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Posted: |
Dec 22, 2008 - 9:28 AM
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By: |
neotrinity
(Member)
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We’ll Raise Your 50 and Double It Department:
Last January, Martin Levin, the book editor for Canada’s Globe and Mail
inaugurated a feature that’s become quite lively in the intervening time since, asking their readers to contribute what constitutes The 50 Greatest Books. The submissions have been remarkably egalitarian (tho Mr. Levin is sagely keeping the identities of the authors secret till the end of the series). As he wrote in his introductory essay announcing the symposium,
"In part, because we want readers to engage in the discussion — we plan to provide a forum for outraged advocates or critics, clever ripostes and tut-tutting over obvious oversights — and in part because in making distinctions, we implicitly reject the postmodern view that won't allow privileging (in the fashionable term) Anna Karenina over the James Bond books — though I confess I look forward to the next one, by the highly literary Sebastian Faulks . . .
"A great book is adjudged a great book over time by virtue of offering things — astonishing ideas, unforgettable characters, imaginative sublimity, glorious prose — that cannot be got elsewhere, and that tell us something new about the human (or other) condition. The 50 will not be ranked in order. We figure just choosing them is adventurous enough."
Tru enuff. Which is why we’re gonna actively advocate following his stead (in the manner of Ally's “Singular Stunning Performance” thread) by listing whatever number your choice follows after and then which tome you’re championing (tho, mischieviously in the extremis, we’re gonna deviate and solicit an assessment WHY you feel the way you do). It’s open to any and all categories not necessarily from whichever country you call haven or home.
1. We’ll start this percolating party off with Leon Edel’s
consummate consolidation of his multi-volume literary masterpiece encoded within
Not only is it a veritable textbook tapestry on the art and craft of biography (astutely anchored with non-judgmental insights, impeccably written with a finesse above and beyond most purely ‘academic’ borefests) but it demonstates a surprising compassion that only enhances the overall life, times, influences, “failures”, “successes”, love and desire (unspoken, unacknowledged let alone unconsummated) of its singular subject.
It does what few tomes do nowadays: instills a holy hunger that leaves you acute with anticipation in eagerly turning the next page to see how the unfolding human adventure unveils its virtue.
Your move(s) … 
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2. The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey
Wonderful mystery about a Scotland Yard Inspectior, who's intriqued by the sensitive face he sees in a portrait of King Richard III. Can this face belong to the horrible hunbacked figure portrayed by Shakespeare, in his play?
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3. Charles Dickens
...The poignant tale of Dickens "favourite child," and the path he travels as a boy and man.
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I don't think any further explanation is required.
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5. THE HOBBIT by J.R.R. TOLKIEN
It's the first book that really hooked me on fantasy fiction (at 9 years of age), and to this day, no other literary work has quite affected me like this timeless classic. After several readings, it still thrills and inspires me like no other, and as a matter of fact, I think I'll take another dip starting tomorrow.
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2. The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey
Wonderful mystery about a Scotland Yard Inspectior, who's intriqued by the sensitive face he sees in a portrait of King Richard III. Can this face belong to the horrible hunbacked figure portrayed by Shakespeare, in his play?
That is a fine book. I received a hard cover copy from my family when I was seriously studying Shakespeare in High School.
RICHARD III is my favorite Shakespearian History. The Daughter of Time makes you think!
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Posted: |
Dec 23, 2008 - 5:24 AM
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By: |
neotrinity
(Member)
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Would we be presenting one book per post building our way to 50, or are we able to do more than that toward our *own* list of 50? Plus, are we supplementing the existing feature or just starting from a total clean slate?
Since you asked with such finesse, Eric, we'd like to see FSM Assembled in all its glorious gadflyism hit the century mark with its offerings and, far from supplementing Mr. Levin's eminent enterprise, let's just see what our own wondrous choices are (and then compare 'em both later).
Oh, and in the spirit of indelicate democracy, no one's limited by the amount they wanna impart; who SEZ this ain't the season for infinite abundance? 
Which is our joyously long-winded way of presenting numero
8.
As an incisive glimpse and evolution of an individual's personality from darkly desperate beginnings (and choices) to arriving at more of an inclusive view of society (damn the skin overtones), Mr. Haley's facilitating guidance allows his subject to speak for himself with unsugarcoated candor concerning (and spotlighting) his vices with as much vigor as his virtues.
As to that, we believe the title subject predicted he wouldn't live long enough to read what was written - and, alas,
his intuitive fortune-telling was tragically accurate ...
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Posted: |
Dec 23, 2008 - 5:59 AM
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By: |
Eric Paddon
(Member)
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Many thanks for your clarification, Neo!
I offer this addition without any further comment (feeling it isn't necessary):
And to close all matters related to this theme, I add my favorite works by the 20th century's greatest and most eloquent defender of Christian orthodoxy.
First, his eloquent use of satire on the theme of temptation.
Second, his fascination with the science-fiction genre and the works of Wells, which led him to use it in his own special way. Volume 2 of his "space trilogy" remains his best work of fiction IMO (with the first book in the series "Out Of The Silent Planet" a close second).
Third, his channeling of Dante to provide insights on Heaven and Hell:
Fourth, how Lewis, even the most fervent of believers, could experience the pain of doubt in the face of personal tragedy (the death of his wife Joy), which led him to write this reflective work of his thoughts at the time and how he then regains his confidence in his faith (the scenes of Joss Ackland as Lewis quoting this work in the climactic scenes of the BBC version of "Shadowlands" is for me the ultimate comment on why that production puts its feature-film version to shame).
And finally, his masterpiece that shows how the true Christian can look to those of different denominations and transcend those differences to understand the essential themes that bind all believers together.
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Posted: |
Dec 23, 2008 - 10:01 PM
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By: |
nuts_score
(Member)
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i am totally outclassed in computer skills by all you regulars. but here are maybe America's big three from years back (without pictures):
Huckleberry Finn --Twain, confusing to many (is it racist or is it truth?); banned from various shelves, so no picture possible!
Moby Dick --Melville, his sprawling, rather Shakespearean novel harpooned and sunk beneath the waves like the Pequod...
Invisible Man --obviously hard to "see" this one by Ralph Ellison, but usually cited as a brilliant psychological (and comical) examination of being Black, and the greatest American novel of second half of 20th Century (even if not so beloved as To Kill a Mockingbird)
i could list several more, but... over to you, Film Scorers!
Bah! Someone beat me to it! May I suggest the next best in American Literature (the Modern cassics, if you will):
Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow:
The American response to Joyce's Ulysses, Pynchon's seminal work is littered with subversive elements to make an average reader lose their mind. A patient and observant reader will, however, be rewarded with an intense read that doesn't limit itself to a form or a function. It just is, and it exists to challenge.
Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West
The best novel of the past 25 years is a dense, intricate study of brutality in the American West. It transcended and changed the genre in nearly the same ways that Unforgiven did for the film genre. It's microscopic view and dense collection of characters provide for a gritty, intimate, and savage read that will litter your head with scenes of both visceral beauty, and Apocalyptic horror.
Don DeLillo's White Noise
Another postmodern classic (that admittedly might not exist without Gravity's Rainbow) that offers a challenging read intertwined with the themes of family, violence, consumerism, intellectualism, and conspiracy (and that's just on a surface level). Another American novel that proves just how damn good we are at the artform.
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THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by DOSTOEVSKY
read it 6 times thru the years and every time , find new and fascintating things in it.
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Posted: |
Feb 16, 2009 - 4:06 PM
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By: |
mrebks
(Member)
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okay, i'll bite since no one seems to be jumping in here--three from 20th Century masters, who should probably be represented by several books each...
Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, perfect portrait of the between-the-wars, empty expatriate existence.
Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury--with stream-of-consciousness sections from brains of 1) a retarded man, 2) the suicidal brother, 3) the sexy self-involved sister, and 4) in third person but sort of from the black maid who holds the family together.
Bellow's Adventures of Augie March--boisterous and brawling, comical and sprawling, a bildungsroman expressing a post-WW2 Jewish sensibility.
and what of Gunter Grass, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jane Austin, Walker Percy, Marcel Proust, Wallace Stegner, Graham Greene, Robert Penn Warren, John Steinbeck, and no doubt many others?
c'mon you score fans; some of you must be serious readers too! poor young neo-t can't do all the heavy lifting here...
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