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/lit/ - Literature

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1704690 No.1704690 [Reply] [Original]

Brand new copies of the following are lying idle on a table. Which one should I read first?

Schindler's Ark - Thomas Keneally
Illywhacker - Peter Carey
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
The Confessions of An English Opium-Eater - Thomas De Quincey
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
Candide - Voltaire
New Model Army - Adam Roberts
Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C Clarke
Black Man - Richard Morgan

>> No.1704696

THE TURN OF THE SCREW OR CANDIDE.

THE ONLY TWO WORKS I'VE READ IN THE LIST, BUT ARE ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE POLAR AND FROM DISTINGUISHED AUTHORS, SO WORTH CHECKING OUT.

>> No.1704734

>>1704690

Schindler's Ark then Illywhacker.

Then you get to feel superior to the rest of /lit/ who ignore Australian lit like it's the red-headed step-child of world literature - but that's just my reactionary nationalism acting up again.

>> No.1704740

WELL TODAY I FINISHED THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, AND READ A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM AND THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO

ALIKE OP, I HAD A WIDE ARRANGE OF BOOKS AT MY DISPOSAL TO READ NEXT. THEY WERE AS FOLLOWS:
LADY INTO FOX - DAVID GARNETT (SON OF CONSTANCE)
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER - POE
THE MONSTER - STEPHAN CRANE
THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP - LOVECRAFT (YET TO READ ANYTHING BY HIM AS A MATTER OF FACT)
A WRITER AT WAR - GROSSMAN
THE GRAPES OF WRATH - STEINBECK
THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO - POE
HERBERT WEST - REANIMATOR - LOVECRAFT
THE THREE SISTERS - CHEKHOV
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE - POE
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET - POE (WAS MENTIONED IN THE PROSTITUTE SERIAL KILLER THREAD COUPLE DAYS BACK)
A HORSE'S TALE - MARK TWAIN
THE CHERRY ORCHARD - CHEKHOV
THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO - SOLZHENITSYN

THOUGHT I'D JUST PRETTY MUCH GO BACK TO BACK WITH ANOTHER DOOR-STOPPER AND CHOSE SOLZHENITSYN, SINCE I'VE GOT NO MORE MID-EXAMS AND FROM THIS COMING WEEK I'LL BE WORKING A LOT LESS.

>> No.1704749

Frankenstein.
For the love of god, read Frankenstein.

>> No.1704757

Anything but Austen.

>> No.1704760

>>1704757

Someone doesn't have his Austen irony meter fitted.
Or has only ever read Mansfield Park's first half.

Or Mark Twain has come back from the dead.

In which case - your autobiography wasn't really worth the 100 years of waiting.

>> No.1704767
File: 358 KB, 500x616, capsguy.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1704767

>>1704740

brofist for descent into the maelstrom. read it last year. poe is such a boss.

signed,
the guy who first posted <<<this pic

>> No.1704772

>>1704767
He only gave it 2/5 on his goodreads. I haven't read it yet.

>> No.1704785
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1704785

>>1704772
well, fuck it, I liked it.

OP, the only thing I read on your list was Great Expectations. I liked it, but nothing that really stayed with me. Sounds like you've got an interesting collection to plow through.

>> No.1704787

WELL, DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER POE YOU'D RECOMMEND ANON?

>> No.1704799

>>1704785
Seconding Great Expectations, except that something actually 'stayed with me' years after reading it.

>> No.1704801

>>1704787
How are you reading Poe? Do you have an individual copy of each of his stories? You really should buy the complete tales and plough through it. Personally my favourite Poe story is Hop-Frog. It's joyfully comical but at the same time just as eerie and Gothic as the rest of his stuff.

>> No.1704802

first of all: janky-ass selection.

secondly:
>oh hay /lit/ I've got these books to read but I'm such an incredible faggot that I need someone to tell me THE ORDER IN WHICH TO READ THEM

go find your balls, reattach them to your body (wherever really) and pick one yourself, you giant pussy.

How To Get Mad. by Vdubby

>> No.1704804

>>1704801
I READ FROM A KINDLE AND LIKE TO READ SHORTER WORKS BETWEEN SOME OF THE DENSER OR LONGER ONES. FOR EXAMPLE WHAT I DID TODAY BEFORE STARTING THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO

>> No.1704807

If it was me, I'd read Frankenstein. I'm almost ashamed to say that I've never read it. Then again, I don't read a lot of novels, but I sort of think I should have read this one, because I've read a lot of her old man's poetry, but ignored her magnum opus. I don't want to end up like capsguy, a-hatin on the ladies.

