Anna Karenina

 
Sadly, I lost my book

In the meantime, the library called and my reserved copy of A Clockwork Orange is in, so I’ll be heading down there to get it. I imagine they’d have The Great Gatsby there, and if so I will resume tomorrow
In the meantime I picked up Anna Karenina off my shelf and accidently fell in love with it.  It’s an 800 page book, so I’m in it for the long haul.  I have a feeling I’ll now be reading 3 books at a time, which is usual.

About 100 pages into Anna Karenina, I am already deeply entrenched in the lives of the characters.  While Anna herself seems a little TOO perfect, I’m rooting for her, and am glad to see real passion in all his characters (nice relief from the Sun Also Rises).  Tolstoy claims this was his first attempt at a novel.  One could only hope for such success.  I read a bit of the forward, and sadly it contained some spoilers(!), so I’m already aware that Anna dies in the end, which kind of killed the whole book for me, but it’s like watching the various versions of Romeo and Juliet – even though you know the final outcome, the ride there is well worth it.

The Sun Also Rises

I’ve gotten 50 pages from the end of this book, and I have to say, it’s boring as hell.  I had higher hopes for a Hemingway novel, as I loved The Old Man and the Sea, but this one is just uninteresting.  It’s written very dispassionately, and has a lot of, “and then we did this, and then we did this,” with very little inner dialog. 

There are a couple of noteworthy themes in this book, one of which is the aimless, bitter outlook of the post-war society.  All of the characters seem to just accept life as it is, with little hope for greatness, spending all of their time partying and drinking.  What’s especially frustrating is how none of the characters really fight for what they want.  There are a lot of unfulfilled desires.

One supposedly noteworthy theme of this book is the free-spirit mentality of Lady Brett Ashley.  I know she is an important literary figure, having heard her name several times before, but I just don’t see what’s so special about her.  I guess for the 20′s she’s pretty sexually forward,  but she doesn’t seem to have real independence as she jumps from one relationship to another, most of the time having affairs.  She is obviously in love with the main character, and won’t do anything about it.  I don’t know. . . seems like a poor example of an independent woman. 

So far I’m sadly disappointed in this book.  I assume the last 50 pages will be as boring as the first 200, but I’m gonna plow through. 

 

The Book List

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess

A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES by John Kennedy Toole

A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce

A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster

A TALE OF TWO CITIES by Charles Dickens

A WRINKLE IN TIME by Theodore Dreiser

ANNA KARENINA by Leo Tolstoy

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES by LM Montgomery

AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh

CATCH 22 by Joseph Heller

CLOUD ATLAS by David Mitchell

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

CRYPTONOMICON by Neal Stephenson

DELIVERANCE by James Dickey

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO by Boris Pasternak

DON QUIXOTE by Miguel de Cervantes

DRACULA by Bram Stoker

DUNE by Frank Herbert (reading currently)

FARENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury

FAUST by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelly

GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Charles Dickens

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS by Jonathan Swift

HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad

HOUSE OF LEAVES by Mark Danielewski

HUNGER by Knut Hamsun

I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves

INDEPENDENT PEOPLE by Halldór Laxness

INVISIBLE MAN by H.G Wells

JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte

KILLING PABLO by Mark Bowden

LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER by DH Lawrence

LAMB by Christopher Moore

MADAME BOVARY by Gustave Flaubert

MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie

MOBY DICK by Herman Melville

NATIVE SON by Richard Wright

OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham

OF MICE AND MEN by John Steinbeck

ON BEAUTY by Zadie Smith

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST by Ken Kesey

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen

PYGMALION  by George Bernard Shaw

ROBINSON CRUSOE by Daniel Defoe

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury

SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence SCHINDLER’S LIST by Thomas Keneally

STEPPEHWOLF by Herman Hesse

TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald

THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN by Mark Twain

THE AWAKENING by Kate Chopin

THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London

THE COLOR PURPLE by Alice Walker

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO by Alexandre Dumas

THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN by John Fowles

THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald

THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers

THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME by Victor Hugo

THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS by James Fenimore Cooper

THE LORD OF THE RINGS by JRR Tolkein

THE LONESOME DOVE by Larry McMurtry

THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett

THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT by Oliver Sacks

THE METAMORPHOSIS by Franz Kafka

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY by Oscar Wilde

THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY by Henry James

THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain

THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE by Stephen Crane

THE REMAINS OF THE DAY by Ishaguro

THE SECRET GARDEN by Frances Hodges Burnett

THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner

THE STAND by Stephen King

THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway

THE THREE MUSKETEERS by Alexandre Dumas

THE TIN DRUM by Günter Grass

THE TURN OF THE SCREW by Henry James

THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving

THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by Zora Neale Hurston

TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf

TREASURE ISLAND by Robert Louis Stevenson

TSOTSI by Athol Fugard

ULYSSES by James Joyce

VANITY FAIR by William Thackeray

WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy

WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams  WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte

About this Blog. . .

I have decided to take on the daunting task of creating a list of “100 Books to Read Before I Die,” and unlike most people, actually follow through with it.  Granted, I am the same person who has opened and closed three businesses, started and stopped smoking five times, purchased and sold a total of three exercise machines, not to mention my complete inability to commit to a relationship longer than 4 months (my marriage excluded), so we’ll see how this goes.

I’ll be posting each book as I go, and chronicling my thoughts on these classic novels, to see if they really are worth reading (accoring to yours truly).  I understand that most books become classics because they represent some kind of movement, or new way of thinking, or personification of a genre (new or improved) for the era they were written in.  I feel my list is missing some important books from OUR time, but I also understand that a classic is often defined by its staying power.  While I think Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is a must-read, whether or not it will go down in history has yet to be seen.

It should also be noted that this list does not include books I’ve already read, so don’t panic if 1984 or Atlas Shrugged isn’t on the list.  As much as I appreciate suggestions, I’ve already painstakingly filtered this list down to the ones I find essential.  Who knows, maybe after this I’ll start a NEW list, and torture you all further.  So, without further ado. . .

They say you cannot be a great writer until you are first a great reader.  I feel this is a double edged sword.  How can one be confronted with greatness, with any type of literary genius, and come out unscathed in the end?  It’s a trip back to the memories and horrors of middle school, where you are torn between wanting so desperately to measure up, and your need for unique self-expression.  It’s all been written before, yet there are still authors that can floor me with their brilliance, with the perfect structuring of a six-word sentence.   ~Me

‘For sale: Baby shoes; never worn.’ ~Ernest Hemingway