No Great Gatsby! A bold choice. I always forget that Their Eyes Were Watching God was a 30’s novel. The 30’s are probably better than the 20’s everywhere, right? Creeping fascism is good for art, probably…
IMO highbrow stuff was much better in the '20s when a handful of people had money to burn on tiny print runs of experimental books; middlebrow stuff was somewhat better in the '30s when there was an active market for escapism for otherwise functional adults. (May not generalize to the 21st century now that adulthood is one of the things people want to escape—which I definitely understand, it just means we're not getting much genre fiction that's at a college grad level in terms of both ideas and language.)
I applaud your dedication to a critical review of books. I don't have the time or the energy to tackle, for example, Joyce and no doubt that is my loss but there it is. I do worry about my ignorance of Wolff and last week I pulled out "To the Lighthouse" to read and was caught: do I skip the introduction (by Hermione Lee) and dive right into the novel or, by doing so, will I miss much that would be valuable for my understanding and enjoyment of the book. Pondering. Query re: Proust - can I read just Swann's Way and Time Regained? I love them both but I come down on the side of Chandler. It has been a while, (and it sits next to the Wolff, waiting to be reread), but there isn't much that I place higher than "The Sound and the Fury". Yes, you have to read "The Catcher in the Rye"; it would have been better if you had done so when you were younger. As to Gatsby, I was a huge fan the first couple of times I read it and then there was a considerable gap before I went back to it again, (at the time of the release of the Bad Luhrman movie), and what a surprise, what a letdown. Fitzgerald's writing is so ornate, so overpopulated with adjectives and general ephemera that I found it almost unreadable - I only persisted because of what it was; not the way to draw someone into your themes. I know I am swimming against the current on the book and him but I now am experiencing real difficulty with "Tender Is the Night". Sorry to prattle on but your 'reviews' cause me to think. I look forward to the Mid-century.
re: Proust/skipping things, I think "halfway through your mentally competent life" is when you can stop worrying about completism let alone complete understanding and just jump around however you want, so it depends on how long you expect to be mentally competent…
Yes. Well, as with so many things, I guess that "mentally competent" is relative. Or, I expect (hope?) to remain mentally competent for some time yet but, given my age, no matter how long that is I must now be past 'halfway' and can jump around, (see: the "Surfing' Bird" video on YouTube.)
I'll tell you that it's up or down after "Swann's Way"! I'll tell anyone who'll listen. Actually what I say is that it's all downhill from 1913, and guess when a big chunk of "Time Regained" was actually written?
I have enjoyed all of the Kawabata and Tanizaki books from this period that I have read (close to all of them available in English) but I greatly doubt any make any make it to #13, or even #14. You would likely get a lot out of "Chevengur" but it does not have the imaginiative originality of "Foundation Pit."
Anyway, nice list. I should likely work on my distrust of making lists. I certainly like those of other people. "Scoop" replaces your Wodehouse, Bruno Schulz replaces Kafka, "Mrs. Dalloway" over "The Waves," maybe a different Yeats. I like "Red Harvest" more than "Maltese Falcon" on the grounds that it is more insane. "Little House on the Prairie," "The Gift." "Ulysses," yes. I haven't read "Finnegans Wake" either although I have tracked down the earliest bits of "Work in Progress," which is worth doing.
No Great Gatsby! A bold choice. I always forget that Their Eyes Were Watching God was a 30’s novel. The 30’s are probably better than the 20’s everywhere, right? Creeping fascism is good for art, probably…
IMO highbrow stuff was much better in the '20s when a handful of people had money to burn on tiny print runs of experimental books; middlebrow stuff was somewhat better in the '30s when there was an active market for escapism for otherwise functional adults. (May not generalize to the 21st century now that adulthood is one of the things people want to escape—which I definitely understand, it just means we're not getting much genre fiction that's at a college grad level in terms of both ideas and language.)
I applaud your dedication to a critical review of books. I don't have the time or the energy to tackle, for example, Joyce and no doubt that is my loss but there it is. I do worry about my ignorance of Wolff and last week I pulled out "To the Lighthouse" to read and was caught: do I skip the introduction (by Hermione Lee) and dive right into the novel or, by doing so, will I miss much that would be valuable for my understanding and enjoyment of the book. Pondering. Query re: Proust - can I read just Swann's Way and Time Regained? I love them both but I come down on the side of Chandler. It has been a while, (and it sits next to the Wolff, waiting to be reread), but there isn't much that I place higher than "The Sound and the Fury". Yes, you have to read "The Catcher in the Rye"; it would have been better if you had done so when you were younger. As to Gatsby, I was a huge fan the first couple of times I read it and then there was a considerable gap before I went back to it again, (at the time of the release of the Bad Luhrman movie), and what a surprise, what a letdown. Fitzgerald's writing is so ornate, so overpopulated with adjectives and general ephemera that I found it almost unreadable - I only persisted because of what it was; not the way to draw someone into your themes. I know I am swimming against the current on the book and him but I now am experiencing real difficulty with "Tender Is the Night". Sorry to prattle on but your 'reviews' cause me to think. I look forward to the Mid-century.
re: Proust/skipping things, I think "halfway through your mentally competent life" is when you can stop worrying about completism let alone complete understanding and just jump around however you want, so it depends on how long you expect to be mentally competent…
Yes. Well, as with so many things, I guess that "mentally competent" is relative. Or, I expect (hope?) to remain mentally competent for some time yet but, given my age, no matter how long that is I must now be past 'halfway' and can jump around, (see: the "Surfing' Bird" video on YouTube.)
I'll tell you that it's up or down after "Swann's Way"! I'll tell anyone who'll listen. Actually what I say is that it's all downhill from 1913, and guess when a big chunk of "Time Regained" was actually written?
I have enjoyed all of the Kawabata and Tanizaki books from this period that I have read (close to all of them available in English) but I greatly doubt any make any make it to #13, or even #14. You would likely get a lot out of "Chevengur" but it does not have the imaginiative originality of "Foundation Pit."
Anyway, nice list. I should likely work on my distrust of making lists. I certainly like those of other people. "Scoop" replaces your Wodehouse, Bruno Schulz replaces Kafka, "Mrs. Dalloway" over "The Waves," maybe a different Yeats. I like "Red Harvest" more than "Maltese Falcon" on the grounds that it is more insane. "Little House on the Prairie," "The Gift." "Ulysses," yes. I haven't read "Finnegans Wake" either although I have tracked down the earliest bits of "Work in Progress," which is worth doing.
Where would my all-time favorite, Call It Sleep, rank on your list?
Haven't read it! Someone elsewhere also asked about Call It Sleep so I guess I have to read it!