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/lit/ - Literature

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2282766 No.2282766 [Reply] [Original]

Recommend me some epic novels /lit/. Not epic as on "ZOMGSUPERAWESUM!!!!11" but epic as in a vast scope. Preferably not medieval fantasy if you can help it.

>> No.2282780

The Odyssey

>> No.2282786

Shogun kicks ass.

The Count of Monte Cristo if you haven't already read it.

Any of James Michener's novels.

>> No.2282797

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Drum

>> No.2282915

Otherland is the best sci fi epic I have ever read.

>> No.2283123
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2283123

This shit right 'ere

>> No.2283129
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2283129

>> No.2283137

Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa

>> No.2283144

Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong

>> No.2283151

100 Years of Solitude

>lives up to its title

>> No.2283155

Underworld, Don DeLillo

>> No.2283173

The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. If you're looking for a series try The Dark Tower

>> No.2283237

>>2283173
>Ayn Rand

Wow.

>> No.2283241

>>2282766
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

>> No.2283243

>>2283237
I hear people say they like her IRL now and I chuckle and think it's /lit/ trolling me from beyond the monitor. One time I fucked a girl who was in the ayn rand foundation or w/e and i felt sick to my stomach.

>> No.2283263

>>2283243
She's a sociopathic "libertarian"(read fascist) bitch whose idealogy has been discredited in several interviews, I can't remember which.

I don't know why her works are so popular, she's a fucking moron.

Also, at least you didn't accidently marry the woman.

>> No.2283271

Taipan is SIGNIFICANTLY better than shogun,
extremely similar to shogun.

give it a whirl if you got the time, its not a short book.

>> No.2283275

Sarum and other works by the dude who wrote Sarum. War And Peace. The Baroque Cycle. Count Of Monte Cristo.

>> No.2283277

>>2283263
link these interviews or it didn't happen.

Authors always have to overexaggerate their views, its part of literature.
Having selfconfidence and being the best you can is something that should be admired, not shamed.

>> No.2283282

>>2283277
ayn rand was kind of a terrible person, though. i don't know about her ideology being "discredited" but i (and a lot of people on here) certainly disagree strongly with it, but more importantly, she was a shitty author and as i said kind of a terrible person.

for another perspective, i've invited alan greenspan to share his views with us: http://www.mrdestructo.com/2009/02/voices-in-spotlight-alan-greenspan.html

>> No.2283286

>>2283263

>Ayn Rand
>fascist

Unless you're going to argue that a nearly lawless state would provide private institutions with the ability to create a central authoritarian rule I'd say you're wrongly using the word "fascist".

>> No.2283288

STOP TALKING ABOUT AYN RAND. NOBODY CARES

>> No.2283299

Is the book in OP's pic good? The day Borders closed they had a shelf of that and then four other books scattered throughout the store.

>> No.2283301

she was for small, if not non-existant government and people being proud & intelligent.

Thats all i've ever wanted...

>> No.2283302

>>2283288
This

>>2283151
I never really got an "epic" feel from that one. Idunno maybe I'm not getting it but I find it kinda dull.

>> No.2283303
File: 72 KB, 288x362, rand3.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2283303

>>2283288

>nobody cares
>capslock response

>> No.2283304

>>2283299
I think it's a fun read. Starts off a little clunky but things get more exciting once Toranga makes his appearance.

>> No.2283306

>>2283275
Sarum is just another 100 Years of Solitude only less interesting.

>> No.2283311

SECONDING LIFE AND FATE

>> No.2283314

>>2283306
I don't know if I'd say it's a great book but it definitely fits what OP is looking for, I guess. I mean, it's exactly what he's looking for. That's why I recommended it, I guess. It didn't do much for me but OP might like it.

>> No.2283317

>>2283314
Why would OP not want to read a good book?

>> No.2283323

>>2283311
Is Life and Fate a hard read? I've heard it compared to War and Peace alot but I was hoping you could tell me more.

>> No.2283328

>>2283317
Maybe he'll think it's good even though I didn't. It certainly is possible. After all, it does exactly fit the kind of book he's looking for.

>> No.2283341

>>2283323
I WOULDN'T SAY IT'S THAT HARD IF YOU CAN KEEP TRACK OF ALL THE DIFFERENT CHARACTERS AND THE SHIFTING SETTING AND VIEWPOINTS.

