Posted on 03/02/2022 9:20:32 AM PST by C19fan
What about Breakfast at Tiffany’s?
Brothers Karamozov, Frankenstein, and Don Quixote better than the entire list, except Moby Dick.
Ulysses not that great.
>>3:Melville “Mody Dick”<<
Never heard of it:)
In other words, what you see is what you get. Or think you get.
Brutus ‘buries’ Caesar in his speech defending his treachery, after murdering him, and then Marc Antony comes along and tears Brutus a new one. We rarely read about Marc Antony's amazing rebuke of Brutus. I actually wept when I read it decades ago.
No Dostoevsky?
I can go with that interpretation. “Inescapable” being the key word and recurring theme.
Dull? Where does that leave Clarissa and Middlemarch?
Now Ulysses is actually quite entertaining, if you have the background to understand it. Few do.
Good ones I read: The Grapes of Wrath; The Sound and the Fury; Of Mice and Men; Atlas Shrugged*; MacBeth; Hamlet; Julius Ceasar; Romeo and Juliet; The Sun Also Rises; The Old Man and the Sea.
Given your screen name, that’s frightening...
We had to read Moby Dick in high school. Instead of War and Peace, we read Anna Karenina. I wonder what they’re reading now?
So am I and I was an English major, so most of those were assigned reading in high school or college.
I didn’t read “Bleak House,” but did read “Oliver Twist” and “David Copperfield.” I somehow managed to escape ever having to read “Moby Dick.”
Whenever I see a reference to the book “War and Peace,” I can taste a McDonald’s Big Mac. That book was a semester and I spent a lot of my lunch hours in college reading it. I was in a Big Mac phase then (plus, it was what I could afford.)
It’s funny how the mind does that. I haven’t had a Big Mac in forever.
The Brothers Karamazov was assigned to me in high school.
you might need the cliff notes. it can be like translating hungarian with a dictionary, slow but eventually rewarding. or not.
If anyone who isn't a college professor tells me that they read "Ulysses" I automatically assume they are not being truthful. There is an infinitesimal chance that I am misjudging them, but I'm okay with that risk level.
Wasn't that a Led Zeppelin song?
Images.....by Tyrone Green
Dark and lonely on a summer's night.
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.
Watchdog barking. Do he bite?
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.
Slip in his window. Break his neck.
Then his house I start to wreck.
Got no reason. What the heck?
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.
C-I-L-L my land lord!
None of these books are “dull”. Either you enjoy reading or you don’t.
I was going to mention Gravity’s Rainbow, which used to have a reputation as a novel no one’s ever completed.
Animal Farm, OTOH, is a super easy read. You could do it in an afternoon.
Moby Dick is not for everyone, but I enjoy tales of the sea and whaling. Likewise Bleak House, fine by me but I don't recommend it to others. Ditto Les Miserables.
In home school, I didn't merely read these works, I explored and studied them, discussed and pondered them. I didn't have to wonder what the author was getting at.
But if you're just going to read these authors, go for the shorter works.
As for Shakespeare, it takes a lot of time to "get" the Bard. Worth it in the long run, keep a volume in your bomb shelter. ;)
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