Asking for classic western literature suggestions

[Bob]

Hi,

I have read a few classic literature works, but would like to explore that world a little more.

I don't know what I don't know, or where to start. I have read a few Kurt Vonnegut books, and some Edgar Allan Poe and I liked those. I really do not know anything about any other authors. Except Dean Koontz - read a few dozen of his books.

I am looking more for classics though like maybe Hemingway, Twain, or their European contemporaries... I don't know. I am a working class guy, but college educated. I mean my usual interests are typically pretty low brow, but I am sharper than most in my demographic when it comes to spoken & written language.

Thanks,

Bob

[Calidore]

You like Poe and Dean Koontz, so have you tried Lovecraft, J.S. LeFanu, or M.R. James?

[Bob]

You like Poe and Dean Koontz, so have you tried Lovecraft, J.S. LeFanu, or M.R. James?

Joseph Sheridan le Fanu, he's Victorian Gothic, Irish, and well does one need more than that?

Never heard of him before but I just ordered Carmilla, and Green Tea, and looking forward to them. Bought Moby Dick too, so I am interested in the non-spooky too. And well, Led Zeppelin wrote a song with that same title so it must be a good read.

There I am being low-brow again, but I do draw the line at talking sports and watching TV.

I'll check out Lovecraft, & M.R. James too - Thanks!

[Charles Darnay]

Green Tea is an amazing story. And Camilla is good...if you like the Gothic.

If you are looking for break into the non-Gothic American classics, I would suggest starting with Fitzgerald. Great Gatsby is the big one, Beautiful and the Damned is also great.

[Calidore]

Joseph Sheridan le Fanu, he's Victorian Gothic, Irish, and well does one need more than that?

Never heard of him before but I just ordered Carmilla, and Green Tea, and looking forward to them. Bought Moby Dick too, so I am interested in the non-spooky too. And well, Led Zeppelin wrote a song with that same title so it must be a good read.

There I am being low-brow again, but I do draw the line at talking sports and watching TV.

I'll check out Lovecraft, & M.R. James too - Thanks!

Le Fanu is one if the bigger names in Victorian spooky, and he also wrote a few mystery novels. His shorter works are considered his best, and Dover published the lot in two collections that shouldn't be too hard to find.

James followed soon after, and he is described by Wikipedia thus: 'He is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are regarded as among the best in the genre. James redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, James's protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests. Accordingly, he is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story".' Dover also has a best-of collection of his short stories, and I don't know if a comprehensive one exists.

I wouldn't call Zeppelin lowbrow (we'll conveniently ignore "The Lemon Song")--they had a pretty wide range of abilities and sounds, and their work didn't sound like anyone else's.

TV's also written, as are movies. Why is writing on paper > writing imprinted on magnetic tape or celluloid? Lots of TV is better than lots of the books out there.

[stlukesguild]

Check out Ambrose Bierce's collected stories as well as those of Flannery O'Connor. I might also suggest Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel and You Can't Go Home Again. Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, and Seize the Day, Nathaniel West's Miss Lonelyhearts, Gore Vidal's Lincoln, Myra Breckenridge, and Julian, and Nabokov's Lolita.

Some European works that may work for you without demanding a huge background in literature or grasp of a specific culture/history, etc... might include:

Tolstoy- Kreuzer Sonata, The Death of Ivan Ilych, Hadji Murad
Checkov- Short Stories
Guy de Maupassant- Short Stories
Joseph Conrad- Heart of Darkness
Dickens- A Tale of Two Cities
Thomas Mann- Death in Venice

Just a few suggestions...

[Bob]

Le Fanu is one if the bigger names in Victorian spooky, and he also wrote a few mystery novels. His shorter works are considered his best, and Dover published the lot in two collections that shouldn't be too hard to find.

James followed soon after, and he is described by Wikipedia thus: 'He is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are regarded as among the best in the genre. James redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, James's protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests. Accordingly, he is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story".' Dover also has a best-of collection of his short stories, and I don't know if a comprehensive one exists.

I wouldn't call Zeppelin lowbrow (we'll conveniently ignore "The Lemon Song")--they had a pretty wide range of abilities and sounds, and their work didn't sound like anyone else's.

TV's also written, as are movies. Why is writing on paper > writing imprinted on magnetic tape or celluloid? Lots of TV is better than lots of the books out there.

Oh I love good movies; they're the only reason I own a TV. Gaslight, From Here To Eternity, most anything with Humphrey Bogart. But television per se, well, on the rare occasions my wife puts on American Idol, I have to leave the room. That's kind of what I mean.

