i am going to go drink now.
― ian, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 01:59 (fourteen years ago) link
Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy. (Trilogies = maximizing the "desert island" list, though Powell's Dance to the Music of Time would really spike it.) Oh wait! Graves' I, Claudius and Claudius the God
― Jaq, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:00 (fourteen years ago) link
I spent most of summer '07 reading Dance to the Music of Time -- entertaining, but a disappointment, esp. the volumes dealing with the war.
― My name is Kenny! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:03 (fourteen years ago) link
Proust is lovely so far but I just started the third book
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:04 (fourteen years ago) link
1. B.S. Johnson - The Unfortunates2. James Joyce - Finnegans Wake3. B.S. Johnson - House Mother Normal4. Jean-Paul Sartre - Nausea5. Georges Perec - A Void6. B.S. Johnson - Albert Angelo7. B.S. Johnson - See the Old Lady Decently8. B.S. Johnson - Christie Malry's Own Double Entry9. B.S. Johnson - Trawl10. James Joyce - Ulysses
I really like B.S. Johnson!
― emil.y, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:05 (fourteen years ago) link
JR is an amazing book. Gaddis is emotionally exhausting but totally worth it.
...waiting for the barbarians -- coetzee...
This would be one of mine too, tipsy mothra.
Others on the list would probably be The Recognitions (which I love marginally more than JR), Owls Do Cry, The Man With the Golden Arm, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge...
― franny glass, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:06 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh shit, I forgot Travelling People. Swap that with Trawl, maybe.
xpost
― emil.y, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:06 (fourteen years ago) link
Harriet the Spy - FitzhughThe Lake - KawabataFrom the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler - Konigsberg
Maybes:
Wiseblood - O'ConnorMy Romance - LishZuleika Dobson - Beerbohm
I have to think about more.
― bamcquern, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Maybe I don't become attached to things.
― bamcquern, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:12 (fourteen years ago) link
Yes! Harriet the Spy might be my favorite novel -- the one that showed me what fiction can do.
― My name is Kenny! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:14 (fourteen years ago) link
i prefer V. to Gravity's Rainbowalso read Burr ages ago, didn't think much of it at the time
― velko, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:15 (fourteen years ago) link
why would anyone rep for moby dick its just some dudes on a boat
― (╬ ಠ益ಠ) (cankles), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:16 (fourteen years ago) link
Good troll.
― bamcquern, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:16 (fourteen years ago) link
it's an earnest question, sip dis dick
― (╬ ಠ益ಠ) (cankles), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:17 (fourteen years ago) link
ilb is jealous right now.
And I am sipping yr dick with a bendy straw.
― bamcquern, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:17 (fourteen years ago) link
(that sound when there's just ice and almost no drink left)
― bamcquern, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:18 (fourteen years ago) link
you could read this, harbl. short stories, though.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:36 (fourteen years ago) link
i prefer V. to Gravity's Rainbow
The scene in V. where he envisions machine gunning people from behind the salad bar may be my favorite Pynchon moment.
― EZ Snappin, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:37 (fourteen years ago) link
I hated Moby Dick. In fact, I had a professor who basically told us it was ok to skip all the technical whaling parts because even he thought they were boring.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:39 (fourteen years ago) link
i actually really dug moby-dick. took a while, but i got into it enough that i thought all the whaling stuff was cool. it doesn't make my top tier just because it didn't grab me or shake me or otherwise compel me the way my real favorites did. but i understand its classic-ness.
― us_odd_bunny_lady (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:42 (fourteen years ago) link
i loved the technical whaling parts!
― collardio gelatinous, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:42 (fourteen years ago) link
I just couldn't do it. I have this unfortunate thing where if a book doesn't really grab me within a couple days of reading then I'm likely to abandon it. I can't force myself to read something that I'm just not enjoying. That happened to me with M Dick.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:44 (fourteen years ago) link
I didn't finish The Confidence Man, but it was weird feeling all of these undercurrents of Melville's symbolism coming to life, instead of just being something you write a hackneyed term paper about. It's sort of like seeing a ghost.
― bamcquern, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:44 (fourteen years ago) link
winter's tale, mark helprin -- here's one that is on my all-time list because of how much i loved it as a teenager, but when i reread it some years later all of its overblown romantic flaws were much more evident. still, some great stuff in it. (my appreciation for it has been further dimmed by helprin's increasingly vocal right-wing curmudgeonliness over the years.)
and in the i guess you'd say non-literary realm, the original four books in gene wolfe's book of the new sun series, and the original three earthsea books are probably at the top. (ok, along with LOTR and watership down, if we're counting their impact on a 12-year-old.)
