Wow. I read seven of these books, and I hated six of them (Kundera was actually good). I wonder how come I agree with every single one of your substack posts, but find your literary taste so wrong 🤣
I wonder how Lolita reads today? Nabokov certainly wasn’t endorsing child abuse, but I’m curious if the book would be too disturbing for a lot of people to read nowadays.
I found Vronksy petulant and immature at his best; unthinking, dangerously impulsive and emotional at his worst. I think he was my least favorite character in Anna Karenina overall, and even I can agree, he does get a bad wrap. The situation himself and Anna find themselves in is by no means (for me) motivated by malice or a willingness to act evilly to the other affected parties (i.e. Karenin, Kitty, etc). Given the confines of aristocratic Russian society of Tolstoy’s time, Anna and Vronsky’s love does feel poignant and obviously boundary-pushing, and perhaps a more rational, “unfeeling”, or sensible pair of people would not have pursued their feelings for one another as Anna and Vronksy do, so to avoid the ostracism seen in the novel. As much as I did not like Vronksy, I found Karenin and Countess Ivanovna actually malicious, cruel and quite despisable at times, but perhaps their position as more “background” characters (especially the countess), may lead the general negative feeling to be pointed more towards a leading character like Vronksy.
People read novels recreationally that involve murder all the time and think nothing of it, but are afraid to read a book about an ephebophile. Nabokov wrote English--which wasn't even his first language--beautifully. "Lolita" is safe to read. Humbert's obsession is not contagious from the page.
I have not read 9, 5, and 2, but I approve or at least don't disapprove of the others, though I'd swap Plath for something by Dickens and possibly quibble about the relative rankings. But I am appalled to hear that Brideshead is now "best known for being an early novel about homosexuality." One has to be fairly tin-eared or maybe just ideologically very narrow to think it's "about" homosexuality, though the homosexual aspect is certainly there. I would think in fact that it would deserve some favor from the progressive-minded precisely because the gayness is treated pretty matter-of-factly as something not that unusual in the place and time. And class.
If you haven't already, you should see the 1981 BBC dramatization of it. I just finished watching it for the third time since it came out and I don't think there has ever been a more entirely successful adaptation of a novel.
I should note that I haven't read several of these since I was in my twenties, which is to say some fifty years ago. Not sure what I would think of Lolita now.
Good list & breakdowns. A few you listed are favs of mine….White Noise is excellent post modern, Sun Also Rises great after WWI the wandering years in between, and Brideshead Revisited is the classic story of dandy boys and social changes —all listed picks are great reads.
I hope 'Sun Also' is good in print, 'cuz the 1959 production with Tyrone Power & Ava Gardner is BO-RING (I've given it three shots), although Errol Flynn's swan song is actually terrific.
'The Lord of the Rings' is the greatest tale of the 20th century in this language, and Tolkien is the greatest storyteller of the 20th century in English. Good writers are a dime a dozen. The *storyteller*, though - ahh, *that's* the rara avis!
'Fury' is remarkable. 'Light in August' is the Technicolor apocalypse, though, for my money. He tore my mind apart.
**
Just a poor player fretting his strings on a wooden 'O'.
I've already commented on your recent video, in parallel with me studying this 10/11 list of yours. All of this really got me thinking about my own books still to read, but I'm on a bit of a different tangent than you. It's not that I don't like your list or writings, no, not at all. It is just that I'm an ex technologist, now reborn as a prospective writer against the Machine, aka technology. Yes, it's kind of radical. Yip, there's quite a few of us, eg Paul Kingsnorth whom I'm sure you've heard of, Peco and his wife Ruth, many others in this genre. So yes the academic, not sure if that's the right term, literature you push does stir me. I really loved the Russian authors, just like you do, still do. But there's a certain angle about this techno stuff that hits the road.
Ok thanks, here below is a note I wrote to Ted Gioio, after you started all this reader list thing. You may or may not find that interesting, be my guest...
QUOTE
Wow, it's quite ironic you wrote this now, or recently. I've been studying the unscrupulous roll out of AI and trying to make out head or tail about the PR, the hype, etc. Before reading this I came to the conclusion that this whole polemic is actually not about technology per se. This belongs in the philosophical and spiritual arenas, where things like our origin, morality, ethics and so forth are really the subject matter to unravel. The bots and the phones are just the physical / digital manifestation of the hidden, deeper side of this, IMHO.
