Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1927

Guessing Woolf's time has come at last.

My movie knowledge starting to surpass my literary knowledge: I've seen Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, There Will Be Blood (Oil!) and The Old Dark House (Benighted).

Yeah I do feel like To the Lighthouse is where Woolf gets Woolfy. Not my fave (which is and forever shall be The Waves), but you do see some pretty hefty High Modernist ambitions in TTL.

Joyce is fading from view, Faulkner is not quite there yet, Nabokov is still thornily Russian. Rooting hard for VW.

Yep, this is an easy To the Lighthouse vote for me.

dusty dusty him answer

I think I read "To the Lighthouse" in college but have only the vaguest memories of it. Somewhat more recently, I've also read "Bridge of San Luis Rey" and "The Angel of the West Window". I have "Tarka the Otter" but haven't read it yet. "Steppenwolf" is one I've thumbed through numerous times and seems to be widely available used, but have never read. Guess I'd probably vote "Bridge of San Luis Rey".

Yep, this is an easy _To the Lighthouse_ vote for me.

I can think of some utterly perfect passages in it, as well as a few kinda stodgy bits, but it's definitely up there for me.

It's still hard to square the Henry Williamson that wrote Tarka with the Henry Williamson who, well, went batshit for Hitler. I still find myself weirdly tempted to read the Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight series but I guess life is too short.

Death Comes for the Archbishop

Death Comes for the Archbishop

― Chris L, Monday, December 21, 2020 10:59 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah. close to my heart tbh.

queer love subsumed in religious devotion, western adventure, new mexico beautifully described

cather gets my vote.

I had already thought of getting the Kindle of the Cather and trying to read it all before poll closes, but the title is daunting at the moment, though I've always heard it's one of her best. This Proust volume is a good ending to the whole time trek, but not that great in itself--think I'll go with To The Lighthouse, the only other choice I've read.

the title is daunting at the moment

don't worry. the titular death only takes place at the end of the book after a long life filled with acts of faith and devotion. death as a subject occupies almost no space at all.

Good, that sounds like it would be a good follow-up to Robinson's Gilead, which I recently read. But now that library's re-re-opening after a covid incident, might just go on and get the next one in the saga, Home (better wash the hazmat suit).

Or maybe would be wiser to stay home and Kindle Cather.

Finding Time Again is just so great. Conflicted as I loved Flight Without End, Envy also.

Read Hesse and Woolf too.

Thérèse Desqueyroux is a hoot (and made Sartre care so much he was livid with the book), but my vote, too, goes to To The Lighthouse. Sprawling masterpiece.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I voted "The The Lighthouse". The Mauriac and Sinclair Lewis books are worthy of consideration though. I would also at least consider voting for several Hesse books over To the Lighthouse but Steppenwolf is kind of a bore.

Post your favorite passages.

He regarded love as a sort of cruel malady through which the elect are required to pass in their late youth and from which they emerge, pale and wrung, but ready for the business of living.

-- The Bridge Of San Luis Rey

A tough challenge for To the Lighthouse, there are so many.

For me it's either the bit with "the long steady stroke, the last of the three, which was her stroke" or there's a great bit about the windows of the dining room and something about the reflections creating a world or something like that; my memory is fuzzy but I could find it if needed

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1928