2012 reading challenge

Of the stuff mentioned, I've got Les Miz, Moby Dick, and the two big Tolstoys on the to-read shelf, along with Neal Stephenson's huge Baroque trilogy, which hasn't been mentioned but would also fit this topic. I have Genji and the Paul Scott quartet in storage, meaning hopefully someday. I've read and can heartily recommend Dumas' complete Musketeers trilogy and Monte Cristo. I gave up on Don Quixote and Winter's Tale: the former because the humor was too broad and the situations too repetitive, and the latter because the writing was too precious, as if the author was too much in love with his own writing.

I'm currently reading a mammoth sci-fi trilogy: Night's Dawn by Peter F. Hamilton. Each of the three volumes is over 1000 pages. Despite the length, it's quite the page-turner. Next will be Alexandre Dumas' gigantic Marie Antoinette series, with books 2 & 3 roughly 800-1000 pages and books 1 & 4 running 1500-2000 each (in the unabridged editions). I'd meant to start that concurrently with the Night's Dawn trilogy, but both have so many characters that I'd never be able to keep them straight.

Read The Plum in the golden Vase. It is long (something around 2000 pages) but the most interesting book you will ever read in your life, I guarantee it.

For my 2012 reading theme, I'm trying to decide between Monsters, Re-Reads, or the inevitable Whatever-the-Hell-I-Want. All I know for sure is that I would like to read a lot of Beckett, at least one volume of Proust, some Pynchon (I made a promise about Gravity's Rainbow, and I plan to keep it), Infinite Jest, and the greater deal of my currently unread books sitting on the shelf.

Last year I made a list of 200 books I wanted to read for the year. I only read like 50 of them. So, this year, I'll just try and knock out 50 more!

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Originally Posted by JBI

Read The Plum in the golden Vase. It is long (something around 2000 pages) but the most interesting book you will ever read in your life, I guarantee it.

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That's quite a gyrate.

What about The Grapes of Wrath? I thought it was pretty long.

Thanks for the recommendations everyone :) JBI The Plum in the Golden Vase sounds really interesting, thanks. I'm just balking at the cost of it - over here it's about £25 per volume and comes in 5 volumes and the 5th isn't available yet. So I might have to do that one piecemeal and but I'm definitely interested in reading it.

Qimi I do own a copy of The Grapes of Wrath which weighs in at a mere 528 pages, so long but not quite long enough for my challenge. Actually I'm not sure if I've ever read it. Maybe I'll have to have a 'classic novels I've never read but think I should have' challenge next year. There'd be a lot on it :D

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Originally Posted by TheFifthElement

Qimi I do own a copy of The Grapes of Wrath which weighs in at a mere 528 pages, so long but not quite long enough for my challenge. Actually I'm not sure if I've ever read it. Maybe I'll have to have a 'classic novels I've never read but think I should have' challenge next year. There'd be a lot on it :D

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Perhaps I should make a list of "classic novels I've read but wish I hadn't". The Grapes of Wrath is on that list for me. There is an entire chapter about dirt and a turtle. Maybe it would make more impact now though. I likely need to give some of them a try again.

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Originally Posted by LadyLuck

Perhaps I should make a list of "classic novels I've read but wish I hadn't". The Grapes of Wrath is on that list for me. There is an entire chapter about dirt and a turtle. Maybe it would make more impact now though. I likely need to give some of them a try again.

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Lol, LadyLuck, I just wanted to reply something along these lines when I stumbled upon your post.
I'd strongly second Thomas Mann "Magic Mountain", but Mann has written an even longer book "Joseph and his Brothers" (amazon announces it with 1,492 pages). I've read the "Magic Mountain" when I was 16 (had quite a long Mann-period back then) and have re-read it several times ever since because it's quite a complex novel, even though nothing much is really going on in terms of action. I've always liked it.

But do try "Joseph and his Brothers". If only to let me know if you find it as tedious as I did. I started at least ten times, and after let's say 400 pages or so of "Joseph's father is snoring next to a well" (I mean, there can only be said or written so much about that, no?), I've always given up.

I just bought Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True. Probably won't have time to read it until the summer, but I'm SO looking forward to it because the story sounds fantastic and it's gotten great reviews on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. My copy is 897 pages.

So far my monsters list only includes:

Ulysses- James Joyce
Count of Monte Cristo- Dumas
Gravity's Rainbow- Thomas Pynchon

Not that many but Im also in the middle of Infinite Jest so I can count that.

Okay, maybe I won't read The Grapes of Wrath, though I do like turtles, and dirt ;)

jake21221 I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on Infinite Jest as that's a title I'd quite like to read this year. That being said, I read The Broom of the System a while ago and hated it.

