Rate these classics

Discussion in 'TMB Book Club' started by TC, May 3, 2012.

  1. Teflon Queen

    Teflon Queen The mentally ill sit perfectly still
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    the reason that the movie is one of the greatest movies ever made is because its damn near verbatim to the book...actually the movie had a couple of things that made me like it better than the book
     
  2. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    bc I loved the fuck out of those two books and I'm the op :dealwithit:

    Agree on Herodotus. Not many people get to travel the world like that today. Let alone 2000 years ago
     
  3. Heavy Mental

    Heavy Mental non serviam
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    Agree that the movie is one of the greatest all time, but books as a medium will always be better than their movie counterparts because in books you get a window to the character's minds. Reading Llewelyn Moss' thought process as he went about running from Chigurh was just an awesome reading experience.
     
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  4. Teflon Queen

    Teflon Queen The mentally ill sit perfectly still
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    i thought the movie did a remarkable job at showing moss' thought process

    ncfom is damn near perfect....shawshank redemption is actually a better movie than book(short story)
     
  5. Heavy Mental

    Heavy Mental non serviam
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    Fair enough - think we can both agree that the story is fantastic, regardless of medium.
     
  6. $abear

    $abear Well-Known Member
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    About to start heart of darkness. Read some chapters for English classes and loved it so I'm about to attack the entire thing.
     
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  7. Gtr

    Gtr Guest

    I've only read Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and thoroughly enjoyed it. He could write an alcoholic extremely well, obviously due to personal reflection.
     
  8. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    You'll be done quick. It's really short I believe
     
  9. dcon79

    dcon79 Nailed it
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    Love Herodotus (just wrote a senior thesis on the Histories) but he didn't have a problem including things that weren't close to true. Kind of annoying after a while
     
  10. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    He straight up tells the reader though that he can't verify the truth of everything in the book. Just things he heard/learned while traveling. I remember him throwing out that disclaimer a lot
     
  11. dcon79

    dcon79 Nailed it
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    Oh yeah, he does. He'll give out explanations from the different parties involved and say which one he finds most plausible. But there are sometimes he does imply the truth when it's not there. Obviously not a huge deal and he most definitely deserves all the credit he gets, even today.
     
  12. Daniel Ocean

    Daniel Ocean I only lied about being a thief
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    I love Satan (in the poem) so much that I have "Better To Reign" tattooed on me. I have "Flights of Angels" tattooed on me too.
     
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  13. $abear

    $abear Well-Known Member
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    Yeah almost done after reading The Ascent of Money.
     
  14. Ankylosaurus

    Ankylosaurus Well-Known Member

    Great book. A bunch of passages that just give you chills.

    We should read The Sound and the Fury and really freak some people out.
     
  15. Clegg

    Clegg I'm too old for this shit.
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    The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway is a must read.
     
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  16. EdmondDantes

    EdmondDantes Both winner in league and apparently at life, haha
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    don quixote is very funny for being such an old book
     
  17. Constant

    Constant Meh
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    ??? Humor is not a recent invention.
     
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  18. EdmondDantes

    EdmondDantes Both winner in league and apparently at life, haha
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    i didnt mean that, its just that most of those classics arent really trying to be humorous. ive read about 10 of the books on OPs list and don quixote is easily the funniest.
     
  19. Constant

    Constant Meh
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    Yeah, I was embarassed by the number I had read. Time to put down the crap novels and get some classics. Lots are public domain on kindle too, I believe.
     
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  20. fetumpsh

    fetumpsh Well-Known Member
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    I think Melville is hilarious--Bartleby is a giant fuck you to his critics, Moby Dick has a lot of very funny passages. Dickens, Shakespeare both were considered extreme wits. When Kafka read his stories to his friends, they were rolling with laughter. A lot of it with the older stuff is just really listening for and finding the voice of the author (and ignoring a lot of self-important lit profs); many of those writers were extremely satiric, but writing at a time before there was an SNL or other forms of immediate satire.
     
  21. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    Candide was really funny. Loved that book
     
  22. Plenty

    Plenty Go Canes!

    "The Stranger" by Albert Camus 10
    "Don Quixote" by Miguel Cervantes 10
    "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald 10
    "Catch 22" by Joseph Heller 10

    "Candide" by Voltaire 9
    "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway 8.5

    "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac 7.5

    Several of those titles I read so long ago I can't remember.

    Other fiction I really enjoyed:

    Love in the Time of Cholera (Classic)
    The Quiet American
    Roots (Not the best written book but maybe the most powerful/important)
    Sophie's Choice (Masterpiece. Styron is a guy I need to read more)
    East of Eden (Maybe the best first 100 pages I've ever read)
    Crime and Punishment (I need to read The Brothers Karamazov)
    All Hemingway
     
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  23. Cornelius Suttree

    Cornelius Suttree the smallest crumb can devour us
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    started The Red and the Black instead of Under the Volcano (read some article on the French Revolution and decided to change my plan) and it's so well written. If I didn't have to work, take care of a dog, play video games, and watch baseball I could probably finish it in a couple nights. Makes me want to go back in time and game on young hotties
     
  24. Truman

    Truman Well-Known Member
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    “Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read.”
    Mark Twain
     
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  25. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    "classics - news that stays news"
     
  26. Gin Buckets

    Gin Buckets Well-Known Member
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    What's the easiest read amongst the great classics? Do you guys read the original or one that has updated english? I've read some, but almost always with updated English, because for me it's about the story and characters moreso than skill with words.
     
