Greatest Novel of All-Time

[Dick Whitman]

The problem with "Moby deck" is the pages and pages and pages of whaling minutia early on. Other than that, it's readable.

Faulkner, of course, wins the award for unreadable at first pash, but ungodly brilliant once you realize what he did. Reading a Faulkner novel, once it clicks, makes every orthodox novelist seem pedestrian by comparison. Truly.

 

[The Big Ragu]

I've often thought we need a designation for novels of historical and defining importance that are, simply, unreadable. We could put Moby deck, Uncle Tom's Cabin and the entirety of Willa Cather in there, to start.

I might have just started a fight with the board's Willa Cather fan. I remain unmoved.

Are we novel-bashing? I think I could outwrite Charles deckens.

I love deckens. Love, love, love deckens. Never understand why there are some who don't give him the respect he deserves, such as the Great Expectations comment above (was it you?) about it being pulp. Aside from the fact that he was a wonderful writer and a skilled story teller, he wrote tales that captured a time and place and the social dynamics. And he did it as well as anyone ever has.

Now someone mentioned Steinbeck. We want to bash the greats, that is where I would start. I just don't need 80 pages describing a grain of sand, before the story moves along.

 

[Azrael]

Did you go to the deckens exhibit at the Morgan? His notebooks - all this microscopic writing and overwriting - were crazy.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I've often thought we need a designation for novels of historical and defining importance that are, simply, unreadable. We could put Moby deck, Uncle Tom's Cabin and the entirety of Willa Cather in there, to start.

I might have just started a fight with the board's Willa Cather fan. I remain unmoved.

Are we novel-bashing? I think I could outwrite Charles deckens.

I love deckens. Love, love, love deckens. Never understand why there are some who don't give him the respect he deserves, such as the Great Expectations comment above (was it you?) about it being pulp. Aside from the fact that he was a wonderful writer and a skilled story teller, he wrote tales that captured a time and place and the social dynamics. And he did it as well as anyone ever has.

Now someone mentioned Steinbeck. We want to bash the greats, that is where I would start. I just don't need 80 pages describing a grain of sand, before the story moves along.

That's definitely an issue with him. Read the first chapter of "East of Eden." I dare you.

 

[Zeke12]

I'll come down pro-Steinbeck and (mostly) anti-deckens.

deckens could spin a yarn, but he got paid by the word, and it shows.

 

[Versatile]

I'll come down pro-Steinbeck and (mostly) anti-deckens.

deckens could spin a yarn, but he got paid by the word, and it shows.

That's my point. When I called Great Expectations pulp fiction, I meant it literally. It was a serial. His books could and should all be half as long as he wrote them. He told great stories, but he wasn't a great storyteller.

 

[Azrael]

Be more fun to make a bracket of the greatest novels no one's ever heard of. Like 'Call it Sleep,' or 'The Recognitions.'

 

[Inky_Wretch]

No Hemingway or Twain!?!

Ye gods who are the fools running that thing?

 

[Zeke12]

Be more fun to make a bracket of the greatest novels no one's ever heard of. Like 'Call it Sleep,' or 'The Recognitions.'

Or the best novels no one has actually read?

Gravity's Rainbow, call your office.

 

[JR]

Sorry, it's hard to take this seriously at all.

How do you decide what is a better novel, "To the Lighthouse" or "Crime and Punishment"? I mean, what's your point of reference?

And speaking of deckens no list of "best novelists ever" is complete if you leave out Emile Zola. I think of him as the French version of deckens but a far better writer---even in translation. "Germinal" is probably my favourite.

I recently re-read Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn. The former is a terrific book but doesn't come close to consideration as the Great American Novel. Finn breaks down in the last 1/3 of the book but it's still a remarkable novel.

 

[JR]

Be more fun to make a bracket of the greatest novels no one's ever heard of. Like 'Call it Sleep,' or 'The Recognitions.'

I've read "Call it Sleep" Brilliant.

I started "Recognitions" but at some point had no idea what was going on and gave up

 

[The Big Ragu]

Be more fun to make a bracket of the greatest novels no one's ever heard of. Like 'Call it Sleep,' or 'The Recognitions.'

Or the best novels no one has actually read?

Gravity's Rainbow, call your office.

I actually have read it. Twice. Didn't understand it either time, but I had a mashive erection the whole time.