PROBABLY NOTING DOWN WHO IS WHAT WHEN INTRODUCED MAY HELP YOU OUT

THERE'S QUITE A LOT OF DISCUSSION ABOUT COMMUNISM AND ITS VALIDITY AND OTHER PHILOSOPHICAL/POLITICAL DEBATES WHICH I FOUND INTERESTING AND DIDN'T SEEM TO SLOW DOWN THE RELATIVELY FAST PACE OF THE BOOK

PRETTY MOVING SCENES THOUGH, AND THE SELF-IMPLANTING OF GROSSMAN INTO ONE ESPECIAL MOMENT IN AN ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN WHY HE DID WHAT HE DID WAS APPRECIATED.

PREPARE TO BE MOVED IF YOU READ IT, AND NOT THE TYPE OF BOOK THAT HAS A LOT OF CLOSURE, ALTHOUGH SINCE IT WAS WRITTEN AT A TIME WHEN THERE WAS NO END OF THE USSR IN SIGHT, THAT MIGHT EXPLAIN ITS CONTINUITY.

>> No.2283379

>>2283341
Hey CAPSGUY, have you read The New Science by Giambattista Vico?

>> No.2283471

>>2283379
CAN'T SAY I HAVE.

HOW DOES IT READ? AGED WELL? INSIGHTFUL ARGUMENTS FOR INTERESTING TOPICS?

>> No.2283478

>>2283471
Don't know. Planning on reading it to prep for Finnegans Wake, but cyclical history is generally an interesting topic in its own right.

>> No.2284238

Les Mis

>> No.2284390

Nights Dawn Trilogy

>> No.2284405

>>2283137
this if you like shogun. i liked musashi a lot more although i enjoyed shogun too.

>> No.2284423

>>2284405
Musashi takes place historically right after the end of Shogun so it's great to read right after.

>> No.2284447
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2284447

this, unabridged or not at all.

>> No.2284453

I'd like to recommend Quietude and Diffidence by Kitzo Hekotormos. It's only recently started getting popular originally being in esperanto and all, but it's not only an epic read, both in terms of time and space, but also, at least to me, lifechanging. Much like the case with Infinite Jest, meeting another person who has read Quietude and Diffidence is like meeting a friend. The Claude Piron translation is superb. I think bookdepository.co.uk has it.

Since you'll probably have difficulty finding a lot of information about it on the net, though Harold Bloom is apparently working on a book about it right now which ought to get it onto the public literary agenda soon, I'll tell you what it's about. Basically it's about a reincarnated samurai in the second half of the last century who falls in love with his sister. To escape the judging eyes of the public he attempts to transgress the reality matrix.

Tremendously recommended. Just stay far far away from the William Auld translation. He didn't finish it before his death, so they just dropped large parts of the middle of the book. Because of it's narrative quality, it's unnoticeable, but nonetheless. It's a bad piece of work.

>> No.2284508 [DELETED] 

>>2284453
>stay far far away from the William Auld translation
Are you fucking kidding? Piron writes like he's parodying the bastard child of Shakespeare and Wilde. Bloom writes excellently, and the middle bits were boring in any case.

>> No.2284516

>>2284453
>stay far far away from the William Auld translation
Are you fucking kidding? Piron writes like he's parodying the bastard child of Shakespeare and Wilde. Auld writes excellently, and the middle bits were boring in any case.

>> No.2284534

Pillars of the Earth.

It's about two generations of family building a massive cathedral. Also incest.

>> No.2284552

>>2284516

Piron stays true to Hekotormos's voice. How the fuck do you think a reincarnated samurai expresses himself anyway? Besides ... if you'd actually finished the book, you'd know the story was castigated by Emperor Tuzan III in the Fourth Century of the Cubix after Jiller and Suzanna depart for the Haven. Not to mention that Hekotormos, with such prose, comments on the state of Esperanto. It is, in other words, done intentionally. That Auld translates it into plain English just serves to prove exactly how lackluster his translation is.

And you're clearly of bad taste if you couldn't appreciate the Cathric Cartigam, and the Zone of Zenzim passages ... Not to mention the part when Amarone commits suicide "on the meadow of a thousand poisoned blossoms." It's one of the novels most iconic scenes.

So yeah. If anyone is planning on reading this. Please, I beg of you, don't go for anything less than the Piron translation.

