Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1915

People fucking knew how to title a novel in those days

Anyway, I remember nothing about "The Good Soldier" except I thought it was absolutely slamming when I read it so I voted for that.

"The Songs Of A Sentimental Bloke" is an Australian classic -- epic love poems, etc, written in Australian slang. May not travel well to other nations.

Verse novel, i should say.

I've lorst me former joy in gettin' shick,
Or 'eadin' browns; I 'aven't got the 'eart
To word a tom; an', square an' all, I'm sick
Of that cheap tart
'Oo chucks 'er carkis at a feller's 'ead
An' mauls 'im . . . Ar! I wish't that I wus dead! . . .

I think The Good Soldier is the only one I read but I thought it was fantastic 12 or so years ago.

look at all these idle novelists. introduce conscription i say

― imago, Thursday, October 22, 2020 2:34 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

:-D

Surprised 'The Metamorphosis' by Kafka isn't on the list! I would've voted for that in an instant. As it stands, I've not read many others - and indeed it's a meagre French harvest - so I'll go with 'Of Human Bondage'.

It was on wikipedia but come on, that's a short story.

No I understand, just that it was published on its own that year, too. I’ve no complaints!

Anyway, I'm curious about Meyrink's Der Golem.

If you're at all curious, you should definitely check it out. It's a kind of bonkers, occult-steeped fever dream of the Prague Jewish ghetto, only tangentially about the Golem myth. I've actually read three of these, the most of any year so far, I think. Besides The Golem, I also read and enjoyed The Good Soldier, and most recently The Song of the Lark. I still don't really feel qualified to vote though.

Cool, thanks. I've been meaning to check it out as a companion piece to the work of another, considerably more famous early 20th century German-language Jewish writer from Prague, as there appear to be some surface similarities between the two.

Notorious white supremacist and antisemite H. P. Lovecraft was reportedly a fan, heh.

I've only read the Maugham, a long time ago, and remember it as pretty dreary.

The Rainbow is quite an incredible book

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

<3 Maugham, so that.

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

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1916

I've just been bamboozled by The Good Soldier. Unreliable narrators can do that to you I guess. As a study of people who are all stone cold bananas I could maybe get behind it; if I'm meant to have any sympathy for them then, save Leonora, it ain't gonna happen.