[Hawkeye_a]

I was just wondering what your favorite classic novel is. I used to read a lot before i got to college, mostly classic novels as opposed to modern contemporary ones.

I'm talking about, Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, H.G. Wells, etc...

More recently i've read Tolkein's 'The Hobbit', which i think belongs in this category as well.

The stories that stand out are:
Journey to the center of the earth
The Time machine
20,000 leagues under the sea
The pearl
David Copperfield
The Hobbit (for it's sheer radical nature)
Mutiny on board HMS Bounty.

But if i were to pick a single favorite, it would have to be the original, unabridged Bram Stoker's Dracula. i'm not a goth, or a fan of 'hollywood vampires'...in fact i despise them. This book is nothing like hollywood's depiction of the stereotypical blood sucker...its so well written that you find yourself wondering if it's 'real and looking through your atlas to find out exactly where the characters are in the story. It's almost entirely made up of journal entries of the various characters , which i thought was a very nice departure from the norm. So, if i were to recommend one book, it would be Dracula.

What about you guys ?

[ghost_flash]

Originally posted by Hawkeye_a:

I'm talking about, Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Orson Welles, etc...

More recently i've read Tolkein's 'The Hobbit', which i think belongs in this category as well.

The stories that stand out are:
Journey to the center of the earth
The Time machine
20,000 leagues under the sea
The pearl
David Copperfield
The Hobbit (for it's sheer radical nature)
Mutiny on board HMS Bounty.

But if i were to pick a single favorite, it would have to be the original, unabridged Bram Stoker's Dracula. What about you guys ?

J.R.R. Tolkein was a genius and his work as written can never be brought to the screen as far as I am concerned, and done justice. You simply have to read his books.

- The Hobbit
- The Two Towers
- The Return of the King

You have inspired me to pick up some more classics and read.

[ThinkInsane]

Good topic. My favorite is Journey to the End of the Night by Celine.

[Developer]

My favourite novel is "Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler" by Norbert Jaques, but I don't consider it classic.

ps:
I hate Tolkien.

[gorickey]

Mine are either:

1.) "Rickey Henderson - Record Stealer"

2.) "Offbase - Confessions of a Thief"

Both are brilliant...

[Phat Bastard]

A few of my favs are:

"1984" - George Orwell
"Brave New World" - Aldous Huxley
"Catch-22" - Joseph Heller
"Anthem" - Ayn Rand

Great thread, by the way!

[osiris]

#1 Canterbury Tales - Chaucer - reading this made me comfortably aware that humorous perversion transcends all the ages + much more.

Don Quixote - Cervantes

1984 - Orwell (aka RNC guidebook)

East of Eden, The Pearl, The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Adams
(not really a classic, yet)

[Timo]

"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austin. Wickedly good.

[voyageur]

Originally posted by Timo:
"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austin. Wickedly good.

My choice also! Austen is a genius. Too bad she died so young. Sense and Sensibility is great also.

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally posted by osiris:
#1 Canterbury Tales - Chaucer - reading this made me comfortably aware that humorous perversion transcends all the ages + much more.

Ive always wanted to read Canterbury tales. is it like robin hoob n ivan hoe, etc ?

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by Hawkeye_a:
Ive always wanted to read Canterbury tales. is it like robin hoob n ivan hoe, etc ?

No.

[Stradlater]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
No.

Canterbury Tales are good, but not easy or necessarily likable (most of the time; a lot of it is amusing and a fun read, BUT--). You have to be in the mood for good ol' middle english.

[OreoCookie]

Billiard um halb zehn -- B�ll
Spring Snow (first volume of tetralogy: Sea Of Fertility) -- Mishima Yukio

[scottiB]

Originally posted by Timo:
"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austin. Wickedly good.

First that sprang to mind, too. Its opening line is a favorite.

Just to add quickly:

A Tale of Two Cities
Oliver Twist
Pere Goriot
The Fountainhead
Ulysses
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Les Miserables
The Sound and the Fury

[Simon X]

Originally posted by Hawkeye_a:
... Orson Welles, etc...

Don't believe Orson Wells wrote any novels. Or did you mean HG Wells?

Anyway, I'm rather partial to the work of Voltaire.

[theolein]

My English teachers at high school managed to put me off good writing for a while (Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Chaucer) but I hugely enjoyed reading again once I got to university. I found Orwell's 1984 incredibly sad and disturbing, but one of the better novels I've read. Joseph Heller, Arthur Miller and William Burroughs, Anthony Burgess and other post war stuff). I also enjoyed a lot of South African stuff, both in English (Nadine Gordimer, Doris Lessing) and Afrikaans (Breyten Breytenbach's poems are fantastic). French pulp fiction stuff such as Georges Arnaud's Le salaire de la Peur was also a staple of mine for a while.

That said, I was (and sometimes still am) a huge science fiction fan, although not many SF books count as classics.

