>>10
As for Nabokov, please don't misunderstand me. My appreciation of Lolita has nothing to do with pedophelia or anything of the sort. It's just an amazingly well written book. And, anyways, his stuff other than Lolita is rather incredible as well.
Also, I just started reading Vonnegut about a week ago. Breakfast of Champion was my first, and I'm in the middle of Timequake now. Stuff's genius.
The only indecent post in the thread. Probably doesn't recognize many of the titles posted, so chooses to just be a dick. Some great books posted. Chronicles of Corwin? Fuck yeah. Can't lose.
My favorite (right now) is Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger.
Name:
Anonymous2009-03-25 13:43
It would have to be Of Mice And Men or 1984.
of mice and men made me cry so hard, fantastic story.
1984 is a tie simply because of the idea of newspeak and about how uncanny some of the actions of the current governments are today.
Name:
Anonymous2009-03-25 23:30
Peril's Gate by Janny Wurts.
Seriously, you can't insult it unless you can say you've actually read the entire thing. The character development is simply amazing.
I wasn't implying that you were a pedophile. I personally was expecting a little more from Nabokov after reading Laughter in the Dark. The basic plot of marriage gone awry that results in destruction was done better in Anna Karenina, imo. And I didn't like Anna Karenina itself that much.
While that book was written well, I think that novels need for both the plot and subplot to be interesting in order to be a good read. Anna Karenina had a good subplot in that it foreshadows Tolstoy's own spiritual crisis, but the actual tale of marital infidelity is something out of a soap opera. I'd argue the same for Dostoevsky's Idiot as well.
I'd appreciate it if anyone here could try to change my perspective.
Name:
Anonymous2009-03-29 16:15
>>15
Lolita was "the basic plot of marriage gone awry"? What book were you reading?
Name:
Anonymous2009-03-29 16:51
>Laughter in the Dark
Name:
Anonymous2009-03-29 23:21
1984
Name:
Anonymous2009-03-29 23:24
The Demon-Haunted World
Name:
Anonymous2009-03-29 23:57
>>15
A large part of what makes Nabokov so amazing (Lolita in particular) is that he was a native russian speaker, who then learned french, german, THEN English, and he still wrote a traveling-the-road story better than Kerouac could have ever imagined.
As for why I like it, there was just something about that novel that really made literature "click" with me. Something about it just lit my fire, and I still can't really put a finger on exactly what that was.
Name:
Anonymous2009-03-30 16:59
bourbaki commutative algebra
Name:
Anonymous2009-03-30 21:12
>>11
You should read Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle. Probably his most famous works. And you're right, the man was a goddamn genius.