the longest story you have ever read

[cacian]

I think one I can easily call long is:
''a hundred year of solitude'' by Garcia Marquez.
beside
''Don Quixote'' by none other then Miquel De Cervantes.

[Nate]

i've been working on swann's way for a while now and plan to read isolt in full. it's the longest story i've attempted to read

[Volya]

The Lord of the Rings.

[cafolini]

Cacianate Zolpidem.

[Calidore]

War and Peace is certainly feeling like it, but the longest thing I've read is probably the French Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Lancelot/Arthur cycle. However, if George R.R. Martin lives to finish his Song of Ice and Fire series and I end up reading it, that should win easily.

[Lokasenna]

I read Clarissa - I'm not sure it was worth it.

This might be of help to some people:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_novels

[Volya]

War and Peace is certainly feeling like it, but the longest thing I've read is probably the French Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Lancelot/Arthur cycle. However, if George R.R. Martin lives to finish his Song of Ice and Fire series and I end up reading it, that should win easily.

Do series' really count?

[Calidore]

Do series' really count?

Cacian asked for "longest story", so I figured that a series consisting of a single continuous story broken up into publishable volumes would apply.

[Volya]

Hmmm. I guess A Song of Ice and Fire is probably the longest story I've read too then.

[Lokasenna]

Cacian asked for "longest story", so I figured that a series consisting of a single continuous story broken up into publishable volumes would apply.

I have read all but the last book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series - that's twelve books, and each one is a hefty door stop.

I'm not sure whether series should count - I presume that Cacian really means 'novel' when she says 'story'?

[coeus]

If series count, then Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan is by far the longest I've read. I recently read What Maisie Knew by Henry James, and while only a few hundred pages, it seemed to be endless. Took me forever to finish. I usually like Henry James, but it was just not my cup of tea.

[ChicagoReader]

JR by William Gaddis definitely seemed the longest for me, and could actually be the longest I've read (close to a thousand pages?), but I just finished 2666 by Roberto Bolano which is just short of 900 pages and was great.

[mal4mac]

I might be reading it at the moment, "The Count of Monte Cristo", 1462 pages. It's a real page turner, a very easy & exciting read. So I think I'll make it :)

I think ''a hundred years of solitude'' just feels long.

[Scheherazade]

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

[kev67]

Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell, a series of twelve books but really one story.

[Calidore]

I might be reading it at the moment, "The Count of Monte Cristo", 1462 pages. It's a real page turner, a very easy & exciting read. So I think I'll make it :)


Dumas can be very long, but he goes down very easily.

[hawthorns]

One story, or one book?

If story, probably these:

Remembrance of Things Past (all 7)
Winston Churchill's World War II series. I got bored after the third book though.
The Worst Journey in the World

[JBI]

Chinese Martial Arts Novels, and Classical Chinese Fiction. Jin Yong novels when translated would hit a couple thousand pages, but they have yet to be translated. Jin Ping Mei and Hong Lou Meng are also quite, quite long.

As for who wrote the longest drawn out series of books - the fantasy genre seems to be the great winner. I only didn't list them as I hadn't finished. Proust, taken as a single work, would be a great contender, except that I have not finished. In terms of Length I suspect it would equal Jin Yong's Condor Trilogy, which I read to help me studying written Chinese.

[Snowqueen]

War and Peace by Tolstoy and Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. Truly great novels!

[Vota]

I would have to say the longest story I have read goes to The Wheel of Time series. I believe there are 14 books in total and they are all over 700-800 pages in length. I've read the first 11 books and will complete the last 3 in time.

As a side note, it seems to be popular to bash this series of books, but for sheer epic scope, enjoyment, awesome world, characters and magic system, I'd put it up against any other fantasy series I have read. Comparing it to A Song of Ice and Fire, which I love, if I was stuck on a desert island I would prefer the wheel series because I feel that overall it is a more exciting and interesting story.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

One that I recently finished; August 1914-The Red Wheel Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

[Kyriakos]

For me it probably was The brothers Karamazov. I read it only once, back when i was half the age i now am...(now i am 34).

I don't read long works by now. Mostly just short stories, since i mostly write short stories myself anyway (around 10 pages).

[mal4mac]

Dumas can be very long, but he goes down very easily.

Like custard; but you quickly get tired of custard. It's coming out of my nostrils, even though I'm trying to cram it down, so I've given up around page 600.

[cacian]

Like custard; but you quickly get tired of custard. It's coming out of my nostrils, even though I'm trying to cram it down, so I've given up around page 600.

custard? for me it is like trying to climb a mountain you get to see the peak but never actually get to touch it it is so high. still you are doing well around 600. :)

[haydenliu]

Currently I am reading Les Miserables in English; how long did this masterpiece take for you to finish it?

[haydenliu]

War and Peace by Tolstoy and Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. Truly great novels!

Currently I am reading Les Miserables in English; how long did this masterpiece take for you to finish it?

[islandclimber]

Artamene, Or Cyrus the Great, at a brief 2.1 million words. And then perhaps Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time at a mere 1.27 million.

Joseph McElroy's Women and Men is certainly the longest novel I have read, that is always considered only a single volume. 850,000 words or so.

Perhaps someday Arno Schmidt's Zettel's Traum will be translated to English, as it is considered the longest single volume novel ever written.

[PabloQ]

I just finished Les Miserables. It took me over 3 months to finish. It's not that much of a story, but Hugo could get extremely preachy and professorial as he filled in the historical gaps and expounded on one subject or another. It's the longest thing I've ever read.

[Wondra]

Series: the wheel of time

Single volume: war and peace (though I had to check the page counts of a storm of swords and the uncut version of the Stand)

[Lykren]

Dream of the Red Chamber, in English, in five volumes, which totaled about 2500 pages.

[Snowqueen]

Currently I am reading Les Miserables in English; how long did this masterpiece take for you to finish it?

I read Les Miserable a while back and I think it took me 6 or 7 months to finish it. War and peace on the other hand took longer time almost a year, during which my aunt died and I had to put it off for a few months.

[DATo]

Probably The Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn at 615 pages.

[108 fountains]

The Pickwick Papers (Dickens first novel) is one of the longest, if not the longest story I have read. It was so enjoyable that I wished there had been another 804 pages. It was apparently immensely popular in its own day - I've heard that there was something of a "Pickwick mania" (akin to Beatlemania) at the time, with shops selling "Pickwick hats" and "Pickwick cigars" and with "Pickwick clubs" springing up all over England.

[JBI]

Must have been Jin Yong novels or Dream of Red Mansions or Jin Ping Mei or something. Proust counts but it flows well to the point where you don't put it down.

[DATo]

I read The Pickwick Papers for the first time about two years ago and enjoyed it immensely. I've been given to understand it was hugely popular in Victorian England, a view which is supported by your comment.

EDIT: This post is in response to 108 Fountains' post. I'm new here and trying to get the hang of the controls. Please forgive.