Walter Hinteler wrote:George's list is composed of those books I would call "classics", too.
(Though I would add some more German writers :wink: )
I'm quite sure you would.
My list is limited by my own ignorance. What would you recommend?
George(ob), I read also the additional ones you put in the list.
I'm not sure I have all Sartre but I have at least, Nausea and the Dirty Hands (no joke intended).
Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum
I won't repeat what others have said. I'll add:
D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers
James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Dubliners
Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis
William Faulkner, The Light in August
Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener
And more recent works:
John Fowles, The Magus
E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime
Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead
"Dirty Hands" was illustrative of the degree to which this ugly little man took himself and his conceits so seriously. Unlike others interested in political affairs, he was a self-designated "intellectual", whose thoughts were - of course - more meaningful than those of lesser beings.
I think that about sums it up for this grossly overrated figure of the last century.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by author Gabriel García Márquez
Roberta wrote:I won't repeat what others have said. I'll add:
D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers
James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Dubliners
Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis
William Faulkner, The Light in August
Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener
And more recent works:
John Fowles, The Magus
E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime
Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead
Interesting list Roberta. I heartily agree - with 2 exceptions.
I always found Kafka a bit much - "Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find himself transformed into a beetle....". Wistful looks and citing Kafka were sometimes good openings to getting into the pants of girls from St. John's college in Annapolis, but little else in my view.
I'll confess to not having read Naked and the Dead, but I have always found Mailer to be a bit preoccupied with himself.
I'll readily change Metamorphosis for Moby Dick..
I found the Naked and the Dead interesting...
But I do prefer Henry Miller...
Amigo wrote:One Hundred Years of Solitude by author Gabriel García Márquez
Haven't yet read it but it is on my list. I found his "The General and his Labarynth" a bit hard to penetrate.
dyslexia wrote:Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum
You know I have been recommended this one several times in the past and have ... almost ... started to read it, but always diverted. Should I try again?
Then try the sweet roman of Luis Sepulveda: The Old Man Who Read Love Stories.
I liked One Hundred Years of Solitude...
I haven't read some on George's list, or a few on Roberta's. Mailer, rolls eyes - though I remember liking Deer Park. Owned Tin Drum and finally gave it away in a possessions cleaning fit before reading it. Now I'd like to read it, so it goes...
OK, I have three for my "To Read" list - The Tin Drum; One Thousand Years of Solitude; and (goddamnit) Naked and the Dead.
Francis wrote:Then try the sweet roman of Luis Sepulveda: The Old Man Who Read Love Stories.
Please tell me more. I checked his bio on Google. He and I were on opposite sides of several struggles.
What classics have your read?
All of them . . . except for the ones that really, really annoyed me.
Glad to see you are still in character, Set.
Amigo wrote:Setanta wrote:What classics have your read?
All of them . . . except for the ones that really, really annoyed me.
Henry Miller?
I read the "Tropics" and [/i]Black Spring[/b], after which i became bored with Mr. Miller.
One Hundred Years of Solitude has a very good English translation. A must read, IMO.
The Tin Drum is the XX Century novel I have liked the most.
I confess I can't finish Russian novels. Too many characters. Somewhere I get lost and forget who was Kliment Gregorievich or Vasilisa Efremova.
So you went to St. Johns georgeob1... a Classical upbringing.
No, I went to the Naval Academy which is just a few hundred yards from the St John's campus. Even apart from the girls, friends at St John's were useful things -- a place to hide your car and a quick change of clothes for quick getaways. I did audit a few courses there, but found it just a somewhat drier version of what I had already experienced with the Jesuits.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (sp?) has several other good novels, as well, although he seems only to be remembered outside Latin America for the Solitude novel. His Autumn of the Patriarch i found difficult to read (although i still enjoyed it), but as i don't read Spanish, i can't say if it is the fault of the translation. I also enjoyed the collection of short stories entitled No One Writes to the Colonel. There was another novel which i read an enjoyed in the mid-1980s, but i no longer recall the title--just that there was an anonymous satirist plaguing the community, and that one character was murdered in a novel way by the police. Perhaps someone will recall it.