>> No.2284569

>>2284552
>Piron stays true to Hekotormos's voice
Are you fucking serious? I read Quietude and Diffidence(Kvieteco plie Sinĝeno) in Esperanto and it was nowhere near as pretentious as Piron's pile of "thou" and "peradventure". Amarone's suicide may be one of the most famous scenes, but that doesn't mean it's any good.
>So yeah. If anyone is planning on reading this. Please, I beg of you, don't go for anything less than the Piron translation.
Not a problem, as there's nothing less than Piron's translation.

>> No.2284575
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2284575

James Ellroys American Underworld trio
American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, Bloods A Rover

>> No.2284591

>>2284569

>Are you fucking serious? I read Quietude and Diffidence(Kvieteco plie Sinĝeno) in Esperanto and it was nowhere near as pretentious as Piron's pile of "thou" and "peradventure".

I do admit that the language is overtly self-concious, to put it comme ça, but even if I haven't read it in the original language, I just did a CTRL+F on a PDF I have of Piron's translation, and there is not a single "peradventure" and a few "thou", but mostly in Reverther's narrations which were originally mostly in English anyway, thus Hekotormos's and not Piron's.

>Amarone's suicide may be one of the most famous scenes, but that doesn't mean it's any good.

Well. I wept. And so did my girlfriend. I mean, it's the apatheosis of Hekotormos's life work, it's where all the novel's themes comes to full frution, and the part where it's unfair to call the language prose anymore. Even poetry seems too humble to call it. If you don't like the scene, I don't see what you possibly understand or like about Hekotormos anyway. The social package that comes with knowing him?

>Not a problem, as there's nothing less than Piron's translation.

Fuck you.

>> No.2284605
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2284605

>>2284591
>there is not a single "peradventure"
>I've never heard of exaggeration durr
>[whining about Amarone's suicide]
Jesus Christofferson, how goth can you get? It's decent, at best, in Esperanto, but there's absolutely no way to salvage it in English.
>If you don't like the scene, I don't see what you possibly understand or like about Hekotormos anyway.
>BAWWW I DISAGREE WITH YOU ABOUT AN AUTHOR AT ONE POINT SO YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY APPRECIATE THE AUTHOR AT ALL

>> No.2284612

5 star thread.

>> No.2284680

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
The Metamorphoses by Ovid
The Aeneid by Vergil
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Stand by Stephen King
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Ulysses by James Joyce

>> No.2284690 [DELETED] 

>>2283129
my nigger

>> No.2284722

Earthly Powers - Anthony Burgess
Baudolino - Umberto Eco
Don Quixote - Pierre Menard

>> No.2284725
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2284725

Nobody on /lit/ mentions Gravity's Rainbow in an Epic thread?
Jeez, come on guys. We got IJ, Ulysses, 100 years, and lez mizerabobbles, but no GR or In Search of Lost Time/Remembrance of Things Past?!
I thought we were elitist in here, c'mon.

>> No.2284728

>>2284722
>Pierre Menard
Oh you sly dog, Borges.

>> No.2284731

>>2284725
Fine. The Comédie humaine. All of it.

>> No.2284765

Foundation.

>> No.2284793

Everyone in this thread recommending 20th century shit over the pre-20th century master race should be killed with an axe just like that guy murdered that Jew woman in that Russian book.

>> No.2284854

>>2283302
>that's the joke.

>> No.2284875

>>2283341
I read this as someone yelling.

In fact, I can't even understand him.

>> No.2284913
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2284913

Finally finished Shogun last month. Had been on my to read list for years. Great book.

>> No.2285244

IT, The Tommyknockers, The Talisman, any of Stephen Kings longer books.

>> No.2285250

>>2285244
I was just about to say The Stand, but you sorta beat me to it.

>> No.2285266

"Battle Royale" If its anything like the movie it'll be the greatest book you've ever read

>> No.2285274

>>2284534
wait....incest?' I don't remember the incest.

>> No.2285282
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2285282

pic related....and for epic I'd read Blood Meridian and Lonesome Dove back to back. Different authors...one takes place 25 years after the other...but they had a similair feel.

>> No.2285289

>>2284680
>>2284680
>>2284680
>>2284680

a winrar is you

>> No.2286470

>>2284765
Sucks balls.

>> No.2286795

Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell