Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1934

Crazy how there was nothing I had read and only a few I'd really heard of in 1933, but so much mega-canonical stuff one year later!

A hard call for me between Independent People and Tender is the Night, but the former meant more to me personally and I feel like it's less likely to draw votes so Laxness it is.

I remember nothing about Appointment in Samarra except that I really liked it.

I have read three: Voyage In The Dark is a typically devastating Rhys; Right Ho Jeeves is a total delight as Wodehouse always is; but I'm actually gonna be challopy and vote for the pure trash thrills of The Devil Rides Out. My fav detail I remember from it is the party of our heroes arrive at a Paris hotel and the protagonist immediately has the concierge send some flowers up to the girl's room, even though they came there together and he has no romantic designs on any of them. The kind of bon vivant swagger that would curdle into ration-era bitterness in later Wheatley novels.

Lots of fascinating stuff in this:

The Lady With the X-Ray Eyes (Bulgarian: Дамата с рентгеновите очи) is an absurdist fiction novel by Bulgarian writer Svetoslav Minkov, first published in Germany in 1934. It contains many sarcastic, parodic, diabolic and absurdist elements concerning the superficial nature of modern society.[1] With this work Minkov laid the foundations of Bulgarian science fiction.[2]

Novel with Cocaine, or sometimes Cocain Romance (Russian: Роман с кокаином - Roman s kokainom), is a mysterious Russian novel first published in 1934 in a Parisian émigré publication, Numbers,[1] and subtitled "Confessions of a Russian opium-eater". Its author was given as M. Ageyev. The English translation of the title fails to convey the double meaning of the Russian "Роман," meaning both "novel" and "romance."

The Pendragon Legend is a 1934 novel by the Hungarian writer Antal Szerb. The book is a philosophical thriller/comedy/murder-mystery/ghost story set first in London and then in Wales. A mystical element is diffused through an increasingly complex plot, as all threads converge in the final chapters.

Clochemerle (not Clochemerie) I read as a teenager probably just because it was on a bookshelf at home, perfectly acceptable small town satire. The only other one I definitely recall reading is I, Claudius. Really liked Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian so A Coin in Nine Hands piques my interest here.

Appointment v. witty-dishy w the small town dirt, appreciated by teen me,checking out adult behavior, but even then characters seemed too hollow, clinical specimens, A Cool Million also okay-but-slight,The Postman Always Rings Twice was chilling--- enjoyment of every screen version, incl. Italian, didn't prepare me for voice of the killer. Also got into Call It Sleep. The Thin Man is good if you're following Hammett, Tender Is The Night if you're following Fitz, but I'll go with Tropic of Cancer, which for inst seems pre-Beat to say the least.

i loved The Postman Always Rings Twice, despite never seeing any film version. is the 1946 film (dir Tay Garnett) the one to seek out first?

Think so, yeah!
I, Claudius was disappointing, but I was expecting something more like the splendidly 70s-decadent BBC/PBS adaptation. Maybe I'll try it again.

Henry Roth. First novel: 1934. Second novel: 1994.

I just read 'Right Ho, Jeeves'. Such fun! I'm voting for it.

xp Yes, and at least a couple more after that, a trilogy. Are they good?

I, Claudius reads like a prequel to a book called I, Claudius.

I really struggled with Independent People. I need to go back to it. I've read Despair but can't remember a single thing about it. I think it'll have to be Tropic of Cancer, even though Miller was clearly an awful prick of a man.

(This isn't the thread to ask, but is there a best Jeeves to start with. I'm a Wodehouse virgin.)

I'd start with The Code of the Woosters, the third full-length novel and one of the greatest. You don't have to start at the beginning with the Jeeves novels. They do allude to prior volumes, but they're all pretty much self-contained. Spoilers hardly matter at all.

toughest list yet

O'Hara's first novel is good for its merciless observation of a familiar type of American male; I like some of his later books better

Postman is probably the best Cain, he's much darker than the hardboiled crime writers he's usually lumped in with

excellent mysteries by Hammett, Marsh, Christie, and Sayers, and especially Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr) ... The Plague Court Murders is his most effective combination of horror and detection

Tender is the Night is woolier and more predictable than Gatsby but entertaining and moving; it bears up well under re-readings

most of these are better-made and less problematic books than Tropic of Cancer but I have to vote for Miller this time

I feel like it's less likely to draw votes so Laxness it is.

Laxness vote here, too.

Xp Thanks jmm.

Novel with Cocaine, or sometimes Cocain Romance (Russian: Роман с кокаином - Roman s kokainom), is a mysterious Russian novel first published in 1934 in a Parisian émigré publication, Numbers,[1] and subtitled "Confessions of a Russian opium-eater". Its author was given as M. Ageyev. The English translation of the title fails to convey the double meaning of the Russian "Роман," meaning both "novel" and "romance."

i had never heard of this book until recently when i was reading knausgaard's my struggle series and the teenage karl ove is a fan of the book. must get round to reading it some time.

tender is the night is the best f. scott fitzgerald novel imo. very depressing. also the only one of these i have read

I've never heard of Laxness. Excited to check it out!

The has got to be a peak year for mysteries: Christie's Murder on a Calais Coach, Sayers's The Nine Tailors; and The Postman Always Rings Twice on the crime side. Also releases by Hammett, Rex Stout, John Dickson Carr (as Carter Dickson), and Ngaio Marsh, none of which I've read.

