oppinions please. cant have my own oppinion since i havent read it yet, but ive heard so much about this book... is it really the most valuable book ever? if you dont think its 'anna karenina', then what book do you think its THE ONE?
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oppinions please. cant have my own oppinion since i havent read it yet, but ive heard so much about this book... is it really the most valuable book ever? if you dont think its 'anna karenina', then what book do you think its THE ONE?
Best novel ever, from my experience, would have to probably be Pushkin's Evgeny Onegin. It was perhaps the first novel I fell in love with, and nothing I have read has past it. Don Quixote perhaps is the classic example of "best novel" but I think Pushkin is far more interesting and enduring. What he asks is still so terribly relevant to today's audience, in a way I feel no other novel could be, and in truth, his style is the greatest.
I don't think it's Anna, though I don't know what it would be. There can never be one.
I'll seek out that Pushkin, JBI.
JBI - your words make me add 'evgeny onegin' to my ~to read~ list. *goes to wikipedia for more information*
Mopey Droney - but what was the book that impressed you the most from everything you read until now? whats your all time favorite?
There are a few plays and poems that challenge my favorite novels but I would have to say either The Sound and the Fury or Ulysses. I seem to be one of the few people to actually like the book - many people praise it but few like it.
I haven't read Tolstoy, aside from The Death of Ivan Illych, but I'm aware of Anna's reputation. Tolstoy, like many other great writers, is still waiting for me to read.
Oh, it's easy for me to say my personal favorite is Great Expectations, though sometimes I think it might by Ulysses. It depends on my mood. I am antsy about calling any one book "the best".Quote:
Originally Posted by evening_read
Me too! I loved Ulysses. Whenever I say it is one of my favorites people give me a look like I'm just trying to impress them, but I genuinely enjoyed it, not just for all the style and language, but I also loved Bloom as a character.Quote:
Originally Posted by mayneverhave
i guess that after all the greatest book isnt the one which is considered the best in general but the one that impressed each of us the most. its all about taste. personally i love 'iliad' the most
mayneverhave - can you please recommend me some of those poems that challenge your favorite novels? maybe i'll love and add them to my magical poems collection. but only if theyre in english or spanish since these are the only foreign languages i controll...
The last half might be, but the beginning is rather slow. The Levin story is particularly tedious early on, but the novel does pick up as it progresses. Some parts of it are amazing, and it's certainly worth a read. I'm not even much of a Tolstoy fan and I say that.Quote:
Originally Posted by evening_read
In terms of poetry, just a few examples might be: The Waste Land, Paradise Lost, the Great Odes of Keats, poetry of W.B. Yeats, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by evening_read
In terms of plays: Waiting for Godot, Hamlet, King Lear, etc.
I don't know about the best ever, but it's damn close. It is a masterpiece. :) I think I had it in my top five.Quote:
Originally Posted by evening_read
I read that book over a summer and in no uncertain terms it stands as the worst book I ever read. He goes on for 16 pages about managing a farm and the peasants who distrusted him even though he, a gentleman, sat and ate his lunch with them. And that description of him cutting the field with a scythe. Drown me.
C'mon. We need to stop exaggerating the novels of the same handful of authors, from Homer and that other one, James the Leprechaun Joyce, and that other bum, D.H. Lawrence. I read his Letters From Iceland, another snore.
