The Count of Monte Cristo. Everyone loves it. It aged marvelously!
Not everyone. I found it tedious and poorly written/translated. I read it last year in the unabridged translation. Not for me.
Ask HN: What are your favorite classic books?
21–30 of 48 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite classic books?
#22By I D.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite classic books?
#23The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character by Thomas Hardy (1886) https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/thomas-hardy/the-mayor-of-... I notice from that link it was on a top 100 Great British novels list.
Blech. I was afflicted with this in literature class. Would not recommend, even to someone who didn't have to read it.
Hardy is better at torturing his characters than he is at giving them much of a personality. (Or so it seemed to me at the time; I haven't re-read it...)
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite classic books?
#24The Count of Monte Cristo. Everyone loves it. It aged marvelously!
Not everyone. I found it tedious and poorly written/translated. I read it last year in the unabridged translation. Not for me.
Dumas has a pretty intense fan base, though clearly not universal. I found his novels way too pulpy, but I can see why they were a sensation in the 19th century, when most literature was deadly slow by our standards.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite classic books?
#25What do you want to get out of reading "classics"? I can think of three types of book that are called classic. First, there are things that are simply old. Second are things that made substantial contribution to our intellectual heritage. Third, there are books that are exceptionally enjoyable to read because of the quality of writing. What are you after?
Things that were interesting to me for representing older times -- The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Battle of Maldon. Books that I didn't enjoy but I'm glad to know their contents -- all that old Greek and Latin stuff. Books that I enjoy rereading just for their quality -- things by Tolkien, Eco, Wodehouse, Chandler...
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite classic books?
#26Pascal's Pensees
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite classic books?
#27I just finished the sublime Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy by Sigrid Undset, in the Tiina Nunnally translation. If you have any interest in the medieval period or specifically medieval rural Norway, it really brings that setting to life and this is reason enough to give it a try. Much more than that though, it deals with so many profound themes -- mostly related to family and faith -- in a very natural and poignant way. I feel like reading it gave me one big long meditation running parallel to my life, to which my mind would dip in and out throughout all sorts of other goings on (it took me almost a year to finish). I would say the cumulative effect was transformative.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite classic books?
#28Someone else mentioned Thomas Hardy's "The Mayor of Casterbirdge". It's the one of his 5 major novels I haven't read. "Far From the Madding Crowd" and "Return of the Native" are okay, but the two that really are magnificent are:
"Jude the Obscure" - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/153
"Tess of the D'Urbervilles" - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/110
You can sense his fury at the society he was depicting. You might not want to read either of these, particularly "Tess", if you're prone to depression.
Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Frontier in American History" (1921) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22994
This collection leads off with Turner's essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" (1893). It's considered by some the most influential historical essay about America ever written. Historians went back and forth on his claims for decades, and people pointed out many issues with them. It seems like the critics predominate now. But it's still worth reading, particularly since (right or wrong) his ideas influenced the way we think of ourselves. Turner was a very good writer - he was a noted orator, and his essays have an oratorical quality - and the other essays in the collection are pretty good, too.
Owen Wister, "The Virginian" - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1298
Zane Grey, "Riders of the Purple Sage" - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1300
And the sequel: "The Rainbow Trail" - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5067
"The Virginian" (1902) and "Riders" (1912) established many of the themes and tropes for the "standard" western, and they're still fun to read. But the genre comprises many other kinds of writing - e.g. A. B. Guthrie, Elmer Kelton, and the next writer.
Willa Cather's novels:
The "plains trilogy" (the stories are set in Nebraska and Colorado, but otherwise unrelated):
"O Pioneers!" (1913) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24
"The Song of the Lark" (1915) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44
"My Ántonia" (1918) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19810
And not quite a hundred years ago, but a wonderful novel:
"Death Comes for the Archbishop" (1927) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69730
A few brief mentions: James Joyce's "Ulysses", though I had a tough time getting through it; some of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories (e.g. "The Minister's Black Veil"); "Njal's Saga" (I liked the Penguin edition with the translation by Magnusson and Pallson); the great works of classic fantasy (Lord Dunsany, E. R. Eddison, William Morris, Arthur Machen); the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite classic books?
#29The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. Written in 523 while he was imprisoned and awaiting execution by the Ostrogothic King Theodoric, it is often described as the last great Western work of the Classical Period.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite classic books?
#30The Count of Monte Cristo. Everyone loves it. It aged marvelously!
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