Classic Literature

[tonetripper]

I was going to concur with Catcher in the Rye, but I was unsure if it was considered a classic. Is there a time-line PinV?

Anyway Salinger is great.

Also a wonderful author I really enjoyed is Herman Hesse. Interesting how rich the story and characters are in his books. Steppenwolf, Siddhartha?(sp)...... there are more that I've read, but I can't remember their names. Awesome writer.

Kurt Vonnegut rules. Although I'd be hard pressed to call him classic.

[Eric Y.]

I'd be hard pressed to call him classic.

*shrug*
the "classic rock" station here has started playing stuff like guns n' roses and van halen (and not OLD van halen either, like stuff from 1984 or later)... although music and books might have a different classification system as far as age goes?

[Caravan Ray]

Kurt Vonnegut rules. Although I'd be hard pressed to call him classic.

Officially I believe you should be dead to be a classic. As Mr Vonnegut is still with us (??) - he can really only be considered very very good at the moment.

I think I've read everything KV has written, Slaughterhouse 5 is probably my favourite - he is a very funny man.

Useless self-indulgent trivia dept. - my songfight entry for Let It Be, which was a very lame attempt at a novelty song with a space-based theme, contains a Vonnegutian reference to the planet Trafalmadore.

[thehipcola]

Is there a time-line PinV?

...

Kurt Vonnegut rules. Although I'd be hard pressed to call him classic.

I'm the last person to ask that question, but I'd agree with CR, they should at least be dead. It's funny with KV, because his paperback stuff, at least in Canada, is packaged like classic paperbacks. Similar cover colours and style etc...

But he is one very, very good writer. And fucking funny too.

[Ogreasy!]

Great picks everyone, Catch-22 is amazing and needs to be turned into an Adventure(think Monkey Island, Grim Fandango) computer game.
That would be amazing. Chocolate covered cotton, mmmmmmmmm...

Anyways, I really really like A Clockwork Orange. MY copy of it is almost ripped to shreds for the number of times I've read it.

[Caravan Ray]

The ABC recently held a survey to find "Australia's Favourite Book". The Top 10 turned out to be:

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein

2. Pride and Prejuidice by Jane Austen

3. The Bible (Various Contributors)

4. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

5. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton

6. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix (Book 5) by J. K. Rowling

7. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

8. The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams

(equal) 9. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and

(equal) 9. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

10. A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey

The Top 100 were:
http://abc.net.au/myfavouritebook/top10/100.htm

Disappointed that my choice of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" didn't make the Top 100 - but I could have just as easily voted for Catch-22, 1984, Cloudstreet, To Kill a Mockingbird or any of the Harry Potters.

[jack]

Also a wonderful author I really enjoyed is Herman Hesse. Interesting how rich the story and characters are in his books. Steppenwolf, Siddhartha?(sp)...... there are more that I've read, but I can't remember their names. Awesome writer.

Siddhartha is a beautiful book. It presents the story of the Buddha in a very accessable and inspiring way. One of my all time favorite books.

[Bjam]

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein
2. Pride and Prejuidice by Jane Austen
3. The Bible (Various Contributors)
4. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
6. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix (Book 5) by J. K. Rowling
7. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
8. The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
(equal) 9. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and
(equal) 9. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
10. A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey

Have read all of those bar 3, 5, and 10. Pretty good considering that I don't read nearly as much as I'd like to.

[Caravan Ray]

Have read all of those bar 3, 5, and 10. Pretty good considering that I don't read nearly as much as I'd like to.

And considering 5 and 10 are probably not read much outside of Australia - that is pretty good.

I've read all except for A Fortunate Life and Da Vinci Code - I've never actally sat down and read the whole Bible - but I've probably read more of it than a lot of people who voted for it, especially the dirty bits.

Also, apparently the author of Da Vinci Code is being sued by the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail for nicking their story - so maybe I have read the Da Vinci Code after all.

