Top ten works of literature ever?

[SKILORD]

Turtledove's new book Ruled Brittannia might make it to such a list one day, It beats the hell out of anything he's written before.

[MosesPresley]

Originally posted by Kropotkin

Haven't read Catcher in the Rye so I don't know much about that. I guess it could be taken for a young man's book but I don't think that's fair at all as it's theme is much more universal than so. As far as I know the origin of the book in the mind of Hesse is some form of personal crisis. It tells the tale about a old man that lives a life on his own, outside the life of man (not literary of cource) and hunted by his neurosis and old life. Thus being as a steppenwolf. It's a story about the duality of man between desires and reason. It's a good book for all, not youngsters alike even if I guess people going through emotional changes as youngster might find it more to their liking than others. But it's really about human life, not any specific age.

My bad.

Thank you. I am putting that one on my list of must reads.

[MosesPresley]

Originally posted by alva

{Gravity's Rainbow}
wasn't this the only book the guy wrote? Even published after he was dead?

No, he is still living and he is still writing as densely as ever.

He's a recluse and refuses all interviews, just like Salinger. The big difference is that Pynchon still writes. I think the reason he has written so few books, is that the BIG books (V, GR, M&D) are massively researched. There is a GR companion if you are interested in seeing just how much research was involved. Obviously you don't have to go that deep to enjoy the book as it hits you on many levels, but if you wanted to, it is nice to know you could.

Thomas Pynchon:

V: 1963
The Crying of Lot 49: 1966
Gravity's Rainbow: 1973
Slow Learner: collection of short stories: 1984
Vineland: 1990
Mason & Dixon: 1997 - I still haven't finished this one. I think I'm all Pynchoned out.

The following is good for a laugh.

http://phc.mpr.org/performances/19980606/cowboys.htm

excerpt from "A Prairie Home Companion"

They strung him up, and shot him, and were about to give him poison,
And then one cowboy rose up in his saddle and cried, "Boys, in
All my days on lynch mobs, there was one sure way of lynchin'
That's to lock him in the outhouse with the works of Thomas Pynchon.


So they put the Amarillo Kid in the little house out back
With the works of Thomas Pynchon, a solid four-foot stack.
And he commenced to read The Crying of Lot 49,
And he groaned so loud and mournfully, they knew that he was dyin.


He finally finished that one but on Gravity's Rainbow,
They could hear him sighing and his breath was coming slow.
When they opened up the door, he had passed to his rest,
He had died of suffocation for the book lay on his chest.


He could see the ladies singing, he could smell his long-lost friends,
And his spirit went to Austin where the party never ends.

[VetLegion]

Is the question most influental or best?

I dont see how someone can like Quijote, Brave new world or 1984... these were influental but not an interesting read

and Illyiad and Odysey? Ok to read as a kid in an illustrated book, but to read them completely.. in verse form? That would be I think hard work and no fun

de gustibus non disputandum, so have it as you want


Btw., I m sorry I cant make a top ten at the moment.

[Buck Birdseed]

Only two of you even mentioned the greatest form of literature ever, Poetry. Shame.

[MosesPresley]

Does anyone else here think Kafka was misunderstood? It seems most people find him depressing. I always thought his works were humorous.

[MosesPresley]

Originally posted by El Leon
Can we distinguish novels and literature, please?

Douglas Adams is just about the one of the best novelists I've read... But literature?

Only Wernazumatzin mentioned Homer?

I guess it will be hopeless to nominate the Bhagavad-Gita, or Jalal Al Din Rumi (I guess poetry is not literature, by the looks of it, which also leaves R.M. Rilke out). Or Cien Años de Soledad. No Dante Alighieri either. No Ovid Metamorphoses, no Aesop fables, (Brecht Threepeny Opera? Ibsen Doll House? Chekhov The Cherry Tree?)
Not to mention Bocaccio Decameron, Stendhal Stories, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón El Sombreo de Tres Picos, Jorge Manrique Coplas a la muerte de mi padre (oops, sorry, no poetry), Maxim Gorki The Mother... oh well. Not too much out there, now is there?

EDIT - Sorry Boris, you also got Homer. Sartre Le Nausee, before I forget. Virginia Woolf The Waves (yep, women can write, too, Mary Shelley Frankenstein)

Are you Camille Paglia?