To add to my own list (damn you charity shops!):

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
2666 by Robert Bolano (I think someone already recommended this anyway) and
War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa

like I haven't got enough to read :D

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Originally Posted by DieterM

But do try "Joseph and his Brothers". If only to let me know if you find it as tedious as I did. I started at least ten times, and after let's say 400 pages or so of "Joseph's father is snoring next to a well" (I mean, there can only be said or written so much about that, no?), I've always given up.

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You're not selling it Dieter! I'll take your recommendation of Magic Mountain though. It's creeping higher up my 'to read' list. Have you read Buddenbrooks? Is that any good? I'm tempted by that one too.

Oh yes, absolutely, Buddenbrooks is a fantastic read! Anyway, Mann was a great writer, and I think Buddenbrooks is the easiest of his books.

I think I've settled on my 2012 theme. Experimental/Post-Modern Lit.

My list:
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
White Noise by Don DeLillo
The Castle by Franz Kafka
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
Rings of Saturn by WB Sebald
Whatever I can get my hands on by Samuel Beckett
And culminating with...
Ulysses by James Joyce

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Originally Posted by LadyLuck

Perhaps I should make a list of "classic novels I've read but wish I hadn't". The Grapes of Wrath is on that list for me. There is an entire chapter about dirt and a turtle. Maybe it would make more impact now though. I likely need to give some of them a try again.

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It's not that he writes about dirt and a turtle, LadyLuck-it's what he does with the dirt and a turtle. :D

So, it stays on my list, even if it's a teensy bit too short to be "mammoth." It's about the dust bowl, after all, and Oklahoma, the only state in the union to inspire a Broadway musical.

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Originally Posted by qimissung

It's not that he writes about dirt and a turtle, LadyLuck-it's what he does with the dirt and a turtle. :D

So, it stays on my list, even if it's a teensy bit too short to be "mammoth." It's about the dust bowl, after all, and Oklahoma, the only state in the union to inspire a Broadway musical.

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Qimi, you'll have to let me know what you think of it. It's one of those (many) books I've been 'getting around to' for quite some time now.

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Originally Posted by TheFifthElement

Qimi, you'll have to let me know what you think of it. It's one of those (many) books I've been 'getting around to' for quite some time now.

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I am planning on reading this book after I finish Jane Eyre. I love Steinbeck.

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Originally Posted by TheFifthElement

jake21221 I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on Infinite Jest as that's a title I'd quite like to read this year. That being said, I read The Broom of the System a while ago and hated it.

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Well Im about 300 pages away from the end, and I honestly am enjoying it quite a bit. It's hard to get into at the start when he's introducing all the characters but what I did was whenever I finished a section or the book got too obtuse or dense I put it down and thought about what I'd just read. Some scenes are very dull but the majority of them are quite engrossing and sometimes his descriptions of things are so gorgeous I have to re-read them. Other times I have to re-read them due to my own idiocy but thats another matter. There are many end-notes a lot of which I've found superfluous and have pretty much given up on them.

I can't comment on any of Wallace's other writing as I've not read anything else by him but I did impulse buy The Pale King his unfinished novel because I enjoyed Infinite Jest so much. I did hear Wallace comment on The Broom of the System saying "It seems like it was written by a smart 14 year old." So I don't think he had much love for it either.

I willl try to read 100 novels.

One of my favorite quotations about literature is the idea that "great books teach you how read them." I've always thought this especially holds true for the great, mammoth works-- certainly for Ulysses, Don Quixote, Gravity's Rainbow, Infinite Jest, Moby-Dick, 2666.... I think this is why I've always been more compelled by the 600+ books; I sometimes get the feeling, upon finishing a shorter book, that I was still learning how to read it, and never had a chance to really grasp the full picture. So I admire your 2012 reading list!

I'll be interested to see how you progress with Tale of Genji. I gave it a shot last year, and didn't make it much beyond a hundred pages, partly due to the utterly foreign conventions of the place and time, and partly due to its massive size and awkwardness on my subway commute. Best of luck!-- but bear in mind that most of these books aren't meant to be read in a month, and certain ones (Infinite Jest, Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow) would be nearly impossible to engage with on a meaningful level in such a short time-frame, unless you're of the read/eat/sleep persuasion.

I'm really glad you said that. I am reading The Tale of Genji, and enjoying it, but it's going to take me awhile to finish, and that's OK with me. Genji is an interesting character. I find it quite fascinating to think of this long ago, well-bred Japanese widow writing the first novel ever, and what a book it is!

