Your All-time 5 Favorite Literary Works

[Florestan]

J. Steinbeck, East of Eden

A great book indeed.

I'd like to read a novel by a Japanese or Indian author, but I don't know where to start... 

Look no further than Shusaku Endo's Silence. A few years ago it was the rage here on GMG.

[Brian]

But there are "Great Books" one can start as a young teenager, even if one might miss a lot, they will have enough gripping story to work on a level. Les Miserables and some of Dickens would be such candidates.

When I was a kid in the early 1980s I encountered plenty of (usually) abridged and simplified versions of a lot of older literature that could in some way be conceived as adventure stories (along with simpler adventure stories like Treasure Island, Robin Hood, J.F. Cooper, Three musketeers and some of Jules Verne's), often also as movies, comics and cartoons: Don Quixote, Gulliver's travels, Robinson Crusoe, Moby Dick, Oliver Twist, even the better known Norse/Germanic and Graecoroman myths got such treatment. Sure, often this is quite a distortion that has little to do with the original text but I still think it is good to have shared if superficial knowledge of such a heritage of stories. Even it trash and middlebrow stuff is happily mixed with Great books

The children's version of Count of Monte Cristo, in particular, removed a lot of plot twists from near the end of the book (drugs, murder, lesbians). 

There are also some "Great Books" which are best read as a teenager, because they portray the world in a rather black and white way or have entry-level profundity rather than subtler or more complex introspection. Much as some books are much better when you are older, there are unfortunately some books which are better when you're young.

[Jo498]

Other favourite authors: Hesse, Faulkner, Andric, Maupassant. I'd like to read a novel by a Japanese or Indian author, but I don't know where to start...

Kipling has the advantage of several collections of shorter prose, so has Rabindranath Tagore, but I am far from knowledgeable about this. The main longish book by an Indian author I read was Vikram Seth' "An equal music" but this has nothing to do with India.

I also had in mind to read one of the classic chinese novels (Journey to the West, Water Margin etc.) but they are mighty long and many translations either abridged or not well looked upon by experts. The only "chinese" stuff I read was Van Gulik's Judge Dee (which I love and have all read twice) and as a teenager Pearl Buck because my Mom read such things.

[Florestan]

There are also some "Great Books" which are best read as a teenager, because they portray the world in a rather black and white way or have entry-level profundity rather than subtler or more complex introspection. Much as some books are much better when you are older, there are unfortunately some books which are better when you're young.

Agreed. Jo has provided some very good examples.

My point (by which I stand) is that I'd rather commend a teenager for reading Alexandre Dumas, Jules Verne, Dickens, Cooper, Scott, Stevenson and "abridged and adapted" versions of Don Quijote, Gulliver, Robinson Crusoe than for reading Dostoevsky, Tolstoy or Stendhal, let alone Schopenhauer. The former is natural, the latter is affected.

[LKB]

Revising my list, now that I've taken a little time to actually put some thought into it.

Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez
Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Whitman, Leaves of Grass
McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
Steinbeck, Travels with Charley

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Thomas Mann, Joseph and his Brothers
Roger Martin du Gard, Les Thibault
Naguib Mahfouz, Children of Gebelawi
V. Hugo, Les Misérables
J. Steinbeck, East of Eden

Other favourite authors: Hesse, Faulkner, Andric, Maupassant. I'd like to read a novel by a Japanese or Indian author, but I don't know where to start...

Jfyi,

Yasunari Kawabata: Thousand Cranes
Osamu Dazai: No Longer Human
Kobo Abe: The Woman in the Dunes
Ryunosuke Akutagawa: Rashomon
Yukio Mishima: Confessions of a Mask

[ritter]

.....
Álvaro Mutis - The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll
...

A good one! Read it many years ago (thirty at least) and enjoyed it immensely. Nice to see Maqroll and Mutis mentioned here, Andrei!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Agreed. Jo has provided some very good examples.

My point (by which I stand) is that I'd rather commend a teenager for reading Alexandre Dumas, Jules Verne, Dickens, Cooper, Scott, Stevenson and "abridged and adapted" versions of Don Quijote, Gulliver, Robinson Crusoe than for reading Dostoevsky, Tolstoy or Stendhal, let alone Schopenhauer. The former is natural, the latter is affected.

I tend to have a different view. I read Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Stendhal first time when I was 12 y/o. I completely understood the plot, and 70-80 percent of the social/philosophical indications. As for the literary/artistic beauty, probably I got 60-70 percent. I knew that I found great works. I was shocked by them. First time I listened to the Beatles when I was 10 y/o, I was similarly shocked. Overall I am glad that I had these extraordinary, artistic experiences when I was a kid.

[Florestan]

A good one! Read it many years ago (thirty at least) and enjoyed it immensely. Nice to see Maqroll and Mutis mentioned here, Andrei!

Just as nice to see Quijote and Cervantes mentioned here, Rafael!

[Florestan]

I read Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Stendhal first time when I was 12 y/o. I completely understood the plot, and 70-80 percent of the social/philosophical indications. As for the literary/artistic beauty, probably I got 60-70 percent.

Come on, Manabu! Are you going to tell me that at 12 you were even cursorily familiar with the historical context of War and Peac or The Red and the Black? That at 12 you had any notion, and could express it in familiar words, of even a single one of the topics of those works? No, really, what could you have known at 12 about Russian and French history, let alone love (including sexual overtones), power, fate, politics, religion and so on and so forth?

