What novels should I read next?

[tomgirl]

Originally Posted by indesertum

if you like books about human nature and human relationships

i've been reading sons and lovers by DH lawrence and I think you'd really like it. I dunno if high schoolers read it.

Women in Love by Lawrence is my favourite book, it definitely deals with relationships. Also, Lady Chatterley's Lover is a classic - it gets bonus points for almost being banned back in the day too...they use the C-word in it!

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by tomgirl

Women in Love by Lawrence is my favourite book, it definitely deals with relationships. Also, Lady Chatterley's Lover is a classic - it gets bonus points for almost being banned back in the day too...they use the C-word in it!

I wanted to enjoy LCL, partly for the reasons you list. I didn't, though. Too overwrought for me.

 

[Baron]

I've recently read the first few books of the Master and Commander series from Patrick O'Brian. Very engaging and (apparently) accurate historical fiction and a really brilliant, incisive depiction of a deep friendship between two men. It's not as literary as most of the stuff recommended here, but it's not exactly pulp.

I'll also second Nabakov.

 

[milosz]

It's not 'classic literature,' but if you want an exploration of human relationships, read 'We Don't Live Here Anymore,' the collection of Andre Dubus short fiction (novella and two shorts, I believe) they put together for the movie.

It will take you one evening to read, tops. Then you can start buying the other collections of his work.

 

[StephenHero]

Originally Posted by indesertum

it's hard to understand modern Japanese life.
fyp. You now understand Murakami.

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by Baron

I've recently read the first few books of the Master and Commander series from Patrick O'Brian. Very engaging and (apparently) accurate historical fiction and a really brilliant, incisive depiction of a deep friendship between two men. It's not as literary as most of the stuff recommended here, but it's not exactly pulp.


One of the most amazing things is that while I expected it to sort of peter out over the long series of novels, it only deepened and got better.

 

[ad_infinitum]

Originally Posted by StephenHero

(shows up with lawnchair)

(+1, Beer?)

On a more serious note, I recommend THE MAGICIAN OF LUBLIN by Isaac Bashevis Singer. I do not know how, or why I got into Singer (Dad's Library), but I really enjoy his writing.

 

[Rambo]

How about Eveleyn Waugh? Scoop is in my top 10 list.

 

[TheIdler]

Originally Posted by why

Seriously?

I don't understand the endless veneration of the same three or four Russian authors. English has a lot of great literature, most of it far better than anything Dostoyevsky ever wrote. Plus, reading English authors gives nice little benefit of reading an author's writing instead of a translator's sterilization.

I will always suggest Spenser and Shakespeare when people ask this question, but if by 'classic' you actually mean '19th century' (there's a millenium or two of difference), then Dickens is probably the best. I like Hard Times. Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is also great. If you're an Anglophobe, read Melville. If not Moby Dick, then at least Bartleby.

Really? When people ask 'what novel should I read next', you always suggest Spenser and Shakespeare?

 

[audiophilia]

Rereading Jude the Obscure for the umpteenth time. Hardy's last novel.

Try Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess or The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass. Two of my favs.

All three are worthy of someone's time and intellect.

 

[why]

Originally Posted by TheIdler

Really? When people ask 'what novel should I read next', you always suggest Spenser and Shakespeare?
Yes, because they are two of the best seminal English authors and I hope that people will read something like Romeo and Juliet and realize that literature is not about things unless Romeo and Juliet can be reduced to two crazy kids, antagonistic family relations, and the dangers of false suicide.

Originally Posted by Hombre Secreto

Lack the capability to read Dostoyevsky's writing? What's so hard to get about Brothers Karamazov? It's a story mostly based on 4 brothers with different personalities that most of us see ourselves in at least 1 of the brothers. No!! It was actually about some confused young monk with a badly bitten finger that was heading off to California to have someone take a look at it. Yeah, that was what the book was about.
That's not what I'm speaking of at all. I'm sure many people have the ability to understand the plot. There is a skill to writing beyond prudent storyboarding, creating a labyrinth of 'twists and turns' populated by 'identifiable characters'. If plot and characterization are the two factors with which to judge writing, then writing which subordinates both factors is inherently ugly, and makes Shakespeare a trite imitator and Joyce Carol Oates an aesthetic deity.

 

[Hombre Secreto]

Originally Posted by why

That's not what I'm speaking of at all. I'm sure many people have the ability to understand the plot. There is a skill to writing beyond prudent storyboarding, creating a labyrinth of 'twists and turns' populated by 'identifiable characters'. If plot and characterization are the two factors with which to judge writing, then writing which subordinates both factors is inherently ugly, and makes Shakespeare a trite imitator and Joyce Carol Oates an aesthetic deity.

Have you even read Brothers Karamazov? Their isn't anything "inherently ugly" about it and it's much more than just "plot and characterization."

Originally Posted by GQgeek

Books that deal with human relationships/human nature would be good..

How you would think that Brothers Karamazov isn't quite good enough and that it doesn't have what the OP is looking for, and somehow your vaunted Shakespeare does is beyond ridiculous.

 

[why]

Originally Posted by Hombre Secreto

Have you even read Brothers Karamazov? Their isn't anything "inherently ugly" about it and it's much more than just "plot and characterization."
I didn't say there was anything 'inherently ugly' about The Brothers Karamazov in regards to its plot or characterization, I was referring to the silliness of your criteria for judging literature.

How you would think that Brothers Karamazov isn't quite good enough and that it doesn't have what the OP is looking for, and somehow your vaunted Shakespeare does is beyond ridiculous.

Because it's a book sterilized by translators that only further perpetuates the idea that literature needs to be about something. It doesn't. Some of the best stories are not about anything, and it's silly to think that literature needs to have some purpose beyond art itself. Spenser's wit and Milton's imagination are enough to satisfy me, but if you need a 19th century Russian's moralistic mysticism to please you, then perhaps you should look into psychology instead of literature.

 

[archetypal_yuppie]

Atlas Shrugged.

 

[Hombre Secreto]

Originally Posted by why

I didn't say there was anything 'inherently ugly' about The Brothers Karamazov in regards to its plot or characterization, I was referring to the silliness of your criteria for judging literature.

Because it's a book sterilized by translators that only further perpetuates the idea that literature
needs to be about something. It doesn't. Some of the best stories are not about anything, and it's silly to think that literature needs to have some purpose beyond art itself. Spenser's wit and Milton's imagination are enough to satisfy me, but if you need a 19th century Russian's moralistic mysticism to please you, then perhaps you should look into psychology instead of literature.

I am convinced you haven't even read the book.

A book should automatically be dismissed because it's actually about something? Also using the translators as a knock against the book is a lame excuse. Going by your theory The Prince by Machiavelli is mediocre crap because of the "translators."