/lit/ - Literature

>dan brown

One of these is not like the other...

Those are all good novels. OP don't read Ulysses first. Read Dubliner then Portrait of the Artist then Ulysses. You need to get a grasp of his writing style.

Hmm...id suggest Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott ...it's a read worthy of any cultured man.

>>3928019
Also read the real Inferno by Dante than Dan Brown.

His Dark Materials isn't really "literature." It's fun, and quite good for a YA series, but if you're trying to "culture" yourself it won't help much.
Skip Dan Brown.
As has been mentioned, don't try to read Ulysses unless you have read several other Joyce books, and lots of other books.
Similarly, don't make The Brothers Karamazov your first Dostoevsky. It's wonderful, but you would get a lot more out of Dusty if you started with something like Crime and Punishment or Notes From Underground.
Vonnegut is an excellent entry point to literature. Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle are very fun and thought-provoking.
Ivan Denisovich is also a fun (in a way), fairly easy read.
I haven't read most of the others on your list and I don't have an opinion on them. Another book I would suggest is W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage. It might feel a bit tedious at times, especially if you're not a heavy reader, but it's well worth it. Godspeed, OP.

>>3928029
... yes, but, are they in any way related. Like, did Danny boy remake, redo, plagiarize, etc the original inferno? Is this the Ulysses of Dan Brown?

>>3928022
ah, yeah, The Sun Also Rises, mean. Yea, I was on the fence about that garbage. I was thinking about just adding more Brown instead....

>>3928072
1/10 Try harder

>>3928016
>Inferno- Dan Brown
No.

>Ulysses - James Joyce
Not for a couple of years.

>The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
>Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Okay.

>The Sun Also Rises - Hemmingway
>The Old Man and the Sea - Hemmingway
It's spelled Hemmmingway.

>The Pearl- John Steinbeck
Substitute for East of Eden or Of Mice and Men.

>One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Okay.

>Child of God-Cormac McCarthy'
Substitute for Blood Meridian.

>The Man Who Would Be King- Rudyard Kipling
Uh, okay, I guess.

>Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en
Not unless you have a passion for classics.

>His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman
Not really "literature." I mean, it's alright, but not on the same level as anything on this list (excluding Dan Brown).

needs more kafka. seriously, any of his shorter novels or prose (meaning "don't start with The Castle")

Take, Inferno, Ulysses and The Brothers Karamazov off the list and you're fine. Read Dante's Inferno instead of Dan Brown's Inferno, it's infinitely better and very enjoyable.

>>3928087
Inferno is a gift from my dad, it'll be the first thing to read so I can get it out of the way.

I've read Mice and men so I'll read East of Eden

His dark materials is removed

>>3928114
Any suggestions? I've yet to read any Kafka.

>>3928057
Cats Craddle added

Ulysess should go last then?

>>3928027
Added

>>3928127
Whats the issue with Brothers?

>>3928087
Also: Why blood meridian instead?

>>3928227
It's both better and easier to read.

>>3928230
>>3928230
Okay, I switched them out on the list.

This is what it looks like now:

The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

The Brothers Karamazov- Fyodor Dostoyesky

Cat's Craddle - Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut

The Sun Also Rises - Hemmingway

The Old Man and the Sea - Hemmingway

East of Eden -John Steinbeck

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Blood Meridian- Cormac McCarthy

The Man Who Would Be King- Rudyard Kipling

Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en


At what point should I pick up Ulysses?

>>3928225
Not that guy, but it's really more than just a fictional story.

>>3928235
Then why is it so broadly talked about?

I see it all over the place as exemplary literature

>>3928225
>Whats the issue with Brothers
Nothing. Don't listen to that faggot.

>>3928243
okay.


Oh, and is TODAY I WROTE NOTHING - KHARMS worth reading?

>>3928255
Certainly not for a beginner. It's discussed on /lit/ a lot due to a specific poster that used to come on here. It is not particularly good or significant.

>>3928265
Alright.

Thank you for the help everybody, time to get that Library card and start culturing.

Ulysses is a mink novel, very fur trade.

>>3928222
well for kafka I would recomment starting with "The Trial" or "The Judgment" as they are usually the first pieces of work that students of the German language are confronted with, once they start reading Kafka.

if you understand German you should definitely read the original text though as the translations often suck balls.

>>3928243
It's not the most entry tier of novels is what I was getting at. Put on Crime and Punishment on instead, that's a much better starting point.

>>3928222
>>3928114
what's wrong with The Castle? it seems to be the same experience to me as The Trial. beginning is interesting, for a few chapters its boring and i dont get it, then everything comes together by the middle. what makes it so hard to get into?

>>3928313
there's nothing wrong with it but it's kind of not the right thing to start with if you want to get into kafka. I read it after the trial and upon reading the last page I was like "ummm what?" and it's really tough to make some sense of this if you haven't read other, more concise kafkaesque literature (well "concise" is relative when it comes to that mofo of course).

>>3928323
Does it end mid sentence? I read that somewhere.

>>3928326
please, no spoilers

>>3928323
i've read all of his short stories and the trial and i still didnt get the book until i read someone's spoiler-free review and analysis.

a-a-am i plebian?

>>3928326
not really mid sentence but the ending is open, yes. which would be nice for a short story or prose text but is quite disappointing after you've struggled through >400 pages beforehand.

there are drafts and fragments however that allude to how Kafka intended the plot to end.

>>3928331
I've read it after I studied The Trial for a year and gotta say it's easier to understand but I can't really make anything of the ending either. can't really say you're pleb for not understanding Kafka, it's inevitable at some point or the other.

>>3928332
>>3928336
my point is, don't start with The Castle if you want to read Kafka.

>>3928077
Not a troll, just a joke.
Perhaps you knew that...

what do you guys think of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? I don't care if it's pleb I loved the first three of the trilogy.

>>3928233
when you have an excellent vocabulary, a giant dictionary, a babelfish, and a love of opera.

Not OP but this seems like a perfect thread to ask, what's some literature that also happens to be in the fantasy genre? Something like Book of the New Sun is good.

>>3929390
Nigga I'm hook you up with some Harry Potter. Bitch can write! And is hot.

>>3929390
The Silmarillion and A Song of Ice and Fire might be up your alley.

>>3929404
Shit nigga, there are movies too. That means the books must be great, I mean no one would make a movie out of a shitty book right?

>>3929431

Harry Potter honestly isn't that bad. It's not "great" fantasy but I wouldn't call it shitty either. If you start reading it from book one I guarantee you'll be entertained.

>>3929431
Nigga that's right! Damn straight. You can just make up dem sick action scenes. Gotta come from somewhere in the books. But for real though. The movies be even better than the books.

Sound & fury.
Suttree
Moby dick

s. American stuff like 100 years of solitude.

Palace of dreams by kadare