2015 - What classic are you reading now?

I am starting the year with one of my favorites -- The Three Musketeers. I have read this in print several times but this is my first time listening to it as an audiobook. John Lee is doing a pretty good narration (although occasionally I am distracted by his voice sounding just like Sean Connery's!).

After two false starts in my teenage years, I'm starting up The Name of the Rose again with help from The Key to the Name of the Rose this time. I'm hopeful having that to assist me will help me finish the book.

>2 sparemethecensor:, (and speaking of Sean Connery, >1 leslie.98:) if you get bogged down again there's also a good movie vesion starring Sean Connery that I felt captured its spirit and makes the plot crystal clear.

I am reading Under Western Eyes, a non-classic book by a writer of classics, Joseph Conrad. The book was a flop when it was first published, evidently, had a resurgence in popularity in the Cold War 1950s, as it is about heavy-handed Russian autocracy, and then basically disappeared from the Conrad canon. It's not up to the level of his great works, but still enjoyable, at least for me, because I love Conrad's voice, so even second-tier Conrad makes me happy.

>4 rocketjk: I would like to read more Conrad (I have read Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, and The Secret Agent). What would you recommend?

5> Leslie, those are my three favorites. In addition, I'd highly recommend the novella Typhoon and the unfortunately titled The Nigger of the Narcissus. Also Victory, which is very intense and has one of the most evil villains this side of Iago. Nostromo is also quite good, but it is long and you have to wade through a lot of exposition at the beginning.

I'll second the recommendation for Victory, that one got me hooked on Conrad where Heart of Darkness did not.

Thanks >6 rocketjk: and >7 Cecrow: for the Conrad recommendations.

I just finished the Librivox recording of The Vicar of Wakefield (version 2, narrated by Tadhg). Very good audiobook, especially for the price (it's free!). I enjoyed the book but didn't think it measured up to Goldsmith's hilarious play She Stoops to Conquer...

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut is considered a classic. I'm on page 50 and I really don't understand why. I can't make heads nor tails of it. It's written in stream of conciousness and about 3 times per page is the phrase "And so it goes."

>9 Tess_W: It sure is a strange book (and that phrase is repeated throughout). I did find that I liked it more as I got further along so you might want to continue on....

I am reading I, Claudius. So far, so good.

I finished The Vicar of Wakefield, which I listened to via the wonderful Librivox recording (version 2, in case anyone wants to try it). i liked it but not as much as Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer.

I finished reading Great Expectations and really enjoyed it. Only my second Dickens but I'll definitely go back to him again soon.

Thanks for the suggestions, all. I put the film version of The Name of the Rose on reserve at the library. (Only one copy for all of New York City, so I'm down a long list...)

I've finished my second Dickens, which was The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

>12 leslie.98:, I'll be reading Vicar soon, was finally prompted to after its being referenced in other classic works like Austen's.

>14 sparemethecensor:, I've a DVD copy at home (a discount bin buy I found one day), so hearing that makes me feel very privileged, lol

I'm reading Henry Esmond, by William Makepeace Thackeray. A historical novel.

>16 Cecrow: It was those mentions in Austen & in Georgette Heyer books that made me curious too!

>17 bjbookman: I have only read his Vanity Fair which I loved. Keep me posted on how you like that one.

>17 bjbookman: & >18 leslie.98:

Ditto -- I really liked Vanity Fair but I haven't read any of his other works. (I'm not sure why.) Very interested to hear what you think.

>18 leslie.98: Leslie.98: & >19 sparemethecensor: sparemethecensor:

I have read Vanity Fair and it is one of my favorites.
Henry Esmond takes place in 1691. I finished book one that takes Henry from age twelve to his twenties.
One of my favorite passages "Who does not know of eyes, lighted by love once, where the flame shines no more?"

I'm reading De Officiis by Cicero. Loeb Classical Library with Walter Miller's translation.

>20 bjbookman: I'll have to add it to my teetering TBR pile!

I have read a couple of Shakespeare plays (Antony and Cleopatra and Much Ado About Nothing) -- I continue to struggle with his language. I find Shakespeare much better in performance but even there the action & expressions of the actors often carries me past dialogue I just don't comprehend.

Right now, I'm reading Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. If there's anyone who has yet to read it, I highly, highly, highly recommend it! With the ethical questions raised in the book and the variety of symbolism used, the writing is absolutely outstanding.

>23 literarybuff:, it's on my radar. I read the Karamazov bros. in my school days and always meant to revisit him.

Dostoevsky is just not my cup of tea. Oh well.

I am (slowly) reading The Forsyte Saga and for light relief, listening to the audiobook of Heidi.

>23literarybuff:
What translation are you reading? Crime and Punishment is one of my all time favorites. I read the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation last month.

Started Bel-Ami yesterday. So far, I am liking it...

>23 literarybuff:
>26 bjbookman:

Completely agree -- getting a good translator for Russian literature is key. I love the Sidney Monas translation of Crime and Punishment. Pevear & Volokhonsky are great for what I've read, though I haven't gone through many of their novels. Avoid Constance Garnet at all costs.

Well, I found Bel-Ami ultimately depressing. This has been true of many of the nineteenth century French classics from the school of realism (Zola for example). I think this style is not for me -- all the characters seem unappealing :(

>28 sparemethecensor: literary buff:

Have not read Sidney Monas translation. Thanks to your recommendation I have ordered it from Amazon. The first Pevar & Volokhonsky translation I have read was The Three Musketeers which I felt was excellently translated.

I'm reading the sequel to Henry Esmond, The Virginians by Thackeray.

I'm reading the first book of the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy by Sigrid Undset. I read it some 30 years ago, and am reading the more recent translation by Tiina Nunnally.