It's a two way street, if those are exaggerated, whose aren't? What is the best novel? Some posters have stated their favorites, or their vote, but you haven't provided yours for similar ridicule or agreement.Quote:
Originally Posted by jon1jt
Best novel or my favorite novel? The difference is that I would not recommend my favorite novel because we live in a doleful age, whereas a best novel should be read by others for its message, one that educates, that is human and rises above the body.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
My pick for best novel, then, would have to go to Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Yes, this is horrible monotony of the first four hundred pages of Anna Karenina. Hearing about Levin's management style is less than exciting, but Tolstoy apparently thought this stuff was just great. It does improve, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by jon1jt
Having read my share of Russian literature, I don't think it is that good. I also don't think very highly of War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, or Eugene Onegin. Nor would I rank Don Quixote very highly on my list of truly great literature. The best novel that I have read is probably Madame Bovary. I've seen people do almost everything in that book better, but I've never seen such a flawless novel. Moby Dick was more awe-inspiring to read, but at the same time it was deeply flawed. The Great Gatsby shares a similar polish but it's subject is inferior. Pere Goriot has a magnificent plot but nowhere does it combine all the beauties of modern literature so completely and harmoniously as does Flaubert's novel. Compared to Madame Bovary, Tolstoy's books are little more than loose baggy monsters. However, I do respect the opening lines of Anna Karenina, and hold them in the same high esteem in which I place the opening lines of The Aeneid and A Tale of Two Cities. Tolstoy's accomplishment is in psychological portraiture, his realistic depiction of a large and complex cast of characters, a clarity of style, and a remarkable evenness uncharacteristic of long novels.
I don't think i can pick a favourite novel, it seems almost impossbile. But.. recently i've discovered a new favourite author, so that's good enough for me.
Faulkner.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
This comes across with the same kind of drumming one hears when somebody rummages thru their underwear drawer and pulls out a pair of dirty socks. :(
Look, I don't mean to insult you or anything, I'm just saying that you're part of that cachophony of literary bumblers always hacking up graciousness in your gobs of spit. C'mon, say it like it is, Tolstoy sucks.
How anti! Personally I'd sooner say Kerouac sucks. That's just me though.
I don't mean to insult you, but [savage insult].
Yes, third-age feel-good American tripe, AKA watered down appropriated Indian thought is far superior to Pushkin, Tolstoy, Joyce, or whomever. Seriously, when it comes down to it, Harry Potter could probably have a better case made for it than Richard Bach, and you all, or at least most of you, know my stance on the Potter.Quote:
Originally Posted by jon1jt
But even beyond that, I think Mortal offers another good suggestion for best novel, though I still think Pushkin better, and acknowledge sadly that neither of us can comment too fully, being that we rely to heavily on translation, and therefore cannot accurately criticize the language and style of Tolstoy, or Pushkin, or Dostoevsky who is bound to pop up here sooner or later.
True, but Faulkner has quite the range - what to pick, Light in August, As I lay Dying, Absalom Absalom, the Sound and the Fury? So much to choose from - which one is the best?Quote:
Originally Posted by limajean
If you wind me up I'll throw urine-soaked crumbled pages of Tolstoy at you, and note that I aim for the forehead, but preferably your left ear. :sick:Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I suppose since Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina share similar themes, they would be easy to compare, but I'm not sure that Madame Bovary would come out ahead. Both have heroines obsessed with romantic fantasies, but Anna is used to more effect. In Flaubert's novel, this theme is merely used to satarize the fancied, unrealistic expectations of society. Tolstoy, though, is interested in making a much larger point about narratives--particularly those we tell ourselves. Anna also comes across as a more complete character who is troubled by her own lies. Madame Bovary, however, is only target for Flaubert's attacks, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
That's largely Tolstoy's point. A Slavic scholar named Gary Morson wrote a pretty well-received book about this in the early 90's. He says:Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
"Tolstoy's view is...real life is lived in the small and ordinary moments. It is both prosaic and undramatic and is lived best when there is no story to tell. The reason that all happy families resemble each other whereas each unhappy is unhappy in its own way is that unhappy families, like unhappy lives, are dramatic; they have a story and each story is different. But happy families and happy lives, filled with undramatic incidents, do not make a good story; and it is in this sense that they all resemble each other. In his notebooks and letters of the period, Tolstoy at least twice quotes a French proverb father of all from Anna's romantic ethos: "Happy people have no history." Plot, especially when known in advance, is an index of error."
Anna Karenina spreads out because it's not limited to what's only relevant to its plot.