[voyageur]

Originally posted by theolein:
I found Orwell's 1984 incredibly sad and disturbing,

Yes. "1984" and "Animal Farm" were required reading for me in high school, during the Nixon era. It changed the way I looked at government.

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally posted by Simon X:
Don't believe Orson Wells wrote any novels. Or did you mean HG Wells?

Anyway, I'm rather partial to the work of Voltaire.

thanks for pointing that out was getting carried away with the names there. but yeah...the author of "War of the worlds" H.G.Wells

[osiris]

Originally posted by Hawkeye_a:
Ive always wanted to read Canterbury tales. is it like robin hoob n ivan hoe, etc ?

I don't know, I've never read Robin Hood or Ivan Hoe. I'm a big fan of the old Robin Movie (with Flynn, DeHaviland) - that seems like a different type of story, unless the book has more to it.

Canterbury is about a pilgrimage and the stories shared along the way. The people making the trip have various backgrounds, so there's a good mix of characters. It does have a Robin Hood/old English charm to it, so you might enjoy reading it.

[theolein]

Originally posted by voyageur:
Yes. "1984" and "Animal Farm" were required reading for me in high school, during the Nixon era. It changed the way I looked at government.

I would have thought that the Nixon era alone would have been enough to do that.

[Jaey]

I should read 1984. I really enjoyed Animal Farm.

[osiris]

Originally posted by Jaey:
I should read 1984. I really enjoyed Animal Farm.

Judging from your sig, you'll love 1984.
(Actually, you might get depressed :/ )

[spiky_dog]

i tend to stick to 20th century-on-up. and in that time frame, these authors get my vote(s):

kerouac, for everything he's written
ayn rand, ditto, although "anthem" is strongly derivative of zamyatin's "we" imo
haruki murakami, again for everything. such a dreamy feel
william gibson, "neuromancer"
philip k. dick, everything, especially "a scanner darkly"
neal stephenson, for "snow crash" and quicksilver", not so much the others
kurt vonnegut (jr.), for "slaughterhouse five"
pat conroy, for his unique southern flavor
salman rushdie, for "fury"
stanislaw lem, for "solaris"

[benign]

An englishman called shakespeare
wrote as well as a man can.

His work may have been made
by many but even if so - it is
better to read and find out who
and what we as men are made of
than all the bibles and religious
textual lies put together.

[Stradlater]

Originally posted by benign:
His work may have been made
by many�

Doubtful.

[voyageur]

Originally posted by theolein:
I would have thought that the Nixon era alone would have been enough to do that.

Of course, you're right...Watergate and J. Edgar Hoover did that first! But 1984 showed the how much power a government could abuse by just manipulating language.

[jonasmac]

The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemmingway
The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
Cuba Libre - Elmore Leonard

[benign]

Originally posted by Stradlater:
Doubtful.

Is it ?

Got proof ?

or just an educated guess...

Certain or cretin ?

[edit]

Don Quixote by Cervantes -
In fine metafictional form.

[benign]

Homer - the odyssey

( even if written by
many - as a plot -one
of, if not the best )

James Joyce's - Ulysses

( For knowing to steal
greatness, as all great
artists know is a sure
sign of greatness )

[waxcrash]

A few classic novels that I read in high school that I really enjoyed:

Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
1984 - George Orwell
Lord of the Flies - William Gerald Golding
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

[funkboy]

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

No question.

I do love the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, as well.

Dostoevsky's work is extremely compelling.

To Kill a Mockingbird, a high school read, was quite enjoyable for me, as well.

[iWrite]

Anything by Nabokov is outstanding.

But, The Lady in White by Wilkie Collins is my favorite classic book. Full of suspense and mystery and "must-see" page-turning reading.

[Stradlater]

Originally posted by iWrite:
Anything by Nabokov is outstanding.

What have you read? I've made it through Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada, and all three get my thumbs-up, anything else I should check out while I'm in the neighborhood?

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally posted by jonasmac:
The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemmingway
The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
Cuba Libre - Elmore Leonard

Hemmingway...almost forgot. i loved the book "The old man and the sea", and the movie w/ Anthony Quinn.

[songoku912]

My list:

Of Human Bondage
Catcher in the Rye
The Great Gatsby
To Kill a Mockingbird

[pimephalis]

Crime and Punishment affected me very deeply when I read it, and it still has a special place in my soul.
Germinal was also an excellent piece of work; what Grapes of Wrath could've been.
Finally, reading El Senor Presidente by Asturias
was like being punched in the stomach over and over again, but in a good way.

[cal4ever]

Originally posted by waxcrash:
A few classic novels that I read in high school that I really enjoyed:

Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
1984 - George Orwell
Lord of the Flies - William Gerald Golding
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Wow. I completely agree with you. As I was scrolling down, looking at other people's posts, I was thinking of these novels. I first read all of them when I was in high school (I'm now a 4th year college student). I've had the chance to reread 1984 and Catcher in the Rye...and all I can say is, "Wow." I've gotten so much more out of these books the second time around. If I ever get the time, I think I'm going reread all the books my high school English teachers made me read. Hmm...then again, maybe not.

