Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
|
|
|
Jul 21, 2014 - 09:21pm PT
|
Don't know if I can sleep tonight....Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Melville have suffered on this thread. Oh well...at least I'll go with the consensus on Ayn Rand.
|
|
Gal
Trad climber
going big air to fakie
|
|
|
Jul 21, 2014 - 09:49pm PT
|
Lol Donini ;-) ...as long as you agree with the Ayn Rand consensus, you can rest well...
|
|
dave729
Trad climber
Western America
|
|
|
Jul 21, 2014 - 09:53pm PT
|
'Heather Has Two Mommies" had way to much carpet munching
for an 8 year old.
|
|
Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
|
|
|
Jul 21, 2014 - 10:05pm PT
|
I'm with Donini. Moby Dick is the best novel yet penned by an American. However, it's not a particularly linear novel. If you're expecting entertainment ala Tom Clancy, you'll be disappointed. However, there is tremendous depth and beauty throughout, you just need to know which parts to skim.
Ayn Rand is crap. Paul Ryan thinks it's literature. That should tell you all you need to know.
|
|
Fletcher
Gym climber
A very quiet place
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 01:05am PT
|
I agree with bluering... art is subjective in the way we are discussing. We bring to it as much (sometimes) as it and bring to us.
That said, I couldn't get into Moby Dick. I gave up after a few pages (ages ago). I think it helps to have had a biblical education that was more common when Melville wrote it in order to better understand the references. May have to get the Classic Comics version of it!
Never read Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, but as a child the Classic Comics version rocked. Multiple reads there.
As for the Bible, which one? Many translations and even the original texts are in different languages. The eyes of the interpreters...
In my high school days, I loved Catcher in the Rye. The know-it-all, arrogant, self-doubting, punk with a heart somehow resonated with me... hmmmm... (and I can see why it does with teens). Maybe not for the geezer set if a first read.
Walden is very influential to me and I read that in high school as well. Not a page turner, but there are some concepts I took from it that have stayed with me to this day. Thoreau was an interesting character (aren't we all?) and my favorite anecdote about him (not sure if it's true) is that while he was spending his year away in the woods, he would take his laundry to Emerson's mom for her to do. Even Emerson thought he was a total slacker and wasting his life at points. Yet he went on to directly influence MLK and Gandhi, so you never know.
The Gulag Archipelago was one of the most dense, tedious and numbering books I've ever forced myself to finish. But I think that may have been Solzhenitsyn's intent and commentary regarding those qualities of the gulag system. On the other hand, the freshness and presence of A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich made it one of my favorites. He had both ends of the spectrum down.
Eric
|
|
Tobia
Social climber
Denial
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 04:57am PT
|
Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. I failed to read it, no matter how many times I tried; I failed a literature class because of it my first year in college, thankfully the professor let me pick an alternative work and changed my grade.
Atlas Shrugged, I read Fountainhead with great interest; but couldn't read 10 pages of the other.
William Faulkner, some of his books I got into such as, As I Lay Dying; but others for example Absalom, Absalom! I couldn't finish.
Gore Vidal's Lincoln was unreadable to me.
I think a lot of it depends on where you are in life when you attempt some of these well known books. Before or after you experience certain events or milestones in life, some writings have no relevance at all. Later on, the unfathomable message is crystal clear.
Then again, some writers just stink when writing one piece and are spell-bounding in others. Thomas Wolfe comes to mind in that vain of thought, as does Ayn Rand.
|
|
justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 06:31am PT
|
That's easy.. Teachings of Don Juan by Casteneda. Forced to read it in a class in college and absolutely hated it. I just didn't "get" it and found it tedious to read.
Catcher in the Rye *Yawn* I'll give that a thumbs down as well.
As a side note: I became even more dis-illusioned when Casteneda showed up in person to our classroom. Our professor was friends with him and convinced him to talk about his book... which he basically refused to do. He berated a number of the students for asking him questions. He was bizarrely confrontational/ (defensive?) the whole time an it got awkward with everyone trying to be respectful and him reacting like an arrogant jerk.
Edit to add: on Moby Dick. I came around to liking it when I got heavily into nautical history and got in the right mindset. Fascinating novel in many ways.
"Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian"
Ishmael^
|
|
TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 06:40am PT
|
At least I finished Catcher in the rye, even if I didn't enjoy it and couldn't see what the big deal was, but there have been two books in my life I couldn't finish: Rushdie's "Enchantress of Florence" and "The Silmarillion". Both were very quickly, obviously not worth the effort.
I will also admit to skipping most of the chapter of Ulysses about the evolution of the English language, but genuinely loved the rest.
TE
|
|
justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 06:50am PT
|
..Oh.. and when I was in junior high school there was that wretched Flowers in the Attic all us stupid teen-aged girls read.
