/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2167609]

ITT: WE RECOMMEND NOVELLAS THAT AREN'T ON ANY OF /LIT/'S ESSENTIAL CHARTS

I'LL START, AS ALWAYS, WITH THE RED LAUGH BY ANDREYEV (1923)

A HARROWING ANTI-WAR STORY SET DURING THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR. EVEN THOUGH THE STORY IS NOT IN ITSELF LONG, ITS IMAGERY OF THE DEVASTATION AND SENSELESSNESS ENTRANCES THE READER AND REALLY SUBDUES THE READER. IT'S NOT LIKE SHOCK WAS ADDED SOLELY FOR A SHOCK FACTOR, THIS IS DIFFERENT

THE ENDING WITH THE SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS AND THE EMBODIMENT OF THE RED LAUGH ITSELF WAS DONE MASTERFULLY, DON'T WORRY THIS ISN'T REALLY A SPOILER.

YOU CAN READ IT HERE

http://www.amalgamatedspooks.com/red.htm


OKAY, YOUR TURN.

[Anonymous No.2167611]

MAN I SHOULD REALLY RE-READ MY POSTS PRIOR TO SUBMITTING THEM. BUT I WOULDN'T BE CAPSGUY IF I DID THAT.

NEXT RECOMMENDATION BY ME TO MAKE UP FOR IT:

THE FLOOD - ZOLA (NOT SURE) BUT PIC RELATED

A GRANDFATHER WATCHES HIS FAMILY SUBDUED BY A FLOOD, QUITE DEPRESSING STUFF.

[Anonymous No.2167614]

Ice by Anna Kavan.

Kind of like a Phillip K. Dick novel, except with heroin instead of psychedelic drugs. Surreal landscape with a detached protagonist searching through an apocalyptic world that is freezing over very quickly. About 160 pages. And here's a download link:

>http://www.mediafire.com/?u7059xv4sl22g3m

[Anonymous No.2167619]

Tales of Galicia by Andrzej Stasiuk.

Seems more like a collection of short stories connected by their setting of a small, melancholy town in Galicia at first, but they start to interlink more and more each chapter in very unexpected and usually deadening ways. Would probably very much appeal to anyone who lived in a small rural town, but also to anyone who enjoys that kind of claustrophobia and colorful characters. The language in it gets really creepy at times, mostly due to the deadpan detachment of some of the characters. About 140 pages.

[Anonymous No.2167620]

MAYBE THIS IS MORE FITTING TO THE DEFINITION OF SHORT STORY BUT I DON'T CARE

THE MACHINE STOPS - FORSTER (1909)

GIVEN THE DATE, ESPECIALLY FOR THOSE THAT TOSS OVER DYSTOPIA/UTOPIA THIS SHOULD NOT ONLY BE AN INTERESTING READ, BUT ALSO A RELATIVELY IMPORTANT ONE.

THE HUMAN POPULATION HAS BEEN FORCED TO LIVE UNDERGROUND AND IS DEPENDENT ON A MACHINE FOR LITERALLY EVERYTHING. AS YOU CAN TELL BY THE NAME OF THE TITLE, YOU CAN GUESS WHAT IS LIKELY TO HAPPEN.

PICTURE NOT RELATED BUT KIND OF FITTING.

[Anonymous No.2167623]

The Feverhead by Wolfgang Bauer.

About 110 pages. I could never explain it better than in the Amazon description:

"The Feverhead is written in the form of letters between a couple of not-all-that-bright Austrians. Their correspondence is doomed to failure, nearly every letter crosses in the post and yet they succeed in their quest: the search for a perfect thermometer (and a serial murderer). In fact they both independently discover the secret of the universe in a remote spot thousands of miles from their intended (and different) destinations. Bauer’s comedy of errors is ennacted by an unusual cast that includes microscopic schoolgirls, ambigously sexed nuns, incompetent detectives, two ultimately bad poets, living steam engines and a venerable three-eyed sea-captain whose two bodies remain exactly 3.5 metres apart, not to mention: ULF."

