize a London trip is to visit all the places in UTN... it made Hammersmith Bridge verily exciting for me.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

13:23 / 11.12.01

Stepping out of the English language for a sec, how about the Three Musketeers? It's intelligent, funny, its satirical qualities are constantly ignored by adaptations and, although the complete thing does weigh in at about a thousand pages, it's a real page-turner.

Or (and you knew this was coming) how about Homer? The Odyssey is an absolutely darts read - full of action and really long flashbacks, and possessed of one of the coolest main characters ever. Personally I prefer the Iliad, but the lengthy fight scenes might be a bit of a turn-off, although I love them. Would suggest reading them alongside the Homer bit of Richard Jenkyns' "Classical Epic: Homer and Virgil", which is a pretty easy guide to the stuff. Not saying you can't enjoy them without, but a little supplementary reading, certainly for me, increased my enjoyment enormously. There's a translation by E.V. Rieu of the Iliad which I like, altohugh there may well be a better one by now - anyone more up-to-date on this?

07:29 / 12.12.01

The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain... I read this book a few years ago and it messed me up. Of course a few years ago I was 15 but still, I loved this book. This book isn't cynical, it's nihilistic.

07:31 / 12.12.01

Oh.. and we shouldn't forget Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and all that.

12:57 / 12.12.01

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy for Eustacia Vye, alone. The first chapter's all bush and gorse and hills but don't let that put you off. Please.

If you want a rapid-fire intro to the Russians you can get a copy of The Gambler by Dostoyevsky that bundles in Bobok and A Nasty Story. It's glorious, cynical, funny, fast-paced, accurate and relevant. I mean really, you must read it - it's been a winner with everyone I've ever lent it to.

13:32 / 12.12.01

I've still got an ongoing problem with pre-20th century literature, re: my violent refusal to conform to the mindset that says that, say, 'Hard Times' is better than 'Slaughterhouse 5', just because the former takes bloody ages to read and was written by a dead man with a top hat.

I will however stick up for:

Heart of Darkness
The Man Who Was Thursday
most of Shakespeare's stuff
The island of Dr. Moreou (sp?)
Frankenstein
most of Poe's stuff

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:36 / 12.12.01

As has been mentioned on here before, Hard Times is probably Dickens' worst novel and it's criminal that they try and teach it in schools just because it's short. Try Bleak House or Great Expectations instead: both are utterly brilliant. Full of the mad twisted loon characters that Dickens does best. And fog. Lots of fog.

14:24 / 12.12.01

quote:Originally posted by Rizla Year Zero:
I will however stick up for:

Heart of Darkness

Brilliant, short, accessible, and head-bending.

quote:
The island of Dr. Moreou (sp?)

Moreau. And it's by Wells (so I'm counting it as seconding my earlier recommendation!)

14:25 / 12.12.01

Dare I mention Kipling's "Jungle Book"?

14:33 / 12.12.01

1- Moby Dick.
Kinda shows that an obsession can destroy anyone and those around them.
It's also contains the most moving literary descriptions of God's mysteries and wonders.
2 - The books of Paul. I feel God moving whenever I read his chapters. (yeah, I know it looks cheesy, but hey, I'm not even xtian.)
<dives in front of the fireman to save a copy of 'Weird Tales'>

09:36 / 13.12.01

I second Great Expectations, if you like sci-fi, it's probably the root of Douglas Adams' style of humour and a riproaring read also.

I often feel guilty at reading too much "junk" i.e. comics and sci-fi, no matter how much I KNOW know Phillip K Dick Is classic literature, so I intersperse it and often force myself through a recognised classic, many good and worthy, many dull and uninteresting, but the more I do this, the more I realise there is no junk, there are no classics.

[ 13-12-2001: Message edited by: Duncan ]

Foxxy Feminist Fury

12:10 / 13.12.01

I second "Crime & Punishment" - fucked up and brilliant.

I recommend "Grapes of Wrath" by Steinbeck. One of the first books to make me cry.

And let's give it up for "King Lear" and "The Tempest." If you REALLY wanna have a good time with the "Tempest" (in a book-geek way), follow that read up with "Une Tempete" by Aime Cesaire, which tells the same tale from Caliban's persepective. Nifty.

I hate Hemingway. Congratulations on your spartan writing style - THAT IS TOTALLY BORING!! Yawn-O-Rama. Reading "The Snows of Kilamanjaro" nearly killed me.

Camus' "The Stranger" is nice.

"Brave New World" is good, too.

I also have a soft spot for any Austen novel.

In general though, I'm a 19th and 20th century girl when it comes to classic literature.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

12:15 / 13.12.01

Short C20 American, and brilliant - Clock without Hands by Carson McCullers, The Pearl by Steinbeck, Damon Runyon's Broadway stories (not classic, but good fun), any decent collection of Dorothy Parker's short stories.

[ 13-12-2001: Message edited by: The Haus of a sudden chill ]

Foxxy Feminist Fury

12:20 / 13.12.01

How could I have forgotten Ms. Parker!!

Thanks, Haus-ter.

12:23 / 13.12.01

Does Portnoy's Complaint count as a classic?

And reading Haus's recommendation of Damon Runyon has reminded me of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett - classic noir stuff & really enjoyable as well.

12:29 / 13.12.01

I suppose we have Portnoy to thank for American Pie.

I used to always confuse Raymond Chandler with Raymond Carver, until finally we sat down and made up an entire detective story in the milieu of Carver & banished *that* forever.

12:42 / 13.12.01

If you're interested in some French classics, I found Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes (The Lost Domain translated in a Penguin edition) to be a haunting (short) novel. Stendhal's Scarlet and Black is also a good read.

Others - Guenter Grass, The Tin Drum, and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

[ 17-12-2001: Message edited by: Cavatina ]

17:41 / 13.12.01

I never quite make the break from sf* to [respectful pause] Literature. I like it best on the periphery or in small chunks. like reading about the exotic. new ideas, new places.

what they call slipstream. I tried to get through a Dickens (David Copperfield) whose writing I had previously enjoyed a few years ago and Wuthering Heights this year and though I did finish the former I found it a struggle. I never did finish the latter.

* -- when I say sf I do not mean spinoff from media franchises (officially or unofficially).

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