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/lit/ - Literature

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1658117

Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ Sat Mar 26 15:27:00 2011 No.1658117 [Reply] [Original]

Hey /lit/ can you do me a favour

I got my hands on a shitload of books over the last couple of weeks that I know very little about but am planning to get stuck into over summer, could you help me out and maybe reorder them? If you reorder them, be sure to explain the rationale behind it please.

Racine - Andromache and other Plays
Ben Okri - The Famished Road
Prozac Nation - Elizabeth Wurtzel
James Lee Burke - The James Lee Burke Collection
Mordecai Richler - Solomon Gursky Was Here
A. E. Ellis - The Rack
William Styron - Darkness Visible
Peter Ackroyd - The Diversions of Purley
Peter Ackroyd - Dan Leno & The Limehouse Golem
Roberston Davies - What's Bred in the Bone
John Banville - Dr Copernicus
Norman Mailer - The Executioner's Song
Michael Frayn - Headlong
C.S.Forester - The Earthly Paradise
William Styron - Sophie's Choice
André Malraux - Days of Hope
Luther Blissett - Q
Peter Ackroyd - First Light
William Kennedy - Ironweed
Alexander Woollcott - While Rome Burns

>>	Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ Sat Mar 26 15:29:00 2011 No.1658125 File: 199 KB, 850x850, 1503622.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] by re-order I essentially mean prioritise derp

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 26 15:32:00 2011 No.1658137 >>1658117 Styron and Malraux are the only ones I have really heard about, Sophie's choice is on Le Monde's 100 books of the century so I would maybe start with that.

>>

Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ Sat Mar 26 15:38:00 2011 No.1658151
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>>1658137
Thanks, I realise a lot of them are a bit obscure. I might just focus on more standard texts, I have plenty of those I have to get through anyway.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 26 15:42:00 2011 No.1658161 Names I've heard before: Racine Styron Ackroyd Davies Banville Mailer Malraux Kennedy I guess that makes those the most important?? idk

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 26 15:54:00 2011 No.1658198 Racine is the oldest and probably the most significant person on your list. One of the most important figures in French drama/literature in general

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 26 17:46:00 2011 No.1658458 I hope you get around to reading all of those

>>	Mogwai !!YOt9Y28V773 Sat Mar 26 17:49:00 2011 No.1658462 File: 26 KB, 437x453, algreen.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] God... this list is incredibly entry level.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 26 17:57:00 2011 No.1658474 Racine is the French Shakespeare. Therefore it should be the first choice. Then there is Malraux. All the rest is a bunch of no-names.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 26 18:00:00 2011 No.1658478 So much Peter Ackroyd! I haven't read any of the three books, but after Chatterton and Plato Papers I'd be excited as hell.

>>

Anonymous Sat Mar 26 18:00:00 2011 No.1658480

"Racine was primarily a tragedian, producing such 'examples of neoclassical perfection' as Phèdre, Andromaque, and Athalie, although he did write one comedy, Les Plaideurs, and a muted tragedy, Esther, for the young.

Racine's plays displayed his mastery of the dodecasyllabic alexandrine; his verse is renowned for elegance, purity, speed, and fury, and for what Robert Lowell described as a 'diamond-edge', and the 'glory of its hard, electric rage'.

Racine's works are widely considered to be untranslatable, although many eminent poets have attempted to do so, including Lowell, Ted Hughes, and Derek Mahon into English, and Schiller into German. Racine's dramaturgy is marked by his psychological insight, the prevailing passion of his characters, and the nakedness of both the plot and stage."

I've never seen a wikipedia article perform such fellatio on an author.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 26 18:01:00 2011 No.1658481 >>1658474 Mailer and Davies aren't even close to being no-names, at least not in their respective countries

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 26 18:03:00 2011 No.1658484 >>1658481 On a global scale, they remain small compared to Racine. I hadn't heard of them to be honest.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 26 18:05:00 2011 No.1658485 >>1658484 If you're interested in 20th century American and Canadian fiction they're pretty significant

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 26 18:08:00 2011 No.1658491 >>1658485 I wasn't aware Canada had any literature to begin with, to be honest. Therein lies the problem, methinks.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 26 18:13:00 2011 No.1658503 >>1658491 Robertson Davies is brought up here occasionally, but other than him, you've probably heard of Margaret Atwood (maybe not realizing she's Canadian tho)

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 26 18:16:00 2011 No.1658507 >>1658503 I thought Atwood was American, yeah.