[Anonymous No.2167627]

TARAS BULBA - GOGOL (1835)

I SUPPOSE A HISTORICAL FICTION OF THE COSSACK REVOLT AGAINST THE POLES, QUITE AN EASY READ WITH THE CHARACTERS NOT HAVING THAT MUCH DEPTH BUT ROUGH AND VIOLENT SO IT'S INTERESTING ENOUGH.

NOT GOGOL'S BEST, BUT NONETHELESS WORTH CHECKING OUT

[Anonymous No.2167688]

CAN I HAVE A BUMP?

FUCK YEAH, BUMP IT UP

[Anonymous No.2167742]

THE LAST DAY OF A CONDEMNED MAN - HUGO (1829)

CHRONICLES THE THOUGHTS OF A PRISONER DURING HIS LAST DAY UNTIL HIS EXECUTION.

SIMILAR THEMES CAN BE FOUND IN ANOTHER OF ANDREYEV'S NOVELLAS, TITLED 'THE SEVEN WHO WERE HANGED'

[Anonymous No.2167766]

UP AT THE VILLA - MAUGHAM (1941)

COME ON /LIT/, ONLY ONE OTHER PERSON HAS POSTED.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.2167796]

'The Yellow Wall-Paper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

It's one of these formative feminist short stories where the woman is cooped up in the house for too long and loses it, mite be worth a read if you're into that sort of thing.

[Anonymous No.2167801]

>>2167796
THE ONLY RECOMMENDED PIECE OTHER THAN BY ME THAT I COULD READ TIME-WISE, AND YOU POST ONE WRITTEN BY A FEMALE

DAMN YOU D&E, DAMN YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[Hades !!gxdzsSnwykj No.2167808]

All My Friends Are Superheros - Andrew Kaufman

To explain it would be to spoil it.

[Anonymous No.2168230]

Dark Spring by Unica Zurn.

"Dark Spring is an autobiographical coming-of-age novel that reads more like an exorcism than a memoir. In it author Unica Zurn traces the roots of her obsessions: The exotic father she idealized, the "impure" mother she detested, the masochistic fantasies and onanistic rituals which she said described "the erotic life of a little girl based on my own childhood." Dark Spring is the story of a young girl's simultaneous introduction to sexuality and mental illness, revealing a different aspect of the "mad love" so romanticized by the (predominantly male) Surrealists."

About 130 pages, but 40 of that is the introduction, which gives you a really good background on Zurn and analysis on the book, so it's probably best read afterwards.

[Anonymous No.2168251]

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by Cesar Aira.

"An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter is the story of a moment in the life of the German artist Johan Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858). Greatly admired as a master landscape painter, he was advised by Alexander von Humboldt to travel West from Europe to record the spectacular landscapes of Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. Rugendas did in fact become one of the best of the nineteenth-century European painters to venture into Latin America. However this is not a biography of Rugendas. This work of fiction weaves an almost surreal history around the secret objective behind Rugendas' trips to America: to visit Argentina in order to achieve in art the "physiognomic totality" of von Humboldt's scientific vision of the whole. Rugendas is convinced that only in the mysterious vastness of the immense plains will he find true inspiration. A brief and dramatic visit to Mendosa gives him the chance to fulfill his dream. From there he travels straight out onto the pampas, praying for that impossible moment, which would come only at an immense pricean almost monstrously exorbitant price that would ultimately challenge his drawing and force him to create a new way of making art. A strange episode that he could not avoid absorbing savagely into his own body interrupts the trip and irreversibly and explosively marks him for life."

Not as boring as it may sound - it very, very much picks up about 30 pages in, with the happening of the certain episode. And then it gets amazing. About 120 pages.

[Anonymous No.2168262]

Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age by Bohumil Hrabal.