  27. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    Read the original, unless it's in Middle English or something like The Canterbury Tales. (Or unless the original wasn't in English, like The Iliad or something. Wish I could read that in the original Greek. It's supposed to be like, really awesome.)

    All of those books in the OP aren't impenetrable tomes of archaic language btw. I was pretty liberal with the definition of classic, just threw in a lot of random books I liked. Watchmen is a freaking graphic novel for example. Grapes of Wrath has a pretty smooth flow of language imo.
     
  28. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    Candide came out in the 1700s and it's easy as hell to read. Should have you lol-ing a good bit. Voltaire is a very sarcastic and witty writer. It's only ~125 pages. Its original language was French but I enjoyed it in translation. Read it first
     
  29. ~ taylor ~

    ~ taylor ~ Well-Known Member
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    According to my kindle, I'm 64% of the way through Moby Dick. It is alternately entertaining and awful. I'm gonna slog through it.

    Of the classics listed in the OP, I reread these regularly because I really enjoy them:

    "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
    "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
    "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac

    And I've read these more than once and very much enjoy them:
    "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau
    "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque
    "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway
    "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain

    And I think these are overrated:
    "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger
    "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson
    "Catch 22" by Joseph Heller

    The rest are either on my list, stuff I read in college that doesn't stand out, or stuff I'm not interested in.
     
  30. Constant

    Constant Meh
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    You're overrated. One thing (among many) I like about the kindle is that I now think of my current read (Cloud Atlas) as "the % of the way through it I am".
     
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  31. The Blackfish

    The Blackfish The Fish in Black
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    Moby Dick is on my to read list.

    I read Walden in the 11th grade and to this day consider it the biggest piece of self righteous shit I've ever read.

    Catch-22 is genius and you should feel bad for not liking it.
     
  32. Irush

    Irush Well-Known Member
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    Walden in last place

    forever and ever
     
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  33. ~ taylor ~

    ~ taylor ~ Well-Known Member
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    I think I confused Walden with My Side of the Mountain. Walden was terrible.

    I just finished The Idiot by Dostoyevsky. It was fine. The Brothers Karamazov was better.
     
  34. TimJimothy

    TimJimothy Well-Known Member
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    I know I'll be roasted for this, but I've been trying to read 1984...and just can't get into it. Seems very slow. Granted, I'm only about a quarter of the way in..

    Fling your insults in my direction now.
     
  35. The Blackfish

    The Blackfish The Fish in Black
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    I reread this recently and really enjoyed it. Keep on trucking, it picks up pace.
     
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  36. Truman

    Truman Well-Known Member
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    Same and I agree
     
  37. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    Surprised tbh, don't remember it taking that long to get going. Are you scared out of your mind thinking about how thin the barrier separating us from the world of that book is
     
  38. Iron Mickey

    Iron Mickey a guy who posted here like five years ago hates me
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    Man fuck e.o. wilson
     
  39. rcragg82

    rcragg82 Well-Known Member
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    Thread makes me want to do a number of rereads. Namely Catch 22 and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which I both read and loved in high school and Blood Meridan which I read 10 years ago.
     
  40. rcragg82

    rcragg82 Well-Known Member
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    Though not included, I'd say The Alchemist is my favorite classic book
     
  41. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    Ideological beef?

    I dig him because he wrote some accessible books that helped me get into cool topics.
     
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  42. Iron Mickey

    Iron Mickey a guy who posted here like five years ago hates me
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    yeah. I hate his determinism and foul view of human nature.
     
  43. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    He is charged as a determinist? I didn't get that from his writing

    Also, meh who gives a fuck. I read all kinds of shit
     
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  44. Iron Mickey

    Iron Mickey a guy who posted here like five years ago hates me
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    Yeah he's all about the human animal.
     
  45. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    A human is an animal...?
     
  46. Iron Mickey

    Iron Mickey a guy who posted here like five years ago hates me
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    But not in the sense that we tend to think. For that matter, neither are animals.
     
  47. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    You're losing me man

    I hope I haven't committed a grave sin from a political/philosophical standpoint. I originally discovered "On Human Nature" on the Pullitzer Prize for Nonfiction list. Read it and dug it and got turned on to more stuff. I really like understanding human behavior from an evolutionary lens and that book helped me get started in that regard.
     
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  48. Iron Mickey

    Iron Mickey a guy who posted here like five years ago hates me
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    My opinion is a minority one, so I'd say you're fine. Not really a good convo for a sports board but the gist is that neither humans nor animals hold the nasty existence assigned to humans as animals in evolutionary psych.
     
  49. lhprop1

    lhprop1 Fullsterkur
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    Walden is terrible. Thoreau was a transcendentalist posing as an environmentalist who based everything on a relatively brief stay in the woods.

    If you want something infinitely better written by someone who spent his entire life in the woods, read "A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold. John Muir is another good one, though his writing is tougher to slog through than Leopold's.
     
  50. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    Interesting. Was thinking about giving walden another shot soon actually...