THE BEST NOVELS

[Shea]

Dracula is a book that I have but have yet to read. I was inspired to buy it because of Frankenstien. So long as were discussing the strange and grotesque classics, I just finished The Picture of Dorian Gray. (For those of you following my posts, I like to read 4 or 5 books at the same time. :o ) I felt that there should have been more discussion among the characters about why Dorian never aged.

Was the situation with Sybil Vane a foreshadowing of Dorian's own life?

Also, I felt the ending was too short; more suited to a short story. Enjoyed the book though!

Other opinions?

[hadji9]

'Ulysses' James Joyce
'The Dead' James Joyce
'A Portrait . . .' James Joyce
'On the Road' Jack Kerouac
'Une Saison en Enfer (A Season in Hell)' Arthur Rimbaud
'A Streetcar Named Desire' Tennessee Williams
'The Sirens of Titan' Kurt Vonnegut
'Slaughter-House Five' Kurt Vnnegut
'Marriage of Heaven and Hell' William Blake
'If on a Winter's Night, a Traveler' Italo Calvino


Are any of you all familiar with or fond of Thomas Pynchon? I read 'Gravity's Rainbow' for an independent study class my junior year of highschool and I thought it was absurdly hilarious. I suppose some people are deterred by that kind of raw naturalism, however, I can't help drawing a vague parallel between Pynchon and his precursor, James Joyce. Lately I've been trying to wrap my head around some of the Joycean concepts that many post-Modernists (namely, Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan) have formulated and (in the case of Derrida) are still formulating and are at least subtley discernible in 'Gravity's Rainbow'. One particular idea that is typically attributed to post-Modernism (unfortunately) is the belief that reality can be reduced to language systems. This concept is definitely Joycean, though I am uncertain as to whether he would agree that we should really care about this at all since, practically speaking, rethinking our "unstable ontological foundations" ([HA!]i.e., the faith we put in our existence) is the sort of activity one days in the safety of an ivory tower. Though Joyce had a profound impact on post-Modern thought, as Richard Ellman points out in 'James Joyce', "Another visitor, Terence White Gervais, asked him if the book [Finnegans Wake, the post-Modern "bible"] were a blending of literature and music, and Joyce replied flatly, 'No, it's pure music.' 'But are there not levels of meaningto be explored?' 'No, no,' said Joyce, 'it's mean to make you laugh.' 'I am only an Irish clown, a great joker at the universe.'" (p. 703) Is that it? Is post-Modernism, in part, the result of a misreading of 'Finnegans Wake.' I hope so . . . but I still want to know where Pynchon stands. The problem is noone has seen him in years. Sure, someone will snap a photo of him walking around New York, but he hasn't made a public appearance in roughly 20 years. Where does Pynchon stand with regard to Joyce? I know he once criticized Joyce because he used "closed systems" in his novels, whereas, Pynchon blurs the threshold between literature and reality through a second person narrative. However, that doesn't say much about Pynchon other than he likes to experiment with different techniques. Of course, one sees theinfluence of Joyce everywhere in 'Gravity's Rainbow', but the probem is I don't know a whole lot about Pynchon outside of 'GR'. Anyway, food for thought. Tell me what you all think or you can criticize me if you want . . . Pynchon and Joyce aren't too popular . . . I don't mind listening to the opinions of others, but is there anyone out there who shares similar tastes in literature?

[hadji9]

O, and by the way . . . are any of you familiar with Marcel Proust? I picked up a copy of 'A La Recherche De Temps Perdu' (In Search of Lost Time) a few months ago but can't seem to find my comfort zone. Proust is even more challenging than Joyce, in my opinion. Any advice? I greatly appreciate it.

[Vronaqueen]

i have Thomas Pynchon's Mason and Dixon but i got 20 pages into and realized the book required complete devotion to be understood, talk about complex sentence structure! Aside from all of the classics and canonical works that seem to be mentioned, i'm totally enthralled with jasper fforde's work. sure he's only published 2 books in the US but they're thrillers, and great for bibliophiles like ourselves.

