# What classic novel have you read recently for the first time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 3, 2005, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947 "2005-12-03T22:04:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/41 "2005-12-05T15:58:28Z")
I read Pride & Prejudice last summer ('04) and Oliver Twist this spring/summer. I really enjoy Dickens. P&P I liked as a romance and as an engaging story; I’m not sure if there was more I was supposed to get out of it. Well written, though. I also recently read Sophie’s Choice for the second time; the first was almost half my life ago. I liked it, but it didn’t speak to me as viscerally as it did when I was a few years shy of being the narrator’s age, instead of a decade beyond it. But the last hundred pages were still as gripping as anything I’ve ever read. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/42 "2005-12-05T18:12:09Z")
Not quite sure whether this counts – either as a classic or a novel – but I just finished reading _The Right Stuff_. Liked it a lot. It truly elevated my regard for the movie, which was already on my list of favorites. Now and then, of course, the prose style becomes a bit grating, seeming overly concerned with clever catch phrases. But I can say without a doubt that this is far and away the most readable work of non-fiction I’ve ever encountered. Got around to reading _Ivanhoe_ last year. Great book. Normally fiction from that era bores me to tears. Soooo slow moving, impossibly pendantic dialogue, and countless obscure references that kept me Googling into the wee hours. Not so this book. Against all possible expectations I found myself reading many passages aloud, so taken was I with the sheer beauty of the language. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/43 "2005-12-05T18:18:00Z")
> [@Kizarvexius](#): > > Not quite sure whether this counts – either as a classic or a novel – but I just finished reading _The Right Stuff_. Liked it a lot. It truly elevated my regard for the movie, which was already on my list of favorites. Now and then, of course, the prose style becomes a bit grating, seeming overly concerned with clever catch phrases. But I can say without a doubt that this is far and away the most readable work of non-fiction I’ve ever encountered. May I suggest you try reading _Band of Brothers_ if you enjoyed that. Very similar in that it’s a very nicely paced and engrosing work of non-fiction. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/44 "2005-12-05T18:19:10Z")
**Frankenstein**. It’s weird how articulate the monster is in the novel, while I couldn’t help but picture him like Herman Munster. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/45 "2005-12-05T18:35:25Z")
I recently read _In Cold Blood_, Capote’s “non fiction novel” (his phrase), and thought it was excellent. I’d read most of his short-stories and _Answered Prayers_ but this was the first time I’d read his magnum opus, which was in preparation for the movie. It was almost as good as he said it was. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/46 "2005-12-05T19:10:12Z")
_The Demolished Man_ by Alfred Bester. Now I understand where Philip K. Dick got the genesis for many of his ideas; Bester is Dick without the methamphetemine-induced paranoia and schizoid delusions. I’ve _One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich_ by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on the To Read: Soon stack, but there’s no telling when I’ll actually get to it. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/47 "2005-12-05T19:25:41Z")
Earlier this year, I read _On the Road_, _Sons and Lovers_, _Invisible Man_, _Brave New World_, and _Sound and the Fury_. [QUOTE=scotandrsn] The mea culpa at the end, where the protagonist apologizes to Lolita and pointing out that he indicated the work should not be published until after her death (a moment whose poignancy, owing to specific dates mentioned in the book which when combined with the publication date, indicate Lolita, still a young woman, had died almost immediately after the narrative, was initially lost on me due to the great remove of time) came as too little, too late to cover up the fact that this is basically pedophilic porn for a repressed age. Is this some definition of porn that I’m not aware of? Something like “written with intent to disgust?” ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/48 "2005-12-05T19:57:01Z")
> [@scotandrsn](#): > > decision-making tool. > I’ll also put up Lolita, which I completed relatively recently. > > The mea culpa at the end, where the protagonist apologizes to Lolita and pointing out that he indicated the work should not be published until after her death (a moment whose poignancy, owing to specific dates mentioned in the book which when combined with the publication date, indicate Lolita, still a young woman, had died almost immediately after the narrative, was initially lost on me due to the great remove of time) came as too little, too late to cover up the fact that this is basically pedophilic porn for a repressed age. > > It is definitely a product of its time. I don’t know. I felt that the focus of the book was on the character of H. H., more than on a steamy man/girl relationship. YMMV, of course. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/49 "2005-12-05T20:22:15Z")
I was sorta disappointed with _Lolita_ (I read it the better part of a decade ago, so I don’t necessarily remember it all that well), but not because it was porn. I thought that aspect of it was handled extraordinarily well. I just thought that after the first third, most of the book (the picaresque part) was just kinda boring – by then, you’d either thrown the book down in disgust OR made your peace with Humbert’s monstrosity, so an extended portrait of Humbert’s further monstrosity didn’t do much for me. I agree with **scot** ’s spoiler about the end, though. I really loved the Ardian Lynne movie of some years ago; I thought he really got it right, and there wasn’t time in a hour and a half to get bored as I did after a hundred pages. I also really liked the ending of the film, although it’s very different in tone than the book’s. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/50 "2005-12-05T20:26:55Z")
I just recently finished “All the King’s Men”. It was good. ---
**Author:** ![Billy\_Powell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@Billy\_Powell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billy_Powell)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/51 "2005-12-06T01:30:58Z")
> [@Art Vandelay](#): > > Hey, I just picked this up over the weekend. I’ve read through chapter three so far. Yeah, it’s tough to follow. But I admit I cheated a bit, and brushed up on the original “Odyssey” beforehand (since each chapter of Joyce’s book supposedly corresponds to an episode in the original greek epic.) There also exists at least one recording of Joyce’s reading of a brief excerpt from Ulysses – worth investigating. It probably should be read aloud or heard, especially on a first read. I would find no fault with one who purchased one of the skeleton-key-type books to aid with the references, although I think the book is understandable to some extent without a sure knowledge of the (many) fancy references. That said, I’m not sure I’d bother spending much time getting at the hard kernel of that scat-obsessed attempt at humor. It’s at the very bottom of the heap of important 20th-century novels, in my own canon. I don’t think it will stand the test of time as well as, for example “The Man Without Qualities,” or “Life: A User’s Guide,” or “Nostromo,” but we’ll see, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Emily\_Litella](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emily_litella/32/3370_2.png) [@Emily\_Litella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emily_Litella)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/52 "2005-12-06T03:59:12Z")
> [@Art Vandelay](#): > > Hey, I just picked this up over the weekend. I’ve read through chapter three so far. Yeah, it’s tough to follow. But I admit I cheated a bit, and brushed up on the original “Odyssey” beforehand (since each chapter of Joyce’s book supposedly corresponds to an episode in the original greek epic.) And you’ve already read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man too, right? I’ve read Catcher in the Rye and Lolita years ago and wasn’t too impressed with them. I read Godel, Esher & Bach and Far from the Madding Crowd, they were interesting. The last classic I read was Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, but I had an old Readers Digest Classics version, and I enjoyed it. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was really good too. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/53 "2005-12-06T05:00:54Z")
> [@Dolores Reborn](#): > > I read _Catcher in the Rye_. It sucked and I didn’t finish it. See my earlier [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=170162) about this very book. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2005, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947/54 "2005-12-07T01:35:26Z")
I watched \*\*Bridge of San Luis Rey \*\* this past weekend but it didn’t do much for me. I understand it’s quite different from the book which I may read in the near future. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-classic-novel-have-you-read-recently-for-the-first-time/333947.md?page=2)