Getting interested in realist literature

[dark desire]

I am feeling pretty excited about my new found interest in realist literature. A little bit about me - I recently finished masters in English literature after graduating with an engineering degree. I am acquainted with examples of literature from different time periods. However, my knowledge has so far only been surface deep. For some time (which is a few months on calendar but feels like years in my consciousness) I have been wondering about where to take the plunge into literature so that I will enjoy as well as learn most thoroughly. Somehow, I have reached the conclusion that realist literature would be it!

That said, I want to point out that my interest area lies more in portrayal of darker characters. Not necessarily as dark as characters from Zola but somewhere around characters from Dostoyevsky, like Raskolnikov. I also like the characters that are internally conflicted, like the characters of George Eliot. I do not know much about other writers of the realist era. What should I read of Dickens? I have been thinking about Bleak House. Not so much interested in Bronte sisters or Jane Austen. What about Trollope and Elizabeth Gaskell? And the one and only Henry James? William Thackrey? Haven't been much of a fan of Tolstoy but then Dostoyevsky praised him, so I want to give Tolstoy a try too. Turgenev's Father and Son is a book I possess. A comment on it would be nice. Balzac must be read, so please suggest something from him as well. I would like to restrict my current studies to realism strictly and not digress into romantic or modern novels.

Responses with suggestions of books from above mentioned authors will be much appreciated. Suggestions about a realist author that I have not mentioned above will be good too.

Thanks!

[kiki1982]

Well, I don't know much realism in English apart from Eliot and Henry James.
Trollope is far too sweet to be called realism. It's rather light Romanticism, with realistic bits, but rather on the funny side, a bit Austenesque sometimes.
Dickens the same. They say he is realistic, but that's not the same as Realist. Far too much caricature, although maybe his later works tend towards Realism.
From what I got from Vanity Fair, Thackeray has kind of Realist tendencies (characters not getting over their foibles and things not really necessarily ending well, despite what may seem on the surface), but he's a bit early, so he still has the sensibility and love bits. I did find that novel very engaging, but if you're looking for something like Eliot, it's not.
Hardy developed from Romantic (Far from the Madding Crowd) into Naturalist big time (Jude the Obscure), so maybe some novels in between are to be called Realist (no idea).
Turgeniev, I reckon, is Naturalist, so if you think it couldn't get worse, it bl**dy well can. :)

I read one thing by Balzac (Eugénie Grandet), I enjoyed that, but had the same kind of problem as I had with Eliot: it's fish nor meat as they say in Dutch. It's negative, but it doesn't go the full hog, so it doesn't do much for me.
Another French Realist is Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary). Haven't read Bovary, but it sounds thoroughly Realist. The reader seems to be left with total dissatisfaction at the end. Maybe The Lady of the Camelias (Alexandre Dumas, Jr.) can be deemed Realist as well for the same reason. Or on the cusp.

There doesn't seem to be much in terms of English language there, maybe because they were too preoccupied with Romanticism, who knows ;). At any rate, as the French started it all, it makes sense that there would be more of it over that way. Victor Hugo sometimes has tendencies as well in Les Misérables, but it's not a full dose of it, it's too melodramatic.

[108 fountains]

Yes, Bleak House would be a good choiuce. It is probably the darkest of Dickens' novels. It's also long and relatively dense in some places. For an introduction to Dickens, I might suggest Hard Times, which is about as dark as Bleak House, but much shorter in length and also easier to read. I don't know if I've ever heard Dickens described as a "realist," but I guess the label could fit. Another book of his that might even better fit the definition of "realism" is Great Expectations.

[kiki1982]

Yes, I was thinking that about Great Expectation. From its adaptation for TV, I'd think it could be (depends on how Dickens paints the characters though).

[NikolaiI]

Les Miserables is good and fun. Yes, Dostoevsky liked Tolstoy; for instance Anna Karenina wasn't received very well at first, but Dostoevsky called it "flawless as a work of art." The short story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" is really good.

You might like Caribbean by Michener.. it's a meandering tale covering lots of eras.. but as far as realism goes, that's pretty spot on.

The Stranger by Albert Camus would probably be right up your alley, and Identity and Unbearable Lightness of Being by Kundera are really exceptional.

