Obscure Gems

[Mr. Pedantic]

What's a well written, thoughtful read that sways from the beaten path, either modern or classic, that doesn't get the love or acclaim it deserves?

Nothing in particular comes to mind for me at the present moment.

[Alexander III]

I think the plays of Christopher Marlowe fit that description, nowadays he seems mostly forgotten, when in life his works were better than those of Shakespeare, at least while the both of them were still alive, Shakespeare had the benefit of an extra 40 years of life to create his masterpieces.


Oh and also the poems of John Wilmot

[dfloyd]

Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge and
Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey

[Emil Miller]

McTeague by Frank Norris, a major American writer who died tragically young.
'The Octopus' and 'The Pit' are two other works of his which have also been shamefully neglected .

[rufustfirefly]

I would think that " A Confederacy of Dunces " would qualify as somewhat obscure. I can't wait to re-read it. Its a small gem in my mind.

[hazelk]

I would recommend Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert L Stevenson, it is a real gem.

Another is The Pearl by John Steibeck.:thumbsup:

[stlukesguild]

"Obscure"? It seems I own and/or have read almost ever book listed here... except for Brian's suggestion. I'll offer a few of my own:

Augusto Monterroso- Complete Works and other Stories These tales should be loved by any fan of Kafka and/or J.L. Borges

Theophile Gautier- La Morte Amoureuse, Clarimonde and other tales as well as his collection of poems: Enamels and Cameos and other Poems. Gautier brings a European sophistication to the dark atmosphere of Poe infusing it with an eroticism that presages Baudelaire.

Gérard de Nerval- Sylvie, Aurelia, and other prose, and the collection of poems Les Chimères- Nerval is one of the most fascinating figures of French 19th century literature. His Les Chimères are among the most influential French poems of the era, and his prose points the way toward late Symbolism and Surrealism... blurring the distinction between fantasy and fiction. He offers one of the most fascinating view of mental illness in his visionary prose in which he quite objectively explores his own illness.

Paul Valéry- Poetry- Valéry straddled the line between late 19th century French Symbolism and Modernism. Valéry was a masterful prose stylist, essayist, and philosopher as well as a poet. As a poet he was an absolute perfectionist... he wrote in traditional classical forms with the most sophisticated and subtle choice of words. Like his mentor, Mallarme, his poems are almost musical.

Alejo Carpentier- Baroque Concerto- Carpentier, one of the greatest writers of Modern Latin-America wrote this splendid musical fantasy involving the experiences of a wealthy 18th century Mexican nobleman and his encounters with Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Handel... and Stravinsky... and the staging of an opera staging the conquest of Montezuma.

Balzac- The Girl with the Golden Eyes- A decadent tale of lust and seduction worthy of Baudelaire, Swinburne, etc...

Juan Goytisolo- Quarentine- This brief novel, set during the first US/Iraq War, involves the death of a close friend of the narrator and a series of flashbacks and dialogs with the newly deceased as her visionary travels through the after-world unfold.

Perhaps more to follow....

[DanielBenoit]

These aren't exactly 'obscure' poets, but definitely underrated in my opinion.

Stephen Crane - Better known as a novelist, was a better writer in verse for me. Was a clear inspiration for the modernists and imagists of the next generation.

In the Desert

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter – bitter", he answered,
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

Thomas Hardy - Another novelist who was also a poet. His oftentimes dark poems have touches of the supernatural as well as a sometimes existential outlook.

The Darkling Thrush
Thomas Hardy


I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.


Hart Crane - One of the great and less appreciated modernists. His magnus opus was the modernist semi-epic The Bridge, which was intended as Crane's more optimistic take on the Eliot's ironic and despairing landscape of The Waste Land.

To Brooklyn Bridge
by Hart Crane

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull's wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty--

Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross
Some page of figures to be filed away;
--Till elevators drop us from our day . . .

I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights
With multitudes bent toward some flashing scene
Never disclosed, but hastened to again,
Foretold to other eyes on the same screen;

And Thee, across the harbor, silver-paced
As though the sun took step of thee, yet left
Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,--
Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!

continued at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15444

[PeterL]

G. C. Edmondson was the best author of the 20th century. He is best known for The Ship the Travelled the Time Wtream[i], and [i]The Aluminum Man is one of the funniest things ever written.