I like Pushkin's prose works better than his poetry, but as you say, I am at a loss reading them in translation. In Russia, he holds a place of very high esteem akin to Shakespeare in England or Goethe in Germany. I love the economy of his language and the careful attention to plot structure and pacing. Unlike Tolstoy, Pushkin's books do not overstay their welcome, and I like them for that.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
yes, but where else can you get this ironic punch:
Quote:
Sad that our finest aspiration
Our freshest dreams and meditations,
In swift succession should decay,
Like Autumn leaves that rot away.
I don't know. It actually reminds me of Edna Vincent Millay's poem The Spring and the Fall which concludes:Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Year be springing or year be falling,
The bark will drip and the birds be calling.
There's much that's fine to see and hear
In the spring of a year, in the fall of a year.
'Tis not love's going hurt my days.
But that it went in little ways.
jon1jt - im sure tolstoy has his fans
what i noticed is that readers kinda like tolstoy's war and peace more than anna k. but writers in general appreciate anna karenina more than war and peace. tolstoy himself was more proud of anna than of war and peace and dostoevsky said 'anna karenina' is perfect.
I am kind of hoping that I haven't read the best novel ever yet because if I have what is the point in reading anything else - just a little thought there. Anna K is an OK read but it would not make my great reads list.
Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov are the best novels I've ever read.
My pick for best novel, then, would have to go to Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
:lol::lol: My God, man! You certainly gave me the greatest laugh of the day! I couldn't have come up with a more absurd pick myself. :lol::lol:
No. It's not even Tolstoy's best work; War and Peace is better.Quote:
Originally Posted by evening_read
Eugene Onegin is novel in verse, actually something different from typical novel. But it is great, I agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
One of the most boring novels I ever read.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mopey Droney
-----
Here is list of 100 best books by this forum members and Anna Karenina is on 18th place. It would be higher in my opinion, but not the best. My pick would definitely be Brothers Karamazov.
I've not read the greatest novel yet I'm pretty sure of that, in some ways I think we are always searching for it anyway. I want to read the likes of Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov and some of the others mentioned here but I haven't the time to devote myself to works of that length with Uni, work and the rest of it yet. Of what I have read I would go with Crime and Punishment, Madam Bovary, or Wuthering Heights, probably Wuthering Heights, surprised that it has not been mentioned yet.
Edit to that: I think the best British novel certainly would be Wuthering Heights or at the very top of the list if not. The likes of Hardy deserve to be up there, certainly with Jude and Tess I wouldn't under-estimate Shelley's Frankenstein either, then of course there is Austen, Thackeray, Eliot, Woolf and Joyce to name the more obvious contenders but I would personally place Wuthering Heights as the best British novel above those.
Like other posters, I have the feeling that the search for the best novel ever is something like travelling towards a mirage in the desert - each new book holds out its seductive promise but you never quite reach it. The journey is (usually) worth it though!
AK is one of my favourite novels - I primly disapproved of Anna when I was young but age and experience has mellowed my attitude towards her, though I still cannot comprehend her decision regarding her child (whoops, nearly a spoiler there!) I love the character of Levin, a great, gentle bear of a man - the scene where he proposes to Kitty is one of literature's great love scenes. I even like the countryside scenes.
But, OP, no amount of other people's opinions should make your mind up for you - you really must decide for yourself. If you haven't the time to read it now, and it is a long book, then put it aside until you do have the time or the inclination to use that amount of time in that way, then decide for yourself if it is the greatest or among the greatest novels ever written.
I find myself, in a great number of ways, agreeing with MortalTerror (gasp!:eek2:). Well not quite in total. I most certainly would place Don Quixote near the pinnacle on my personal list of greatest novels... along with Sterne's Tristam Shandy and Proust's In Search of Lost Time... which I know MT has suggested is far too poetic and uneventful... but still magnificent... but yes... Madame Bovary is almost as near perfect a novel as I have come across. I find that for all the baggage or even imperfections, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Moby Dick, In Search of Lost Time, and certainly Don Quixote strike me a greater works of art... but not more perfect. Flaubert seemingly polished this novel to the sort of level of perfection that one finds in poetry... but rarely sustained for the course of an entire novel. Nabokov achieved something similar with Lolita, and Dickens comes as close as he ever will with the Tale of Two Cities... and yes, The Great Gatsby is also such a polished work.
