December 20, 2002, 03:21
|
#1
|
|
King
Local Time: 07:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Wichita
Posts: 1,352
|
Top ten works of literature ever?
What are the top ten works of fiction ever written?
Without going into too much thought on it, I'll rattle off my own list to hopefully stir some discussion.
Tolstoy - War and Peace
Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment
Cervantes - Don Quixote
Shakespeare - Hamlet
Melville - Moby ****
Dickens - David Copperfield
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
Gugol - Dead Souls
Kafka - Metamorphosis
Twain - Huckleberry Finn
Well, I'm sure I left off an obvious choice or two, so let's hear Apolyton's picks. 
__________________
http://monkspider.blogspot.com/
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 03:30
|
#2
|
|
PolyCast Thread Necromancer
Local Time: 12:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: We are all Asher now.
Posts: 1,437
|
Re: Top ten works of literature ever?
Communist Manifesto 
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 03:39
|
#3
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 07:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Apr 1999
Location: Alexandria, VA
Posts: 4,213
|
Re: Re: Top ten works of literature ever?
|
Quote:
|
Originally posted by Tassadar5000
Communist Manifesto
|
well that definitely fits monkspider's criteria as being a work of fiction.....
__________________
"I'm moving to the Left" - Lancer
"I imagine the neighbors on your right are estatic." - Slowwhand
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 03:40
|
#4
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 08:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: New England
Posts: 3,572
|
Sme personal faves
Crime & Punishment
Brave New World (excluding second to last chapter - ewwww)
Scarlet Letter
the Tempest
The Club Dumas
Lord Of the Flies
whatever… tons o' good stuff out there
weird moment of the day - I'm listening to some philharmonic performance of silent night, supposedly, but it's got this theme from Scheherezade running all through it!
__________________
"mono has crazy flow and can rhyme words that shouldn't, like Eminem"
Drake Tungsten
"get contacts, get a haircut, get better clothes, and lose some weight"
Albert Speer
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 03:41
|
#5
|
|
Apolyton Legend
Local Time: 12:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: .....and George's daughter
Posts: 2,466
|
Ok this is a combined effort from three of us. Myself, my husband and our friiend so here goes............in no particular order.
1. War and Peace
2. Shogun
3. McBeth
4. Charlotte's Web
5. The Bible
6. Grimm's Fairy Tales
7. The Wizzard of Oz
8. Myst of Avalon
9. Romeo and Juliet
10. To Kill A Mockingbird
As you can see we've been having a bit of the holiday cheer alreaaaaaaADDDDDYYYYYYY!! 
__________________
Welcome to earth, my name is Tia and I'll be your tour guide for this trip.
Succulent and Bejeweled Mother Goddess, who is always moisturised yet never greasy, always patient yet never suffers fools~Starchild
Dragons? Yup- big flying lizards with an attitude. ~ Laz
You are forgiven because you are FABULOUS ~ Imran
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 03:47
|
#6
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 08:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: New England
Posts: 3,572
|
I also feel that fairy tales should get a mention as well. My personal favorites are "Bluebeard" and "Sleeping Beauty". I'm currently in the process of writing a not so short story playing with the basic plot of Sleeping Beauty and… twisting it a bit.
__________________
"mono has crazy flow and can rhyme words that shouldn't, like Eminem"
Drake Tungsten
"get contacts, get a haircut, get better clothes, and lose some weight"
Albert Speer
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 03:59
|
#7
|
|
King
Local Time: 15:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: the contradiction is filled with holes...
Posts: 1,398
|
1. Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
2. Brief history of time - Stephen Hawkwind
3. Kama Sutra  -Whoever wrote it
4. 7 veljestä (7 brothers) - Aleksis Kivi
5. Every book about checkoslovakian mole cartoon character - Zdenek Miler
6. Contact - Carl Sagan
7. Operation Finlandia (a book about the swedes attacking Finland in the summer 1974) - Arto Paasilinna
8. All remaining books (about 20) written by Arto Paasilinna
9. World Atlas - various writers
10. HHGTTG and all it's sequels - Douglas Adams
[edit] - oh my, how did I forget D. Adams... 
well, now it is fixed 
__________________
I'm not a complete idiot: some parts are still missing.