One other you may like from Dostoevsky is Notes From the Underground.

It's not exactly realism, but if you're looking for good ones - The Cask of Amontillado and The Tell-tale Heart are both incredibly good, they're by Poe.

Enjoy :)

[kev67]

I was going to suggest Middlemarch, but I see the OP is already into George Elliot. I am not quite sure what 'realism' means in literature, but I don't think Charles Dickens is a realist author. To me, his books are more like fairy tales mixed with social commentary. I liked Bleak House, but I preferred Great Expectations. George Gissing is pretty realist. His best book in New Grub Street. Elizabeth Gaskell is probably more realistic than Dickens in that she describes in more precise detail people's economic circumstances, their work and their participation in class conflict. I would not say she was 100% realist either.

[kiki1982]

Basically Realism is about discovering life as it is in a kind of weird and scientific descriptive way. Or characters as they are, what drives them. Naturalism, as in Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles grew out of it, looking from the viewpoint of Darwin's theory of nature and nurture. Where the characters in a realist novel have their weaknesses and are affected by the world around them, they deal with it as we deal with stuff that happens in our daily lives. We just go through it, we don't have a choice in most cases. Naturalist characters feel wronged, you as a reader feel wronged and the tale inevitably ends badly. A realist tale just ends, as if the writer has decided to switch off the light, but if you wanted you could go and seek out the character, so to speak, and see what they made of their life.

Realism makes no attempt at drama, what happens is banale, it's nothing special, it's not set up, you could go to the neighbours and see it happen, basically.
Eugénie Grandet, for example, is about a miserly and incredibly rich old man who makes his wife and only daughter sit in the cold for half the year and at the end of the story, SPOILER ALERT she ends up the same miserly cow, despite her fight in the beginning SPOILER OVER.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles is different in that it's not even Tess's own decisions that drive her to destruction, it's just the society itself.

Although Eliot wasn't exactly without drama, I'd say that Dickens isn't exactly your ideal realist writer. He might be realist-IC, but he's definitely not realist. Too much melodrama, too much coicidence and not enough clinical analysis.

[ennison]

That's not a bad definition of the dif Kiki. Realism is life as it is. Naturalism does have a basic despondent view. Kinda Dawkinesque and miserable.

[kiki1982]

Thanks to Wikipedia ;).

No,; I LOVE Naturalism. I don't know why. I think it's a morbid and sadist kind of thing. Can't read too many novels of that one after the other, it just depresses me, but a good sobber once in a while is bliss. :)

Conversely, Realism frustrates the hell out of me. It's like there is no purpose to it.

[Pompey Bum]

Okay, here's what you want, I think, dark desire. Don't worry whether it's realism, or naturalism, or which authors qualify as "modern." Just read these and decide for yourself which you like.

By D. H. Lawrence:

Sons and Lovers
Women in Love

By Ford Madox Ford:

The Good Soldier
Parade's End (four books)

By Joseph Conrad:

Victory: An Island Tale
The Secret Sharer

By Fyodor Dostoyevsky:

Crime and Punishment (if you haven't already read it)
Notes From the Underground

By William Makepeace Thackeray;

Catherine
Vanity Fair (but nothing else by Thackeray for now)

By Thomas Hardy:

Tess of the D'Urbervilles
The Mayor of Casterbridge (but prioritize Tess)

Hope that was helpful. There should be much there to enjoy.

[ennison]

There seems to be a focus on the Victorians in the replies here. Realism did not end with them. There have been many realist writers in England for example in the 20th century: Sillitoe, Braine, Storey, Greenwood, Barstow, Hines, Freeman. I remember Reading Joseph and his Brothers a long time ago. I guess it veers towards Naturalism in its grimness. There are writers in Scotland who have used realism. Kelman for me is a psychological "realist" and also more of a naturalist than a realist. The great novel The House With the Green Shutters is realistic and dark. As is Gillespie. A realistic English novel such as The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists was not afraid to have surreal touches and is often sentimental.

[ennison]

And to push TC Boyle again. Some of his work is highly realistic and there are dark conflicted characters. When the Killing's Done is an example.
Really the guy should give me commission for this!