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/lit/ - Literature


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4602017 No.4602017[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Top 10 fiction.
Here's mine:
1. Catch-22
2. In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust
3. Danzig Trilogy, Gunter Grass
4. The Sound and the Fury
5. The Glass Bead Game
6. Gravity's Rainbow
7. The Metamorphosis
8. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
9. The Man in the High Castle
10. Master and Margarita

>> No.4602044

The Odyssey
The Iliad
War and Peace
The Brothers Karamazov
Ulysses
The Great Gatsby
Don Quixote
Dead Souls
Lolita

>> No.4602160

Is master and margarita really that good. It's been hyped up as shit

>> No.4602185

>>4602160
Yes, It's really good. Unlike anything else literature has to offer.

>> No.4602236

Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
Blood Merdian, Cormac McCarthy
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis
The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
in no particular order

I read too much American lit

>> No.4602341

call me a mainstream jackass but
Frank Herbert's Dune
The Lord of The Rings
>The
>Whole
>Damn
>Redwall
>Series

I grew up with those books and still pick them up when I feel like my world is going to shit. Maybe predictable. Maybe uninspired after the first two or three, but I like it

>> No.4602482

>>4602044
you sound really boring
illiad, odyssey, war and peace and brothers karamazov suck

>> No.4602522

>>4602482
First sentence; Yeah, kinda agree.
Second; Peeeeeeeyyyyyoooooowwww!

>> No.4602525

>>4602482
>implying illiad, odyssey, war and peace and brothers karamazov suck.

>> No.4602530

>>4602525
not implying it at all
stating it explicitly

>> No.4602538

>>4602482
go back to /mu/ with the rest of the scum

>> No.4602544

>>4602538
?
explain to me the value of the odyssey or the illiad

>> No.4602548

>>4602482
>four of the most critically acclaimed works in the Western Canon
>sucking

Choose one.

>> No.4602550

>>4602525
Implying...?

>> No.4602561

>>4602544
they're only the whole basis for all subsequent western literature. yeah, definitely not as good as gravity's rainbow

>> No.4602566

>>4602548
>>4602561
nobody seems to be able to explain why they don't suck
just because they have acclaim doesn't make them good
just because people base their books on them doesn't make then good books inherently

>> No.4602592

>>4602017
>>4602561

It's personal taste, right? Just what we like?

Okay, in no particular order:

Invisible Man
Catcher in the Rye
The Metamorphosis
Ham on Rye
Cat's Cradle
Blood Meridian
Hamlet
The Call of the Wild
Death of a Salesman
Of Mice and Men

Pretty standard stuff, I know, but I'm still working through the essentials and so far these are my favorites. Gatsby was really good as well but I wouldn't put it in my top 10. Also, Autobiography of Malcolm X as honorary non-fiction.

>> No.4602596

>>4602566

Because they're thrilling tales of heroism and villainy, war and peace, love and hate, compassion and destruction that penetrate deeply into the human psyche. I bet you couldn't even get past the catalog of ships.

>> No.4602599

>>4602596
wow so you like them because they are thrilling
i thought /lit/ was more intellectual than that
dan brown is thrilling too you pleb, doesn't make it good literature

>> No.4602604

>>4602599
>dan brown is thrilling too you pleb
ya not rly tho

>> No.4602617

>>4602482

Just go away you pretentious git

>> No.4602622

>>4602617
>Pretentious
>Not the guy listing ancient, dry-ass poems and the productions of some sickly irish autist as his all time favorites

/lit/, srsly, pls

>> No.4602623

>>4602599
so you take one word out of his reply and use it to dismiss the entire thing

confirmed troll, kill yourself

>> No.4602624
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4602624

>>4602599
Did you actually just compare Homer to Dan Brown?

Please leave this place and never return.

>> No.4602646

>>4602624
ban him

>> No.4602684

>>4602596
You're even admitting they're bad by pointing out how boring the catalogue of ships is.

>> No.4603097

>>4602622

>nobody can be intelligent, everything is pretense!

>> No.4603121

>>4602548
>canon so it must be good
lol

whatever, you dont have taste. you just listed whatever classics you see filling up a fucking top 10 lists.

OP has his own taste.

>> No.4603152

>>4602017
catch 22 really is not that good. read the good soldier svejk if you want a real masterpiece of the form.

>> No.4603162

>>4602185
lol this guy doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. there are a lot of books like it, it's just the most popular. personally i dont think it is a very good book and not the best work by bulgakov even.