[Alexander III]

St.Lukes you criticize our choices for their lack of obscurity but you mention Theophile Gautier, Balzac and Paul Valéry

:willy_nilly:

[stlukesguild]

Along with Stephen Crane, I would mention both Emerson and Melville whose poems are also sadly ignored in the shadow of their prose efforts. Thomas Hardy seems to have shared this fate in the past... but this appears to be changing.

[IceM]

I'm shocked at how little known Siddhartha is in my high school classes. I also love at just how unknown Cosmocomics is--few of my HS english teachers (most of them UC graduates) knew not of that work.

[DanielBenoit]

Along with Stephen Crane, I would mention both Emerson and Melville whose poems are also sadly ignored in the shadow of their prose efforts. Thomas Hardy seems to have shared this fate in the past... but this appears to be changing.

I agree about Emerson (I haven't read any poetical works of the latter). Kinda funny that as underrated Emerson is as a poet, Frost probably provided literary criticism with one of its greatest hyperboles when he said of Emerson's Uriel, "the greatest Western poem yet."
:goof:

No Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, Keats, Whitman, etc.?

Still a very fine poem though, and my favorite of Emerson's verse.

IT fell in the ancient periods
Which the brooding soul surveys,
Or ever the wild Time coin'd itself
Into calendar months and days.

This was the lapse of Uriel,
Which in Paradise befell.
Once, among the Pleiads walking,
Sayd overheard the young gods talking;
And the treason, too long pent,
To his ears was evident.
The young deities discuss'd
Laws of form, and metre just,
Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams,
What subsisteth, and what seems.
One, with low tones that decide,
And doubt and reverend use defied,
With a look that solved the sphere,
And stirr'd the devils everywhere,
Gave his sentiment divine
Against the being of a line.
'Line in nature is not found;
Unit and universe are round;
In vain produced, all rays return;
Evil will bless, and ice will burn.'
As Uriel spoke with piercing eye,
A shudder ran around the sky;
The stern old war-gods shook their heads;
The seraphs frown'd from myrtle-beds;
Seem'd to the holy festival
The rash word boded ill to all;
The balance-beam of Fate was bent;
The bounds of good and ill were rent;
Strong Hades could not keep his own,
But all slid to confusion.

A sad self-knowledge withering fell
On the beauty of Uriel;
In heaven once eminent, the god
Withdrew that hour into his cloud;
Whether doom'd to long gyration
In the sea of generation,
Or by knowledge grown too bright
To hit the nerve of feebler sight.
Straightway a forgetting wind
Stole over the celestial kind,
And their lips the secret kept,
If in ashes the fire-seed slept.
But, now and then, truth-speaking things
Shamed the angels' veiling wings;
And, shrilling from the solar course,
Or from fruit of chemic force,
Procession of a soul in matter,
Or the speeding change of water,
Or out of the good of evil born,
Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn,
And a blush tinged the upper sky,
And the gods shook, they knew not why.

[Patrick_Bateman]

I think the plays of Christopher Marlowe fit that description, nowadays he seems mostly forgotten, when in life his works were better than those of Shakespeare, at least while the both of them were still alive, Shakespeare had the benefit of an extra 40 years of life to create his masterpieces.



I wouldn't say he's forgotten

Dr Faustus for example is studied in all Universities to students doing Humanities courses or English Literature.

I studied it.

[laymonite]

Patrick Bateman brings up a good point. All of these names listed thus far are well known by Literature and Humanities majors. Now, if you mean "obscure" in the sense that a non Lit. major hasn't heard of them, then, yes, this list has some gems! These days, none of the classics or moderns get the attention they deserve outside of the classroom/online forum!

[PeterL]

Patrick Bateman brings up a good point. All of these names listed thus far are well known by Literature and Humanities majors.

