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Last Active 07-02-12 5:09 pm
Joined 07-02-12
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| Books Anyone?
Alright so here is my super dumb idea that just might spark some rinteresting discussion. If ryou were to attempt the impossible (and rincredibly stupid) task of summarizing western rliterature in ten books, rwhich would they be? This is my list as it is: heavily influenced both rby rpersonal taste and by my profound ignorance. Hopefully this will not only rspark some rinteresting discussion but also result in me finding out about ra ton of books I need to read. rFeel free to point out any of my numerous rglaring omissions in the comments. | | 1 | | Rotting Christ
Triarchy Of Lost Lovers
Book One: The Iliad. Because you simply cannot understand western literature, or
the west in general, without understanding the Greek conception of the virtuous,
the tragic and the heroic. Plus it's fucking WAY cool. I would suggest accompanying
this with a tragedy, my choice being Oedipus Rex. | | 2 | | Peste Noire
Ballada Cuntre Lo Anemi Francor
Book Two: La Chanson de Rolande. So yeah, I straight up skipped the Bible
because who the fuck wants to read that and I jumped straight to medieval times.
As my representative for the era I have chosen the French national epic rather
than that of any other European country because of the intense magical aura it
conveys while lacking any actual mythological or magical content, as well as for its
shameless display of classic European values and the fact that it kicks ass. I
omitted the Divine Comedy as my choice because the Paradiso and Purgatorio
parts are mad fucking boring. | | 3 |  | Van Morrison
Astral Weeks
Book Three: Shakespeare's Tempest. His darkest, most intense and
emotional play (at least out of the few I've read). There should be no question as
to why I chose him. | | 4 |  | Warcry
El Sello De Los Tiempos
Book Four: Don Quixote. The first proper novel and the death of the
Enlightenment's idealism. Poignant, tragic, occasionally hilarious and terribly
human, this is truly all its worked up to be and its importance cannot be overstated. | | 5 |  | Paradise Lost
Gothic
Book Five: Milton's Paradise Lost. Continuing in the vein of Quixote's painfully
truthful analysis of human folly, this is the birth of the Romantic spirit. | | 6 | | Kraftwerk
Die Mensch-Maschine
Book Six: Frankenstein. This is the point where my personal taste becomes
overbearing to my original mission. This was at once a very tough and a very
easy choice. To pick just one book to summarize the Romantic movement seemed to
me a terrible crime, and yet I don't think I could have picked a better one. A
beautiful, absolutely heart-wrenching novel. I would however accompany this with
some poems by Coleridge, Wordsworth and Byron. | | 7 |  | Faust
Faust
Book Seven: Goethe's Faust. Fucking VITAL. Accompany this with some Poe and go
nuts. | | 8 |  | Mastodon
Leviathan
Book Eight: Moby Dick. My personal favorite novel of all time. Destructive and
beautiful, a tale of all that man can be. | | 9 |  | Melvins
Lysol
Book Nine: The Sun Also Rises. So yeah, personal taste presiding over historical
importance big time. This should be more important however. This is the kind of
book that shakes your very foundations, and it could shake our collective
foundations too if anyone actually paid attention to it instead of focusing on
Hemingway's personal habits. Accompany with some Jack London stories for
ultimate manliness. | | 10 |  | Swans
White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity
Book Ten: The Stranger. I could have chosen something a bit newer for my last
book but I think this still is the perfect synthesis of modern man's essential conflict.
This should be accompanied by Camus' "The Myth of Sysyphus" essay and by
Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism." | |
mindleviticus
08.20.12 | 50 shades of grey | Calc
08.20.12 | Harry Potter and its shitty movies | jrm96
08.20.12 | Stephen king and his non shitty movies | Rail
08.20.12 | Good idea. I'll come back to it when I've thought a bit, but in terms of writers it would go something like this:
Homer
Chaucer
Shakespeare
The King James Bible
Cervantes
Milton
Defoe
Dickens
Joyce
Nabokov | jrm96
08.20.12 | and king | fireandblood
08.20.12 | I've actually never read Chaucer. Joyce is a great one that I criminally overlooked, cheers Rail. | barcafan21
08.20.12 | game of thrones | jrm96
08.20.12 | cell by stephen king
dreamcatcher by stephen king | Rail
08.20.12 | If you're going to read Chaucer, get yourself a copy of 'The Riverside Chaucer'. It's a little more expensive, but the textual notes, historical analysis and glossary are second-to-none. | jrm96
08.20.12 | And dean koontz | baldymort
08.20.12 | Needs more romantic Fabio novels. | iSkane
08.20.12 | Okay, WESTERN-wise (as many people don't seem to understand in this thread (Vonnegut, King, shit like that) I'll need to think.
The Odyssey-Homer
Ulysses-James Joyce
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea-Jules Verne
Hamlet-William Shakespeare (third most alluded to work ever)
King James Bible
The Canterbury Tales-Jeorffery Chaucer (he only created the written English language, nbd)
Paradise Lost-John Milton
Moby Dick-Herman Melville
Wuthering Heights-Emily Bronte (it inspired Twilight, guys)
A Tale of Two Cities (or Oliver Twist or Great Expectations)-Charles Dickens
Bonus because fuck you: The Picture of Dorian Gray-Oscar Wilde | jrm96
08.20.12 | and stephen king | iSkane
08.20.12 | Mine are all based on what they did for the future of writing and reading, not personal tastes (except Dorian Gray, that book was THE SHIT) | GhettoHmbrglr
08.20.12 | I read comics | Mendross
08.20.12 | 100 years of solitude | Rail
08.20.12 | "(he only created the written English language, nbd)"
There was written English long before Chaucer. Beowulf, Waldere and all that jazz. | iSkane
08.20.12 | *modern English language. | KILL
08.20.12 | books are for tourists | Rail
08.20.12 | "*modern English language."
Middle-English. | liledman
08.20.12 | Ulysses does a better job of summarising the entirety of Western literature and written English than this list, and you didn't include it? For shame. |
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