"Rake, drunkard, aesthete, gossip, raconteur extraordinaire: the narrator of Bohumil Hrabal’s rambling, rambunctious masterpiece Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age is all these and more. Speaking to a group of sunbathing women who remind him of lovers past, this elderly roué tells the story of his life—or at least unburdens himself of a lifetime’s worth of stories. Thus we learn of amatory conquests (and humiliations), of scandals both private and public, of military adventures and domestic feuds, of what things were like “in the days of the monarchy” and how they’ve changed since. As the book tumbles restlessly forward, and the comic tone takes on darker shadings, we realize we are listening to a man talking as much out of desperation as from exuberance."

Really fun book told in one long, rambling, fantastical sentence by an old man. Requires a decent grounding in Czech history, since there aren't any footnotes. Or a willingness to look a lot of things up. This is another where the intro is a good third of the book and gives an in-depth analysis of it (it also makes interesting comparison's with Hrabal's own life), so is better left for afterwards. About 160 pages, in huge font.

[Anonymous No.2168278]

Another "man and his prostitute" story, but this one gets a lot of creepy points. Images and sounds of the sea that might be just beyond the wall (and may be imagined), everyone always on the verge of sleep, euphemisms and moments of almost-murderous insanity, then love, then sleep - makes the whole story very surreal. It has an enormous font size and is only about 70 pages, so it may be more of a short story (though the back few pages describe it both as being performed as a play and filmed as a screenplay, so I have no idea).

[Anonymous No.2168281]

The Malady of Death by Marguerite Duras.

Another "man and his prostitute" story, but this one gets a lot of creepy points. Images and sounds of the sea that might be just beyond the wall (and may be imagined), everyone always on the verge of sleep, euphemisms and moments of almost-murderous insanity, then love, then sleep - makes the whole story very surreal. It has an enormous font size and is only about 70 pages, so it may be more of a short story (though the back few pages describe it both as being performed as a play and filmed as a screenplay, so I have no idea).

[Anonymous No.2168310]

Aura by Carlos Fuentes.

A novella told through second person perspective where everything happening seems perfectly straight forward and relatively normal-like. But is also damn strange. About halfway through you'll probably get the realization of what has been happening in the story and experience a lovely sense of shock and horror. Many of the images/symbolism in this come and go quickly, but it ends up creating some kind of creepy subliminal messaging. Recommended if you like supernatural/creepy stories.

About 160 pages, but in bilingual version, so technically only half of that (unless you're reading both sides).

[Anonymous No.2168337]

(re-doing first two recs for bumping purposes and 'cause I wanna put pictures with them)

Ice by Anna Kavan.

Kind of like a Phillip K. Dick novel, except with heroin instead of psychedelic drugs. Surreal landscape with a detached protagonist searching through an apocalyptic world that is freezing over very quickly for an elusive and broken child-like girl. Written in very straight-forward language, hailed as a great author's experiment in venturing into science fiction. About 160 pages. And here's a download link:

>http://www.mediafire.com/?u7059xv4sl22g3m

[Anonymous No.2168358]

Tales of Galicia by Andrzej Stasiuk.

Seems more like a collection of short stories connected by their setting of a small, melancholy town in Galicia at first, but they start to interlink more and more each chapter in very unexpected and usually deadening ways. Would probably very much appeal to anyone who lived in a small rural town, but also to anyone who enjoys that kind of claustrophobia and colorful characters. The language in it gets really creepy at times, mostly due to the deadpan detachment of some of the characters. About 140 pages.

[Anonymous No.2168443]

this is a good thread and you should feel good. Screen capping and saving for later reference.

[Anonymous No.2168506]

>>2168443
Yeah, I've saved it off too. (Also, bump.)

[Anonymous No.2168524]

WELL KINDLY RECOMMEND STUFF IF YOU DO NOT MIND

THE ALTER OF THE DEAD - JAMES (1895)

"There were other ghosts in his life than the ghost of Mary Antrim. He had perhaps not had more losses than most men, but he had counted his losses more; he hadn't seen death more closely, but had in a manner felt it more deeply. He had formed little by little the habit of numbering his Dead: it had come to him early in life that there was something one had to do for them."

[Anonymous No.2168531]

The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector.

