What are your six favourite fiction books (or authors) ?

[Herman]

Flaubert, L'éducation sentimentale
Balzac, Les illusions perdues
Stendhal, Le Rouge & le noir
Maupassant, stories, any stories
Bellow, Humboldt's Gift
Updike, stories

I like other books, too:

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

A distinct Franco-American bias to Herman's list.

Bellow, Humboldt's Gift

That good, eh? I am trying to decided whether to tackle this or Augie March next. Unfortunately I don't have time to do both.

BTW Nabokov considered both Stendhal and Balzac "detestable mediocrities." But his admiration for Flaubert was great.

[Florestan]

BTW Nabokov considered both Stendhal and Balzac "detestable mediocrities."

Sour grapes... 

[Herman]

BTW Nabokov considered both Stendhal and Balzac "detestable mediocrities." But his admiration for Flaubert was great.

Virtually everything Nabokov said ex cathedra was silly bull. His condescending tone about Jane Austen... terrible.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Virtually everything Nabokov said ex cathedra was silly bull.

I disagree to a certain extent. While his potshots at exalted figures like Dostoyevsky and Mann are excessive, some of his observations are pertinent. Ditto his analysis of Don Quixote. At least he provokes one to take a fresh look at some canonical texts.

I think his trashing of Pasternak, though, really was a case of sour grapes.

[Florestan]

Joseph Conrad too disliked Dostoyevsky, but at least he was Joseph Conrad.  0:)

I very much doubt that Nabokov will ever make his way into the canon where Stendhal, Balzac, Cervantes, Th. Mann, Dostoyevsky and Jane Austen rightly sit. He might be remembered, though, as the guy who attacked them all.  

[Herman]

Well, canons come and go, and suspect it will be a long time yet before people stop reading Lolita.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Joseph Conrad too disliked Dostoyevsky, but at least he was Joseph Conrad.  0:)

Nabokov disliked both Conrad and Dostoyevsky  0:)

I very much doubt that Nabokov will ever make his way into the canon where Stendhal, Balzac, Cervantes, Th. Mann, Dostoyevsky and Jane Austen rightly sit. He might be remembered, though, as the guy who attacked them all.  

Lolita at least is already canonical, or at least as canonical as anything written in the 1950s could be.

[Dr. Dread]

I tried some Conrad recently. Ugh. 

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

BTW, Nabokov didn't so much attack Cervantes as subject him to critical re-appraisal. He considered Don Quixote a success in some ways and a failure in others. It's all in his book Lectures on Don Quixote.

[Florestan]

Nabokov disliked both Conrad and Dostoyevsky  0:)

Who did he like, then, apart from himself?

Lolita at least is already canonical, or at least as canonical as anything written in the 1950s could be.

I'd risk a bet: had Lolita been 21 instead of 12, the book wouldn't have been the hit it was.  

[Florestan]

I tried some Conrad recently.

Like what?

[Dr. Dread]

Like what?

NOSTROMO. I kept wondering when it was going to take off. Then I gave up.

[Florestan]

NOSTROMO. I kept wondering when it was going to take off. Then I gave up.

That's a masterpiece but apparently not your cup of tea. 

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Who did he like, then, apart from himself?

A partial list, just from memory:

Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Gogol, Kafka, Flaubert, Dickens, Joyce, Pushkin, Chekhov, Proust

Not a bad list I think  0:)

[karlhenning]

Dostoyevsky
Wodehouse
Evelyn Waugh
Harold Lamb
Washington Irving
Richard Brautigan

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

NOSTROMO. I kept wondering when it was going to take off. Then I gave up.

I did exactly the same thing. I couldn't take his fake Latin American country seriously, and I didn't like the writing style.

Heart of Darkness is good, though.

[Florestan]

A partial list, just from memory:

Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Gogol, Kafka, Flaubert, Dickens, Joyce, Pushkin, Chekhov, Proust

Not a bad list I think  0:)

Not bad at all, indeed.

[Henk]

A partial list, just from memory:

Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Gogol, Kafka, Flaubert, Dickens, Joyce, Pushkin, Chekhov, Proust

Not a bad list I think  0:)

Leave Proust out and I agree.

[Henk]

Joseph Conrad too disliked Dostoyevsky, but at least he was Joseph Conrad.  0:)

I very much doubt that Nabokov will ever make his way into the canon where Stendhal, Balzac, Cervantes, Th. Mann, Dostoyevsky and Jane Austen rightly sit. He might be remembered, though, as the guy who attacked them all.  

He didn't consider himself a great writer either. Pushkin in contrary he considered a genius.