Still reading The Forsyte Saga -- up to the last book, To Let... And I am listening to the audiobook of Pride and Prejudice -- I have read this many times but this is my first time listening to it.

I've been in and out of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath since January. I've been really enjoying it and I really want to keep reading it but I have other projects that I need to focus on the moment especially as I ride the wave of inspiration and focus for those projects.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through Auerbach's Mimesis, which is a classic in its own right, of course, but also a kind of meta-classic that takes you on a forced march through the the Western Canon from Homer to Proust. I'm only up to the 17th century (there would be a real risk of spontaneous combustion if you tried to yomp through more than a chapter a day) but I already have a long list of additions to my already substantial list of classics I know I ought to read one day...

I'm reading Adam Bede by George Eliot and it is wonderful.

#36> I read Adam Bede several years back and enjoyed it thoroughly.

>36 jfetting: Oh good to hear. That is sitting on my Kindle waiting for me to get to it.

One of my personal goals this year is to read the entire D'Artagnan series (rereading where appropriate). So I have started on the second book, Twenty Years After. Only a little way into it, but it seems so strange for Richelieu to be dead & the 4 friends scattered!

>39 leslie.98: Leslie.98
I reread D'Artagan series every couple of years, hope you enjoy them.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man isn't nearly so scary was what I was braced for. Still finding supplementary material helpful as I read it, though.

>40 bjbookman: Thanks! I have finished the second book in the series now (Twenty Years After), which was a bit slower getting started but became very exciting! Looking forward to the rest of the series.

For now, I am about to read the last book of The Forsyte Saga, To Let. Big change in pace from the Dumas!

Just finished The Double and starting The Gambler.translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky.

I've just started Nicholas Nickleby and it may be the first Dickens that I wasn't absorbed into right at the beginning, but it's not bad. Read Framley parsonage earlier and want to finish the last two Barshetshire books before the year's out.

I'm currently reading Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by C.S. Forester, and Scoop by Evelyn Waugh.

I'm also listening to the audiobook of The Mysteries of Udolpho.

I still haven't decided on a theme for this year. I think maybe I'd like to focus on one author and read his or her complete novels or plays.

>44 Bjace: I liked Nicholas Nickleby but agree that it isn't one of Dickens' top-rank novels. Hope you enjoy your time in Barsetshire -- the last book of the series is very good indeed, I thought.

>45 madpoet: I have never read any Forester but suspect that I could easily become addicted to the Hornblower series. I loved Scoop -- Waugh's wit is so biting! How is Udolpho? I have heard such mixed things about it. Are you listening to the Librivox recording?

I finished the classic tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi the other day. This is the first play by Webster I have read.

Does Mr. Midshipman Easy by Frederick Marryat count? It's an early Victorian production. If it doesn't, I have Charles Dickens' Hard Times casting a baleful atmosphere in my direction from its place in my TBR pile

>47 Limelite: Limelite: I think that any novels by Frederick Marryat counts. Did you know his sister Florence Marryat was also a writer?

>46 leslie.98: Hornblower is fun. I haven't cracked open Scoop yet, but I'm looking forward to that. Radcliffe is a bit more challenging, but I like gothic.

I've been reading a Dickens per year, and this year it's Barnaby Rudge. Good opening; so far I can't see reason why it's so often neglected next to his other titles.

>50 Cecrow: I enjoyed Barnaby Rudge & like your idea of a yearly Dickens. I think this year I will read Our Mutual Friend...

After reading three zombies novels in a row, I'm back to the classics. Woodstock by Sir Walter Scott.

Yesterday I started listening to the Librivox recording of Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell -- not sure I like the narrator but I have the Kindle book if necessary.

I'm not sure all would agree that C.P. Snow counts as a classic author, but yesterday I started Time of Hope, the first in Snow's "Strangers and Brothers" novel cycle.

My knowledge of Snow is limited to what I gleaned from the comedy duo Flanders & Swann! :D

Seriously though, I would be glad to hear what you think of it.

I've been reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I'm halfway through, and Marquez's artistry and finesse never cease to amaze me. I highly recommend it!

#56> I love that book. It may be time for a reread soon.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Notes from A Dead House by Dostoevsky. The newest translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky.

I've finally gotten to my first Shakespeare of the year and I'm halfway through The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Reading The Golden Ass by Apuleius - very funny for a 2000 year old book!

Finished Scoop, which was fun. Now I am reading Don Juan by Lord Byron and a book which is already considered a classic by some, True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey.

>62 madpoet: Waugh is fun! I am curious about the Carey book, having just finished an Australian mystery in which Ned Kelly is often referenced (Bony and the Kelly Gang).

I am listening to the audiobook of Love in the Time of Cholera. Armando Duran is a marvelous narrator, the perfect choice for this!

I have ditched the Librivox recording of Ruth, continuing to read it on my Kindle. I am not enjoying this Gaskell as much as I had anticipated. The main character Ruth I find annoying & the overall tone of the book is too moralizing for my tastes... oh well.

I finished the new translation of Notes from A Dead House, highly recommended. Now I'm starting A Life's Morning by George Gissing.

War And Peace - Maude translation.

>65 BINDINGSTHATLAST: I read that last year & was pleasantly surprised by how readable it was.

I have been taking a break from classics but next up for me is Colette's Chéri…

Yesterday I started reading Lady Anna by Anthony Trollope, in honor of his 200th birthday (Apr 24).

>66 leslie.98: this is my second time reading it. I had the same experience you did the first time. Very approachable classic.