"Narrated by the cosmopolitan Rodrigo S.M., this brief, strange, and haunting tale is the story of Macabéa, one of life's unfortunates. Living in the slums of Rio and eking out a poor living as a typist, Macabéa loves movies, Coca-Cola, and her rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly, underfed, sickly, and unloved. Rodrigo recoils from her wretchedness, and yet he cannot avoid the realization that for all her outward misery, Macabéa is inwardly free. She doesn't seem to understand how unhappy she should be.

Lispector employs her pathetic heroine against her urbane, empty narrator - edge of despair to edge of despair - and, working them like a pair of scissors, she cuts away the reader's preconceived notions about poverty, identity, love, and the art of fiction, taking readers close to the true mystery of life."

About 100 pages. And a new English translation actually just came out too, by Benjamin Moser, that is supposed to be world's better than the previous one.

[Anonymous No.2168537]

>>2168524

I'd be struggling to recommend any novellas because I don't often read them. I remember enjoying Arthur Miller's Plain Girl but I read it so long ago I couldn't even give you a synopsis at this point.

[Anonymous No.2168592]

In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan.

About 140 pages of a surreal, dreamy style. I think the best description/recommendation for this novella I could give would be by copying the first section:

"in watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar. I’ll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant.

Wherever you are, we must do the best we can. It is so far to travel, and we have nothing here to travel, except watermelon sugar. I hope this works out. I live in a shack near ideath. I can see ideath out the window.

It is beautiful. I can also see it with my eyes closed and touch it.

Right now it is cold and turns like something in the hand of a child. I do not know what that thing could be.

There is a delicate balance in ideath. It suits us.

The shack is small but pleasing and comfortable as my life and made from pine, watermelon sugar and stones as just about everything here is.

Our lives we have carefully constructed from watermelon sugar and then travelled to the length of our dreams, along roads lined with pines and stones.

I have a bed, a chair, a table and a large chest that I keep my things in. I have a lantern that burns watermelontrout oil at night.

That is something else. I’ll tell you about it later. I have a gentle life."

[Anonymous No.2169039]

bump

[Anonymous No.2169552]

bump

[Anonymous No.2169728]

Astonishing the Gods by Ben Okri

Around 130 pages. I read it in one sitting, liked it a lot.

This is a story for all ages, set in a time and place best known to lovers of fairytales and myths. It is a modern fable, a way of understanding who we are now and how our search for identity affects our perceptions and actions, shot through with the gentle magic of Ben Okri's imaginative prose. 'Astonishing the Gods is properly worked and exact, and fulfils Calvino's prescription for lightness - being like a bird rather than a feather'

[3rd No.2169741]

>>2168230
I don't particularly care for Zürn, but anyone with an investment in the writing of outsider artists may want to take particular note of this. In addition to being one of those gals who wrote prolifically of her time in and out of asylums (Plath, Gilman etc.) she was the on-again-off-again muse of Hans Bellmer- One of the more visually engaging and still relevant of the Surrealist painters, and spent the end of her life living with him.

I Am Death, by Gary Amdahl

One of the contemporaries worth championing, Amdahl is a writers writer in the best sense. He has a good voice that often curves outside of the context of his story, winding sentences, and the courtesy to reference his predecessors without cramming it down your throat. In this story a failed journalist is fingered to participate in helping a Chicago mobster write his autobiography. The first paragraph:

>Death begins the story. I talk for a while, then fall silent. That's life: from "death" to "death," the story pops into being, miraculously, then you forget about it. In the middle years, you do what you can, you overdrive your headlights, you speed weightlessly down a road in thick fog, the road becomes a bridge, the bridge rises higher and higher, becomes narrower and narrower, then, achingly, stops in midair, pieces of it jutting blackly and dangling in the wind. The people you love most in your life are staring at you with hatred, you're shrieking at them and crying your eyes out, you can't stop, it almost feels good to sob this way. Abraham kills Isaac.