Furthermore your list came across my desk while another writer Liza Lives, of pens and poison fame, posted a video that made fun of Ben Shapiro wrt their respective reading lists. As a aspiring writer I'm caught between this not sure what to call it, academic literature vs. the list you have kindly opened now for us writers that unfortunately just can't afford all these subscriptions to our favourite writers. If I was earning well from my writing, which I pray I can do someday, then I will certainly be doing just that. I'm doing this, learning to be an authentic, organic, warm blooded writer vs. the wannabe pseudo writers that I note, even here on this platform. They are chasing the wind in their ambitious journey of gluttony, using whatever to get famous and rich, including the unscrupulous use of AI. The latter is of course the biggest crime of undercover plagiarism that's been committed, in broad daylight. It really makes me sick.
OK Ted, I'm a fan. Thank you again for kindly sharing your wisdom RE these books. I respect your choices, many resonate with me. However, as a Christian, with respect, I think you've not given credit to some legendary Christian writers, like C. S. Lewis. For example "The Abolition of Man" I would have expected to see in your list, even if you are more of a humanist than I am. He didn't write that with any overly Bible punching, judgemental words. I think his level headed, critical analysis, now more than 80 years ago, is highly relevant wrt what is currently happening RE the rapid, or should I say rabid, adoption of AI. The suffering this is already causing, completely unjustified in most instances, to experienced creators that I personally know, oh many people. It is truly approaching the abolution of humanity IMHO.
It goes without saying that this is what is moving me, even enraging me because you see, I'm old school. The pen, authentic human writing, has and will always be mightier than the sword, even if the latter is of a fancy, crafty, even perhaps devious digital kind.
END OF QUOTE
Love never fails 🌾
PS: I'm a former addict, and that life motto comes from those days. I'm here, but for the grace of God.
Wow. I read seven of these books, and I hated six of them (Kundera was actually good). I wonder how come I agree with every single one of your substack posts, but find your literary taste so wrong 🤣
Master & Margareta is one of my all time faves. Glad it makes another person’s top 10 too.
I wonder how Lolita reads today? Nabokov certainly wasn’t endorsing child abuse, but I’m curious if the book would be too disturbing for a lot of people to read nowadays.
Fair question! I had an issue with 100 Years of Solitude when I reread it earlier this year.
What issue?
The 9 year old being married off....and all the incest.
Okay... but I think that's kind of the point of the whole book, the family destroying itself.
Agree. But there are other ways of doing it..... although maybe not as LOUD.
Great choices!
Great list! I would add All the Kings Men, Absolam, Absolam and The Moviegoer
I have The Brothers Karamazov as my first choice as well.
I am curious.....why does Vronsky get such a bad rap?
I mean, he has a list of faults, but why is he made more of a villain than others in the novel?
I found Vronksy petulant and immature at his best; unthinking, dangerously impulsive and emotional at his worst. I think he was my least favorite character in Anna Karenina overall, and even I can agree, he does get a bad wrap. The situation himself and Anna find themselves in is by no means (for me) motivated by malice or a willingness to act evilly to the other affected parties (i.e. Karenin, Kitty, etc). Given the confines of aristocratic Russian society of Tolstoy’s time, Anna and Vronsky’s love does feel poignant and obviously boundary-pushing, and perhaps a more rational, “unfeeling”, or sensible pair of people would not have pursued their feelings for one another as Anna and Vronksy do, so to avoid the ostracism seen in the novel. As much as I did not like Vronksy, I found Karenin and Countess Ivanovna actually malicious, cruel and quite despisable at times, but perhaps their position as more “background” characters (especially the countess), may lead the general negative feeling to be pointed more towards a leading character like Vronksy.
People read novels recreationally that involve murder all the time and think nothing of it, but are afraid to read a book about an ephebophile. Nabokov wrote English--which wasn't even his first language--beautifully. "Lolita" is safe to read. Humbert's obsession is not contagious from the page.
Thanks for the pithy paragraphs; you have piqued my interest in the ones I haven't already read. And thank you very much for not including spoilers.
Why would you tell people that Levin eventually marries Kitty? That is cruel. Also egotistical.
I have not read 9, 5, and 2, but I approve or at least don't disapprove of the others, though I'd swap Plath for something by Dickens and possibly quibble about the relative rankings. But I am appalled to hear that Brideshead is now "best known for being an early novel about homosexuality." One has to be fairly tin-eared or maybe just ideologically very narrow to think it's "about" homosexuality, though the homosexual aspect is certainly there. I would think in fact that it would deserve some favor from the progressive-minded precisely because the gayness is treated pretty matter-of-factly as something not that unusual in the place and time. And class.
