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Yes, that is true. When I first started this project it was with novels in mind, but when others started to inquire abotu wanting to include plays, poetry, and such, I decided I would open the playing field. Since this list was for the Members here, I would not exlcude the choices they wanted to include.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
But if there had been any bodies of poetry which had enough votes, I would have included it over a novel with less favor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallon
you got me there:lol:
oh geesh this list is putting pressure on me, esp. since i think i read only about 8 or so books of the above list..
do you think students who are doing English in uni should read a lot of these books? i just cnt find the time, between reading the texts for uni and reading other stuffs..
ooh haha just saw the post above me,
me. i love jeffrey archer and john grisham too..
Where is Umberto Eco? Where is Samuel Beckett?
Indeed! But then again where is William Blake, Italo Calvino, J.L. Borges, and Baudelaire!?!
No non-fiction either! The list goes on.
Yes! Give me Montaigne's essays, Rousseau's Confessions, Emerson's essays, and Pater, Ruskin, DeQuincy, and Charles Lamb.
It is better to accept an imperfect list than to hope for a perfect one.
At least it's more realistic.
stlukesguild, hope you are not calling me a Dostoevsky 'fan'. I just worship him which is a bit different from being a 'fan.' I wish The Brothers Karamazov was No.1. Well you can't have everything, can you?
Don't get me wrong. I quite like Dostoevsky... and certainly find the Brothers Karamazov to have been one of the greatest novels I have read... but there are others that I like as much or more.
Lyric poetry was consciously not included. Actually the original idea was to only do novels, and yet plays and epic poetry got in.
Why? Baudelair'e Les Fleurs du Mal, Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, Neruda's Residence on Earth, Montale's Cuttlefish Bones, Petrarch's Canzoniere, Spenser's Amoretti and Epithalimion and even Shakespeare's Sonnets were intended as a unified volume... a "book".
Montaigne's essays did squeak in toward the end of the list.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild;653378[COLOR="DarkRed"
Leaves of Grass was in consideration, but it just did not get enough votes to get it in.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I just finished The Brothers Karamazov, literally last night. I loved it, absolutely loved it. I adored Alyosha for his kind heartedness and I thought Dostoevsky's presentation of Good and Evil was about as spot on as anyone has ever gotten, but Crime and Punishment affected me on a new level. I read it once, on my own in a few weeks last January. Then I read it again because I discovered it to be on my summer reading list for AP English.Quote:
Originally Posted by bazarov
This time, I read it in one day. 12 hours of reading Crime and Punishment, and when I put the book down, I felt the most contemptuous I have ever felt, in a brilliant new way. I hated everything about humanity and wished to escape the world forever. Upon thinking about it more, of course, I realized its more optimistic themes, but I was so affected by Dostoevsky's tortured character that I felt like him, I felt like Raskolnikov sleeping in rags and cursing the stupidity of humanity. It was absolutely surreal.
So I can't say any other book has garnered such a reaction from me before or since, and I doubt that one will arise.
No. 59 on the list, "Fictions". Is that the one by Borges?
Ah, yes it is. I should have included that. I will ammend the list now.
I would like to give kudos to Dark Nuse for doing all the hard work in collating and tabulating all the votes. This was a lot of work. Thank you Dark Muse. You just provided Lit Net with a invaluable service. :thumbs_up :)
You are quite welcome, and regardless of discrepancies some people have over what made it to the list I am grateful for everyone's appreciation in putting it together. It was fun even if tedious at times.
Just give the whiners raspberries, Dark.
If you think you are quite done with Dostoevsky, think twice because you are not. You have not met Lyov Nikolayevich Myshkin or 'Prince Myshkin' yet. Read The Idiot and it will change you forever. These are life-changing books. If you think Alyosha Karamazov is good and you like him, what do you think of Ivan Karamazov? Karamazov is a BIG book in every sense. It is not about one character, it is about humanity or, on a lower level, the turbulent Russia of Dostoevsky's time. As one of the characters says, "Europeans have their Hamlets, us Russians have our Karamazovs." It is about the good, the bad and the in-between, it is about humanity showing its different facets in different characters. I like Crime and Punishment, it is Dostoevsky's Macbeth, racey, fast-paced and ruthless. I rate it below Karamazov (for its huge scope), and The Idiot (for its excellent characterization). Then there is the scandalous nameless narrator in Notes from the Underground. He is in a league of his own as well. As far as Dostoevsky is concerned, things only get better. There are no 'minor' works. Each one of his books and stories stand tall on their own merits and can challenge the best for what they are good at.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Hill
Great job, DM! :thumbs_up
Four out of the five books I had nominated have entered the list! A pity the fifth one couldn't make it (The Hotel New Hampshire is much better in my opinion than some of the classics included, but well that's just my opinion. And I guess would be quite sacrilegious (couldn't think of a better word) one too...how dare I compare a classic with some other book? :p).
But still the list is good enough. Am delighted that books like The Magus, Middlesex, The Kite Runner and Lord of the Flies are also present. There are also some that are on my 'to read' list. BTW I have only read twenty-three.
*edit to add*
Am glad to see no Paulo Coelho and Gabriel García Márquez in the list though I miss Rushdie and Irving!
I think Marquez made it. I am sure I saw "100 years of solitude" somewhere. I don't regret this one though :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Pensive
edit: yes, it's 32.
What Kafka said. Also, there several writers of classics I respect that say The Demons (also titled the The Possessed depending on who did the translating) was better than all of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kafka's Crow