Twenty four, I guess. Some of them were read in my teen years and would bear a good rereading. I’ve tackled *Sophie’s Choice * periodically over the years but I can never get through all that stuff about her job in the first third of the book.
And a couple of years ago I finally got those last few pages of Heart of Darkness read. Starting the proper way, from the very beginning. Don’t know how many times I’ve gone at that book. For some reason I just shut down toward the end.
My first degree was in English Literature and I sometimes feel insufficiently read in the classics. And reading things for class is a little different for me than reading for pleasure.
I’m always promising myself that when it’s rocking chair time I’ll get around to it.
I’ve read 35 of the top 100, including all of the top 22. For a while there I made a real effort to go down the list, and I’d like to resume that one day. My favorites included Gatsby, Lolita, Darkness at Noon, Brave New World, Midnight’s Children, and Pale Fire. I’m not in the pro-Joyce camp.
I remember having a hard time with that one too, despite its brevity. I think my problem was it was just so damned depressing, in such a realistic, detailed, nuanced, and believable way.
I remember reading a “short” story by Conrad that was about 40 pages where a tall ship literally tipped over (broached and was blown down), and stays that way for a day or so, until the wind lets up and the ship rights itselft. That’s about all that happens, yet every paragraph is gripping and relentless, like the storm winds that are keeping the ship on its side. Unforgettable.