There's so many good suggestions here! the Great Gatsby, Tale of Two Cities, all going on my Amazon Wish list or cart.

Say, do audio books count? I mean, books I really like I own in print to be sure, but I have a long commute and downloaded audio books give me access to much more written / spoken word. Another reason I like audiobooks is that at nearly 41 I have heard most all the songs that come over the radio, and I am really tired of listening to them. I really find radio, any music radio boring.

In the last year I have just been thinking there has to be more to life than the same old, same old. And my thoughts have drifted back to my college days to my English Lit professor who was so fanatically passionate about literature, and an old girlfriend, who was an English Lit major, who was equally so with regard to lit classics. she introduced me to Kurt Vonnegut with Slaughter House 5, and a few others. I really got those books when I read them then, and talked about them with her, but I know I only scratched the surface of this world.

[KCurtis]

Green Tea is an amazing story. And Camilla is good...if you like the Gothic.

If you are looking for break into the non-Gothic American classics, I would suggest starting with Fitzgerald. Great Gatsby is the big one, Beautiful and the Damned is also great.

Yes, I knew I liked you Charles. Fitzgerald's Gatsby is wonderful- Hemmingway's contemporary but very different from him.

[KCurtis]

Hi,

I have read a few classic literature works, but would like to explore that world a little more.

I don't know what I don't know, or where to start. I have read a few Kurt Vonnegut books, and some Edgar Allan Poe and I liked those. I really do not know anything about any other authors. Except Dean Koontz - read a few dozen of his books.

I am looking more for classics though like maybe Hemingway, Twain, or their European contemporaries... I don't know. I am a working class guy, but college educated. I mean my usual interests are typically pretty low brow, but I am sharper than most in my demographic when it comes to spoken & written language.

Thanks,

Bob

Being a working class guy does not have to fit the stereotype, as my husband is one and is more well-read than most college graduates. He does wish he had gone to college for a science degree, but he can certainly hold his own or more in a college crowd. You are just looking for something more interesting than what you have been doing, and feel fortunate you appreciate great writing, that's all. Some people don't, college graduates or not.
Good luck in your quest! I can't wait to hear about the books you read.

[kasie]

Of course audio books count, Bob: they're just the thing for long and boring commutes, I used to listen to books that way when I was driving to work. However, a word of caution: make sure you get an unabridged edition or you may find yourself wondering how events have jumped forward without any explanation. It may well be that, having listened to a story, you find you want to read the printed edition so you can read at your own pace and pause to mull over things or reread particularly well-written sections.

Oh, and don't read M R James' stories on your own in a dark house......(OK, I know you're a big strong chap but they are scary!)

[OrphanPip]

Librivox.org has a good archive of volunteer made audio recordings of out of copyright texts if you want to save a bit of money.

[Calidore]

Oh I love good movies; they're the only reason I own a TV. Gaslight, From Here To Eternity, most anything with Humphrey Bogart. But television per se, well, on the rare occasions my wife puts on American Idol, I have to leave the room. That's kind of what I mean.


Yikes. Judging TV by American Idol is like judging books by a Harlequin romance.

[Paulclem]

Never ask this question...you'll never get to the end of the list they give you! .... and you'll feel bad if you don't and the stack of unread books in the corner will be like a small goading demon that addresses you every day you walk past them saying...you'll never get to the end... never get to the end....

Just a thought.:devil:

[LitNetIsGreat]

Never ask this question...you'll never get to the end of the list they give you! .... and you'll feel bad if you don't and the stack of unread books in the corner will be like a small goading demon that addresses you every day you walk past them saying...you'll never get to the end... never get to the end....

Just a thought.:devil:

Ha, yes this is true. Whenever you see a thread asking for recommendations you end up with a massive list of books that other people enjoy:


I am looking more for classics though like maybe Hemingway, Twain, or their European contemporaries... I don't know.

There are loads of books I could recommend, but the mention of Hemingway and European contemporary has struck a chord with what I was thinking about Laurie Lee this week. If you like Hemingway, and this goes for anybody, in such works as The Sun Also Rises, then the brilliant As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and A Moment of War are musts! His prose style is more 'poetic' than Heminway's and less sparse, but thematically and in feeling Laurie Lee, in many respects could be said to be the British equivalent to Hemingway. Very much under rated in my opinion, despite A Cider With Rosie being a very popular work.

[Trask]

If you want to read Hemingway you should read "The Short Stories: The first forty-nine short stories"

[tomingram]

Because the field is so broad, I have a suggestion more useful than any author/book suggestion:

Go to the library and start pulling books off of shelves. Read the dust jackets, the first paragraphs. Keep going until you find something that you can't put down.