[3rd No.2169750]

Steps, Jerzy Kosiński

>“Steps” gets called a novel but it is really a collection of unbelievably creepy little allegorical tableaux done in a terse elegant voice that’s like nothing else anywhere ever. Only Kafka’s fragments get anywhere close to where Kosinski goes in this book, which is better than everything else he ever did combined.
- David Foster Wallace

[Anonymous No.2171580]

bump

[Anonymous No.2171600]

Anyone think we should use this thread and its recommendations to begin work on a second 100 novellas chart?

[Driftglass !!qQHQy2EP+xJ No.2171638]

>>2169741
I don't even

[Anonymous No.2171644]

Not sure if this is on the list but The Kreutzer Sonata by Tolstoy made me think about things and that hurt.

[Anonymous No.2171656]

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.

It is a vampire novella with lesbian undertones that predates Bram Stoker's Dracula by 25 years.

[Anonymous No.2171688]

Don't think Chess Story by Stefan Zweig is on the chart. It's less than 100 pages and highly recommended.

"Travelers by ship from New York to Buenos Aires find that on board with them is the world champion of chess, an arrogant and unfriendly man. They come together to try their skills against him and are soundly defeated. Then a mysterious passenger steps forward to advise them and their fortunes change. How he came to possess his extraordinary grasp of the game of chess and at what cost lie at the heart of Zweig's story."

[Anonymous No.2171691]

The Train Was on Time by Heinrich Boll.

"Tells the story of twenty-four-year-old Private Andreas as he journeys on a troop train across the German countryside to the Eastern front. Trapped, he knows that Hitler has already lost the war ... yet he is suddenly galvanized by the thought that he is on the way to his death.

As the train hurtles on, he riffs through prayers and memories, talks with other soldiers about what they’ve been through, and gazes desperately out the window at his country racing away. With mounting suspense, Andreas is gripped by one thought over all: Is there a way to defy his fate?"

About 140 pages. The whole novella, though it deals with a man who knows he'll be dying soon, seems to have a relaxed, or maybe lethargic, pace to it. He reflects, he prays, he eats, he tries to abstain but still keeps sleeping, knowing he only has a few more days to live. Several moments in this were very heart-wrenching, particularly the ones concerning the other soldiers' pasts and his associations with the prostitute at the ending. The ending itself was shocking and abrupt, though you know to expect it.

[Anonymous No.2171696]

The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato, "won the applause of Thomas Mann and Albert Camus and was described as an existential classic." Around 140 pages in bilingual edition.

"Provides a view inside the mind of a man who is tortured by obsessive love for a woman who seems to be his mirror image; i.e., another tormented soul inhabiting the existential void. Or she may just be a superficial being who enjoys adding a famous painter to her list of conquests. The "action" takes place almost entirely in the mind of the narrator, Castel. We never really know who the few other characters are or what they are thinking. Sabato's ability to capture Castel's tortured thought processes is stunningly on point and makes for sometimes painful reading -- our 1990's psychology tells us Castel should have it all worked out; but the fact that he cannot escape his obsessions is the essence of his humanity."

[Anonymous No.2171825]

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosiński

A child grows up wondering through the Eastern European countryside during the second world war.

I was interested to see someone already suggested Kosiński.

This one is maybe too long to consider a novella, but it's a very quick read.

One of my favorites. Really rocked my world as a kid.

[Anonymous No.2173187]

bump

[Anonymous No.2173204]

This is a good thread and you should be proud. Novellas are rarely, if ever, talked about on this board.

I wish I could contribute, but the only novella I have read (that I recall) is The Yellow Wall-Paper. I think it is beautifully done though, with near perfect pacing. I felt my anxiety growing as I read it and the final chapter genuinely freaked me out.

I guess Lovecraft's The Shadow over Innsmouth would be a novella? It's my favorite story by him. Really builds up the tension and then lets it go after the townspeople try to break into his room.