Last edited by aaglo; December 20, 2002 at 04:48.
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 04:07
|
#8
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 07:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: of Fear and Oil
Posts: 5,892
|
Fiction, eh? I suppose my list would seem somewhat unorthodox. I can't stand a lot of the "classics."
George Orwell - "Burmese Days"
Kurt Vonnegut - "Slaughterhouse 5"
Joseph Heller - "Catch 22"
Frank Herbert - "Dune"
Isaac Asimov - "Foundation"
Vernor Vinge - "A Deepness in the Sky"
Douglas Adams - "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
Ursula K. Le Guin - "The Dispossessed"
George R. R. Martin - "A Game of Thrones" (actually, every member of the the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series is excellent, but I'm singling out the first book)
James Clavell - "Shogun"
__________________
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. "
-Bokonon
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 04:09
|
#9
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 07:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: of Fear and Oil
Posts: 5,892
|
|
Quote:
|
|
Brief history of time - Stephen Hawkwind
|
I didn't know Hawking made all that up.
__________________
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. "
-Bokonon
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 04:10
|
#10
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 08:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: New England
Posts: 3,572
|
Mostly Harmless was, in my opinion, more meaningful of a novel.
__________________
"mono has crazy flow and can rhyme words that shouldn't, like Eminem"
Drake Tungsten
"get contacts, get a haircut, get better clothes, and lose some weight"
Albert Speer
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 04:12
|
#11
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 07:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: of Fear and Oil
Posts: 5,892
|
I haven't gotten that far in the series yet. I've only read to book 4 (or maybe 3).
__________________
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. "
-Bokonon
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 04:38
|
#12
|
|
Prince
Local Time: 07:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: The Reality-Based Community
Posts: 428
|
I can only go by the ones that I have read. These are some of my favorites:
Gravity's Rainbow: Thomas Pynchon
Breakfast of Champions: Kurt Vonnegut,
Post Office: Charles Bukowski,
Skinny Legs and All: Tom Robbins,
Animal Farm: George Orwell,
Catch-22: Joseph Heller,
Lolita: Nabokov,
MacBeth: Shakespeare,
The Trial: Kafka,
The Sailor who Fell From Grace with the Sea: Yukio Mishima.
Does anyone else here enjoy reading T. C. Boyle?
I also like H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. I must have read The War of the Worlds and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, six or seven times each.
Currently I just started reading "The Hotel New Hampshire" by John Irving.
__________________
"In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed. But they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
—Orson Welles as Harry Lime
Last edited by MosesPresley; December 20, 2002 at 04:43.
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 04:46
|
#13
|
|
King
Local Time: 07:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Wichita
Posts: 1,352
|
Ah, Brave New World, that is a great pick boyo. That reminds me of a book that should have been in my top ten, Zamyatin's "We".
Interesting picks, everyone.
__________________
http://monkspider.blogspot.com/
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 04:51
|
#14
|
|
Deity
Local Time: 14:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Republic of Flanders
Posts: 10,747
|
In no order
Céline- journey to the end of the night
Heller-catch 22
Huxley-brave new world
Vonnegut-Slaughterhouse 5
Orwell-1984
Solzjenitsin-In the first circle
Graves- I Claudius
Mailer-the naked and the dead
Adams-hitchiker
Eco- The name of the rose
and many others,.....
__________________
#There’s a city in my mind
Come along and take that ride
And it’s all right, baby, it’s all right #
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 04:57
|
#15
|
|
Deity
Local Time: 14:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Republic of Flanders
Posts: 10,747
|
|
Quote:
|
Originally posted by MosesPresley
I can only go by the ones that I have read. These are some of my favorites:
Gravity's Rainbow: Thomas Pynchon
|
Didn't understand a flippin' word of it( needed a dictionairy, even to read it in dutch, closed it after about 10 pages  :
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhh 
This one put me of reading for 6 months,( picked it up again by reading Wilt(Sharpe) ), I did finish it though.
__________________
#There’s a city in my mind
Come along and take that ride
And it’s all right, baby, it’s all right #
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 05:07
|
#16
|
|
PolyCast Thread Necromancer
Local Time: 12:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: We are all Asher now.
