I'm not sure whether I have to read just one or two (one from the first three and one from the second three). Help a SOMBie out (I'm leaning towards Crime and Punishment but I've heard great things about Blood Meridian).

oh btw this new poll system is really lame.

I like Dostoevsky and would go with that. Depends on what mood you're in, though. If you want to be punished psychologically (but in a good way) I would go with that book. Not exactly my idea of a fun summer read, but it's gotta be read sometime. But I think Notes and Brothers Karamazov are better in my opinion. Notes from the underground is only like two hundred pages, and is exciting and humorous.
I didn't like Wuthering Heights when I read it, but that was a while ago. Blood Meridian I really liked initially, but I had to struggle to get all the way through. The endless repetition of violence and McCarthy's unchanging tone within the novel is it's achilles heel.

I picked Crime and Punishment, as well, alhough it seems somewhat odd to be on a reading list for AP English. (Perhaps AP Literature would be a better name for such a class. Don't get me wrong--I absolutely support reading non-English literature, I just found it odd). Off all the books on the list, I found Crime and Punishment the most engaging, but I'm not familiar with Blood Meridian and haven't read Far from the Maddening Crowd.

Middlemarch is called THE great Victorian novel by many. It's certainly sweeping stuff but you have to be prepared for George Eliot's lesiurely pacing.

*bump*

Ben? Aggy? Freddie? Your thoughts?

I haven't read that Hardy, but from the other stuff I have read he is fantastic, if not a little slow and melodramatic. but still..

man i wish i had reading lists in high school, then i would have done some reading other than Harry Potter during the summer.

"Crime And Punishment" has stayed with me for a long time. it took me a long time to read it, too. i think it took me about a month to read.

"Wuthering Heights" was good, but "Crime And Punishment" meant more to me. i don't know if i've read any of the others. probably not.

clicked C&P without reading the thread or viewing the previous results. looks like you've got your runaway winner. hit the books!

I've read Jane Eyre, Middlemarch and Wuthering Heights and can't say I was a big fan of either.

can't you just read a good old bodice ripper?

Haven't read any of these. In fact, it makes me realize how poorly read I really am.

Man how can Middlemarch not impress you?

Y'know, Middlemarch might warrant an asterisk in that statement. I read it for a college lit class and my assigned reading load at the time was just way too much to give anything adequate attention. I blazed through it in a few days and very little of it stuck. But I haven't gone back to re-read it as I have with a lot of other stuff from those days, so it either wasn't that impressive or I just completely missed it. Perhaps it warrants a second try?

Those are the only choices?

For, Dosty, I would have maybe said Brothers Karazamov.

Crime and Pun in hot summer heat might just wear you down to a grinding halt.

I think due to it being summer, your choices were determined by their scope and mass.

See if you can make it through the first third of Blood Meridian, all the while keeping in mind that you COULD have been dealt Absalom Absalom! or Gravity's Rainbow (Not that that their's anything WRONG with that)

I voted for Mr. Hardy.

Crime and Punishment. I still make reference to that book all the time.

Oh stop it. So there's 5 books you haven't read.

Sorry to say I haven't read any of those (kick me).

A video lecture I saw recently regarding Joyce's Ulysses remarked that Middlemarch foresees Joyce by minutely examining the life of a city, as Joyce did with Dublin (although not in any Modernist sense), so that title intrigues me more than the others on your list.

There's more than five. I haven't read Fear of Flying, (The Last) Whole Earth Catalog, Ragtime, War and Peace (in the original Russian, cos I can't read Russian), and, of course, Sex In The City.

All the rest present and accounted for then, eh?

I just want to put a "thumbs up" in for Wuthering Heights.

It's the classic till-you-die archetypal dysfunctional love story between people who can't stand to be together.

Talk about a primer for life, and it gives you context for Kate Bush and Michael Penn (separately) songs.

WH is great but I don't know how archetypal it is. It had no precedents and it really hasn't had any forbearers. It was really a one of kind novel. It doesn't fit into any literary trends of the time at all.

Archetypal in the sense of self-destructive relationships. "I'm attracted to that which is harmful to me, but I'm drawn to it."

From that list i've only read "Crime and Punishment"

I tried starting "MiddleMarch" half a year ago, but I wasn't prepared for it, so I backed out after 2 chapters. I will say that it was extremely interesting, and hailed by many as one of the greatest novels ever printed.

Ragtime was ok. I'd loan you my Russian translation, but I guess there's no point now.

Agreed that Ragtime was ok -- you kind of get the gist from the movie, plus there's full frontal.

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Agreed that Ragtime was ok -- you kind of get the gist from the movie, plus there's full frontal.
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Of Norman Mailer? Dear God!

[quote name='Smalley' date='Jun 1 2006, 09:31 AM' post='99528']
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Agreed that Ragtime was ok -- you kind of get the gist from the movie, plus there's full frontal.
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Of Norman Mailer? Dear God!
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E.L. Doctorow. Just as bad.