Repeat again and again and again, and then you die.

Do this, and I guarantee you'll like what you read.

[Darcy88]

Because the field is so broad, I have a suggestion more useful than any author/book suggestion:

Go to the library and start pulling books off of shelves. Read the dust jackets, the first paragraphs. Keep going until you find something that you can't put down.

Repeat again and again and again, and then you die.

Do this, and I guarantee you'll like what you read.

Or they could begin their literary life by reading the masterpiece of the man in your avatar, Miller's Tropic of Cancer. That was the book that got me hooked on books. I wanted to go be a writer-bum on the streets of Paris. I wanted to rub my nose in dirt and filth, glorious dirt, glorious filth. Pride and Prejudice and Great Expectations might be better written, but a book like Tropic of Cancer hits you like a shot of heroin and will send you stumbling back to the librarian or shop-keeper like they're your drug dealer and you must have more.

[tomingram]

"The good reader will gravitate toward the good books."

- Henry Miller

Look, I follow you. Obviously I really enjoy Miller. But who's to say the fellow who started this thread will? He asked for classic western literature, a category too broad for us to well recommend. Let him search. I guarantee it will not take long for him to find something in the western canon he adores -- and find it on his own.

Much better than searching, searching for titles recommended here, and then giving them a spin only to be disappointed and forced to start searching for the next listed title.

Strike out on your own and find what you find. Better for the spirit.

[Darcy88]

"The good reader will gravitate toward the good books."

- Henry Miller

Miller wrote an essay or a book about Rimbaud and his experience reading Rimbaud. He said he did not read him until he was well past the age of thirty. I meet people who claim to have read everything by their early twenties and pride themselves on being prolific book-bingers. Miller said if he had read Rimbaud at an earlier age, before the soil had been nourished and set, he would not have understood or been impacted by him in the profound epiphanous way he was. There are certain books I know I must read but I don't think I am yet ready for. Like Brother's Karamazov and The Divine Comedy, and then some books like The Idiot and Paradise Lost which I read while a callow pup and did not appreciate as they deserved to be appreciated.

I gained more general philosophical insight for having read and re-read and re-re-re-re-re-read Plato's Republic and Nietzsche's Basic Writings than a number of people I know who read every big name in the history of western philosophy singly and perfunctorily.

That was kind of unrelated to the thread but it kind of just popped into my head.

And yeah, if you go to the classics section in any decently-stocked used book store and select at random, heck even just from the pretty pictures on the covers, ten books and read the first few chapters of each and repeat the process when those ten are done you will eventually find what you like. That's pretty much what I did back when I was 17.

Or just read Dostoevsky, save yourself the trouble.

[tomingram]

Although we're a little off topic...

Dostoevsky will hit on subjects that point to Nietzsche, but there's still a huge difference.

Take Crime and Punishment, wherein we find a chance at spiritual redemption. Nietzsche doesn't offer such a thing. Dostoevsky still lives in the shadow of God, to use the jargon.

[Bob]

There are so many good suggestions here - That is awesome!

Okay, progress Report:

Carmilla is good, very good. A little "girly" toward the beginning, but very well written, and a solidly developed story.

Haven't listened to Green Tea yet, but it's next, and looking forward to it.

Now, MOBY DICK. I got the Unabridged version from iTunes, and it is amazing! High quality, grass feed, perfectly rare grilled beef for the ears and mind. Since listening to it my wife asked me "Where is (our cat) Moonshine?" I replied "Outside, capering about most obstreperously."

About a quarter way through it presently, but I struck gold when I found Herman Melville.

[Calidore]

Now, MOBY DICK. I got the Unabridged version from iTunes, and it is amazing! High quality, grass feed, perfectly rare grilled beef for the ears and mind. Since listening to it my wife asked me "Where is (our cat) Moonshine?" I replied "Outside, capering about most obstreperously."


I learned that word when Moe told Curly, "Don't be obstreperous."

[fb0252]

u sound like the sort that would enjoy Tom Wolfe's "Man In Full".

http://www.amazon.com/A-Man-Full-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0553381334/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332120844&sr=1-1

if u want to go high brow, start here:

http://www.amazon.com/Genius-Mosaic-Hundred-Exemplary-Creative/dp/0446691291/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=133212070

http://www.amazon.com/The-Western-Canon-Books-School/dp/1573225142/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332120801&sr=1-1http://www.amazon.com/The-Western-Canon-Books-School/dp/1573225142/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332120801&sr=1-1