Best Novel Ever Written

Self | June 25, 2002 | PJ-Comix

[Rocko]

Perhaps Lord of the Rings.

[PJ-Comix]

Believe it or not, I really enjoyed reading Tolstoy's War And Peace. I started reading it a few years ago with much trepidation because of its great length. However, it turned out to be very easy to read (once you got used to the Russian names) because of the great quality of writing. However, Tolstoy blew it at the end with his dopey theories of history. He actually claimed that the French would have marched to Moscow even if Napoleon had never existed because of some mysterious force of history. Dopey.

[PJ-Comix]

Perhaps Lord of the Rings.

Not in the class of writing of From Here To Eternity.

[Carolina]

Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov

[Commander8]

It's pretty hard to choose, but here goes, I liked Thomas Cullinan's The Beguiled because of the author's use of multiple first person narrative. My favorite mystery novel would be Mickey Spillane's I, The Jury. My favorite science fiction novel would be Dune by Frank Herbert. I'm also a huge fan of Forrest Carter's Josey Wales Books.

[Yardstick]

1984 is my favorite. What do you think of 1984, PJ-Comix?

[Skooz]

Oh heck, I have to add Herman Raucher's "Summer fo '42" to the list. Absolutely some of the finest writing I have seen. I first read it when I was 15 (in the summer, no less) and it was so close to my psyche it was like reading my diary. The interaction between the friends in the book reflected my relationship with my friends exactly. Such insight into the personalities of his characters makes it a truly great book. Hardly in the class of "The Lord of the Rings," or "Catch-22," but impressive, nonetheless.

[PJ-Comix]

Doesn't something get lost in the translation? I've talked to folks fluent in Russian and they say there is a lot in the original language that doesn't translate well. Even with folks speaking the same language this applies. Peter Jennings hears "Let's Roll!" and translates it into Canadian as "Let Us Roll." Just not the same thing.

[Rocko]

True; it's better.

[PJ-Comix]

1984 is my favorite. What do you think of 1984, PJ-Comix?

Great book but also the most MISUNDERSTOOD book of all time. It is NOT really about television screens invading our privacy, computers, etc. And, in a way, it isn't even a book about the future (although it is set there). It is actually a SATIRE about the PAST, specifically about the Bolshevik revolution and the society that followed it. Read that book carefully and you will see not only that Big Brother was modelled on Stalin but you can even see the characters based on Kamenev and Zinoviev. And, of course, Goldstein was definitely based on Trotsky.

I used to wonder why Orwell's fascination with Newspeak until I realized that when you control the language, you can control how people think.

Oh, and Oceana suddenly switching allies is based on the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

[Yardstick]

Have you seen this excellent *Atlas Shrugged* spoof?

http://www.freerepublic.com/fo rum/a38bdcc213b5d.htm

[Illbay]

Okay, here's a list, in no particular order, of books that I'd rank highly:

Moby Dick (Melville)
For Whom The Bell Tolls (Hemingway)
Watership Down (Adams)
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
A Study in Scarlet (Conan Doyle)
The Turn of the Screw (James)
The Yearling (Rawlings)
Brave New World (Huxley)
1984 (Orwell)
Slaughterhouse Five (Vonnegut)
USA Trilogy (Dos Pasos)
Lord of the Flies (Golding)
The Age of Innocence (Wharton)
Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
Scoop (Waugh)
The Jungle Book (Kipling)
The Man Who Would Be King (Kipling)
The Call of the Wild (London)
The French Lieutenant's Woman (Fowles)
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (McCullers)
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Bradbury)
I, Claudius (Graves)
Q.B. VII (Uris)

NOTE: This list is by no means exhaustive, and I might be able to think for awhile longer and come up with more. Some I might like better than others, and then next day come back and rearrange the order all over again.

Guess it comes from being "attention deficit," but really, this is a choice the kind of which I can never make.

[Illbay]

Well, that's like asking me "who's the best wife?"

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

I exclude science fiction from this category.

Uhm, pardon me for asking... but why are you excluding SF?

[habs4ever]

Anna Karenina

[HairOfTheDog]

Lord of the Rings! J.R.R. Tolkien...

[PJ-Comix]

I'm not a big Hemingway fan but I did enter a Hemingway writing contest. I lost but I think it is because the folks didn't like to see Hemingway's style parodied as brutally as I did. I wish I could find that entry. It would make you laugh. Basically I substituted a standup comedian facing a nightclub audience for a matador facing the bull.

[HairOfTheDog]

Not in the class of writing of From Here To Eternity.

I thought this was for us to tell you our favorite novels! LoTR may not be yours, but I think it is a matter of preference, not class...

[PJ-Comix]

Uhm, pardon me for asking... but why are you excluding SF?

Different sort of genre than regular novels. Perhaps you should post another thread about Best Science Fiction Book ever written. Even libraries have separate sci-fi sections from fiction novels.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Atlas Shrugged for best exposition on the critical issues of our time.

Lord of the Rings for best story ever told.