Posts: 1,437
|
Re: Re: Re: Top ten works of literature ever?
|
Quote:
|
Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
well that definitely fits monkspider's criteria as being a work of fiction.....
|
Hmm....Just goes to show one should read the post before posting
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 05:38
|
#17
|
|
King
Local Time: 15:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Shireroth
Posts: 2,792
|
Just a few 's to already mentioned books (ones that I've read):
Douglas Adams: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series
Isaac Asimov: Foundation series
Aleksis Kivi: Seitsemän Veljestä (one of the best works of fiction ever written by a Finn)
Plus, perhaps, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I'll have to read the whole series (have only read the first book) to make any sort of a judgement, though.
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 05:42
|
#18
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 12:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: All Glory To The Hypnotoad!
Posts: 4,223
|
|
Quote:
|
Originally posted by Ramo
I haven't gotten that far in the series yet. I've only read to book 4 (or maybe 3).
|
Stop now. It only goes downhill from there. 
__________________
If I'm posting here then Counterglow must be down.
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 05:43
|
#19
|
|
Settler
Local Time: 04:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Lovely Oregon
Posts: 5
|
|
Quote:
|
Originally posted by monolith94
The Club Dumas
|
Excellent choice for a good book, though from Perez-Reverte I preferred The Flanders Panel. I'm slogging through The Seville Communion right now, but it's interminable.
From Twain, rather than Huck Finn I'll take Life on the Mississippi, one of the two great American novels (the other being Moby D1ck.
I'd definitely include the Collected Works of H.G. Wells, especially since he poses the immortal "three books" question at the end of Time Machine. Also "Winnie the Pooh," IMHO the greatest work of children's literature for adults ever written.
And I have a special fondness for Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novellas and short stories (having read about 60 of the 70-or-so), though I don't think I'd them on the heavy hitter list.
__________________
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct. Benjamin Disraeli
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 05:48
|
#20
|
|
King
Local Time: 05:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Posts: 1,417
|
Very tough to choose, and bound to change from day to day.
I agree that Catch-22 has to be on that list, and I like a lot of Russian fiction, Gogol, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Lermentov, Tolstoy. I would also recommend Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov who was born in Russia but wrote Lolita in English, and almost anything from Joseph Conrad, who writes so well it's hard to believe that English was his 3rd language. One could easily fill the list with these authors alone, and I haven't even gotten to the Brits or Americans yet.
I am surprised to find Hitchhikers Guide mentioned, and shocked to see it mentioned more than once. It was amusing, but to me about as memorable as an average comic book.
__________________
He's got the Midas touch.
But he touched it too much!
Hey Goldmember, Hey Goldmember!
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 05:54
|
#21
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 14:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Mar 1999
Location: Ivory tower
Posts: 3,511
|
Ok here I go (in no particular order and excluding some literature in Swedish only):
* Joseph Heller: Catch 22
* Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness
* Irvine Welsh: Trainspottning
* Fjodor Dostorjevskij: Crime and Punishment
* Hermann Hesse: Steppenwolf
* Luke Rhinehart: The Dice Man
* Albert Camus: Tje Myth of Sisyphus
* George Orwell: 1984
* Jaroslav Hasek: The Good Soldier Svejk
* Karel Capek: War of the Newts
Hard not to be inspired by others here. Also, obviously there's to many books I haven't read. I tried not to be pretentious but it's not easy when we're talking about the top ten.
__________________
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer
In GAIS we trust!
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 05:55
|
#22
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 12:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: All Glory To The Hypnotoad!
Posts: 4,223
|
|
Quote:
|
Originally posted by Kepler
Also "Winnie the Pooh," IMHO the greatest work of children's literature for adults ever written.
|
it is IMHO too. 
__________________
If I'm posting here then Counterglow must be down.
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 06:17
|
#23
|
|
King
Local Time: 13:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Leeds, UK
Posts: 1,257
|
Limiting myself to one book per person (and in no particular order):
1. Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein
2. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
3. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
4. The Dispossessed - Ursula LeGuin (hard to pick just one of hers)
5. 1984 - George Orwell
6. Nostromo - Joseph Conrad
7. Possession - A. S. Byatt
8. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
9. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
10. To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis
EDIT: I'm tempted to throw in 'Of Mice and Men' or 'The Grapes of Wrath' now I've thought a bit more, but am not sure that any of the above deserve to be booted out to make room.