[b]

A problem of this thread is of course the definition of 'a novel'. I don't consider the Odyssee and the Ilias (Homer), Methamorphoses (Ovid), Aeneis (Vergil), La Divina Comedia (Dante), Ulysses (Joyce) as novels, though I think they are among the greatest literature ever written.

Another problem is that we are bound to our Western culture: we haven't got the 'overall view' that is required to categorize 'the greatest novels ever written'. I suppose that in Asia - let's say China and Japan - writers can be found that are at least worth the amount of attention that we nowadays pay to William Shakespeare and Proust.

To my regrets I am not familiar with Asian literature. But I know South-Amercian literature (Gabriel Garcia Marques), German literature (Goethe, Hesse, Mann, etc.), Dutch literature (nowadays Mulisch), Italian Literature (nowadays Eco) and so forth.

If I would seriously want to decide which novels are 'the greatest ever written', I will first have to read a lot more than I now have. But if you ask my opinion now, I would suggest J. Joyce's Ulysses, since that single book represents literature and life itself.

[wimpkin]

Sound and the Fury (by william faulkner) is a great one, along with The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (I had a great english teacher )
CATCHER IN THE RYE (Salinger) is my favorite and The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)

[pankaj]

Hi,
I am a Voracious reader .I am diehard admirer of Russian novelist Fyodor Dosovesky.My favourite is his "Crime and Punishment" But I think "Brothers Karamazov" is ne plus ultra of literary field.
Here is complete list of my favourites :


Dostoevsky’s “Crime & Punishment”
Dostoevsky’s “Brothers Karamazov”
Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”
M. Solokhov’s “And quiet flows the Don”(All 4 Volumes)
William Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair”
Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights”
Thomas Hardy’s “ Mayor of Casterbridge”
James Joyce’s “The portrait of the Artist as a young man”
James Joyce’s “Ulysses”
Ayn Rand’s “Fountain head”

[Alyosha]

But I think "Brothers Karamazov" is ne plus ultra of literary field.

My world lit professor agreed with you.

Where else can you find a strong argument for Atheism and for Christianity in the same book?

It looks like a lot of people like "Ulysses" by James Joyce. What is it about?

[Edmond]

The most entertaining "The Romance of Three Kingdoms" by Luo Guangzhong
The most profound "Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tse

Good books(mediocre)
Les Mierables
Le Comte de Monte Cristo
Crime and Punishment
Anna Karenina

[adampearson]

I always find myself alone in my absolute adoration of Herman Melville. But for my money, no book offers such a unique blend of plot, characters, philoshphy, and sheer artistic brilliance. Moby Dick is the one, seriously.

If, like most people, you've already read it and disagree with me, I submit Anna Karennina as the best work of the best and most complete literary genious ever to walk this planet. Beautiful, profound, touching, exciting, philisophical. The goods.

Adam

[Brad Coelho]

It looks like a lot of people like "Ulysses" by James Joyce. What is it about?

What ordinary people think about on a normal, ho-hum day

[Three Sparrows]

"My absolute favorite was Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) but I also liked Les Miserables (Victor Hugo) and I am currently thoroughly enjoying The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas). My parents feel that I should have been born about 200 years ago, what do you think?"

My parents say the exact same thing about me.

My vote is for The Brothers Karamazov. Brilliant stuff, and I consider it the best book ever written.

[JuniperWoolf]

The Grapes of Wrath rocked me.

and don't even think of watching Apocolypse Now.

I can't imagine why, that movie was fantastic.

[Pryderi Agni]

I think Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night also qualifies as a 'great' novel...

[Vladimir777]

The Grapes of Wrath rocked me.



I can't imagine why, that movie was fantastic.

Yes, Apocalypse Now is easily one of the greatest war movies of all time, if not just movies of all time. Grapes of Wrath is also both an amazing book and movie. I'm not sure which is better, although the movie is noticeably less grim (due to editing decisions, such as the decision to put the work camp at the end of the film, whereas it was earlier in the book).