I am reading Paradise Lost by Milton. I read it from my physical book and then after each chapter I browse the Milton Reading Room (often when i'm at work ;) ) to read the annotations they have there. https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pl/book_1/text.shtml

I saw in your catalog BINDINGSTHATLAST that you have gryphon editions books; that looks like a great publisher, I had not heard of them. Do they qualify as bindings that last? I might look for some.

I'm reading Sketches by Boz, Dickens first book.

>70 bjbookman:, skipped that one, with some hesitation, when I started reading Dickens novels in order of publication. I believe it's non-fiction?

My first encounter with Muriel Spark, reading The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

>69 cs80: Griffon is on par with Easton Press, albeit there is a little more variety in their binding sizes. If a work is in translation it will likely be a 19th Century one. Like Easton, they are facsimilie editions slapped inside leather bindings. I prefer the Folio Society to Griffin and Easton...just that Griffon has the classics library is a nice bonus.

Tim

>71 Cecrow: I like Spark. If you like that one, I'd recommend Loitering with Intent.

I am reading more Gaskell by rereading Cranford via audiobook.

>71 Cecrow: Cecrow: Sketches by Boz is not really a novel or non-fiction. It is a collection of essays, observations, and sketches written while Dickens was a reporter. I highly recommend you give it a read. You can see humor, sadness, and life in London, stories that only Dickens could tell.

>66 leslie.98: Cheri interested me particularly as a stylistic masterpiece portraying the brittle sophistication that's associated with French love affairs and that may have contributed to the stereotype of them. It's also ironic as hell.

Just started The Sea Wolf by Jack London. I like sailing adventures!

Reading another George Gissing, Our Friend the Charlatan.

Started reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Not nearly enough African authors under my belt.

I'm reading and enjoying This Side of Paradise.

I am reading for the second time 'Les misérables' from Victor Hugo. I am learning new thinkgs each time :) he was such an amazing writer

I'm reading Babbitt, and liking it more than I expected.

>81 jnwelch: You are the second person I know to be reading that right now. I like Sinclair Lewis...

I am continuing the Forsyte Chronicles with the 4th book, The White Monkey (which starts the second 'trilogy' The Modern Comedy).

In honor of the U.S.'s National Short Story Month, I am also reading The Grey Woman and Other Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell and The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh.

I just started Babbitt, too. So far, so good.

I've been on an Anthony Trollope kick. Read The Way We Live Now and Pallser Chronicles and now I'm about to begin He Knew He was Right He's wordy and he loves to insert himself into the story, but I enjoy his characters and his understanding of human nature. He's also quite humorous.

To kac522, I loved Babbit.

>84 vivienbrenda: I can't say I *loved* Babbitt, but I found it well worth my while reading. It was a slow read for me, but had a lot of meaning. Just before I read Babbitt, I finished The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway), which was a page-turner, but made me angry on almost every page. Same time period, same idea of portraying a shallow society, but Babbitt seemed to have something more human, more compassion, more hope. Just my take.

>84 vivienbrenda:, >85 kac522: Babbitt was a good read for me, too. I gave a short review here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/191024#5167537

>84 vivienbrenda: Last year I was on a Trollope kick - while wordy, his books are always easy to read. ;)

This year it is Dumas - I am almost finished with the next installment of the D'Artagnan series, The Vicomte de Bragelonne. Talk about wordy -- this 500+ page (18 audiobook CDs) book is just the first quarter of Dumas's original novel concluding the d'Artagnan trilogy!!

How's this for a fairly modern classic -- Cold Comfort Farm? Lime Spouse is sputtering through it as our "read aloud" book (his turn to read and laugh). Too many funny scenes to highlight one. If you haven't read it, just remember this. . ."There have always been Starkadders on Cold Comfort Farm."

>88 Limelite: I enjoyed that; the film is also very good -- have you seen it?

I finished The Vicomte de Bragelonne and have moved onto the next volume, Ten Years Later. Only about 10% in but there seems to be more Vicomte of Bragelonne in this volume than there was in the previous one! Time will tell if that is so or not...

Thank you all for your good suggestions, I have picked up here some good books I am sure I will enjoy and my wish list is getting bigger and bigger ...
I will probably next read 'Babbitt', I already bought it ..

>89 leslie.98: Sure did, sat through it twice because I laughed continuously through the first showing and must have missed half of the movie. In short, I was ironically turned into one of the Quivering Brethren.

>91 Limelite: LOL!

I'm still working on Ten Years Later but have started the audiobook of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cousin Phillis.

>92 leslie.98: As a youngster I delighted in "The 3." I wonder why I never got to "10 Years" as an adult? You may influence my reform. You certainly have kindled my enthusiasm to read "Phillis", which sounds like a forward thinking feminist novel on the equality of male/female intellectual potential and ability.

Thank you!

I just finished East of Eden and find it to be better than the other 2 Steinbeck's I've read (Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath) by far!

Currently working on an anthology of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. So far have read: The Wreck of the Hesperus, The Building of Two Ships, Evangeline. Currently reading Hiawatha, which is much longer than what we were introduced to in school. Am totally skipping over Christus: A Mystery, which is Longfellow's translation of Dante's inferno. Firstly, I'm not inclined to read it and secondly experts have said it was very poorly done. I did read the first hour of it and it was mostly Old Testament stories re-told.

I have finished Ten Years Later in my ongoing quest to read the whole d'Artagnan series. This one didn't live up to my expectations but I know the series ends on a high note so I will persevere!

And I started the classic spy thriller The Riddle of the Sands as a Librivox audiobook yesterday, but the narrator isn't working for me so I may ditch the audio and read this in print...

>94 Tess_W: How is the Longfellow going? I have dipped into his poetry & generally like it but some of them are loooong! Such as Hiawatha!

I am reading Little, Big which many consider a classic of fantasy and perhaps the inventor of the American urban fantasy/magical realism school.

I am reading and immensely enjoying The Brothers Karamazov. It's lengthy but well worth the read. Dostoevsky's profound understanding of the human soul is evident in every word.

Hi there. Read some of Dostoevsky's shorter works basically the house of the dead, the double, the gambler, notes from underground and poor folk. Need to read crime and punishment but still currently making my way through brothers Karamazov.

I'm listening to Middlemarch, read by Juliet Stevenson.

Just started the Australian classic The getting of wisdom.
I did start asking myself why bother assuming a male nom-de-plume if you're going to write a novel set in a girls' boarding school, but then I remembered about Currer Bell...

I've just started a reread of The Rainbow to see if it still resonates as strongly as it did in my youth. 'Mature' reading can cast a very different light on the experience: I used to find Mansfield Park unbearable, now it's my favourite Austen.

Still reading The Riddle of the Sands, in print now rather than in audiobook. In the meantime, I slipped in a Shakespeare play, Two Gentlemen of Verona.

I started Demos by George Gissing.

I'm reading The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope. I've just started but it's pretty great so far. I do love Trollope.

I'm reading The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson. Very introspective with little dialogue. I'll be interested to see how the movie is different.

>103 bjbookman: I have enjoyed the George Gissing books I have read so far. How is Demos going?

>104 jfetting: Another Trollope fan here. Did you know that the BBC is doing a radio adaptation of the Palliser series right now? You can listen online for the next few weeks. Here is a link to the first episode...

>105 mstrust: Great film with Ray Milland. I didn't know it was based on a book but I am slowly beginning to realize most of the excellent films are.

I am reading (well, listening to the Librivox recording of) Our Mutual Friend. I think that this is the last of Dickens' novels I haven't read before. While a bit more bitter and hectoring in places than his best books, it is still an enjoyable satire on the effect of money on people. Dickens has created some great slimy & creepy characters but I miss the lighthearted people such as Mr. Dick and the Micawbers from David Copperfield.

I just finished the Icelandic classic Independent People by Nobel Prize winner Halldor Laxness. Highly recommended!

Just finished Ivanhoe by sir walter scott. Fun to see the book that popularized the robin hood myth/story. Great story ven with the flowery language. Only down side for me was the antisemitism of the period was horrifying. Book even has a strong female character Rebecca which isnt expected in a book from 1820 written by a man.

Started Sir Walter Scott Peveril of the Peak. A novel based on the restoration.

Sir Walter Scott seems to be a popular choice right now. Maybe I should jump on the bandwagon and read Waverley (which would also work for this month's AlphaCAT!).

>106 leslie.98: Thanks for the link! I didn't know that there was a new Palliser adaptation but I will have to give it a listen. I still haven't finished the series because I can tell from the table of contents that The Duke's Children kills off my favorite character.

>103 bjbookman: Leslie.98: I thought that Demos was one of Gissing's better works, up there with New Grub Street. It really is a shame that he is considered one of lesser known Victorian writers.

Waverly was one of the Scott novels that I have tried to read in my younger years and just gave up. Determined to read it last year, I found it one of his best works.

>112 bjbookman: Thanks for the feedback -- I thought New Grub Street was great so I'll add Demos to my TBR. I think I will read Waverley once I finish my Dickens...

More than halfway through Ivan's Awful, Terrible, No Good .... I mean, One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich. Actually it turns out to be a pretty good day for him, so far anyway.

LOL! Great book (actually both were). And speaking of bleak, I'm finishing the proverbial Uncle Tom's Cabin of early 20th century Chicago, muckraking, socialism: The Jungle.

I am enjoying Three Men and a Boat immensely!

Now reading Pride and Prejudice after putting it off into my forties. I'm tired of missing those trivia questions.

I'm reading The Rose and the Key by J Sheridan Le Fanu. It has been quite a few years since I read this book, I want to see if it still as good as I remember.

I am back to my quest to read the whole d'Artagnan series -- I am reading the last part that is new to me, Louise de la Valliere. I am still bothered by Aramis and d'Artagnan being on opposite sides :(

>117 Cecrow: How are liking (or disliking) P&P? Of Austen's "big 3" (P&P, S&S, Emma), that is the one I like best.

I don't generally feel as engaged by Austen as by the Brontes or Dickens, but at the halfway point of P&P I started sitting up and paying attention.

I've only previously read Emma and really liked that one.

I am reading a classic of literary criticism, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the 19th Century Literary Imagination (sorry for the weird touchstone - it only works for the title before the colon). It is making me want to revisit the Brontes!

I've started reading Don Quixote and while I haven't made it far yet, I'm enjoying it greatly - it's very funny.

>122 PawsforThought: Glad to hear that. I am toying with the idea of trying to read that next year. For some reason, I find it intimidating (the length is only a small part of that as I have read very long books before & enjoyed them).

>122 PawsforThought:, 123

Reading that book resulted in one of the best summer reads I've ever had. It was so funny and mesmerizing and I never wanted to put it down. So leslie, don't feel intimidated at all!

>123 leslie.98: I completely understand why you'd be intimidated by it - I was too (still am a bit, to be perfectly honest with you) but it's not difficult. Sure, the language is old-fashioned (obviously depends on which translation you read) but that's part of the charm.

>121 sparemethecensor:
I finished The madwoman in the attic two weeks ago! (And immediately picked up A literature of their own to follow it up, but then got distracted by something else...).
Reading Gilbert & Gubar also made me want to re-read at least The professor and Villette, which I last read sometime in the 1970s...

>126 thorold: Thanks! Adding A Literature of Their Own to my TBR list.

Don Quixote is on my very short list of funniest novels I've ever read.

Regarding Don Quixote -- any recommendations about translations? I have the free public domain Kindle edition translated by John Ormsby but my dad has a paperback edition translated by Walter Starkie. And of course there are other translations available to me through the library...

>129 leslie.98: Sorry, can't help. I'm reading it in Swedish.

>129 leslie.98:

I actually really like the Signet Classics version of the book with Walter Starkie as the translator. I spent some time sitting at the bookstore with the Spanish version in hand so I could compare the first few pages with its translations and I just really enjoyed the Starkie version. I felt it kept best with the tone of the work while also providing an ease in language that doesn't lose the original but doesn't detract you from reading.

In fact, I'm surprised that Signet Classics doesn't get more mention as I find their translations to be some of the best. Plus they are very inexpensive editions!

>131 lilisin: Thanks! I like Signet editions in general and it will be easy to borrow this one from my dad (and keep it as long as I like).

Meanwhile, I have been in the mood for some humor since listening to the audiobook of Three Men in a Boat, so I have read some short stories by Saki (aka H.H. Munro) in The Chronicles of Clovis.

Just starting now Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate.

Started reading Demons by Dostoevsky. Translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky, I am enjoying this novel, it is one of my favorites of his novels. I have read every translation that is out there and if a new one came out I would read that also.

I'm halfway through The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett. It's pretty good, but it's no Maltese Falcon.

>134 bjbookman:

I read Demons for the first time last year and the more I've thought about it since, the more I've appreciated its genius. It's one of the few books I know I'll reread a couple more times at least.

Pride and Prejudice was pretty good, thought I could move over to the Middlemarch pool and fare equally well. Nearly drowned. Have my bearings now and wow, this is really something.

Just finished Mrs. Dalloway, which is by far my favorite of the Virginia Woolf books I've read.

>135 madpoet: I agree, madpoet. If you haven't watched any of the Thin Man movies, they're a stitch, and an improvement on the book, IMO.

Still reading Alexandre Dumas -- onto the last part of the d'Artagnan series, The Man in the Iron Mask. I found the last part (Louise de la Valliere) a bit of a drag so I am glad to be back to the action.

I too have been reading Don Quixote. It is a very old 17th century translation I have (Thomas Shelton) but eventually the strangeness of the language falls away and it's a very enjoyable/humorous story. I have gotten sleep-punched a few times by my wife for laughing in bed at ungodly late hours. My poor ribs, enduring blows for the cause of literature, such is the fate of the errant.

I'm reading the second in The Country Girls trilogy, The Girl With Green Eyes, aka The Lonely Girl, by Edna O'Brien.

I finally finished The name of the rose. It was a challenging read for me. I used The key to the name of the rose to help with the languages and allusions I didn't know, but it is still a dense book that requires careful attention from the reader.

>142 sparemethecensor:, loved that one, had no help so I probably missed a trick or two but it cemented Umberto Eco as a favourite author of mine. Foucault's Pendulum and Baudolino I'd also recommend.

I shall read Don Quixote as well, thanks for sharing ! and thanks for your comments, you made me laugh a lot

Finished The Man in the Iron Mask and now onto some light relief with a P.G. Wodehouse book, The Coming of Bill.

>145 leslie.98:
Hmm. You know you've picked Wodehouse's one and only attempt at writing a non-comic novel?

Well, it wasn't as zany as his more famous novels but still had some pretty funny parts. I am just discovering all of his early books (the wonders of free public domain ebooks!). So far, none of them are up to the standard of the Jeeves & Wooster series or the Blandings books. But still enjoyable!

I have now moved onto Kate Chopin's The Awakening and Selected Short Stories. I am loving the mid to late 19th century Louisiana setting. Her writing reminds me a bit of Willa Cather...

Little, Big is one of Harold Bloom's favorite books

reading The Tale of Genji, from Japan in 1007

described by some as "the first novel"

written by a woman

plot limited but gorgeous language and astute sensibility make up for it

which brings me to a topic I'm absolutely fascinated with and which I think I'll start a new thread on: when reading a translation from an Asian text to English, aren't you really reading TWO authors in a sense? Arthur Waley translated Genji into English; it's his sentences, not Lady Murasaki's, that are giving me such pleasure. She did not write any English sentences; she originated the thoughts and put them into Japanese (or maybe Chinese, which was used by Japanese then) characters; Waley made them into English using his English vocabulary and diction. I understand that Seidensticker's and a more recent translation are very different than Waley's. I consider myself to be reading Murasaki and Waley equally. That's fascinating to me.

Related are instances where it is said that translations such as Moncrief's Proust or even biographical works extensively quoting their subjects, like Boswell/Johnson, have become "classics in themselves."

Little, Big is one of those books that keeps kicking around my house but never quite surfaces to the top of to-be-read; it's gotta happen eventually. And someday I'm going to tackle Proust, so I'll put a voting checkmark next to Moncrief.

If you're like me, and everyone I've heard about who has read Proust - and we're few and far between! - Proust will change you

Just read Mrs. Dalloway, and enjoyed it.

>149 jburg: I agree with you about translations - perhaps it is even more true for Asian books but I have found that different translations can make a big difference in my enjoyment of Russian authors too. I was part of a vigorous discussion about this regarding Anna Akmatova's poetry, where again you are really reading two authors. Poetry is so nuanced that I am unsure that any translation truly represents the original work but since I am pitifully poor at learning new languages, it is the only way I can experience authors from most of the globe...

I just finished rereading Far From the Madding Crowd by listening to the Librivox audiobook (version 2). Last time I read this was in high school & I retained only the haziest of memories of it. I was surprised to find how much I recalled once I started rereading! However, I found that while I still think the plot & characters were excellent, I didn't much care for Hardy's writing.

Is Lonesome Dove a classic? I'm reading it.

>155 jnwelch:

I'd argue it's the Great American Novel.

There's so much symbolism in it; the book is full of archetypes from Christianity -- god figure, Christ figure, sin and redemption, John the Baptist wandering in the desert (not quite Christ). Animal symbols throughout -- mark Newt's horses through the novel in relation to his maturity, and later the battle between the bear and the cattle herd lead beef. Even the names of the characters are worth analyzing.

The themes are great not small and the deeds are mythic, far beyond the ordinary. Yet each person in the novel is so individualized, fully drawn and realized -- even the most minor that anything they do or that happens to them is utterly believable. One of the most interesting things to think about is who survives to the last pp of the novel and why, and what can be concluded about Woodrow Call by the end. McMurtry doesn't cheat.

I've read the book many times because I taught it at university to soph. Eng. students. I could go on and on. Enjoy it, it's one of the richest novels ever written but seldom acknowledged by (us) book snobs. I think TV serialization may "trivialize" literary work. If true, then in this book's case, it's more than a pity.

>156 Limelite: Good post, thanks. I can see why you feel that way about it being the GAN. I'd probably pick Grapes of Wrath or Plainsong, but Lonesome Dove is awfully good. I'm about 100 pages from the end now.

The Brits tv-serialize classics all the time - it sure shouldn't be a disqualifier.

>157 jnwelch:

I love Haruf's Holt novels. He was an old-fashioned story teller like Ivan Doig was. I can't believe we lost them both practically together. Haruf writes about tender mercies as tenderly as McMurtry does. I think McM's rendering of the last scene between Gus and Call is an example of what I mean. Gus -- one of lit's greatest characters, such a large soul who can forgive anything; Call -- one of lit's greatest characters, such a niggardly soul who can forgive no one anything, least of all himself.

But Doig tells stories of such generous spirit; his characters are as bighearted as the sky they live beneath. One of my favorite books by him is The Whistling Season. I read it as a paean of the public school in America set in a different time but written at a time when they were being attacked by the Bush Admin. and Republicans nationwide.

Yeah, but the Brits serialize differently from Americans. They get actors, we get faces. However, I think Rick Schroeder's performance as Newt in the TV production is unforgettable. Really, I could say that about nearly everyone in that cast.

I can't speak to Doig, and I haven't seen the Lonesome Dove tv series. But I agree re Haruf (if you haven't read his last one yet, Our Soul at Night, it's excellent) and Gus and Call and the last scene.

If you're interested, here's my review of Lonesome Dove: http://www.librarything.com/topic/194352#5255338

"They get actors, we get faces." Ha!

Great review! I think I wrote a review of the novel, too. But that was back in the days when I kept a private book journal and not the public one in the form of my reviews here.

Posted further on your LT profile pg.

Jumping into this conversation to strongly encourage anyone and everyone to read both Plainsong and The Whistling Season, and since it was mentioned along with those two I clearly need to read Lonesome Dove sooner rather than later.

I'm currently reading The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy. It probably won't end up being my favorite Hardy novel, but it is unlikely to end up being a pit of despair like Jude the Obscure. I hope.

>161 jfetting: That is the last Hardy novel on my tbr. Keep me posted on where it falls on the Hardy scale, please! By the way, which one is your favorite?

The Return of the Native, but Far From the Madding Crowd is a close second. I have a big literary crush on Gabriel Oak.

Actually here's the list of the ones I've read so far from best to Jude:

The Return of the Native
Far From the Madding Crowd
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Tess of the D'Urbervilles (although I read it as a teenager and might like it more now)

Jude the Obscure

Which is SO VERY DEPRESSING.

What's your favorite?

Just finished Ladies of the Paradise Emile Zola from which Masterpiece Theatre borrowed its series The Paradise.

I'm a big Zola fan, but he was so prolific and and so few of his novels have been translated into English (not to mention ebooked) that I can only enjoy smatterings of his work. The next read of his waiting for me is His Masterpiece..

>163 jfetting: My list is very similar to yours! Although I might put Tess of the D'Urbervilles above The Mayor of Casterbridge... hard to judge since I read Tess so long ago. I hope to reread Tess next year and that might be a good time for me to get to The Woodlanders as well.

I'm planning an explosive celebration upon the completion of Under the Volcano, 50 years in the reading. Tomorrow. Tune in. I've but 20-odd pages to go. Hoo hoo!!

Oh my, I'm waiting with baited breath- read hard!

Deleted post. Dunno what happened. Got error msg, {Duplicate Post}, screen jumped and msg magically posted here instead of thread I was writing on.

Weird.

Apologies, everyone.

>168 Limelite: Would you consider a trilogy for your GAN? I fell in love with John Dos Passos in college when I read his U.S.A. trilogy, which to me captures the early twentieth-century America and its labor unrest so well.

leslie.98

So sorry, misplaced post. Explanation above. Please join topic where I intended it to go here. Can you re-post there? Want everyone to see your suggestion. Thanx!

Can't do the carat/number thingy 'cause yours and my post both are '"168" my screen. What a mess.

GAK!

No worries! We did have some brief talk of the GAN here so your comment wasn't completely out of left field.

>166 weird_O: Here's my celebration. I did complete the darn thing.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/189318#5258993

I am reading The Family Mashber, a classic of Yiddish literature. Really enjoying it so far and learning a lot, but I'm worried because the introduction implies it is an unfinished novel...

