Am counting myself as having read two of these (*The Ambassadors* which I've read thrice and *Sister Carrie* which I read huge hunks of including a heroic speed read the night before the exam) and both are high in my pantheon [not sure the concept "pantheon" admits of heights, though perhaps the building does]. Had a daydream where I talked Clint Eastwood into doing a loose unattributed adaptation of *The Ambassadors* in which a horse-opera Lambert Strether type makes his way to early bohemia. Agree with you as to who's the heart of the Carrie novel.
Started *Swann's Way* and it was quietly hilarious but it was slow and due at the library. Seem to think I once started *The Rainbow* and it's not the novel's fault I often don't finish things. Read "The Dead" and "Ivy Day In The Committee Room." Haven't read *The Secret Agent* but saw the Hitchcock version (which isn't the one called *Secret Agent*) which is one of Hitch's most gritty and overlooked. Of the two Conrads I've read from the time period - *Victory* and *Lord Jim* - I give the victory to Jim and would list it.
But except for an *Ambassador* reread, none of these met my eyeballs in the last 30 years. Nor did Wodehouse whom I'd barely perused but *The Adventures Of Sally* and *Leave It To Psmith * (both from after 1920) are worth a relook and make me thing the earlier stuff might be worth exploring, though I can get fed up with him. So... is likely that Ring Lardner works best in post-hoc anthologies, his sketches, reviews etc. better than his fiction, but he belongs though maybe to a later two decades. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if non-Pooh A.A. Milne turns out to be a big talent (basing this on the compilation of "The Rabbits" sketches that Jonathan Bogart put together three years ago and that so far I've only dipped into); again, Milne may work best compiled after-the-fact and may cross the decade marker. (Like you, have never read *Principia Mathematica*, but Wittgenstein's *Philosophical Investigations* not only qualifies 1940-1959 but probably wins, and if you haven't looked at it, it's not a difficult book; the first 50 pages especially are a breeze.)
I owned *Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man* for a class I ended up not taking. Haven't heard or thought of it since and now I get to feel foolish for not starting it.
Am counting myself as having read two of these (*The Ambassadors* which I've read thrice and *Sister Carrie* which I read huge hunks of including a heroic speed read the night before the exam) and both are high in my pantheon [not sure the concept "pantheon" admits of heights, though perhaps the building does]. Had a daydream where I talked Clint Eastwood into doing a loose unattributed adaptation of *The Ambassadors* in which a horse-opera Lambert Strether type makes his way to early bohemia. Agree with you as to who's the heart of the Carrie novel.
Started *Swann's Way* and it was quietly hilarious but it was slow and due at the library. Seem to think I once started *The Rainbow* and it's not the novel's fault I often don't finish things. Read "The Dead" and "Ivy Day In The Committee Room." Haven't read *The Secret Agent* but saw the Hitchcock version (which isn't the one called *Secret Agent*) which is one of Hitch's most gritty and overlooked. Of the two Conrads I've read from the time period - *Victory* and *Lord Jim* - I give the victory to Jim and would list it.
But except for an *Ambassador* reread, none of these met my eyeballs in the last 30 years. Nor did Wodehouse whom I'd barely perused but *The Adventures Of Sally* and *Leave It To Psmith * (both from after 1920) are worth a relook and make me thing the earlier stuff might be worth exploring, though I can get fed up with him. So... is likely that Ring Lardner works best in post-hoc anthologies, his sketches, reviews etc. better than his fiction, but he belongs though maybe to a later two decades. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if non-Pooh A.A. Milne turns out to be a big talent (basing this on the compilation of "The Rabbits" sketches that Jonathan Bogart put together three years ago and that so far I've only dipped into); again, Milne may work best compiled after-the-fact and may cross the decade marker. (Like you, have never read *Principia Mathematica*, but Wittgenstein's *Philosophical Investigations* not only qualifies 1940-1959 but probably wins, and if you haven't looked at it, it's not a difficult book; the first 50 pages especially are a breeze.)
I owned *Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man* for a class I ended up not taking. Haven't heard or thought of it since and now I get to feel foolish for not starting it.
Ring Lardner and Wodehouse - of course!
I finally read The Seven Lively Arts and Seldes made a pretty persuasive case for Lardner. Mr. Dooley not so much.