― us_odd_bunny_lady (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:48 (fourteen years ago) link
That happened to me with M Dick
it was one that i started twice. the first time i stalled out around page 60. i came back about 6 months later and for whatever reason it clicked.
― us_odd_bunny_lady (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:50 (fourteen years ago) link
narrowing to five is tough.
― collardio gelatinous, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:51 (fourteen years ago) link
OK one of my other favorite books is The Fermata by Nicholson Baker which is basically about sex with a little math thrown in.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:51 (fourteen years ago) link
x-post
That's why I've ended up with 10 or maybe even 11 now!
my glib take on moby dick is that it's a boy book because of the whole boys and boats thing, and it kind of is, especially in the sense that melville novels are the some of the gayest books i've ever read, but it wasn't really a boy book in the way i thought it was going to be.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:54 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah you might be on to something. I was just so bored reading it.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:55 (fourteen years ago) link
it's a crazy book. i would never call it a favorite but i took a reading course where we basically read everything melville ever wrote and i kind of have to love him forever now. he was such a nut.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:57 (fourteen years ago) link
OTM, it's gay and butch at the same time. xposts
― collardio gelatinous, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:57 (fourteen years ago) link
huh
Finley Wren - Philip WyliePale Fire - NabakovInfinite Jest - DFWSula - Toni MorrisonGod Bless You Mr. Rosewater - Vonnegut
― meh (jjjusten), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:58 (fourteen years ago) link
maybe
I started this thread to jump start my interest in reading fiction again. After reading so much non-fiction for school I sort of abandoned novels and realized recently that I really miss reading for fun so I thought remembering my favorites might be a good way of rekindling my interest and it has!
Also seeing everyone else's posts I keep thinking of others that I could easily have placed on my list. It's also fascinating to see what overlaps between posters.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:01 (fourteen years ago) link
People really seem to love some Pale Fire and with good reason!
i've read that and vox -- was a little shamefaced to check both of them out of the library -- but my favorite n.baker is the mezzanine.
― us_odd_bunny_lady (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:04 (fourteen years ago) link
I also read Vox which I enjoyed but not as much as The Fermata. I will check out The Mezzanine.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:06 (fourteen years ago) link
it's more about shoelaces and automatic hand-dryers than sex, but still good.
― us_odd_bunny_lady (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:07 (fourteen years ago) link
btw - I was pretty young/naive when I read The Fermata and pretty much looked like this the whole time I was reading it O_O.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:08 (fourteen years ago) link
Dance to the Music of Time -- entertaining, but a disappointment, esp. the volumes dealing with the war
Agreed - I read Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy soon after DttMoT, and it blew Powell out of the water. A different war of course, but she captured it so much more personally.
Halldor Laxman's Independent People goes on my list, possibly bumping off Snowcrash
One thing that really got me about Moby Dick - I didn't expect it to be so funny, and the first chapters had some genuinely funny stuff which drew me right in.
― Jaq, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Hang on a second - Halldor Laxman's Independent People - That's the Icelandic one about . . . sheep! Right?? I could hardly get through any of it. I know it's supposed to be excellent but I just felt like nothing happened.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:12 (fourteen years ago) link
laxness! i am working on that. but i got stopped. i think it's really great, i don't know why i can't finish books anymore. probably internet.
― harbl, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Maybe I didn't give it enough time. It was just very . . . slow. Also, long.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:15 (fourteen years ago) link
Well, there's sheep in it, but mostly it's about a very very stubborn guy who alienates his children (his wives all die from his pig-headed cruelty) and falls victim to his own pride when he decides to build a concrete house.
― Jaq, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:15 (fourteen years ago) link
i can't finish books lately either. i will also blame the internet.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:16 (fourteen years ago) link
it's my excuse too.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:16 (fourteen years ago) link
powers, the gold bug variationsdfw, infinite jestcamus, the plague
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:16 (fourteen years ago) link
it is super slow but in parts i was just like...wow. i think i was about halfway. xp
― harbl, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:16 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah i've tried independent people twice and failed, but i suck at reading these days
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:17 (fourteen years ago) link