>172 weird_O: Nice fireworks :)

I have never persevered for such a long time with a book -- was it a case of starting it long ago and then recently picking it up again and finishing or were you actively reading it in small bits throughout? And was it worth it?

Speaking of Yiddish classics, I've just started Tevye's Daughters by Sholom Aleichem.

I just started At Swim-Two-Birds... I have only read 10 pages but am already considering giving up! Lots of references to Irish people & creatures that I am unfamiliar with and very similar in style to Joyce's Ulysses (which I did NOT enjoy!). Anyone have advice? Should I persevere or give up now?

>174 leslie.98: I have the paperback copy from college. Couldn't have put much effort into reading back then, because we were supposed to read, enjoy, and appreciate a new book each week. Several times over the years since, I'd pick the book off the shelf and give it a try. Start at the beginning and read until I was fed up with the Consul and his dismal existence. So I put the title on the A list when I committed to the TBR challenge last spring, and I got it read. It really wasn't all that bad. It's just the schtick.

>177 weird_O: Thanks for explaining. I have had a few people recommend that to me but it doesn't actually sound appealing. Maybe I will just watch the film!

>176 leslie.98: I forget who it was who said, "Ireland produces unreadable novels and unwatchable plays" (referring to James Joyce and Samuel Beckett)

I've just started Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. It's a short read so should be done fairly quickly.

>179 madpoet: LOL! I am a bit further in (~pg. 60) and it is more readable now. I will persevere a bit longer.

I just finished Dracula.

I am reading A City Girl by John Law (Margaret Harkness). Published by Victorian Secrets, a novella published in 1887. Engels described it as "old, old story, the proletarian girl seduced by a middle class man".

I am rereading (via Librivox audiobook) Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers. I read the whole Barchester series a few years ago but I was discussing this book with someone & was overcome with the desire to revisit it. While the Librivox recording isn't that good (it is one with multiple narrators, some of whom are not very good), I am enjoying the book very much :)

I started reading The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever, which is on Modern Library's list of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th Century. But I can't really get into it. I mean, the writing is ok, characters are fine, etc. It's just not... great.

>185 madpoet: That was my feeling about Cheever's short stories. The Wapshot Chronicle is one I had planned to read next year but maybe I will push it down on my TBR...

Reading The Iliad and finding I pretty much know the whole story already, since every event in it has a ring of familiarity. Still interesting though.

I finished Tevye's Daughters by Sholom Aleichem. Stunning short stories.

>187 Cecrow: The Iliad is kind of odd, in that it tells only the middle of the story (in media res), thus missing the more exciting events of the beginning of the story (the judgement of Paris; Helen's 'abduction') and the spectacular ending, with the famous Trojan Horse and the destruction of Troy. Still, of course, it's Homer, so it's great. But I found the Odyssey to be a much more pleasurable read.

BTW, in the translation of the Iliad that I read there is one scene where Homer compares the Greek army's fortifications to sandcastles: "just as a boy builds sandcastles on the seashore." That stunned me, because I had no idea sandcastle-making was such an old pastime, popular 3,000 years ago!

What! No Trojan Horse at the end! I want my money back! It's an interesting contrast with today's trilogy fever, where storylines struggle to make the middle of the story anything but the weakest. Homer thrived in that territory and dispensed with the rest.

I too am reading the Iliad. As part of this online course on the greek hero, offered for free by Harvard https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1%3AHarvardX%2BHUM2x%2B2015T3/

I remember reading another version which used sandcastle for that passage, a more literal translation is probably this one "And full easily did he cast down the wall of the Achaeans, even as when a boy scattereth the sand by the sea, one that makes of it a plaything in his childishness, and then again confounds it with hands and feet as he maketh sport" That is the one in the Loeb Classical Library edition, which tries to be very literal as a resource for students of Greek.

We can be sure that constructing buildings in the sand and then destroying them is a favorite pastime.

Which book is your favorite of the Iliad so far Cecrow? Madpoet? Mine is probably book 6 which has two of my favorite passages. Hector visiting his wife and son within Troy, and the simile delivered by Glaucus, comparing the generations of men to leaves. My second favorite is probably book 1, just because that is the one I have read the most, and the most translations of. A favorite passage of that one I'll quote from the translation of Richmond Lattimore.
Zeus to Thetis -
'... I will look to these things that they be accomplished.
See then, I will bend my head that you may believe me.
For this among the immortal gods is the mightiest witness
I can give, and nothing I do shall be vain nor revocable
nor a thing unfulfilled when I bend my head in assent to it.'
He spoke, the son of Kronos, and nodded his head with the dark brows,
and the immortally anointed hair of the great god
swept from his divine head, and all Olympos was shaken.

I try to reenact that scene whenever applicable in my own family ;)

a favorite painting of the scene by Ingres http://www.class.uh.edu/classes/Arth1380/ArtConceptPages/HomerInArt/JupiterAndTh...

I'm reading E. V. Rieu's prose version. Every time I confess that, I find myself out in the alley. Here's how that same scene plays out:

"... I will see the matter through. But first, to reassure you, I will bow my head - and the immortals recognize no surer pledge from me than that. When I promise with a nod, there can be no deceit, no turning back, no missing of the mark." Zeus, as he finished, bowed his sable brows. The ambrosial locks rolled forward from the immortal head of the King, and high Olympus shook.

I just finished reading Rebecca and Jane Eyre for the first time! I loved them both.

I've read and really liked Jane Eyre, and hear the other is modelled upon it, but haven't gotten to it yet. Truth to that rumour?

>194 Cecrow: Interesting idea! My first reaction was no but now that I think about it a bit, it is possible that Max de Winter in Rebecca was modelled after Mr. Rochester!