I don't think Forsyte Saga was mentioned. And that's a very long read. There's also Thakeray's Vanity Fair, an old favourite of mine. And I didn't see David Cooperfield on the Dickens list. All very pleasant passtimes.

How about something gothic in the shape of the Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake. That is a read that will stay with you for the rest of your life and has some of the best characters committed to paper.

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Originally Posted by rootinghog

I'll be interested to see how you progress with Tale of Genji. I gave it a shot last year, and didn't make it much beyond a hundred pages, partly due to the utterly foreign conventions of the place and time, and partly due to its massive size and awkwardness on my subway commute. Best of luck!-- but bear in mind that most of these books aren't meant to be read in a month, and certain ones (Infinite Jest, Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow) would be nearly impossible to engage with on a meaningful level in such a short time-frame, unless you're of the read/eat/sleep persuasion.

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Hi rootinghog :) Thanks for your comments. I understand what you mean about these longer books not necessarily being do-able in a month. I guess I'll see how I get on. In any books, long or short, there are differences in their density. So, for example, it took me a long(ish) time to read Tess of the D-Urbervilles last year, which is about 350 pages long but very dense, but probably the same amount of time to read 1Q84 which is significantly longer but a bit more lightweight. So I suspect certain books will be more difficult to absorb (say Infinite Jest, Ulysses) than others (The Old Curiosity Shop, for example, or even The Tale of Genji). I do get a lot of reading time, however, thanks to my commute which gives me about 1hr 40 minutes reading time each day.

Genji, well, what an excellent read. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've read a fair amount of Japanese literature so I have a bit of a grounding though I doubt it prepared me that well for the cultural differences. That being said, it is well rooted in romance and there's a sadness about it, a sense of things becoming less bright, less 'shining'. I think the translation will have an impact on your reading experience. I picked the Seidensticker translation after reading examples from each of the three main translations and deciding which one 'flowed' best for me (I don't know if it's the most accurate, but for me it was the most readable). I think that helps. It had good notes too, regarding the origins of the poetics which appear throughout the book. Overall it was an excellent read. One to recommend.

Not sure what I'm moving on to next. The book club is reading Midnight's Children so that's a distinct possibility, though for some reason I really, really want to read The Magic Mountain so we'll see. Firstly, however, I'm going to read some of the short stuff :D

So, mammoth read progress so far:
1. The Tale of Genji - 1169 pages

Independent People, which was recommended by the people in the forum when I made a post about Scandinavian authors. It was a good piece, no doubt, but way too long for me XD I barely finished one-tenth of the book. I will definitely try to finish it this year, though.

Not only Les Miserables, but Hunchback of Notre Dame. I hate the fact that Victor Hugo's stories just HAS to be so long. Urgh! He's a really good writer but seriously, I want shorter versions which are still literary! T.T

Congratulations on finishing the first mammoth!:willy_nilly:That just may inspire me to pick up Genji later this year. And thanks for Seidensticker recommendation-- I'd tried Royall Tyler's, which is said to be "accurate to a fault" (with a burdensome amount of footnotes and additional materials). For my part, I now feel motivated to spend my year communing with the unknown monsters on my bookshelves-- Mason & Dixon, Something Happened, From Here to Eternity, Doctor Zhivago, Winter's Tale, Petersburg, Demons, Bleak House, Genji... but I'll certainly drop in for discussions of Don Quixote, Infinite Jest, Gravity's Rainbow, and Ulysses, which make up some of my all-time favorites.

Also: I wouldn't worry about the fact that you weren't too fond of Broom of the System-- as someone who has read (and adores) Infinite Jest, The Pale King, and most of DFW's non-fiction, I will admit that I couldn't finish that novel, as I found the tone of self-conscious show-offiness pretty insufferable. He cast that off early in his career, though, and IJ is a serious and mature (and very fun) work, although it does require patience and dedication. I look forward to discussing it with everyone!

February update:
1. The Tale of Genji - 1169 pages
2. Midnight's Children - 647 pages

Phew!

Okay, you have inspired me! I've had Les Miserables and Tom Jones on my shelves for a couple years now. Time to start in on them...

So, I'm struggling to decide what to read for March. Part of me would like to read Middlemarch, as it's nearly the middle of March and it seems appropriate, but mainly I don't want to read something that long because, well, I'm just too tempted to read Spring Snow by Mishima and Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar and they're both pretty long books if not long enough to meet my mammoth challenge.

Hmm. Maybe I'll read The Old Curiosity Shop. Or The Poisonwood Bible. Any Poisonwood Biblers out there who'd like to join me?