>> No.4603197
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4603197

>> No.4603213

American Gods
Amerika
Flow my Tears the Policeman Said
Brave New World
If on a Winter's Night
Stranger in a Strange Land (I have issues with it but I really enjoy it)
Master and Margarita
Jonathan Strange and Mister Norell
It
His Dark Materials

Call me a prole if you want, at least I am honest.

>> No.4603326

More lists please.

>> No.4603395

>>4602622
>sickly irish autist
lol

>> No.4603432

>>4603162
I thought it was a very fun read overall, sort of like 100 years of solitude. whats his better work in your opinion?

>> No.4603440

>>4602482

edge it.

>> No.4603530

>>4603432
heart of a dog

not saying that it isn't enjoyable and worthwhile - i definitely would recommend reading it. but it's a complete lie that it's "unlike anything else literature has to offer"

>> No.4603578

>>4602017
That picture is ought to illustrate a Russian "folk" epic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f3igCnJkEY
Nationalist era Russian Empire had some Snorri Sturluson-tier poets. Dey all breddy gud I tell u.

>> No.4603598

>>4603326
here is mine

1 the count of montecristo
2 Don qujote
3 One hundred years of solitude
4 Martin fierro
5 the oddisey
6 moby dick
7 1984
8 for whom the bell tolls
9 the road.
10 the name of the rose.

>> No.4603607

>>4603530
yeah i agree

>> No.4603936

>>4602017
You know what? That's not a bad list. I have to disagree with The Sound and the Fury, however, the writing style irritates me to no fucking end ...despite how well done it is.

>> No.4604136

The Stars My Destination
Three Musketeers
The Sea Wolf
Martian Chronicles
Brave New World
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
The Foundation
Atlas Shrugged
The Sirens of Titan
The Forever War

>> No.4604157

Off the top of my head so probably not an accurate reflection

Ulysses
Lolita
Tropic of Cancer
Crying of Lot 49
Wuthering Heights
The Trial
Notes From Underground
Madame Bovary
Confederacy of Dunces
Infinite Jest

>> No.4604162

>>4603213
prole

>> No.4604169

>>4602017
>2. In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust

How the hell can anyone enjoy this? Or Gravity's Rainbow, for that matter, though that at least has some ludicrous episodes in its' otherwise inane plot about some German missile no-one cares about. But Proust? It's literally navel gazing, and not the interesting, impassioned kind, but that of delicate sensibilities and procrastination. Proust's appeal died with the advent of the radio at the very latest.

>> No.4604198

>>4604169
>How the hell can anyone enjoy this?
It is easy, don't have shit taste in literature. In search of lost time is extremely psychological and philosophical. But I would not expect someone who hasn't read it to know that.

>> No.4604209

>>4604169
What constitutes the unity of In Search of Lost Time? We know, at least, what does not. It is not recollections, memory, even involuntary memory. What is essential to the Search is not in the madeleine or the cobblestones….What is involved is not an exposition of involuntary memory, but the narrative of an apprenticeship: more precisely, the apprenticeship of a man of letters. Learning is essentially concerned with signs. Signs are the object of a temporal apprenticeship, not of an abstract knowledge. To learn is first of all to consider a substance, an object, a being as if it emitted signs to be deciphered, interpreted. There is no apprentice who is not “the Egyptologist” of something. One becomes a carpenter only by becoming sensitive to the signs of wood, a physician by becoming sensitive to the signs of disease….Proust’s work is based not on the exposition of memory, but on the apprenticeship of signs.

>> No.4604213

>>4604198
I wouldn't put it past you that you have read the entirety of Ulysses and enjoyed it. What horrors else have you committed, do you actually enjoy the Brothers Karamazov? War and Peace? Or even Infinite Jest? All of these works deserve nothing but my scorn in their self-important tedium.

>> No.4604227

>>4604209
How does that make justify reading the many thousands of its pages? The kind of inertia displayed by Proust's work is specific to the aristocracy of the ancien regime. And to what end should one read the entire thing? As a distraction? As proof of one's perseverance and intellectual prowess? I am truly baffled by the masochistic expanse of the work.

>> No.4604282
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4604282

>Don Quixote
>The Book of Imaginary Beings
>Finnegans Wake
>The Three Musketeers
>The Golden Ass
>Wuthering Heights
>The Waves
>Notre-Dame of Paris
>Notes from the Underground
>Arabian Nights

>> No.4604291

>>4604213

Holy fuck check out sour grapes over here.