>191 cs80: It's been a long time (about 20 years) since I read the Iliad, so I should probably read it again. I had sympathy for Achilles, after Patroclus was killed, but the way he treats Hector's body, dragging it around the city walls and then refusing to give it to poor Priam, the father, was cruel. I suppose that was Homer's intent: to dampen sympathy for the 'hero' that his Greek audience would naturally be cheering for. Even though it is a Greek story, the Trojans are treated very sympathetically, not the way Hollywood usually tells a story, with one side as saintly heroes and the other as evil/cowardly villains. In the Iliad our sympathy alternates between the two sides, and the reader can't help seeing the ultimate destruction of Troy as a great tragedy.

>196 madpoet: I had always assumed that Homer was just telling an already existing story, not creating one...

>197 leslie.98:, the back cover of my edition reads: "The Iliad is the culmination of a long-standing oral tradition. The oral technique enabled a master bard like Homer to develop what may historically have been an event of minor importance into a fully fledged epic. So, out of a single episode in the legendary Trojan War - Achilles' withdrawal from the fighting and return to kill the Trojan hero, Hector - Homer generated the twenty-four books of The Iliad."

So it does sound like the essential story predated him, but I think he had flexibility to add detail and choose his narrative style.

Reading Man and Wife one of Wilkie Collins novels.

Just finished Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Glad I read this one. More interesting than I anticipated. I think the same type person would enjoy this as enjoys watching the 'behind the scenes' features included with movies. With this book, you get your adventure, your conflict between man and whale and, as a bonus, lots of research about whales and whaling, more than I had ever thought of.

>200 cbfiske:, I've fond memories of that one, read it as an adventure story when I was young and didn't even mind the trade chapters. Someone suggested to me they were thrown in to help ground the story in realism, and to add sympathy for the whales. Sounds like a good explanation.

>201 Cecrow: Cecrow: Thanks for sharing the explanation. I like that one.

>200 cbfiske: I'm doing a year-long group read of Moby Dick with the library (they call it "Mission: Impossible"). We started in October, meet every 2 months, and read about 150 pages for each meeting. So far I'm enjoying it, and I'm especially surprised by Melville's wry humor.

Getting acquainted with William Faulkner for the first time in The Sound and the Fury. Experienced some confusion with its opening pages, but once you have the rhythm it becomes very good.

>204 Cecrow:
Congrats! You cracked the stream-of-consciousness code! 'An amazing book.

>204 Cecrow: I love Faulkner! You have some great books ahead of you :)

I listened to the audiobook of Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey. It was different from what I had anticipated & I had some issues with the heroine Jane but glad I tried it.

>203 kac522: kac522: "Mission: Impossible" sounds very interesting. I wish you all well. I was surprised at how much I really enjoyed Moby Dick.

I finished Crome Yellow, Huxley's debut novel. I found it amusing but not really laugh-out-loud funny. There were some clear pointers to his thinking that led to Brave New World...

Working on Hamlet for my book club. Good, but it IS work--to be rewarded with the Kenneth Branagh DVD when I'm done.

>209 kac522: kac522 Enjoy your reward. There's also a good David Tennant version of Hamlet out there.

>209 kac522: It's a toss-up between Hamlet and Richard III as my favorite Shakespeare. I guess I find joy in back-stabbing and murder.

>211 mstrust: Yeah, not too many characters still standing at the end of Hamlet--quite a lot of clean-up.

>210 cbfiske: Watched the Branagh; I do love Derek Jacobi (as Claudius) the best, though. I'd like to find Jacobi as Hamlet. And there's something about Billy Crystal (as a gravedigger) with that half-New York/half-British accent that stole the show. Tomorrow off to get the Tennant version.

>212 kac522: kac522 Derek Jacobi is a wonderful actor. One of my guilty pleasures is watching him in a Doctor Who episode called "Utopia". Very good. Forgot about how many good actors were in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet. I've got to look that one up again.
Apparently there is a BBC Shakespeare version of Hamlet from 1980 starring Derek Jacobi in the title role with Patrick Stewart as Claudius. I haven't seen that one, but it is out there. Enjoy the David Tennant. I am a fan.

Had to share this SPOILER ALERT!

>214 kac522:

Does that mean everyone lives in "Romeo and Juliet"? ;^)

I am reading Queen Lucia, the first of the Mapp and Lucia books by E.F. Benson. I think one can make a strong case for these books as "classics."

Those are fun books >216 rocketjk:!

I just finished How Green Was My Valley which I thought was amazing.

I am reading Le Morte d'Arthur for the first time and enjoying it along with the excellent illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley.

I had fun revisiting one of my favorite Dickens though audiobook -- David Copperfield narrated by Simon Vance.

Doubt that I will get another full-length classic in before January but will probably read some holiday short stories such as The Chimes or The Christmas Story…

A good one I picked up is Old Christmas by Washington Irving. It is 5 short Christmas related stories/sketches. https://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2013/12/26/old-christmas-with-irving-and-...

I'm now into a classic memoir, reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence.

Just finished Cecilia by Fanny Burney. Good, but too long.

> 222 kac522: have you read anything else by Fanny Burney? She is my favorite author and have a decent collection of her in my library.

>223 bjbookman: This was my first Burney. I did it as a group read, which is just wrapping up, with lyzard. You can read the thread here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/202236 I think she plans to lead a group read of Camilla in 2016.

>223 bjbookman: This is my first Burney. It was part of a group read (which is wrapping up) by lyzard. You can read the thread here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/202236

I believe she'll be leading a group lead of Camilla in 2016. You can follow her thread here to find out when: http://www.librarything.com/topic/197659