G. C. Edmondson is well known to you!! I doubt it.

[laymonite]

Okay, so not all the names listed, ya close-reader! :-)

[stlukesguild]

St.Lukes you criticize our choices for their lack of obscurity but you mention Theophile Gautier, Balzac and Paul Valéry

They're all quite well known to those who follow French literature... but when is the last time you have seen a thread related to any one of them excepting Balzac (and in his case I simply chose a less well known book by him)? I could have equally suggested Luis Gongora, Miguel Hernandez, and Adolfo Becquier... all well-known within Spanish literary circles... but outside of that...?

I agree about Emerson (I haven't read any poetical works of the latter). Kinda funny that as underrated Emerson is as a poet, Frost probably provided literary criticism with one of its greatest hyperboles when he said of Emerson's Uriel, "the greatest Western poem yet."

There are quite a few elements of this poem that are more than suggestive of William Blake. Emerson always intrigued me as the visionary who could imagine a "new" American poetry that would reject the forms of the European traditions... but in formal structure, at least, Emerson was quite the traditionalist.

Building off the suggestions of the poetry of Melville, Emerson, and Crane... what of the poetry of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman? I've spoken of him with quasimodo here but never heard him mentioned elsewhere. His sonnet cycle, however, is quite splendid.

Patrick Bateman brings up a good point. All of these names listed thus far are well known by Literature and Humanities majors.

And you are quite familiar with Augusto Monterroso?

[laymonite]

Ha! I've already modified my statement (above). Looks like I may need to go edit my comment to "most of" instead of "all." Of course, it all depends on where you went to school.

You are all providing good names that I've never heard of. Keep them coming!

[Mr.lucifer]

There are obscure gems even bibliophiles haven't heard of. Most of them are gems only because they're foreign masterpieces that didn't get a lot of exposure in the west.

[laymonite]

There are obscure gems even bibliophiles haven't heard of. Most of them are gems only because they're foreign masterpieces that didn't get a lot of exposure in the west.
Great point. Too bad Western publishers aren't interested in doing more marketing of foreign works. Although, at the same time, we could be witnessing a turning point with the recent marketing of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish) here in the States--though that's not to say that said book is necessarily a gem.

[Alexander III]

Speaking of foreign works, Ibsen also comes to mind, I think he alongside with Wilde are the two greatest dramatists of the 19th century.

[Mr.lucifer]

I'm talking about foreign works that are not well known in the west even to bibilophiles. How western bibliophiles are familiar works of the soviet union besides doctor zhivago? Or how about modern chinese literature?

[Patrick_Bateman]

The only available Augusto Monterroso complete works book I can find on Amazon will cost me £182

Is he worth it? Ha

[DanielBenoit]

Here's an obscure gem!

http://www.amazon.com/Blah-Story-1-Nigel-Tomm/dp/1419680943

:rolleyes:

[Emil Miller]

Here's an obscure gem!


I don't know about an obscure gem, but isn't he a sweetie?


http://a.imageshack.us/img835/6913/75aec0a398a0f3147b7e321.jpg

NIGEL TOMM

[Whifflingpin]

Thaddeus of Warsaw by Jane Porter, maybe inspiration, certainly fore-runner, both for Scott's historical novels and Dickens' social novels

[stlukesguild]

The only available Augusto Monterroso complete works book I can find on Amazon will cost me £182

Is he worth it? Ha

Only $110US... used.:eek::shocked: That seems certain to guarantee his obscurity for some time to come. Perhaps I should put my copy up for sale.:ihih:

[ladderandbucket]

Not exactly obscure but books I think deserve more attention:

The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati. Melancholy fable about the passing of time. I would categorise it with Kafka.

Butcher's Crossing by John Williams. Flawlessly written western. Doesn't try to transcend or define it's genre. Just a perfect book.

[Mr.lucifer]

The works of james branch cabell.

Winesburg, Ohio by sherwood anderson. One of the greatest books of american literature but probaly not well known today.

[Heteronym]

Not exactly obscure but books I think deserve more attention:

The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati. Melancholy fable about the passing of time. I would categorise it with Kafka.

A novel appreciated by all the right people: Jorge Luis Borges, J.M. Coetzee... it definitely should be more popular.