I have to add one more book:
Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther

[ambush]

The Catcher In The Rye

and

Camus' L'�tranger

both EXCELLENT books

I need to read the great gatsby

[cowboybop]

The Cancer Ward by Alekzandr Solzhenitsyn
The Plague by Albert Camus
Don Quixote by Cervantes
Metamorphoses by Ovid (Not a novel, but certainly a classic)

[Xtopolop]

Originally posted by ghost_flash:
J.R.R. Tolkein was a genius and his work as written can never be brought to the screen as far as I am concerned, and done justice. You simply have to read his books.

- The Hobbit
- The Two Towers
- The Return of the King

You have inspired me to pick up some more classics and read.

you should probably read the fellowship of the ring too. that one's kind of important if you plan on reading the two towers and the return of the king.

[spiky_dog]

Originally posted by ambush:
The Catcher In The Rye

and

Camus' L'�tranger

both EXCELLENT books

I need to read the great gatsby

ah, yes, camus. _the plague_ is another one to read.

[khufuu]

Well!!

People keep beating me to the mark.

1984, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Canterbury Tales

Oh, I know...

Of Mice and Men. Excellent.

and a modern classic...

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

[theolein]

Originally posted by voyageur:
Of course, you're right...Watergate and J. Edgar Hoover did that first! But 1984 showed the how much power a government could abuse by just manipulating language.

I know where you're coming from to a certain extent. Apartheid South Africa was somewhere along those lines as well. On the one hand it was (for the whites) a democracy, but only as long as you didn't speak out too loudly against the government, whereupon you not only stood a good chance of getting locked up indefinitely without trial, but also risked getting in the way of a death squad if you were really a thorn in their sides.

I remember that already as kids we had propganda about how white South Africa was a christian bastion against black communism. We had that stuff all the way through high school and I remember the supreme irony of one of my last days in the city of my birth as a white guy I knew who was going to the military told a black woman cashier in a store that he was going to fight for her freedom and so should get discount. It was around that time that I read 1984 and remember thinking how apt it all was.

[dencamp]

Quick list:

The Brothers Karamozov-Dostoevsky (Nearly everything else he wrote as well)

Dead Souls-Gogol (many shorter non-novel pieces are essential reading. As Dostoevsky said, all of Russian literature crawls out from Gogol's Overcoat)

The Awakening - Chopin
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Heart of Darkness- Joseph Conrad
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man-James Joyce

[ex-English teacher] Not to be an ass, but Homer and Chaucer didn't write novels, they wrote poetry. The novel is relatively young in the world of literature.[/ex-English teacher]

[waxcrash]

Originally posted by cal4ever:
Wow. I completely agree with you. As I was scrolling down, looking at other people's posts, I was thinking of these novels. I first read all of them when I was in high school (I'm now a 4th year college student). I've had the chance to reread 1984 and Catcher in the Rye...and all I can say is, "Wow." I've gotten so much more out of these books the second time around. If I ever get the time, I think I'm going reread all the books my high school English teachers made me read. Hmm...then again, maybe not.

I have to add one more book:
Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther

I agree that rereading a classic a second or third time around that you get more out of it. I reread the Great Gatsby a years ago and I enjoyed it more the second time.

Two other classics that I enjoyed where:

Black Boy - Richard A. Wright
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

[benign]

Originally posted by waxcrash:
I agree that rereading a classic a second or third time around that you get more out of it. I reread the Great Gatsby a years ago and I enjoyed it more the second time.

Two other classics that I enjoyed where:

Black Boy - Richard A. Wright
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

Greatness borrows a little greatness
to make even more greatness.

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Notes from the Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky

[voyageur]

So...no one's mentioned Tolstoy's War and Peace or Anna Karenina yet? Who can forget Pierre, Prince Andrei, or Anna?

For those of you who like James Joyce's Ulysses, do you think it's understandable by a reasonably intelligent person without taking a college course about it?

[Timo]

Originally posted by voyageur:
For those of you who like James Joyce's Ulysses, do you think it's understandable by a reasonably intelligent person without taking a college course about it?

Yes, but you can't read Ulysses like you read the paper. It only repays the effort of reading it when you combine it with some study. This doesn't have to be a college course -- it can be, e.g., reading Anthony Burgess' Re-Joyce, for example.

http://www.themodernword.com/joyce/joyce_crit_4.html

[ryju]

The Hobbit

[jonasmac]

Also...
A Moveable Feast, Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises - Hemmingway
What can I say? I like the tough, terse prose of Hemmingway.

And who can forget such classics as:
Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns - Frank Miller
Watchmen - Alan Moore