[Heather. Redmon.]

Kurt Vonnegut rules.

Of the four Vonnegut books I've read, Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions and his most recent Timequake, I have enjoyed them all but I do think Breakfast of Champions is my favorite. I own a copy of Venus on the Half Shell by Kilgore Trout. I found it at a used bookstore in either Berkeley or Santa Monica. I think it's a really cool thing to have.

[j$]

Kurt Vonnegut rules. Although I'd be hard pressed to call him classic.

Officially I believe you should be dead to be a classic.

No.

But yes. Vonnegut is very very good. BoC is great, as are S5 and Mother Night. Most of his stuff is eminently readable.

j$

[HeuristicsInc]

I preferred Catch-22 over Slaughterhouse-5 but both were very good. I think I have the other two but have not read yet (I have a big backlog of books).
I don't know if it's classic literature, it probably isn't yet, but I've been really enjoying reading Shaara's "Killer Angels" (the story of the Civil War battle in Gettysburg that the movie was based on). It's awesome, especially if you've been to Gettysburg.
-bill

[MalachiConstant]

I have to add my two cents about Vonnegut.

Obviously I like him (my handle is the name of a character in "The Sirens of Titan"). He's the reason I learned to enjoy reading. We read his short story "Harrison Bergeron" in our Lit book and I was so impressed this guy was considered "literature" but he was writing what I considered to be a science fiction story.

Anyway I started reading all his stuff when I was in highschool. I'd read one of his books every 2-3 days. He really struck a chord with me, as I think he does with lots of reasonably intelligent teenagers who don't really understand other people.

I've read all his books many times each. I'll still pull one out and read it again nowadays. It's like his outlook on life matched mine perfectly, but he was able to articulate it so much better. He really writes for the reader, he doesn't make stuff needlessly complicated just to make himself sound smarter.

Breakfast of Champions is great (DON'T see the movie), S-5 is also great (and has a good movie adaption) and tells a lot of the story of his own capture by the Germans in WWII and the firebombing of Dresden. But my favorite has always been "Galapagos". If I knew that's how human beings would turn out in a million years I'd be a happy man.

Joseph Heller has a lot in common with Vonnegut, I've loved all of his books as well.

And Mark Twain also, "A Connecticut Yankee..." is nicely wacky then becomes a seriously depressing tale. Also "Vanity Fair" by Thackerey I liked a lot, though I haven't read anything else he wrote, and I don't want to see the movie. I hear they ruined it just the way I figured Hollywood would.

[c hack]

Also a wonderful author I really enjoyed is Herman Hesse. Interesting how rich the story and characters are in his books. Steppenwolf, Siddhartha?(sp)...... there are more that I've read, but I can't remember their names. Awesome writer.

Siddhartha is a beautiful book. It presents the story of the Buddha in a very accessable and inspiring way. One of my all time favorite books.

What he said.

Steppenwolf is high on my to-read list.

[nyjm]

dumas? (the french PhD student in me shakes his head). dumas was like the stephen king of his time: popular, a good read, not devoid of literary merit, but not really Literature.

that said, his stories are fun, his books are a quick read, and there have been quite a few good films made from them.

some things to stir your grey matter:

we - zamyatin (think of it as 1984's source code)
notes from underground - dostoevksy
the cherry orchard - chekov
the master and margarita - bulgakov
the gospel according to pilate - schmitt
dr. faustus - thomas mann
nana - zola
tales from exile - camus
i, robot - asimov
theseus - gide
waiting for godot - beckett
the flowers of evil - baudelaire (oh, hell, everything by baudelaire, there's not that much)
the republic - plato (a good, readable modern translation)
the divine comedy - dante (especially inferno)
the oedipus cycle - sophocles (yeah, all three, oedipus at colonus is seriously underrated)

[j$]

Oh boy, Literature with a Capital L? Funnily enough I can't find that differentiation in my dictionary, no matter how hard I Look ...

j$

[fodroy]

dumas? (the french PhD student in me shakes his head). dumas was like the stephen king of his time: popular, a good read, not devoid of literary merit, but not really Literature.

kinda like shakespeare, eh?

