What about The Grapes of Wrath? I thought it was pretty long.
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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
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
Lol, LadyLuck, I just wanted to reply something along these lines when I stumbled upon your post.Quote:
Originally Posted by LadyLuck
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
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by DieterM
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
It's not that he writes about dirt and a turtle, LadyLuck-it's what he does with the dirt and a turtle. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by LadyLuck
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
I am planning on reading this book after I finish Jane Eyre. I love Steinbeck.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
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.