[Anonymous No.2173884]

bump

Good morning, /lit/! More novellas! Sadly I don't really have anything to offer, which is why I'm bumping this to get new things to read~

[Anonymous No.2173920]

some very famous writers in here (zweig, böll), so i'm gonna suggest Kundera's "Slowness"

>Walk slower, run faster

[Anonymous No.2173965]

HUH, I CAME HERE FOR THE PROMISE OF UNDERGROUND SHIT THAT YOU PROBABLY HAVEN'T HEARD OF

AND WAS THEN INTRIGUED BY THE PRESENCE OF A PERSON TYPING IN CAPS

OR SHOULD I SAY, A 'C'APS 'P'ERSON

[Anonymous No.2173967]

>>2173965
I BELIEVE IT'S CAPSGUY

[Anonymous No.2173970]

>>2173967
IS THAT SOME SORT OF TRIPFAG HERE NOW? I WONDER WHY YOU FAGS ARE PUTIN UP WITH THAT.

[Anonymous No.2173972]

>>2173970
THEY HAVE NO CHOICE.

I DON'T REALLY THINK IT'S A TRIPFAG, SINCE ANYONE CAN DON THE CAPS AT ANY TIME.

[Anonymous No.2173983]

>>2173972
BUT DO THEY? BUT DO THEY?

[Anonymous No.2174000]

>>2173983
SOMETIMES

[Anonymous No.2174027]

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. This is a really, really good novella. Around 190 pages. Everyone read this, his writing is perfect.

As good as his short story The Pedestrian which I also strongly recommend. It's very short and very good.

Thanks for the awesome recommendations guys!

[Anonymous No.2174034]

I really am amazed some of these are not on a recommended list actually. The Machine Stops? The Yellow Wallpaper? These are practically cornerstones. Zola and Gogol should just be recommend *authors* and I'm amazed Carmilla isn't on some kind of gothic horror/vampire fiction recommended list given how much Dracula absolutely steals from it.

So thanks for the thread I guess.

The Tunnel is overrated if you're getting it in translation though. James Salter's A Sport and a Pastime explores the same themes while being less depressing (if less dramatic), better written and with more fucking in it. Ernesto Sabato is a really interesting dude though and you should at least check him out.

I guess A Sport and a Pastime is a novella too so that's my contribution.

[Anonymous No.2174040]

>>2174034
GOT SOMETHING A BIT OLDER TOO?

ANOTHER CONTRIBUTION (OF WHICH I AM READING NOW) IS SURVIVAL IN AUSCHWITZ BY LEVI, SIMPLE YET POWERFUL STUFF. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL BUT READS LIKE A NOVEL, COMPARABLE TO SOLZHENITSYN WITHOUT HIS PARTICULAR DARK HUMOUR AND WIT. IF THAT'S OF INTEREST TO YOU BUT NOT ENOUGH TO SATIATE YOUR CAMP LIFE, WHY NOT TRY DOSTOEVSKY'S THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD

[Anonymous No.2174055]

>>2174040
>GOT SOMETHING A BIT OLDER TOO?
Uh... Une Vie (Maupassant)? The Nun (Diderot)? No One Writes to the Colonel (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)? This is just looking at the bookshelf closest to me. Falconer by John Cheever is there too, and my favorite of these ones, but that's dated later than A Sport and a Pastime.

>ANOTHER CONTRIBUTION (OF WHICH I AM READING NOW) IS SURVIVAL IN AUSCHWITZ BY LEVI, SIMPLE YET POWERFUL STUFF. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL BUT READS LIKE A NOVEL, COMPARABLE TO SOLZHENITSYN WITHOUT HIS PARTICULAR DARK HUMOUR AND WIT. IF THAT'S OF INTEREST TO YOU BUT NOT ENOUGH TO SATIATE YOUR CAMP LIFE, WHY NOT TRY DOSTOEVSKY'S THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD
Survival in Auschwitz or, as I have it titled, If This Is a Man is actually what got me started on Solzhenitsyn, weirdly enough. I got it packaged with The Truce as a birthday present when I was pretty young. Soviet literature is my personal favourite period to read from, so to add more recommendations on 'camp life' look at Vasily Grossman and Andrei Platonov - namely Life and Fate and The Foundation Pit. You won't regret it and I can't recommend them strongly enough - the former is my single favourite novel, ever. The titular similarity to War and Peace is no boast.

