Villette is startling, and more interesting to me than Eyre, a real companion to Wuthering Heights in creating space for the visionary in everyday suffering. Our Mutual Friend is the underrated Dickens I would go to bat for over Dombey, but even when his structures are dubious he's always so readable, so it's easy to make a case for many of his works, which probably explains why they jockey for position over the years.
My only real complaint (which you partially address) is that there should be more Spanish/Portuguese novels, but their realist traditions basically doesn't exist in our book culture, so it's understandable. La Regenta, Fortunata and Jacinta, The Maias, and The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas (also proto-modern, very Shandyian) all have good translations available and could be easy contenders on a list of this length for me.
D. is right; since you had a good time with "Sentimental Education," the Spanish and Portuguese tradition will be a pleasure. "The Maias," in particular is a complex rewriting of "Sentimental Education," and in the end, a better novel, I think. (Eça's earlier "Cousin Bazilio" rewrites "Madame Bovary").
Vautrin has become such an important figure in French that there now exists, as a school text, "The Novel of Vautrin," assembled from his appearances in various Balzac works. If I knew how to insert a link in a comment I would, but a search for "Le roman de Vautrin Gallimard" will find it.
Villette is startling, and more interesting to me than Eyre, a real companion to Wuthering Heights in creating space for the visionary in everyday suffering. Our Mutual Friend is the underrated Dickens I would go to bat for over Dombey, but even when his structures are dubious he's always so readable, so it's easy to make a case for many of his works, which probably explains why they jockey for position over the years.
My only real complaint (which you partially address) is that there should be more Spanish/Portuguese novels, but their realist traditions basically doesn't exist in our book culture, so it's understandable. La Regenta, Fortunata and Jacinta, The Maias, and The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas (also proto-modern, very Shandyian) all have good translations available and could be easy contenders on a list of this length for me.
"Villette" as # 2 is a good place for that one.
D. is right; since you had a good time with "Sentimental Education," the Spanish and Portuguese tradition will be a pleasure. "The Maias," in particular is a complex rewriting of "Sentimental Education," and in the end, a better novel, I think. (Eça's earlier "Cousin Bazilio" rewrites "Madame Bovary").
Vautrin has become such an important figure in French that there now exists, as a school text, "The Novel of Vautrin," assembled from his appearances in various Balzac works. If I knew how to insert a link in a comment I would, but a search for "Le roman de Vautrin Gallimard" will find it.
Spot on about the middle Dickens novels--that's where all the indelible treasure .of his art just bursts the bindings.