As for literary/artistic beauty, I would bet that at 12 you didn't even have the proper vocabulary to describe it.

All of the above is of course moot if you were a genius.

(Sorry, my friend, I just couldn't resist.)

[ritter]

Come on, Manabu! Are you going to tell me that at 12 you were even cursorily familiar with the historical context of War and Peac or The Red and the Black? That at 12 you had any notion, and could express it in familiar words, of even a single one of the topics of those works? No, really, what could you have known at 12 about Russian and French history, let alone love, power, fate, politics, religion and so on and so forth?

As for literary/artistic beauty, I would bet that at 12 you didn't even have the proper vocabulary to describe it.

All of the above is of course moot if you were a genius.

(Sorry, my friend, I just couldn't resist.)

And those of us who were reading Heidegger in kindergarten? Come on, Andrei!

[Florestan]

And those of us who were reading Heidegger in kindergarten?

Well, in later life you became Wagnerites... 

[Brian]

Come on, Manabu! Are you going to tell me that at 12 you were even cursorily familiar with the historical context of War and Peac or The Red and the Black? That at 12 you had any notion, and could express it in familiar words, of even a single one of the topics of those works? No, really, what could you have known at 12 about Russian and French history, let alone love (including sexual overtones), power, fate, politics, religion and so on and so forth?

As for literary/artistic beauty, I would bet that at 12 you didn't even have the proper vocabulary to describe it.

All of the above is of course moot if you were a genius.

(Sorry, my friend, I just couldn't resist.)

I can imagine that the love sections of Charterhouse of Parma, rather than the politics ones, would be irresistible to a teenager. Not sure about age 12.

[Florestan]

I can imagine that the love sections of Charterhouse of Parma, rather than the politics ones, would be irresistible to a teenager. Not sure about age 12.

[DavidW]

J. Steinbeck, East of Eden

I read it a million years ago.  I recently picked up a like new trade paperback copy at a library book sale.  It's now on my to be read pile for a reread!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Come on, ; Manabu! Are you going to tell me that at 12 you were even cursorily familiar with the historical context of War and Peac or The Red and the Black? That at 12 you had any notion, and could express it in familiar words, of even a single one of the topics of those works? No, really, what could you have known at 12 about Russian and French history, let alone love (including sexual overtones), power, fate, politics, religion and so on and so forth?

As for literary/artistic beauty, I would bet that at 12 you didn't even have the proper vocabulary to describe it.

All of the above is of course moot if you were a genius.

(Sorry, my friend, I just couldn't resist.)

Well-said, Andrei! 

[André]

Thanks for the japanese books suggestions, gents !

[vandermolen]

Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
War and Peace
Jude the Obscure
Lonesome Dove

Actually your top four could be mine as well.

My List No.2 

Orwell: Animal Farm
Orwell: 1984
Tolstoy: War and Peace
Tolkein: LOTR
Willans and Searle: The Compleet [sic] Molesworth

[Jo498]

Come on, Manabu! Are you going to tell me that at 12 you were even cursorily familiar with the historical context of War and Peace or The Red and the Black? That at 12 you had any notion, and could express it in familiar words, of even a single one of the topics of those works? No, really, what could you have known at 12 about Russian and French history, let alone love (including sexual overtones), power, fate, politics, religion and so on and so forth?

I agree with some of this but not all. One does not need to know the history before reading such novels (and many older adults don't). I think I know most of my 18th century scottish history from reading Stevenson's "Kidnapped" and "Catriona" not before, although I read this not as a teenager but in my twenties. And I probably looked up some things during that reading although it was before the internet, I think, so it would have been a standard lexicon entry for the Jacobites etc. I think one of the most famous German critics in the late 20th century mentioned several times that all he knew about a certain topic or historical period he had from some novel, not from school or scholarly literature.

And it also applies to some only moderately great literature, like Eco's Name of the Rose where despite all the scholasticism info-dumps included most readers will lack sufficient knowledge to appreciate even a fraction of the philosophical, theological and literary allusions. I recall that in the 1980s there were books called something "The name of the rose revealed" or so that tracked some of this stuff.

Even the love/sex aspect is a bit "cultural". In older literature and film sometimes these things are so discreetly hinted at, that I missed them as an adult! There is a novel by Fontane where I am still not sure, if adultery took place or  if the person feels so guilty about their adulterous intention that it lead to the marriage falling apart or so (now reading a summary, I think adultery did take place but off stage, so the scene I had in mind was not supposed to already indicate it).

As for literary/artistic beauty, I would bet that at 12 you didn't even have the proper vocabulary to describe it.

This doesn't matter. Not many people have the vocabulary for that and it is not necessary to appreciate literary quality although it is usually true that kids go more for plot/action and might downright ignore other aspects.

All of the above is of course moot if you were a genius.

It certainly is a factor if a child read whole real books with 6 or only with 9 that will partly determine what one can take with 12 or 14. However, at some age one also has to read the lighter stuff (like all these adventure stories, SciFi and classic murder mysteries etc.) so I'd rather do this at ~12-16

[Holden]

Someone mentioned Guy de Maupassant. One of my favourite shorts stories is "Boule de Suif". Once again, very relevant today