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/lit/ - Literature

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1344764 No.1344764 [Reply] [Original]

I'm in need for an independent reading book for AP Lit and couldn't think of a better place to give me one.

Requirements: Must be published Pre-1900, and must have literary merit. If you want to be a doll, explain why it has literary merit.

I chose Middlemarch as my first choice randomly off a list, but fuck that shit, I couldn't read it in a month.

>> No.1344776

bumpity bump self bump

>> No.1344779

>>1344764
Brothers Karamazov

>> No.1344798

>>1344764
Ivanhoe

>> No.1344815 [DELETED] 

Turn of The Screw:

Shortish
Great plot
The mother of all ghost stories
Loads of different bullshit interpretations
Good film interpretations/ rewritings
Only two years before your cut-off date so a slighly rougueish tip of the hat to the rules.

>> No.1344819

Turn of The Screw:

Shortish
Great plot
The mother of all ghost stories
Loads of different bullshit interpretations
Good film interpretations/ rewritings
Only two years before your cut-off date so a slighly rougueish tip of the hat to the rules.

>> No.1344824

>>1344819
turn of the screw has been taken by someone already :/
>>1344798
>>1344779
i have taken down note of these and will go to the library in 15 minutes to choose.

Any others??

>> No.1344830

The thing with most pre-1900 stuff that are still read today is that most of them are pretty pretty pretty long, and, if you can't get a fairly modern translation, pretty weird to read.

DON QUIJOTE is in any case a pretty light read, though it's very long, but people are often very surprised to find out that it's a lot of fun. It's also considered by many as the first novel ever written, so that's very interesting. It's about a guy who reads so many books about heroic knights that he thinks he is one, and thus rides around trying to fight windmills. It's not just about that. At one occasion they for example stop at an inn, find a short story in it inside a bookshelve or something, and then you have three chapters about something completely else. Pretty cool, fun and also a novel that in some way or another "carries" most things written after it.

If you're interested in getting a bit more cheaply away from it, you can get some prototype modernism shorties at the very edge of the 18th century; more specifically Knut Hamsun. Though it's a very emotionally draining read, at least I thought it was, HUNGER is roughly a hundred-and-fifty pages long. Its literary merit lies in Hamsun's dedication to a completely new way of looking at the individual. No longer is he seen from the outside like in realism; rather we get to be inside the character's head as he talks with himself, makes up silly words, falls in love, and HUNGERs for food : 3

Another option is MYSTERIES which is particularly cool if you like that stranger-coming-into-a-bizarre-town-trying-to-figure-out-what's-up-thing, and PAN if you like the type of romantic frustration The Sufferings of Young Werther and Romeo and Juliet evoke.

My last suggestion is Leo Tolstoy's THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYICH. It's Tolstoy, who most people think is fun, except that the whole thing is only a hundred pages or so. Awesomeawesome.

Good luck picking something!

Hope I helped : 3

>> No.1344840

Fuck Middlemarch. For something long and good, read The Count of Monte Cristo. Epic revenge and really good prose. For something short and good, read Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. Superb plotting, pretty important book.

>> No.1344845

>>1344824
OK....Silas Marner. You've already metioned Eliot, but this is short and an enjoyable read. And if someone has chosen that too then fuck you.

>> No.1344846

>>1344840

Oh, or Notes From the Underground by Dostoevsky. It's basically the first example of the unreliable narrator and an important early work in Existentialism--pretty short too.

>> No.1344889

Be a man and read the The Tale of Genji

>> No.1344901

I will be choosing between Ivanhoe, The Brothers Karamazov, Hunger, Mysteries, and Pan. Thank you all for your time, off to the library.

Tale of Genji? naaaa

>> No.1344903

>>1344901
Guess you ain't no man

>> No.1344905

>>1344901
good luck with those!

>> No.1344931

Dante's Purgatorio. Its when the series really got good, and not over-hyped like the last piece of shit. Paradisio was a step backwards, but at least it had literary merit.

>> No.1344937
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1344937

>>1344931
my face when

>> No.1345080

Fucking faggot library didn't have any pre-1900 Hamsun, Ivanhoe, and The Brothers Karamazov is 800 pages long so.. no. I came home with:
The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Notes From Underground, but my English teacher might just call me a bitch because they're too short. We'll see. Any other suggestions?

>> No.1345086
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1345086

>> No.1345110

Just did The Rise of Silas Lapham for my Lit 200 class. Lots of easy symbols to bullshit about, lots of social issues to bullshit about, easy to read

>> No.1345112

>>1345080
I know I should be more tolerant & stuff; that old books can seem daunting to some people yadda yadda. And I know I'd be lost if I was confronted with a complicated maths equation. But couldn't you have used your time in the library to find just one book that looked like it might be readable and fit your criteria? I mean just one, off your own steam, instead of coming here and getting unsuitable recommendations?

>> No.1345130

>>1345112
Nope, I'd rather get advice from people who actually read in their spare time.

>> No.1345132

Oliver Twist.
Written by Charles Dickens.

>> No.1345137

UK fag here. What is AP lit? How old are you when you do AP lit?

>> No.1345141

>>1345130

You sound like a real douchebag. If you can't figure out how to choose a book for an assignment, good luck succeeding in any kind of career whatsoever. Including but not limited to janitor, carny bum, sausage maker, hammer based helmet testing

>> No.1345146

this is pathetic. i should be reading myself.

>> No.1345149

>>1345137
Its a middle school class, usually taken around 8th grade.

>> No.1345154

fuckin dead souls by nikolai gogol, it has a lot of literary merit and is technically a novel even though it isn't super long. also quite funny, a good read.

>> No.1345157

>>1345137
17
>>1345141
You mad?