Reading a novelists' complete novels, and getting a 'complete' feel for their works

I don't think I've finished reading any of Shakespeare's plays. Even in high school, where Hamlet must have been assigned, I don't recall actually finishing it. I certainly didn't remember much of it, because after watching a film version of the play, many hears later, I was surprised to find out he died in the end. Since my degrees were in mathematics, this lack of education was not a major hindrance.

The local library now has Hoopla and so I have available many audio recordings that I can listen to from my phone. After looking at the list, what I would like to do is listen to, not read, all of the recordings of the various poets that are available. I probably won't complete the task, but it doesn't matter.

I've read all of Dickens' novels, but not all his short stories. I've read all of Jane Austin except for Lady Susan. I've read all but four of Thomas Hardy's lesser known novels and nearly all of his short stories. I first read Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities as an assigned reading my senior year in high school and didn't get much out of it (I was too young too appreciate it). I read Oliver Twist a few years later and really enjoyed it. I followed it up with Pickwick Papers, which hooked me for life. After that I would read another Dickens novel every year or two or three. I put off reading Martin Chuzzlewit for years because I knew after that I would have no "new" Dickens to read. I finally read that one about three years ago. Oh, and I went back and re-read A Tale of Two Cities and now would rank that as one of Dickens' best.

I plan to read the rest of Hardy's work, and will probably read Lady Susan so I can say I've read all of Jane Austin. I've probably read all but seven or eight of Shakespeare's play, but am not sure if I will go on to read the rest of them. There are a few others whom I really enjoy and of whom I have read at least half of their novels - Mark Twain, Sir Walter Scott, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton - I don't have any particular plan to complete their entire works, but I might.

Lady Susan is short and funny -- an easy book to read. It wasn't published in Austen's lifetime -- and it certainly isn't of the same quality as the novels that were.

Thanks ennison. I was wondering if anyone caught my Harper Lee wisecrack.

I've done this with JD Salinger and JM Coetzee - now in the process of reading all of John Updike's stuff. Salinger is consistent(only one novel then just short stories), but Coetzee and Updikes books are all different in style.

I've read almost all the received texts from China up until 618AD. I've also read most of the commentaries there on, which make the works significantly longer. Still, many of them could be skipped, and I wasted a large amount of time reading dug up grave stones.

I did read all of Charles Bukowski's novels which I imagine don't appeal to everyone but at the time I was really pumped up about his works.

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Originally Posted by JBI

I wasted a large amount of time reading dug up grave stones.

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Why did you do that?

As yet, I don't have (mainstream) authors to list whose oeuvre I have already read, but there are a few I intend to read. I am not going to rush though, because I think that unless you're a researcher or reading for professional reasons, it's best to spread out the works of your favourite author over a longer period of time, to appreciate them better if nothing else. The singularity of style and language and even of fictional point-of-view can affect your retention of new material if you keep on reading the same author at a gallop.

A while ago, I read a Guardian UK report about some sort of public figure who was made to feel embarrassed for his complete ignorance of Dickens. So he made a new year resolution to read everything by the maestro in a year. He apparently kept up with his resolution, but I don't think he would have got much out of it.

I was hooked to Marquez when I read Solitude. I read another two of his works in quick succession. Then I realised I needed to stop and read something else and wait for a few months to start on another of his novels.

I can think of a few writers whose full works I am eager to read, and am in the process of reading. Some of them are alive and well, and still writing.

Vladimir Nabokov
Leo Tolstoy
J.L. Borges
Orhan Pamuk
Gustav Flaubert
Pablo Neruda
Nagib Mahfouz
Ernest Hemingway
John Steinbeck
Hanif Kureishi
J.M. Coetzee
Mario Vargas Llosa
Carlos Fuentes
Jose Saramago
Franz Kafka (almost there. Have still to read his Americanah or whatever it's called)

et al

I'm very biased in favour of Latin American literature. Classic authors of the 19th century West suffocate me, so I read only their most well known or best works. I normally will not read everything from an old writer unless I really, really love him, like Flaubert or Dickens. But writers such as Conrad, Bronte sisters and Wilde I will only read selectively.

