I only got through half of Dostoevsky's The Adolescent. I loved Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov though. Nice list.Originally Posted by rocket_pilot
I only got through half of Dostoevsky's The Adolescent. I loved Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov though. Nice list.
Hmm, top ten to read. I'd agree that JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are definitely top tens, but I would add The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner to some of you people's lists, as well as War and Peace by Tolstoy, also Don Quixote by Cervantes, and Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais.
"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. / Words without thoughts never to heaven go." Claudius (Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3).
Wow you've read War and Peace ^^^? I only got through half of it... then got half way through Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville (which I plan on finishing soon). After that I finished Anna Karenina. It's great you've read it.
I love Gargantua and Pantagruel! Perfect satire.
"So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss, and my heart turns violently inside of my chest, I don't have time to maintain these regrets, when I think about, the way....He loves us..."
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5xXowT4eJjY
War and Peace is great, you should give it another shotIt's probably good that you read Anna Karenina first.
I just finished The Adolescent and while I wouldn't consider it Dostoevsky's greatest work or anything, I rather enjoyed it. I even liked it better than Brothers Karamozov.
the luminous grass of the prairie hides
feet lovely and still as sleeping doves,
porcelain bones strong enough to carry a life,
but weighty and unmovable
As black Dakota hills. ~ Riesa
What would you consider Dostoevsky's greatest work? Crime and Punishment?
Well, that's a tough one. First of all, it would just be a personal opinion, I'm not making any sort of professional-type critique, I like what I like and that's about as technical as I get.Secondly, I know which ones I would omit, The Adolescent and Brothers Karamazov but that leaves Crime and Punishment, Demons and The Idiot all of which I loved, although I don't know if I could really say I loved the The Idiot, I'm not sure you can love something that completely devastates you but it was an incredibly powerful book unlike anything I've ever read. It's such a close race between those 3, they are each brilliant for their own reasons and evoke such different but equally as strong emotional responses....I don't know which I would choose, do I have to answer that question?
the luminous grass of the prairie hides
feet lovely and still as sleeping doves,
porcelain bones strong enough to carry a life,
but weighty and unmovable
As black Dakota hills. ~ Riesa
You do have a valid point and I have yet to read The Idiot and Demons (I never even knew he had written a book by the name of Demons) but if by your standards they exceed Brothers Karamazov then they must be exceptionally good, because to me Brothers Karamazov is one of the most powerful books I've ever read.
Demons goes by a couple different names, The Posessed and Devils so if you go looking for it, be warned that it comes in different guises.
And I didn't really care for Brothers Karamazov and I know that puts me in a very significant minority. There were aspects to the story that I found fascinating, there were characters that I liked, particularly Ivan, but overall, it didn't really impact me on the same level as Dostoevsky's other novels so my standards are not going to be the same as yours. You may read the others and decide I'm out of my mind not to put Brothers at the top.
the luminous grass of the prairie hides
feet lovely and still as sleeping doves,
porcelain bones strong enough to carry a life,
but weighty and unmovable
As black Dakota hills. ~ Riesa
How dare you forget "Noets From the Underground"? It's short, simple and brilliant. I'd definitely stick it in with the other three you mentioned.
"And the worms, they will climb
The rugged ladder of your spine"
I didn't really care for that one either.I have some of the same issues with that one as I do with Brothers but as I was careful to point out, this is a personal list, not some kind of definitive ranking of books for the masses.
the luminous grass of the prairie hides
feet lovely and still as sleeping doves,
porcelain bones strong enough to carry a life,
but weighty and unmovable
As black Dakota hills. ~ Riesa
1. Lord of the Rings
2. Swan Song, Robert MacCammon
3. Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
4. The Time Machine, HG Wells
5. Dark Tower series, Stephen King
6. Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
7. Bone Collector, Jeffrey Deaver
8. From the Corner of his Eye, Dean Koontz
9. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
10. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Not necessarily in that order though.
CindyBo
1. Lord of the Rings: Tolkien
2. Crime & Punishment: Dostoesvskii
3. The Castle: Kafka
4. Brothers Karamazov: Dostoevskii
5. 100 Years of Solitute: Marquez
6. History: Morante
7. Hunger: Hamsun
8. Master & Margarita: Bulgakov
9. Don Quixote: Cervantes
10. Pride and Prejudice: Austen
Other novels which came close to top 10 were-"Red and the Black" by Stendahl, "Madame Bovary" by Flaubert, "Lolita" by Nabakov, "The Silmarillion" by Tolkien and "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Marquez.
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.-Vladimir Nabokov
human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars-Flaubert
1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. The Illiad by Homer
3. A Tale of Two Cities
4. Julius Caeser by Shakespeare
5. Le Morte de Arthur
6. Dracula
7. Jane Eyre
8. The Count of Monte Cristo
9. The Mabinogion
10. The House of Mirth
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