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 06:42
|
#24
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 14:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Aug 2000
Posts: 4,512
|
Homer - Odyssee
Thomas Morus - Utopia
Cervantes - Don Quixote
Shakespeare - Mac Beth
Shakespeare - Hamlet
Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland
George Orwell - 1984
J.R.R. Tolkien - Lord of the Rings
That's only 8, I know. But these arfe all that sprung to my mind first and so be it.
__________________
"The world is too small in Vorarlberg". Austrian ex-vice-chancellor Hubert Gorbach in a letter to Alistar [sic] Darling, looking for a job...
"Let me break this down for you, fresh from algebra II. A 95% chance to win 5 times means a (95*5) chance to win = 475% chance to win." Wiglaf, Court jester or hayseed, you judge.
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 06:59
|
#25
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 07:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: San Antonio
Posts: 18,269
|
Going only by books that I have read:
Genesis - Bible
Ivan Denisovich - Solzhenitsen
Crime & Punishment - Dostoyevski
Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
Heart of Darkness - Conrad
Things Fall Apart - Achebe
Foundation series - Asimov
To Sail beyond the Sunset - Heinlein
Rowan - Anne McCaffrey
Hammer of God - Clarke
__________________
Scouse Git (2) LaFayette and Adam Smith you will be missed
"All my own perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded upon Our Lady." - JRR Tolkein
Get busy living or get busy dying.
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 07:23
|
#26
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 06:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: orangesoda
Posts: 8,643
|
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Everything else on my list has already been mentioned (I just don't want to have to decide between so many good books ).
__________________
"tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner"
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 07:46
|
#27
|
|
King
Local Time: 13:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Leeds, UK
Posts: 1,257
|
|
Quote:
|
Originally posted by Aeson
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Everything else on my list has already been mentioned (I just don't want to have to decide between so many good books ).
|
That was another one that I was considering sticking in my list - if I could find someone else to chop out. I just couldn't be bothered to edit my post a second time...
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 09:00
|
#28
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 08:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: New England
Posts: 3,572
|
Frustrated Poet, I beg to disagree. Mostly harmless is the most ideologically transcendent and significant of all the series. It holds a surrealisticly simplistic quality about it, and deals excellently with relationships between simple folks just mucking about in the world. Highly reccomended by moi. Although my two favorite moments are the mountain sequence, where he learns to fly, and gets the olive oil, and where he flies by a jet-liner with his girlfriend there.
Two books which deserve mentioning:
Martian Chronicles - FÜCKING AMAZING BOOK! Altered my perception of chronological narrative forever!
Real Life Of Sebastian Knight - The overlooked Nabokov book, overlooked in favor of Lolita. This book expresses so many profound thoughts and ideas, in a structure so complex yet elegant! My favorite quote from it: "Imagination is the muscle of the soul".
__________________
"mono has crazy flow and can rhyme words that shouldn't, like Eminem"
Drake Tungsten
"get contacts, get a haircut, get better clothes, and lose some weight"
Albert Speer
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 10:27
|
#29
|
|
King
Local Time: 13:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Leeds, UK
Posts: 1,257
|
Oh, and by the way, anyone who picks a Dickens novel ( monkspider ) will be summarily executed for being a depressing b*st*rd.
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 20, 2002, 10:43
|
#30
|
|
Emperor
Local Time: 07:58
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: It doesn't matter what your name is!
Posts: 3,601
|
I don't see why 1984 is such a popular choice. I didn't think it was that well written, and the concept - while interesting - was not as developed as it could have been.
I think Lord of the Flies is an excellent choice as a great book but not sure about top 10 of all time simply due to the fact that it's not very long. Still very, very good though. One of my all time favourites.
__________________
"Chegitz, still angry about the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991?
You provide no source. You PROVIDE NOTHING! And yet you want to destroy capitalism.. you criminal..." - Fez
"I was hoping for a Communist utopia that would last forever." - Imran Siddiqui
|
|
|
|
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is On
|
|
|
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 08:58.
|
|