>> No.4604325

>>4604227
>Proust
>ancien regime
So that's one retarded thing in your post.

>And to what end should one read the entire thing?

To whatever end you would usually read entire books. There's no "should" in it, nobody is required to read Proust. If you don't like it just stop. Some people actually greatly enjoy it, and so for them the lenght of the book doesn't make it a masochistic experience. If you don't, your loss, pick another book.

>> No.4604611

No order:

-Notes from Underground
-Steps
-Moby-Dick
-The Crying of Lot 49
-The Catcher in the Rye
-Stoner
-Slaughter-House Five
-The Trial
-Oblivion
-The Odyssey

>> No.4604684

From what I've read so far.

Siddhartha
L'Etranger
Catch-22
"We"
Brave New World
The Stars my Destination
La Recherche du Temps Perdu
East of Eden
Notes from Underground
The Count of Montecristo

>> No.4604755

>>4604282
I like you.

>> No.4604918

Need
more
lists.

>> No.4604924

>>4604227
lol

>> No.4604978

>>4602525
>>4602538
>>4602548
you guys are more annoying than the obvious bait

>> No.4605005

Infinite Jest by Dickhead Faggot Walrus
Players by Don DeLillo
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Blood Meridian by Senator Joseph McCarthy
Go Down, Moses by he
Nine Stories by Jerm Slinger
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett (plz dnt be mean)
and White Noise also by DeLillo

>> No.4605033

1. The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis
2. The Stand, by Stephen King
3. Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris
4. The Thin Red Line, by James Jones
5. Fear of Flying, by Erica Jong
6. The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris
7. Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein
8. Fuzz, by Ed McBain
9. Alligator, by Shelley Katz
10. The Sum of All Fears, by Tom Clancy

>> No.4605045

>>4605033
Go to bed David.

>> No.4605047

>>4605005
>White Noise
I'm halfway done with this but I had to put it down because the dialogue is so stilted and the prose is really boring in spots.

>> No.4605086

no order

The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien)
The Silmarillion (J.R.R. Tolkien)
The Secret History (Donna Tartt)
A Wild Sheep Chase (Haruki Murakami)
The Rabbit Back Literature Society (Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen)
Moominpappa at Sea (Tove Jansson)
A Storm of Swords (George R.R. Martin)
Dracula (Bram Stoker)
Hyperion (Dan Simmons)
The Tombs of Atuan (Ursula K. Le Guin)

>> No.4605112

>>4605047
Wow you rock dude, an original and daring critique unheard of on this image board.

>> No.4605146
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4605146

>>4604136
yeah this seems like a decent speculative list.

>atlus shrugged and vonnegut

abort

>> No.4605231

In no particular order:

American Gods
The Invisible Man
The War of the Worlds
Catch 22
The Stand
The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
2001: A Space Odyssey
Dune
The Rats
The whole freakin' Discworld series.

Cheers.

>> No.4605285
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4605285

Lord of the Rings (yeah, yeah)
The Sound and the Fury
One Hundred Years of Solitude
2666
Brideshead Revisited
Crime and Punishment
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Mrs. Dalloway
The Waves/To The Lighthouse (sue me)

>> No.4605314

1. The Brothers Karamazov
2. Fathers and Sons
3. Darkness at Noon
4. The Count of Monte-Christo
5. Notes from the Underground
6. The Stranger
7. The Egyptian
8. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
9. A Farewell to Arms
10. The Year of the Hare

All pretty common here except for the two in my native tongue and Koestler's piece.

>> No.4605528

No order
the hitchikers guide
the hobbit
game of thrones sieries (not dance)
i, claidius and cladius the god
farenheit 451
catch 22

>> No.4605643

>ctrl+f "finnegan's wake

You people CANNOT be serious right? Is this just a desperate attempt to appear well read?

>> No.4605863

Not OP, but I have a request.
Can you guys post at least a list of 5 phenomenal, must-read fantasy books?
I can't find a quality fantasy story free of beaten-to-death tropes to save my life.

>> No.4605880

>>4605863
Little, Big
Gormenghast
The Book of the New Sun
Viriconium
In the Land of Time, and Other Fantasy Tales

>> No.4605881

WOT up, No Robert Jordan/
Brandon Sanderson??

