Literature

[Memory]

What are you guys all reading at the moment? Right now I am reading The Castle of Otranto, which I have almost finished. I think after I knock that out I am going to look to read one of the books in my large stack of books I have purchased and am yet to read.

I've finishes Dostoyevsky's White Nights and Bobek and will now start with Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray (because I feel exorbitantly gay)

[ThySonnet190]

I've finishes Dostoyevsky's White Nights and Bobek and will now start with Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray (because I feel exorbitantly gay)

Fun fun! I love Picture of Dorian Gray, I have read it like 3 times in my life! As for White Nights, I have not heard of it. Does it happen to be something Dostoyevsky wrote sometime in his early writing career kind of like The Double?

[Memory]

As for White Nights, I have not heard of it. Does it happen to be something Dostoyevsky wrote sometime in his early writing career kind of like The Double?

As far as I know, it's an early work, yeah. It's a short story.

[starbreaker]

So just to bring some names into the discussion that I am aware of, Genji Monogatari and Dom Casmurro comes to mind.

I've got the Penguin Classics edition of Genji Monogatari in paperback, but I haven't gotten far in reading it because I'm afraid to damage the book. The pages are so thin and the book feels too big to be sturdy. So I bought the Kindle edition for $5 a couple of days ago.

There's actually a website dedicated to the Tale of Genji; it also highlights the places mentioned in the novel.

[creaturefeature]

Currently my favorite books series is Vampire Hunter D.

Started reading since May and still have a lot to go through!

My favorite aspect of it are the beautiful ilustrations by the talented Yoshitaka Amana.
And it has one of the most uniqie settings for a post apocalyptic story.

The author went all the to mix up scifi, western and gothic horror.

I do warn it can get kinda dark.
But every book give you a different setting, therr are even momements where D allies with vampires and some of them even have sympathetic motives?

Also there a lot of themes of human preserverance and hope.

If you are more familiar with the movies i do recomenr checking this one out.

[appleAlc]

I’ve finally bit the bullet and started reading War and Peace. I’m having a lovely time with it so far, though I’m not far into by any means imaginable!
In terms of recent reads, I read Ethan Frome and A River Runs Through It lately for a uni course on novella writing and found them both to be beautiful pieces. I really think there are so many beautiful and effective…novellas? novelle? The Metamorphosis by Kafka and Le Fanu’s Carmilla both particularly come to mind.
I also ended up returning to one of my favourite novels (Their Eyes Were Watching God) since my last time really being active on here. I think everyone, certainly everyone from the Southeast U.S., should read it at some point. I’m aware that phonetically transcribed accents in dialogue can be a turn-off for a lot of people, but it’s genuinely such a gorgeously written, deeply impactful novel. I think I’ll find myself coming back to it later in my life. I certainly think I will once I’m a married woman.

[_ghost_]

I'm a university student studying the Spanish language, which means I spend a lot of time on Spanish and Latin American literature. My favorite things I've studied so far are the rural tragedies of Federico Garcia Lorca and the poetry of Delmira Agustini. A lot of older works I've only read excerpts of, but I eventually intend to actually read El cantar del mio Cid and La Celestina in their entirety, and of course reading Don Quijote de la Mancha in the original Spanish is somewhat of a bucket list item. I'm currently reading stories by Rosario Ferre, whose work I really enjoy, although it's sometimes a bit difficult for me to get through.

I'm also trying to make an effort to read more short stories, and I'm currently reading Edith Wharton's Tales of Men and Ghosts. Ethan Frome is the only thing I've read by her in the past, but I really like her prose. I'm also currently studying the Victorians in a different class; I love weird uses of religious imagery and complicated, bad relationship dynamics, so the poem "Goblin Market" by Christina Rosetti is probably going to be what I do my next written assignment on.

[alexela64]

I can't believe that I haven't read a SINGLE book mentioned so far on this thread -- i feel fake 

I'm currently in my very first Actual Literature Class and I've recently read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. It wasn't my favorite but it was a really fascinating read and incredibly well written.

I tend to gravitate towards reading nonfiction and theory but one of my favorite classics(?) is Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. It kind of changed the way I look at life. It's just so visceral.

Currently, I'm reading The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. No spoilers, but I'm loving it so far. The way it's written grips my soul.

I think i need to read the Epic of Gilgamesh now   

[_ghost_]

I can't believe that I haven't read a SINGLE book mentioned so far on this thread -- i feel fake 

I feel this way in a lot of literary discussions, too. I didn't really read a lot outside of contemporary YA until the latter half of high school, and now as a uni student who studies languages and literatures, I often feel a lot of imposter syndrome or like I'm behind. But everyone has to start somewhere, and even a lot of my "well-read" peers are often going off of knowing about works they haven't necessarily read themselves. You have plenty of time to "catch up," and you probably aren't as left out as you think you are.

When I first started getting into "the classics," I always tended to gravitate towards shorter works, so I'm going to throw Animal Farm and Carmilla into the discussion; I feel like most people have probably read Animal Farm but not as many will have read Carmilla; both are novella length, and the prose didn't feel very dense to me. The Picture of Dorian Gray is another good one that's a little longer but still a very quick read.

I think i need to read the Epic of Gilgamesh now   

Same here! I've wanted to for a while, but I'm busy a lot. I still need to read Beowulf as well. The only epic I've read is The Odyssey, which I really enjoyed, and I've wanted to explore that format more. The epic needs to make a comeback, in my opinion.

[AY38910]

OK I'm not sure if it counts but I'm reading a compilation of humorous scientific monologues called "si tú me dices gen lo dejo todo" (if you say gen I quit it, or something like that). With absolute jewels such as "the best part about secrets is that you can share them and only those you want will know (well, unless you have Facebook or are paid by Hola! or something like that)." (Hola! is a Spanish gossip magazine) or "so I took some mail courses, CCC style, on how to become a tumoral cell" (come on, I'm sure you've heard about the Chaos Computer Club before...) and like man it's just too much it's too funny XD

[Junebug]

I'm reading Dostoevsky's Demons and having a great time. It's extremely darkly funny and I recognize so many of its characters in real people I've known. I think it was Henry James who complained about the plots of Dostoevsky's books, saying they were too unstructured, but somehow it doesn't bother me. It gives me a kind of slice-of-life feeling, where life meanders and these events are going somewhere, and soon enough they will get there.

[_ghost_]

@Junebug Is there a specific translator you recommend when looking at Dostoevsky's work? I'm kind of a nerd about the translation process and love looking at the different choices different translators make, so I was just curious if you have a favorite.

[Junebug]

@_ghost_

My copy of the Penguin Classic edition says it's Maguire. Now for recommendations I don't know. I think this translation is just fine, but I haven't read whole other books with a different translator so I can't really say. But the little bits I've read of Dostoevsky translated in other languages seemed just fine and comprehensible. So my gut says they're probably all fine so long as there's no huge errors or anything.