[monolith94]

I find Kafka funny in a depressing sort of way, and depressing in a funny sort of way.
I'm nto so sure that poetry is the greatest form of literature. Right now I'm leaning towards the novella: siddhartha, phillip k. ****, kafka, and other authors all made them. And I find that the pacing of a novella works better in constructing thematics and emotions and such.
Besides, writing prose gives a feeling of satisfaction that you don't get with poetry, I think.

[El León]

Damn it El Leon! Don't you know that such a list is far too elitist, and how many peole here have actually read all of Dante, or Marquez, or somehting like the decameron! Stick to works form the last 100 years man!

Elitist? Or inclusive? I'm not saying every work of GarcÃa Márquez, but you'd have a tough time getting out of high school in Latin America without having read him. That's alot of people right there.
Or the Gita. Millions of people in India will quote it to you, I bet.
I was also shocked that no one had mentioned Dante - whereas Cervantes was mentioned. I don't think they are elitist, in fact I don't find anyone on the list as hard to read as (with the exception of Sartre and Woolf), say, Pynchon, Joyce, Gaddis, Kafka, and many others from the last 100 years, some of whom have been mentioned. The silmarillion is much harder than most of the works I mentioned.

BTW who is Camille Paglia? Yo soy El León.

And in the end, if you say literature, I asume it is related to "letters," and yes, I would say it is hard then to find people in the last 100 years who have influenced letters. But Adams, Tolkien, Gaddis, are some of my favorite authors. In fact, some of them are even starting to be influential.

Not to mention Joyce's impact on English letters...

[monolith94]

I read some Márquez… a single short story. I wish I had the time / opportunity to read more but the fact is there's only so much time and so many books!

[yaroslav]

Originally posted by Kepler


Excellent choice for a good book, though from Perez-Reverte I preferred The Flanders Panel. I'm slogging through The Seville Communion right now, but it's interminable.

Good point. I love The Flanders Panel; and I also like the chessplayer, that is called Muñoz, like I am called

It's curious that name. "The Seville Communion", the Spanish name is very, very different (The skin of the drummer [if drummer means the same than tambour]). I also encourage you to read his short story about the Spanish soldiers that were forced to join Napoleon's troops and try to resing and join the russian army. It's fun!

[loinburger]

I don't think that I've read ten books in my lifetime, so I'll just have to list the ones that I remember...

1. McGurk and the Case of the Condemned Cat.
2. Robert the Rose Horse.
3. Puff 'n Toot.
4. The Brothers Karamazov.

[MosesPresley]

Originally posted by El Leon
BTW who is Camille Paglia? Yo soy El León.

Literary scholar and author of "Sexual Persona".

I have One Hundred Years of Solitude, but I haven't read it. What little I read seemed to have a nice dreamlike quality to the narrative. Maybe I will have to pick that one back up.

Do you enjoy Jorge Luis Borges? I have only recently discovered him when I read the The Garden of Forked Paths.

***

Buck:

What I like about the best poetry is the way some poets poignantly dissect the anantomy of a moment. The best prose reads like poetry.

but. . .

Isn't poetry dead?

[Drake Tungsten]

1. McGurk and the Case of the Condemned Cat.
2. Robert the Rose Horse.
3. Puff 'n Toot.
4. The Brothers Karamazov.

I think Hop on Pop would've contrasted better with The Brothers Karamazov, but it still works. Cest la vie.

[El León]

I will look up Camille Paglia now, but curious about the comparison.

Try "Chronicle of a death foretold" - it is the best intro to GarcÃa Márquez. 100 years is a little dense sometimes if you are not into him.

Borges was a wonderful man and scholar, not to mention a flawless writer. But I have a hard time with him, it's just a personal thing. He is definitely literature, and you can ask Cortázar, GarcÃa Márquez, and all latin-american writers who engage in fantastic writing about it. Also Ende seems in debt with Borges.

Poetry in prose and another in the GarcÃa Márquez circle is Miguel Angel Asturias. His short stories are good intros to the wonderful "El Señor Presidente," which can preñude "Hombres de MaÃz" very well.

Poetry is dead, but so is God, so go figure.