No, Anna Karenina is not the best novel ever.
It's a really great book, but I really don't think it is the best novel ever. There are quite a few novels I'd like to read I got recommended very often, but of those I have read, Brothers Karamazov is the greatest.
I'm guess by evening read's question in the opening post "is it really the most valuable book ever?" that they are looking for a book that is a great experience or has some meaningful substance. These would be things of value. Evening read probably isn't asking about personal favorites or technically perfect novels. Obviously, I don't know what the original poster meant entirely, but the word "valuable" points to something extrinsically important. I would say Anna Karenina certainly fits that description, and it does so more than many of the other suggestions that have been made. Madame Bovary is an engrossing story with its charms, but one doesn't take much away from it. The Brothers Karamazov, Moby Dick, and some others mentioned come closer perhaps, but I think Anna Karenina would be better read first since its more entertaining that Dostoevsky and easier to get through than Moby Dick.
In any case, though, if anyone asks whether a particular novel is the best, greatest, or any other superlative, almost everyone will respond with some variant of:
The sheer volume of great works (I have bookcases of novels I would consider great) means that almost no one is going to agree on anything like this.Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterL
Dostoevsky, and especially The Brothers Karamazov, seem to have a fantastic reputation on these forums - as made evident by both Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov placing in the top 3 of our 100 greatest novels list.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bumbeli
The Brothers Karamazov is certainly great, but I think it is the epitome of the "loose baggy monster". I notice that Dostoevsky tends to be slipshod and writes without a great deal of polish. It's hard to say its the greatest for this reason. Certainly very good, but far from perfection.
I wholly disagree with you. Dostoevsky has never wrote messily. Not once. He's about as precise and perfect a writer as one gets. Every sentence is there for a reason.
The Brothers Karamazov is absolute perfection. I concur what Dr.Hill wrote.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mayneverhave
All this talk of polish and perfection might be beside the point for two reasons. First, the original post asksQuote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Hill
Evening read wants something that has value which I would take to be more like meaning or entertainment than craft. The charge that a novel lacks polish probably doesn't carry much force when the question is about value. Of course, if the book is so poorly put together then it would affect the experience reading it and obscure its meaning, but neither Anna Karenina or The Brothers Karamazov suffer from this. This is my second point: these stories were composed with imprecision in mind. Tolstoy was interested in the minuetae of everyday life, and thought that "real" life was lived in undramatic moments. His novels include prosaic chapters because Tolstoy thought that those were the important moments. Anna, meanwhile, lives only the "polished" or "perfect" moments and suffers. Dostoevsky had similar intentions in The Brothers Karamazov. He wanted to show how many actions could occur from one motivation, and that simple, linear narratives about our lives are incomplete without registering all these possible actions. Remember the scene where Dmitri is interrogated:Quote:
Originally Posted by evening_read
Dmitri has any number of answers for the police, but his interrogators can't understand how this is possible. They miss the point that Dostoevsky is trying to make. They're believe that this is simply a murder mystery where one culprit has one motive which leads to one action. Dostoevsky is trying to break that expectation, and to show this requires more pages. A perfect, polished who-done-it tale might come in lighter, but it wouldn't have the value of The Brothers Karamazov.Quote:
"But what object had you in view in arming yourself with such a
weapon?"
"What object? No object. I just picked it up and ran off."
"What for, if you had no object?"
Mitya's wrath flared up. He looked intently at "the boy" and
smiled gloomily and malignantly. He was feeling more and more
ashamed at having told "such people" the story of his jealousy so
sincerely and spontaneously.
"Bother the pestle!" broke from him suddenly.
"But still-"
"Oh, to keep off dogs... Oh, because it was dark.... In case
anything turned up."
"But have you ever on previous occasions taken a weapon with you
when you went out, since you're afraid of the dark?" . . .
"Well, upon my word, gentlemen! Yes, I took the pestle.... What
does one pick things up for at such moments? I don't know what for.
I snatched it up and ran- that's all. "