>> No.4605899

>>4605863
I agree with all the books posted by >>4605880 especially Little, Big. So I'll post 5 books not on that list, but I'm also seconding those recommendations.

The Digging Leviathan
The Reefs of Earth
The Phoenix and the Mirror
Lyonesse
Brittle Innings

>> No.4606044

>>4605643
>finnegan's wake
maybe your control f didn't work because there's no apostrophe in the title you absolute pleb

>> No.4606085

>>4605643
>You people CANNOT be serious right? Is this just a desperate attempt to appear well read?
no apostrophe
your post is just a desperate attempt to appear patrician

>> No.4606086

>>4606044
What a pedantic twat.

>> No.4606088

>>4606044
What a doubles.

>> No.4606089

God you guys are really uptight. I hope you don't sperg out like this in public.

>> No.4606092
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4606092

>>4606044
>>4606088

>> No.4606138

>>4606089
I had to look up 'sperg' to understand its meaning.
>Suffice it to say, I've added a new word to my vocabulary.

>> No.4606154

>>4606138
go back to reddit. 4chan is not accepting newcomers anymore

>> No.4606157

>>4606154

I think he's probably just a foreigner or something.

>> No.4606159

>>4606154
Just sit the fuck down and shut up. That go back to Reddit shit has worn out its welcome.

>> No.4606176
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4606176

>>4606044
>>4606088

>> No.4606183

Top 5 Fantasy series...
1:WOT
2:Lord of the rings, No hate, Good books...
3:Tales of the Otori
4:Redwall
5:Inheritance

>> No.4606206

>>4606159
why, because you're all here already?

>> No.4606212

>>4606154
>>4606159
reddit has better content that 4chan
there i said it
still prefer this place though because people get all angry if you call people a retard on reddit

>> No.4606215
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4606215

>>4606206
No, because you're an unoriginal cunt. Now shut the fuck up.

>> No.4606232

>>4606212
>reddit
>content
>my gf made me this but thinks it isn't any good, what does reddit think? (btw i'm a gril and my family just died)

>> No.4606235

>>4606232
choose decent subreddits you moron
don't go on the defaults

>> No.4606268

>>4606212
Only on very specific subreddits, and even if you unsubscribe to all the faggy ones, the main reddit community still influences every subreddit with their bullshit. And the writing communities are fucking awful. Only reason I'm still on there is to keep up with bands through the individual subs, it is useful for that.

4chan's shit, but Reddit is diarrhea with sugar free sprinkles and a cherry on top. Kind of like their corresponding political parties.

>> No.4606266

1. Uncle Tom's Cabin
2. The Catcher in the Rye
3. The Sound and the Fury
4. Slaughterhouse V
5. Farenheit 451
5. To Kill a Mockingbird
6. The Jungle
7. Lolita
8. Heart of Darkness
9. Native Son
10. Mother Night

>> No.4606270

>>4606266
...Nice list of high-school level literature.

>> No.4606271

>>4606235
not that guy but believe me that doesn't make Reddit good. there was a sticky on reddit yesterday literally telling everyone to be nice to each other and remember the "human behind the screen." Such a cringe community

>> No.4606273

>>4606270
It's what I like

>> No.4606354

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror - Ashbery
A Rebours - Huysmans
Njal's Saga - anonymous
Oedipus Rex - Sophocles
On The Road - Kerouac
Ulysses - Joyce
Book of Disquiet - Pessoa
Comedia - Dante
Leaves of Grass - Whitman
War and Peace - Tolstoy

No order, off the top of my head

>> No.4606360

>>4606270
Implying that "high-school level literature" isn't the best kind of literature

>> No.4606364
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4606364

>>4606360
Implying that implication isn't correct

>> No.4606366

>>4606360
Are you retarded? I'm being earnest with you. That was a joke, right?

>> No.4606387

>>4606366
Your post obviously carried a mocking tone when you mentioned "high-school"

>> No.4606409

>>4606387
I honestly read all of those books in high school...so, no. I was being serious.

>> No.4606518

>>4606409
Aight, no hard feeling man

>> No.4608898

>>4603197
The disposessed and the three stigmata.

You have good taste.

>> No.4608907

No order

The three stigmata of palmer eldritch
The songs of maldoror
The sun also rises
Don quixote
Moby dick
Season of migration to the north
The master and margarita
Turn of the screw
The brothers kazamarov
Factotum