[Anonymous No.2174070]

>>2174055
FOUND A GOULBOURNE TRANSLATION OF THE NUN ONLINE BUT NO LUCK FOR A WOMAN'S LIFE BY MAUPASSANT

MANY THANKS!

BY THE WAY, LIFE AND FATE IS ARGUABLY TOP 5 FOR ME.

[Anonymous No.2174078]

>>2174070
What would the other four be?

[Anonymous No.2174081]

>>2174078
http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4206268-capsguy?shelf=must-reread-in-my-life

NOT SURE AT THE MOMENT.

BUT OUT OF EVERYTHING I'VE READ, IT'S ONLY THESE THAT I'VE SELECTED TO BE RE-READ IN MY LIFE. ALTHOUGH SOME OF THEM ARE SOLELY FOR THE EPIC TALES (LES MIS ETC)

[Anonymous No.2174100]

>>2174081
We appear to have really similar tastes but I suppose when it comes to classics everyone does.

Here's another novella: A Country Doctor's Notebook. This is by Bulgakov, but it's totally unlike any other book he wrote - on the other hand, the writing itself is just as fine. It's a collection of short stories dramatizing Bulkagov's own experiences as a doctor in the heart of the Russian countryside.

While I'm at it, I should mention Heart of a Dog. This is a more typical Bulgakov novel, a short, satirical book about a dog that is transformed into a man and what results. It can be pretty heavy handed but it is an enjoyable read.

[Anonymous No.2174118]

>>2174100
BEEN MEANING TO CHECK THIS OUT TOO, BUT IT'S A BIT INACCESSIBLE.

ALTHOUGH I'VE READ THE MASTER AND MARGARITA, HEART OF A DOG, THE FATAL EGGS, DIABLOLIAD, AND THE WHITE GUARD AND I CAN APPRECIATE HIS WRITING.

ANYWAYS, I'M OFF TO BED

HOPING TO WAKE UP TO A WALL OF RECOMMENDATIONS, BUT I'M HAPPY I'VE ALREADY GOTTEN SOMETHING FROM HERE (THE NUN)

[Anonymous No.2174123]

If you like science fiction or post-apocalyptic scenarios, this is pretty solid and is refreshingly brutal for something from the '50s.

[Anonymous No.2174307]

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington.

"The Hearing Trumpet is the story of 92-year-old Marian Leatherby, who is given the gift of a hearing trumpet only to discover that what her family is saying is that she is to be committed to an institution. But this is an institution where the buildings are shaped like birthday cakes and igloos, where the Winking Abbess and the Queen Bee reign, and where the gateway to the underworld is open. It is also the scene of a mysterious murder. Occult twin to Alice in Wonderland, The Hearing Trumpet is a classic of fantastic literature that has been translated and celebrated throughout the world."

Most editions are around 170 pages. An extremely charming book with absolutely deranged but still hilarious characters. Especially recommended if you like old people and surreal apocalyptic adventures.

[Anonymous No.2174322]

The Chess Master by Ah Cheng.

"'The Chess Master' is a tale of the dramatic transformation of the protagonist Wang Yisheng from an obsessive chess player into an enlightened chess master who understands the Tao of life. Although the story is set in the tumultuous years of the Cultural Revolution, it shuns the depiction of political violence and human suffering and focuses on the simple pleasures of life enjoyed by Wang and other high school students sent to work in state farms. It is noted for its celebration of friendship, occasional feasts, and Chinese chess, but the core of the story lies in A Cheng's belief in the great potential of seemingly ordinary people in self-transcendence."

180 pages in bilingual edition (also included in the New Directions edition called The King of Trees, along with two other novellas). This one is especially interesting if you've already read Chess Story. Making the comparisons between Dr. B's isolation and the effects of the Cultural Revolution, plus the role that chess plays in their respective lives is very interesting. Ah Cheng was apparently a pretty huge deal in China in the 80's.

