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.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.
Last edited by Dark Muse; 01-03-2009 at 05:41 PM.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
you got me there
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".
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Midnight Thoughts on Art, Music, and Books:
http://heironymus62.tumblr.com/
Montaigne's essays did squeak in toward the end of the list.
Leaves of Grass was in consideration, but it just did not get enough votes to get it in.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
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.I know
Maybe better character, but not a better novel.
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.
The salvation of the world is in man's suffering. - Faulkner
No. 59 on the list, "Fictions". Is that the one by Borges?
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.
Ah, yes it is. I should have included that. I will ammend the list now.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
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.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"That day I shall always recollect with grief; with reverence also, for the gods so willed it." - Virgil, The Aeneid (V, 49)
Distracted from distraction by distraction
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.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
Just give the whiners raspberries, Dark.
Ignorance is
the curse of God;
Knowledge is the
wing wherewith
we fly to heaven
- Shakespeare
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.
"The farther he goes the more good it does me. I don’t want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement. He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the sh1t the more I am grateful to him..."
-- Harold Pinter on Samuel Beckett
Great job, DM!
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?).
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!
Last edited by Pensive; 01-04-2009 at 05:54 AM.
I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew.
I think Marquez made it. I am sure I saw "100 years of solitude" somewhere. I don't regret this one though
edit: yes, it's 32.
Currently reading:
"The Secret Life of Salvador Dali" by Salvador Dali
"Light in August" by William Faulkner
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.
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