Literary Classics (as defined by you)

Scots Taffer on 1/3/2006 at 22:36

Quote Posted by doctorfrog

If you want to get a lot of what goes on in Dante's Divine Comedy, I enjoyed Mark Musa's translation of the Inferno. I forget the publisher, but look for this guy's name. He explains EVERYTHING, and it included the Italian right along with the English, maps of Hell, and good summaries along with the verse for impatient types.

The versiono of Inferno that I had was excellent, it had lots of side notes and a short biography of Dante that tied into the text, so very little was left misunderstood. I thoroughly enjoyed it, the satire was particularly vicious throughout.

Mingan on 2/3/2006 at 04:33

So, I'll just put some books I found really interesting here:

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Player History of a compulsive gambler and other stuff. The pace of the book is amazing. A quick read, very interesting

Tourgueniev(sp?), Apparitions What can I say? A Russian fantasy short novel. Be prepared to go WTF. I had to read it twice to get what was going on. Very short, 130 pages or so...

Milan Kundera, La lenteur Now that's something. It's some kind of novel, but includes political satire, fantasy, intrigues and attempted anal sex.

I'll support other stuff like Plato, Homer, Nietsche.

Headphones on 2/3/2006 at 11:12

They're correcting this now with LARGE BOLD WARNINGS but if you're getting into classics in the penguin/oxford world classics sense, I thoroughly recommend not reading the introduction until after you've read the novel. This goes without saying, but far more significant than making details of the plot explicit, you only get one chance to read a great novel agenda free. Later readings can obviously be reinforced by socio-ecomic backgrounding and whatnot!

This seems an obvious point now I've written it but what the hell.

(Unless it's something like Paradise Lost which might need some scholarly mediation!)

Anyway, get into some Henry James. He's the shit!

st.patrick on 2/3/2006 at 14:29

Salman Rushdie - The Moor's Last Sigh
- East, West
Michael Cunningham - The Hours

Oli G on 2/3/2006 at 15:32

Quote Posted by Jennie&Tim

The Moonstone is fun; but does rag on religious hypocrites a bit. I read Wuthering Heights long ago (I was eleven or twelve), and remember being distinctly unimpressed. I don't even particularly remember the plot, which I usually do with books I liked. I do remember thinking that the heroine was irrational and overemotional, which is probably a good deal of why I didn't care for it. I read Jane Eyre about the same time, and liked it, the heroine was fiesty.

I tend to like books that are about people, rather than overarching philosophies or epic national sweeping revolutions. Could people mention if some of these works are on a human scale?

You really should read Wuthering Heights again if you've not read it since you were 11. Yes, the characters do tend to be unlikeable and most of them are violent, sadistic bastards. That's part of their fascination. You say you like books which are about people - Wuthering Heights is about the purest example of such a book you're likely to find.

As for not remembering the plot, the whole narrative is geared towards distorting facts and confusing the reader, and the credibility of the narrators is often very suspect. It requries a lot of unpicking to appreciate its full effect, but it's well worth the effort.

I'm not guaranteeing you'll like the book but it's hard to see why you won't. You'll certainly get a lot more out of it than you did as a child and pick up on issues that wouldn't have occured to you before. For one thing, sex, sexual symbolism and sexual psychology are absolutely key to the story so naturally a lot of what goes on in the novel doesn't make a great deal of sense to children - so it's understandable why you might remember the characters as 'irrational'. And if you do read it again I'd strongly advise you to do what most readers don't - i.e. think about where Heathcliff actually comes from and what the implications are for the rest of the book.

Jennie&Tim on 2/3/2006 at 15:57

Thank you, I'll consider it. Wonder if it's part of the Gutenberg project?

SD on 2/3/2006 at 19:37

I suspect Emily Brontë's copyright has expired by now, so it's pretty likely ;)

Stitch on 2/3/2006 at 19:37

While I applaud the (surprising) fact that a TTLG literary classics thread hasn't plummeted into the realm of Dragonlance and Discworld, I do find many of the offerings here predictably standard. Are we really that influenced by academia that we're so depressingly orthodox when listing literary classics defined by us?

While I'm no fan of Ludlum or Pratchett, I give props to those with the balls to toss them in amongst this Lit Class discussion group.

As for myself, I'll second Paz's mention of Murakami, and also toss in Margaret Atwood. Possibly John Irving's Widow for One Year too.

And nobody does meta like Vonnegut in Breakfast of Champions.

Headphones on 2/3/2006 at 20:37

I understand your concern but surely Murakami/Atwood/Irving/Vonnegut are the canon too? Maybe I've misunderstood you?

Anyway, you jogged my fuzz.

Atwood - Cat's Eye

Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber

Flannery O'Connor - Wise Blood

Someone already gave Cormac McCarthy a shout out. It would be difficult to stress how staggeringly brilliant Blood Meridian is. Not really bedtime reading though. Haha.

piln on 2/3/2006 at 20:50

Yeah, Blood Meridian's a little fucked up. Wise Blood - would that be the one upon which the Brad Dourif movie is based? Why don't I stop being a lazy bugger and check... (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080140/) it would appear so.