[nyjm]

dumas? (the french PhD student in me shakes his head). dumas was like the stephen king of his time: popular, a good read, not devoid of literary merit, but not really Literature.

kinda like shakespeare, eh?

i knew i'd get a good flogging for using the "Literautre" thing. and i am very open to all kinds of expression, but there is this small elitist part of me that has to speak out every now and then.

anyway, no, not like shakespeare. shakespeare was also widely popular, but, his work was the antithesis of "devoid of literary merit", and people recognized that at the time. (albeit, it was long after his death that he achieved his current stature; but the staying power of his writing is part of that.) sure, he wasn't christopher marlowe, but his manner of expression in the english language remains unmatched and the stories he told were based on themes that trascend time.

dumas, on the other hand, is not very remarkable in his use of the french language. it's prose; it's historical romanticism: yawn. hugo did it much better with "notre dame de paris". dumas was recognized at the time as a good writer, but not a great one, and his staying power is minimal. (how many people really read dumas? we watch adaptations of his fun stories. we still read shakespeare as well as watch his plays.) his stories don't tap into the same mythos as shakespeare's (or dostoevsky's or otomo's): they are too constricted by genre and time.

[roymond]

Kurt Vonnegut rules.

Of the four Vonnegut books I've read, Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions and his most recent Timequake, I have enjoyed them all but I do think Breakfast of Champions is my favorite. I own a copy of Venus on the Half Shell by Kilgore Trout. I found it at a used bookstore in either Berkeley or Santa Monica. I think it's a really cool thing to have.

Well, to Caravan's earlier question about whether he is still with us, I just ran into him at lunch! His house is down the street from my office so I figured it was only a matter of time. He did look a bit fragile, so I just said "Hi" instead of kissing his feet and telling him I named my two cats Kilgore and Venus.

And Heather, I assume you know that Venus on the Half Shell was written by Philip Jose Farmer. Has anyone read his other works? I have not.

[jimtyrrell]

I just finally got around to reading I, Robot by Asimov. I enjoyed it a lot.

[fodroy]

Kurt Vonnegut rules.

Of the four Vonnegut books I've read, Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions and his most recent Timequake, I have enjoyed them all but I do think Breakfast of Champions is my favorite. I own a copy of Venus on the Half Shell by Kilgore Trout. I found it at a used bookstore in either Berkeley or Santa Monica. I think it's a really cool thing to have.

Well, to Caravan's earlier question about whether he is still with us, I just ran into him at lunch! His house is down the street from my office so I figured it was only a matter of time. He did look a bit fragile, so I just said "Hi" instead of kissing his feet and telling him I named my two cats Kilgore and Venus.

And Heather, I assume you know that Venus on the Half Shell was written by Philip Jose Farmer. Has anyone read his other works? I have not.

that's awesome. i probably would've grovelled and accidentally knocked him over and sent him to the hospital or something.

[nyjm]

I just finally got around to reading I, Robot by Asimov. I enjoyed it a lot.

i actually enjoy his short stories more than his novels. Foundation is good, but after the third one, he really starts milking it. it doesn't come back the way herbert's Dune series did.

you should check out Winds of Change.

on another sci-fi note, i'm in the midst of heinlein's Friday. this is good enough to make me want to read at home. (i read for my job - grad student and all. so reading at home is a huge rarity.) although it was written in the early 80's, there's some tremenduous topical stuff (a very interesting take on race relations, for one) and some pretty amazingly accurate predictions (can you say, "he nailed the internet?"). heinlein wears his libertarian ideology on his sleeve, but i find that's a good thing. at least he's open about it, and his characters are excellent at presenting various points of view.

- njm