[Anonymous No.2174343]

Okay, I'll be the first to state that this isn't premier literature but it is an enjoyable, well-constructed read and is certainly *is* literature even if not of the first calibre. It essence I suppose it's a more muted, less cleverly (and well-) written gender-swapped version of 'The Luzhin Defense'.

Worth checking if you're just looking for a quick book or are interested by the concepts (chess, coming-of-age, competitiveness, anxiety) therein. Written by the same guy as 'The Man Who Fell To Earth'.

[Anonymous No.2174516]

The Hunting Gun by Inoue Yasushi.

"The Hunting Gun, set in the period immediately after the Second World War, is the story of a tragic love affair and its psychological impact - not only on the lovers themselves but on all those close to them. The narrative is related from three points of view: Saiko, the guilt-ridden mistress; Shoko, her pathetic, disillusioned daughter; and Midori, the sophisticated but unhappy wife of Shoko's lover. This triangle is focused on Josuke, the husband-lover whose lonely, insular existence is symbolized by the hunting gun. At once a study of everyday personal relationships and of the social and historic circumstances they mirror, The Hunting Gun remains timely and universal - a classic of modern Japanese literature."

Around 75 pages, the first novel by one of Japan's great modern novelists. The story is told mainly through the letters of the three woman involved, which makes for fun questions of reliability and perspective. It's a very emotionally intense novel, but I didn't find it to be overly sentimental.

[Anonymous No.2174566]

A World Apart by Gustaw Herling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_World_Apart_%28book%29

In short, it's this guy's account of when he was imprisoned in the Gulag. Very interesting, very shocking. Definitely check it out if you're into this stuff.

[Anonymous No.2174734]

The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola.

"Drawing on the West African Yoruba oral folktale tradition, Tutuola described the odyssey of a devoted palm-wine drinker through a nightmare of fantastic adventure."

About 130 pages. Tutuola's first and most well-known book, it chronicles a very surreal journey to find the narrator's tapster through the town of the dead. Very folk tale-like, except also horribly violent and creepy (and very entertaining). To give you an idea of how it goes, the chapter/section titles are things like:

AFRAID OF TOUCHING TERRIBLE CREATURES IN BAG
THE LADY WAS NOT TO BE BLAMED FOR FOLLOWING THE SKULL AS A COMPLETE GENTLEMAN
NONE OF THE DEADS TOO YOUNG TO ASSAULT. DEAD-BABIES ON THE ROAD-MARCH TO THE DEADS' TOWN
AN EGG FED THE WHOLE WORLD

[Anonymous No.2174776]

GAMP

[Anonymous No.2175344]

bump

[Anonymous No.2175953]

More?

[Anonymous No.2175957]

>>2175953
moderation, motherfucker, do you know it?
the stuff in here should keep you occupied for a few weeks.

[Anonymous No.2177259]

In Praise of the Stepmother by Mario Vargas Llosa.

"Mario Vargas Llosa lures readers into a passionate world of family life and erotic love with the story of Don Rigoberto, his second wife, Lucretia, and Rigobertos prepubescent son, Alfonso. Although the group appears to be a happy household, within this small constellation lurk the shadows of perversion and the limitless boundaries of familial passion."

About 160 pages. Meant I think to be a serious writer's delving into erotic literature, this is surprisingly a really intense read. Would especially appeal to anyone into the fine arts - the chapters where the sexual life of Rigoberto and Lucretia are detailed through explicating certain pieces of art were the ones I found most interesting.

[Anonymous No.2178002]

Threads like these are so much better than /lit/'s recommended lists, got a long list of books ready to order.

[Anonymous No.2178005]

>>2178002
If you don't mind saying, which ones are you ordering?

[Anonymous No.2178400]

i dont know if this is on the /list/:

>pedro paramo by juan rulfo

very powerful stuff that will leave a mark

[Anonymous No.2179976]

bump

[Anonymous No.2180438]

>>2178005
4

[Anonymous No.2180455]

>>2180438
?

Which ones, not how many.

[Anonymous No.2180469]

>>2180455
4