The list is fine, The Alchemist is the only one I haven’t read. Gatsby is brilliant - one long punching up of the rich and the careless and those who worship The American Dream.
It was a little strange reading that after 1984. Koestler’s is the earlier book, and it’s hard not to imagine that Orwell read it a few times. It’s quite good, but I agree probably not in a top 10 way.
Leaving the West, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy is fantastic, but I’d warn that it’s also work - non-linear narrative, lyrical, and long.
I’ve read all on the OP list and enjoyed them except The Alchemist, which I would retitle I Am a Self-Absorbed Fuck Who Benefits from Patriarchy and Thinks All Other People, Especially Women, Exist to Support My Existential Fuck Wanderlust–I Am a Rock, I Am an Island! I’ve also read his Camino book, which could have the same title, and won’t try a third.
As mentioned, the OP list is pretty canonical, and there are lists around with excellent works by women, POC, writers from other continents, etc. No reason not to read canon, but it’s also good to put it in world context.
Your exact words were “Tolkien is for kids.” Not “The Lord of the Rings is for kids” (which I completely disagree with.) “The Hobbit” is for kids. His other works, not really.
MAD magazine had a bit about a book publisher who got rich by publishing “the classics” with fancy covers but were blank inside. His business model was parents bought these for their kids because “everyone should read these books,” but never bothered to open them, and if the kids did open them, they were delighted they didn’t have to read them.
Literature gives us looks at other people in other circumstances, and a “classic” may not speak to you and your experience and aspirations. If it does, great! If not, you can spend a lot of time gnashing teeth and wishing more of those pages were blank.
Also: have never understood the love for Tolkien. Have not been able to finish any of the books. T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, on the other hand…
I love Borges and re-read him regularly. But he was wrong on that one. 100 years of solitude in Spanish is probably my favourite book. But I understand getting into a fight among colleagues very well and I appreciate being sardonic for the sheer joy of it.
The list is half OK-ish: it includes two books I want to read some day (To The Lighthouse and Pride and Prejudice), a couple which are not bad at all, and only two I cannot stand. I never got the Catcher in the Rye and I am not going to try again, and Paolo Coelho, well, three or four posters have already expressend their contempt for that pretentious wanker better than I could, so I won’t.
You’re claiming that ‘it’, in the part of the sentence you decided not to quote, is referring to Tolkein’s oeuvre rather than the specific books that had been referenced multiple times and are what’s included in the list this thread is based on?
It was written in 1985 - I understand that when talking about literary classics it doesn’t quite clear the bar, but “new” isn’t the first criticism I’d have. I do, however, give it credit for still being politically relevant 40 years on.
I’ve read all of them other than To The Lighthouse, and it’s pretty much your standard English Lit 101 / AP Lit syllabus.
It’s a good enough list, but I think you could do well to add a few that have been listed in this thread:
The Stranger by Camus Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky The Trial by Kafka
Maybe something by VS Naipul or the aforementioned Things Fall Apart.
I also think Love in the Time of Cholera might be better than 100 Years of Solitude if you want Marquez in there - at least more approachable and still gives a feel for the style.
Of all of those I’ve only read LOTR. I have a strong preference for science fiction and fantasy and seldom read other fiction. 1984 and Handmaid’s Tale I’ve never read because they are famously depressing and I’ve become less and less willing to read depressing fiction, especially given how prevalent it is these days.
I do agree with the position that 10 books is just way too small a selection.
Oh, I agree with this too. I tried it last year, and hell no. It was fine up through the tilting at windmills part, which is more than enough to get the flavor and “appreciate it”. Then you can just stop.
I think from the OP list I would drop: The Alchemist, 1984, To The Lighthouse, and probably The Handmaid’s Tale.
Replace them with: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Things Fall Apart, Crime and Punishment, and either The Stranger (or The Plague, perhaps) or The Trial.
And really I think you could probably drop LOTR (as much as I love it) and put in Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison, not HG Wells)- I think that would be a worthwhile substitution as well.
To the Lighthouse is experimental/modernist and definitely not for everyone, but it was an important piece of literary fiction. Don Quixote in a good translation that explains the word play is great fun.
I’m definitely going to add Huckleberry Finn to my list. I’ve never read it. I’m glad that some on the list have some people saying not to bother because some just don’t appeal to me. Oh I’ll also add Moby Dick.
No, you’re right, I was thinking of the original title “La Peste” and carelessly translated it into false English. The same thing I did in this thread with Kafka’s “The Trial” (Der Process). Sorry.