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Originally Posted by Lykren

Why did you do that?

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Historical research required it. It reaffirms both dates and events that seem cloudy historically. Chinese gravestones tend to have about two typed pages worth of material, so they contain more cultural value than, lets say, European one-two sentence epitaph and date grave stones.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Historical research required it. It reaffirms both dates and events that seem cloudy historically. Chinese gravestones tend to have about two typed pages worth of material, so they contain more cultural value than, lets say, European one-two sentence epitaph and date grave stones.

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Interesting.

What does a typical Chinese gravestone reads like when deciphered and translated into English?

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Originally Posted by Marbles

Interesting.

What does a typical Chinese gravestone reads like when deciphered and translated into English?

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A bunch of strung together set phrases praising the person, with dates, achievements, etc. It also perhaps will tell you about the cities they lived in, the political posts they held, etc. Which is important in determining dates for biographies, which then get cross-examined and compared to others against their collected works (Chinese poems generally are written with somebody or to somebody, and often leave dates or names, which can be cross examined). In a sense it is just biographical reassembly.

There is also the problem of major amounts of lost works, so grave stones give a kind of reference and time frame for things that are missing. As Chinese readers both focus on biography and political opinions for the most part, the grave stone maps out a sort of more concrete political picture of the individual. As such political movements were buried in officially received histories, we may also learn about ancient political and cultural institutions that were not recorded in the history books. Ancient Chinese history is moralizing, so they tend to submerge dissent and not record it.

I've read all of Austen, including her letters, which are quite entertaining in themselves, all of Bronte, plus their letters, though only selections are available right now. All of Eliot and her journal, which I love, as she mentions what she is reading most of the time and I am always interested in what authors read! I have also read all of Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Forster and Hardy. I love Hardy...his lesser known novels have minor characters, places and even events or scenes which he reworks into his famous pieces of literature. I really wish Jude had been received in a more positive light (those darn Victorians...) because I always wonder what else he would have written. I also have read all of Shakespeare several times through due to various in depth courses from HS to college. Then I reread everything in my 20's and want to do it again. I have read most of Ray Bradbury, who has always held a special place in my heart and reading history. I hope to get through the rest in the near future!

I have read (almost) everything by Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Roald Dahl, Jane Austen (not the letters) and Agatha Christie. I read more than half of Dickens. I read everything by Emily Brontë, Harper Lee, Margaret Mitchell and Harriet Beecher Stowe, but they only wrote one book.

Emily wrote poems too!

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Originally Posted by mortalterror

I've only done that with Hemingway and Shakespeare. I think I'm two plays short of the complete Racine. Homer was easy with just two books and some attributed poems. I decided to read all the Greek plays so Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes. I've read most of Virgil and Ovid with the exception of some Eclogues and Fastia... and large chunks of Akutagawa, Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson, and Chuck Palahniuk.

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Yeah, Homer is easy, missing some poems I think. The same goes for Hesiod (even shorter poems) and Virgil. Got all Ovid, Sappho too (but then even easier). Does Lautreamont counts? :D
I found the task impossible for Cervantes, not only he wrote quite a lot (and some are even good, unlike the usual notion, but some are very very bad), all Milton, Coleridge, Donne, Blake, Keats, Elizabeth Barrett (doing the same with her husband), Christina Rossetti, Camões, Emily Dickinson poetry, missing letters or essays. Poe all stories and poems, missing a few essays. Borges I read all published so far and that is is possible to find (some of his essays and prefaces are never published in his antologies, so hardly possible.). All Emily Bronte poems (and of course Wuthering heights). Juan Rulfo has only a few short stories, a novel and movie scripts, so easy. All Hans Christians Andersen and Grimm tales. I am thinking I may have finished with Dante also, not sure, maybe there is some small poems missing.