TOP ELEVEN NOVELS: (see here and here) The first three one can think of as each of a type, that is, each is a response to a different meaning of 'top.' The rest are not ordered in any particular fashion. NB: American literature only in its early-20th century variety, lots of mid-20th English, and more reading in 19th century French and Russian than this list indicates. No wonder I'm not postmodern.
1. The Great Gatsby (if 'top' is read as 'has meant the most to me personally.' I was sent a podcast Slate did on the book, which I should find the link for. The people who discussed it began by remarking how much more they found in their most recent reading than in their first. And that's the key, I think: it has an easy surface meaning that becomes deeper the more time one logs in life.)
2. A Hero of Our Time (if 'top' is read as 'most impressive technical feat.' The double-narrator that slowly introduces Pechorin is a very remarkable effect, and the ability to layer narrative styles and genres is impressive, all the moreso for how concise it is. It's not unlike other Russian novels--The Master and Margarita or Dead Souls, except that it makes a virtue of simple complexity.)
3. The Brothers Karamazov (if 'top' is read as 'the deepest well from which to draw.' Everyone believes Ivan is the main character, but I think that's a serious mis-reading of Dostoevsky's intention. Once I finish re-reading it, I'll explain why.)
4. The Sun Also Rises (if I could write in this style, I would.)
5. Mansfield Park
6. The End of the Affair
7. Blaming
8. Netherland (Conservatives have a sometimes-hostility towards technology, and for some reason, but the use of google maps in this is quite affecting--really.)
9. Crime and Punishment
10. Cakes and Ale
11. Lost Illusions (marred by many of the things that mar 19th-century French literature, but unlike Sentimental Education or The Red and the Black, this one gets stronger as it goes on.)
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
2 comments:
Well, on Hemingway, I would say: up to a point. Hemingway's prose style makes lots of things possible, but I think it fumbles when it tries to do more than the minimum (this would be my complaint about For Whom the Bell Tolls), whereas it seems to me that Fitzgerald's style can be both comic and quite serious. So "Two-Hearted River" and TSAR are both excellent, but excellent in the same way; "Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar" and The Great Gatsby are both excellent, but in different ways (and that's to say nothing of Fitzegerald's essays, where it's clear that his wilder style and his more restrained style are by no means mutually exclusive).
Oy, published to the wrong post..
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