>> No.1704808
File: 552 KB, 935x1200, brothel vintage.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1704808

>>1704787
I liked the Dupin stories, but a lot of that was seeing how Doyle appropriated him for Holmes. I loved the hoaxes--The Balloon Hoax and there were a couple others. I'm not sure most folks would agree, but I really liked Hans Pfall. The idea that one could just up and travel to space if one had A) enough lift from a large enough balloon, and B) big enough balls. Lunacy, but I liked it. And I adore The Raven.

>> No.1704811

>>1704808
THANKS MAN.

WELL AT THE MOMENT I HAVE HOP-FROG, THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, AND THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET ON MY CURRENTLY READING LIST. SO I MAY HOLD OFF FROM MORE POE AT THE MOMENT, BUT AS HE GETS SO MUCH MENTION HERE, I'LL JUST ADD MORE STORIES TO MY CURRENTLY READING LIST AS I SEE THEM GET RECOMMENDED/MENTIONED HERE.

>> No.1704814
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1704814

>>1704734

Aussie lit gets no love, but it's at least partly your own fault - as soon as an ausfag gets any kind of recognition, they fuck straight off to London (occasionally the states) and start slagging the lucky country in every medium they can find. Pic related.

See also: Germaine Greer, Nick Cave, Thomas Keneally and just about every other aussie writer that anyone's ever (never) heard of.

>> No.1704819

>>1704814
Fuck, anytime I see Gemaine Greer on tv my reage meter instantly rises to over 9000. I just can't stand her self assured smug self righteousness.

>> No.1704821

>>1704819
*rage meter

>> No.1704823

>>1704808

"No doubt you think you are complimenting me ... In my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow... He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appears to imagine".

- Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet

The real problem with the Dupin stories is that you can't read them as detective stories anymore: partly because everyone knows how they end, but also because they seem so ridiculously cliched. Unfair, since Poe invented the cliche, but it's still the case. It must have been pretty mindblowing to read them on the day they were published, but now it's kind of meh. Still, the ratiocinative detective is now such an uncommon trope that maybe he's overdue a comeback.

Poe forme is a little like sci-fi writers of modern times. I love his work for the ideas therein, but hate having to deal with his horrible, nasty prose style to get to the ideas. It's like eating a nut with a shell that bites you in the eye every second that you try to crack it.

>> No.1704825
File: 21 KB, 532x360, germaine-greer.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1704825

>>1704819

Maybe, but forty years ago, you'd have totally hit that. And she'd have let you too. Dirty bitch. nom nom nom.

I'd still do her now - she's not bad for an old bird, and it would be a great story to tell in the pub

>> No.1704834
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1704834

>>1704823
i agree that the prose is a tough nut to crack. however, all the prose from back then was like that. The themes he writes about (secret codes, the unknown, crime solving, etc) appeal to the part of me that wants to decipher all that archaic language. So, it's really all good; it adds to the reading experience.

>> No.1704839

>>1704834

Nah, I think that even compared to his contemporaries, Poe was not a brilliant stylist: he was a professional, drunk as a bastard, writing to deadlines to make money. I think he's a little like Philip Dick - sometimes the prose really hums, and makes you wonder how his writing would beif he'd ever edited it and polished it. THen other times it just clunks and you're all "oh, Poe, what are you like?". It's still worth reading, but not necessarily for the writing.

Like a lot of massively influential writers, he wasn't a brilliant writer, but then that makes sense: a lot of people who came after him and ripped him off were effectively motivated by the thought "hmm, that was good, but I actually think I can do it better".

Poe's a giant, but a giant of ideas imho.

and his poetry is fucking doggerel

>> No.1704849

The Turn of the Screw. I've only seen the latest tv movie, but I thought it was good.

>> No.1704983

>>1704814

The phenomenon you're describing was more symptomatic of their being Boomers, if anything. Modern writers see it for the reactionary and immature behaviour it is

>> No.1704998

BEFORE I GO TO BED, HOW FUCKING AWESOME IS THAT DOG.

LIKE FUCK, DOGS ARE THE FUCKING BEST.

>> No.1705001

Under no circumstances read "pride and Prejudice."

Ever. That is all.

>> No.1705028

New Model Army..because it's the name of a goth band.