My challenge is to ready the 100 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I've started . . . not going from 1 to 100, but picking out what fits my mood at the time. I've heard Ulysses is quite the beast. I don't know if I have that mood or not!!

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Originally Posted by TheFifthElement

The Poisonwood Bible. Any Poisonwood Biblers out there who'd like to join me?

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Tried to read that one twice... Third time might be the charm.

Is April too late for you, Fifth?

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

Is April too late for you, Fifth?

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April sounds good to me Scher. I'll hang on to it until then.

Still not sure what to read in March :sosp:

I'm starting Gravity's Rainbow on Monday, if you're still interested in doing a group reading.

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Originally Posted by TheFifthElement

April sounds good to me Scher. I'll hang on to it until then.

Still not sure what to read in March :sosp:

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A Suitable Boy. Simply loved it.

I am getting a copy of Poinsonwood ready for April!

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Okay, you have inspired me! I've had Les Miserables and Tom Jones on my shelves for a couple years now. Time to start in on them...

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I am reading Tom Jones at the moment and have 300 pages left to go.

I had been meaning to read this book for a long time as well.

Tom Jones is written in the picaresque style and was a big influence on Dickens's earlier novels.

As for Le Mis, it's Hugo's masterpiece and should be required reading for everyone.

Get stuck into those weighty tomes and you will be surprised how quickly you can make a dent on them.

Fifth Element, how about Proust's 'Remembrance of Things Past' ?
Over 3,000 pages of 'action packed' reading! :rofl:
Of all the books I have read, finishing the final volume of this work has afforded me the most feeling of accomplishment. I even have pictures of myself with the books:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/d...cture008-3.jpg

Hi Prince Smiles :) welcome to the forums. That's such a cool picture - is that your library? If so, I'm very, very, very jealous.

I've got Proust on my list. I've got volumes 1-3 sitting on my shelves and I keep telling myself, come autumn, I'm going to do it. Honest :)

So, having read them all, aside from the achievement of actually doing it, is it a rewarding read?

FifthElement,
thanks for the welcome.

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So, having read them all, aside from the achievement of actually doing it, is it a rewarding read?

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That is a good question! It was a slog to say the least.

Put it this way, I started reading it with a great friend of mine. She is an Oxford Uni double masters graduate and used to dealing with heavy classic Greek texts. She gave up at about half way through Guermantes Way and said that I was insane to persist in such fashion!:rofl:

The problem with the book is that the protagonist, Marcel lacks such conviction and get up and go. It takes a lot of patience to deal with him. If you combined Mildred (Of Human Bondage) with Uriah Heep (D. Copperfield), although Marcel has a totally different character from those two, the combined degree of infuriation is generated. (If you see what I mean)

The book as an insight into salon society and French history , The Dreyfus Affair and so forth is interesting.

Everyone is familiar with the Madeleine Cake scene because it is in the first volume, but further on in another volume there is a scene describing a water lilly being pushed back and forth in a stream. It is just exquisitely written.
Little gems like that abound.

Why did I read it? Well, to paraphrase George Mallory, ‘because it has been printed.’

If you are going to tackle the work in Autumn, you have a good few months to prepare.

How about Alexandre Dumas: ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ in the meantime? My Penguin Classic edition runs a cool 1078 pages. It is the only 1000 page + novel that I have read three times and I plan to read it again in the near future. If you haven’t read the tale of Edmond Dantes, then I would say it’s a good starter for 1,000.

With regards to the library in my pic it’s photo-shopped! Only kidding, I wish it was my library, too. Actually it is a school library and hardly a soul uses it, so I sequester myself in there on occasion.

Thank you again for the welcome to the forum and it’s nice to make your acquaintance.

Best wishes,

P. Smiles

Whew! I finally finished Les Miserables! Yay! :hurray:

It was really good. When I started it, I thought it was slow but once I got past the Bishop of Digne stuff it started to pick up. There were some other parts that I thought bogged down the story a little bit (did I really need that much info on the sewer system?) but overall it was a great book.

I have a few more "big" books I want to read but I need to take a break and read some easy stuff.

Oh, and someone mentioned Middlemarch. I just read that last year and thought it was great. Good luck!

Anyone trying The World According to Garg?

I'll admit, I am now struggling. I think I've achieved some sort of reading burnout that started with Cortazar's Hopscotch and hasn't really left me since. So I started The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann and have had to put it to one side and read Battle Royale instead which is actually 600+ pages long but kind of cheaty because it's 'easy' to read (I say easy to read but not an easy read because it is incredibly gruesome).

Falling behind target :(