Reading Murder on the Orient Express as an adult (or any Christie from that period) really hammers home how much people believed in national characteristics -- like, "Italians are LIKE THIS" and "Russians are LIKE THAT" and etc. such a dominant note in the way everyone other than the chief protagonists are handled. I imagine this is similar for other genre fiction of the period but I haven't really read it. Definitely applies to the way Jews are handled in "high lit" of the time, 'sup Edith Wharton, but unlike what one gets in Christie, Wharton's Jews are not called upon to do something Jewy every single time they trot on stage

The Library of America Complete Novels of Dashell Hammett is reasonably priced for quality physicality, and of course they always go back to the original text, avoiding mistakes in reprints---but, you can find copies of this 1965 completion (which I read in the 70s, and my local library still has that copy; it's durable) in Condition: Good starting at $4.00 on the site of a certain Empire, for inst:

The Novels of Dashiell Hammett - [Contents: Red Harvest -- the Dain Curse -- the Maltese Falcon -- the Glass Key -- the Thin Man] Hardcover – January 1, 1965-New York; Knopf; 1st Edition in this form
Smart to alternate the stronger and lesser-but-enjoyable novels like that, ending w pizazz of The Thin Man.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51rWZoYeOVL._SX373_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

And a lot of his stories, incl. novellas, I think, have since been excavated, but I've only read a couple (pretty good).

So much stuff in this list I have seen in adaptation but not read. I think I Claudius might be the only one I’ve read (certainly the only one I’ve hand bound in red leather). I remember the BBC series not the book, though.

Love to read Cain, Hammett. Read half of Laxness, which I'd like to give another go this year.

I've read Rhys, which is great but not voting for it.

Independent People is the greatest Laxness novel I've read, but it is easily the grimmest, darkest and most emotionally challenging. It hearkens back to Icelandic sagas and their familiar intimacy with endless winter, struggle and death.

Tender is the Night approximates a messy double album: bad ideas, chapters you'd discard or heavily rewrite, but I love its flawed splendor.

I love Tender is the Night! Definitely flawed, but so beautiful in parts! Makes me sob.

I was prepared to vote for An Ordinary Life, which is the third part of Karel Capek's Three Novels (I voted for the first part, Hordubal, last time), but it's not here. I really cannot recommend this book highly enough.

I've read it four or five times, most recently about six years ago; I'm sure the Nicole parts I'd find most troublesome, almost as much as Fitz's insistence that Dick Diver had SO MUCH PROMISE DO YOU SEE. But those Nicole passages, the few from her POV, are illuminating; he never condescended to the caprices and longings of his women.

Yeah, it's a must for Fitz headz. Also worth a read: Calvin Tomkins' Living Well Is The Best Revenge, about awes expats Gerald and Sara Murphy, whose cushy family home was a salon and who were a major inspiration for TITN (well Dick and Nicole are kind of in there between Gerald and Sara and Scott and Zelda, I take it). Gerald was a proto-Pop Artist, in the 30s, if not the 20s or earlier---been a long time since I read it---the Modern Library edition, like the earlier, features some excellent paintings, also a new preface by Tomkins and revised last chapter

Oh yeah, here's one of his paintings on the cover:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51YhVtalkyL.jpg

You really have to see it up close to get it, but that gives an idea.

Tender... is fairly long and uneven, double-LP like Alfred says, so prob not the one I'd want to start with---think for me it was either Tales of the Jazz Age or Gatsby---but once you're hooked, go for it. A hot mess can be pretty, you know, hot.

i struggled with pendragon legend, having loved journey into moonlight, but maybe i should give it another go. i did not find the comedy comic.

several good genre novels here, murder on the orient express, the nine tails with its fenland mood, the plague court murders, marred only by Carter Dickson being Carter Dickson (Merrivale) instead of John Dickson Carr (Fell).

Jeeves is wonderful ofc, Despair and iirc Coot Club also good, tho the only Ransome i really fuck with these days is We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea.

Despair itself creates some peripheral but nagging questions of text. 1934 was the publication of the original Russian novel, Отчаяние. He then translated it later, as one of his first forays into English, and ofc its his *English* language with which as a teenager i fell in love. Perhaps it was only the ability of him as an author to reach deeply into his intentions in the original text and ensure the melody of the English expressed them. So as a landmark in Nabokov’s Englishing of his Russian novels and his aesthetic it’s significant. Except the original translation was i think lost in the war, so Nabokov translated it *again* much later, after his English approach was much more developed, and that is the text i read as a teenager. So what am i voting for if it cote for it here? All v Nabokovian (and slightly Boregsian). There is no essence, just bifurcating images in a set of mirrors.

I don't have much to add about Independent People aside from the fact I'll vote for it.

"A Coin In Nine Hands" was my first Yourcenar, I suppose twenty years ago now, and I loved it then and must read it again. I remember it being woozy and beautiful but I was in the middle of a months-long illness so who knows?

"The Song of the World" is my favourite Giono of the three or four I've read, it really hums with a kind of joy, and that plays well with the unease and confusion of the modern creeping in to what is an ancient way fo life. I'm surprised the current-is fashion for reading rural fiction about shepherds and whatnot doesn't seem to have meant a moment for Giono.

All of these extensively covered on the Harvill thread, of course.

I was prepared to vote for An Ordinary Life, which is the third part of Karel Capek's Three Novels (I voted for the first part, Hordubal, last time), but it's not here

Time for everyone to start checking if their future faves have English language wikipedia entries and, if not, to create them!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1935

you pervs

Tropic of Cancer is a difficult book to place on its merits, because its major merit applied with greatest force to the world in which it first appeared and as the world has changed since then, those merits have lost all their power and most of their value. Most of what's left of ToC for contemporary readers is Miller's egotism and crudity. Orwell's review of ToC is worth revisiting, if only to re-situate it in its time and place, under the light of a very perceptive critic. Orwell liked and appreciated it, largely because he saw Miller as the only author of his time who was legitimately happy.