If you haven't already, you should see the 1981 BBC dramatization of it. I just finished watching it for the third time since it came out and I don't think there has ever been a more entirely successful adaptation of a novel.
I should note that I haven't read several of these since I was in my twenties, which is to say some fifty years ago. Not sure what I would think of Lolita now.
Good list & breakdowns. A few you listed are favs of mine….White Noise is excellent post modern, Sun Also Rises great after WWI the wandering years in between, and Brideshead Revisited is the classic story of dandy boys and social changes —all listed picks are great reads.
M&M is a variation on the Faust story. Never thought or heard of it as a study of “the erosion of Christian values.
I hope 'Sun Also' is good in print, 'cuz the 1959 production with Tyrone Power & Ava Gardner is BO-RING (I've given it three shots), although Errol Flynn's swan song is actually terrific.
'The Lord of the Rings' is the greatest tale of the 20th century in this language, and Tolkien is the greatest storyteller of the 20th century in English. Good writers are a dime a dozen. The *storyteller*, though - ahh, *that's* the rara avis!
'Fury' is remarkable. 'Light in August' is the Technicolor apocalypse, though, for my money. He tore my mind apart.
**
Just a poor player fretting his strings on a wooden 'O'.
Love The Sound and The Fury. Great choice.
Do not understand the love for Sun Also Rises. Hemingway is a master, but this is by far his worst novel.
Hey Liza, I'm a fan...
I've already commented on your recent video, in parallel with me studying this 10/11 list of yours. All of this really got me thinking about my own books still to read, but I'm on a bit of a different tangent than you. It's not that I don't like your list or writings, no, not at all. It is just that I'm an ex technologist, now reborn as a prospective writer against the Machine, aka technology. Yes, it's kind of radical. Yip, there's quite a few of us, eg Paul Kingsnorth whom I'm sure you've heard of, Peco and his wife Ruth, many others in this genre. So yes the academic, not sure if that's the right term, literature you push does stir me. I really loved the Russian authors, just like you do, still do. But there's a certain angle about this techno stuff that hits the road.
Ok thanks, here below is a note I wrote to Ted Gioio, after you started all this reader list thing. You may or may not find that interesting, be my guest...
QUOTE
Wow, it's quite ironic you wrote this now, or recently. I've been studying the unscrupulous roll out of AI and trying to make out head or tail about the PR, the hype, etc. Before reading this I came to the conclusion that this whole polemic is actually not about technology per se. This belongs in the philosophical and spiritual arenas, where things like our origin, morality, ethics and so forth are really the subject matter to unravel. The bots and the phones are just the physical / digital manifestation of the hidden, deeper side of this, IMHO.
Furthermore your list came across my desk while another writer Liza Lives, of pens and poison fame, posted a video that made fun of Ben Shapiro wrt their respective reading lists. As a aspiring writer I'm caught between this not sure what to call it, academic literature vs. the list you have kindly opened now for us writers that unfortunately just can't afford all these subscriptions to our favourite writers. If I was earning well from my writing, which I pray I can do someday, then I will certainly be doing just that. I'm doing this, learning to be an authentic, organic, warm blooded writer vs. the wannabe pseudo writers that I note, even here on this platform. They are chasing the wind in their ambitious journey of gluttony, using whatever to get famous and rich, including the unscrupulous use of AI. The latter is of course the biggest crime of undercover plagiarism that's been committed, in broad daylight. It really makes me sick.
OK Ted, I'm a fan. Thank you again for kindly sharing your wisdom RE these books. I respect your choices, many resonate with me. However, as a Christian, with respect, I think you've not given credit to some legendary Christian writers, like C. S. Lewis. For example "The Abolition of Man" I would have expected to see in your list, even if you are more of a humanist than I am. He didn't write that with any overly Bible punching, judgemental words. I think his level headed, critical analysis, now more than 80 years ago, is highly relevant wrt what is currently happening RE the rapid, or should I say rabid, adoption of AI. The suffering this is already causing, completely unjustified in most instances, to experienced creators that I personally know, oh many people. It is truly approaching the abolution of humanity IMHO.
It goes without saying that this is what is moving me, even enraging me because you see, I'm old school. The pen, authentic human writing, has and will always be mightier than the sword, even if the latter is of a fancy, crafty, even perhaps devious digital kind.
END OF QUOTE
Love never fails 🌾
PS: I'm a former addict, and that life motto comes from those days. I'm here, but for the grace of God.