Harlan Ellison describes it at "a literary tragedy" I'll have to agree.
|
|
Da-Veed
Trad climber
Bend Oregon
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 06:53am PT
|
The confederacy of Dunces.
highly acclaimed.
highly disappointing.
|
|
hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 08:01am PT
|
Pride and Prejudice - After I finished it I knew that no book could lever stop me..............until Infinite Jest
|
|
Bad Climber
climber
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 08:19am PT
|
As an English teacher, I should love all these books, but I just can't. I'm a Hemingway fan, but I get why some people can't read him. I think Moby Dick is over-rated. It needs to be cut in half. Best American novel--ever? Really? Give me a break. Actually, saying there is ONE best novel is a silly concept anyway. I hate Mailer--boring and way too self-important. Loved Crime and Punishment, but have trouble finishing Dostoevsky's other work.
Here's a great work of American writing I think most here will like:
The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brian
A gripping, sometimes heart-wrenching treatment of the Vietnam experience, basically a short story sequence that kind of works like a novel. One of the stories that seems most improbable is actually true. Read it!
BAd
Also, shocking to admit, but I'm not a big fan of Austen. Oh, well. And what's all the froth and tizzy about T.S. Elliot's The Wasteland? Never got that one. Maybe it was the Greek....
|
|
bergbryce
climber
East Bay, CA
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 08:44am PT
|
Someone mentioned Stranger in a Strange Land, grokked that into the trash can.
Zen and Motorcycle, kept waiting for something profound to happen or enlightenment to occur, wishful thinking. I only remember the part where the son had diarrhea on the side of the road.
Dune. Couldn't get into that although I finished.
I had a 50 minute train commute many years ago and read many Russian classics and really enjoyed them.
|
|
caughtinside
Social climber
Oakland, CA
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 09:19am PT
|
A visit from the goon squad- very disappointing. Won a Pulitzer!
I also didn't care for the Handmaids Tale, although some of the reproductive rights stuff proved eerily prophetic.
|
|
Gal
Trad climber
going big air to fakie
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 09:37am PT
|
a visit from the goon squad was a total disappointment.
But the handmaids tale, on the other hand, I thought was amazingly disturbing and awesome writing. That book stayed with me, it's somewhat haunting how it's not that huge of a stretch of the imagination - as in, if all circumstances just right... humans are quite cruel.
|
|
Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 10:00am PT
|
While I've read a number of them, I have a hard time getting into alot of women authors: Toni Morrison, Collette, Margaret Atwood. They're good writers and all. Most of the time I just don't care what they're writing about.
I have to admit I'm more of a fan of the "canon" than many. To me, the pinnacle of the novel is represented by authors like Dostoyevsky, Melville, Faulker, Tolstoy and Joyce. Others I'm omitting, but that general crowd. While Hemingway is great, and I enjoy reading him alot, it's fluffy compared to the guys above. I think part of my love for Melville is based upon having a semester long seminar devoted just to him what an undergrad. You get a better feel for it when you first read some of Melville's travel adventures like Typee or Whitejacket. It didn't hurt to spend about three weeks just discussing Moby Dick either. But yeah, I stand by my comment that it's the best American novel yet. I think it's closest competitor is Huck Finn.
I may have posted this comment before, but back when Ray Bradbury reviewed books for the LA Times, he saw his daughter reading Moby Dick. He commented that she had just read it, and her reply was 'yeah, you need to read it once to know which parts to skip the second time'.
I think The Bible is a great read too (especially if you're reading the King James). But let's face it; it's not a novel with a narrative thread. It's random chapters with random stories and parables. You wouldn't read a book of short stories and expect them to form a straight narrative or plot. You sift through it for random gems. Whether people like it or not, it is the single most influential book on Western literature.
Surprised with all the climber types that Walden isn't more appreciated. Certainly one of the most influential books in my life and one I turn to when the world starts seeming crazy.
|
|
overwatch
climber
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 10:37am PT
|
Agony and the ecstasy
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 01:34pm PT
|
Hoooooooo Mann!
The Magic Mountain got a good WTF once I finished reading it. Mann recommended reading it twice if you wished to understand the work properly but I had more than enough with just a single wade through it. I do believe that he was pulling the literary world's leg.
|
|
Gal
Trad climber
going big air to fakie
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2014 - 09:19pm PT
|
I loved Huck Finn! I agree, one of the greats.
|
|
Bad Climber
climber
|
|
|
Jul 23, 2014 - 06:07am PT
|
++++1 on Magic Mountain. Ugh. I was amazed, however, at Mann's intellect. Holy cats. Still, barely readable for this stooge.
Now Twain's my man. I don't think I've disliked anything he's written. In grad school we dug into a lot of his obscure stuff, unpublished remnants, etc. --all cool and provocative in one way or another. I suggest The Devil's Racetrack for a taste of his unusual stuff. I'm also a fan of No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger.
BAd
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!