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

[Ten thumbs]

Excluding novels not written in English because of the translation issue, the novels that have had the greatest impact on me are:
Dickens: Bleak House
Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre
Mervyn Peake: Gormenghast trilogy
Conrad: Nostromo
Mrs Gaskell: North & South
Hardy: Tess of the d'Urbervilles

I must say that no modern novelist seems able to match the intensity of these classics. Perhaps it's just me.

[CD]

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

Nostromo is genius. I took the severe writing style as a mirror of the harsh (and completely fleshed-out and believeable) world of his invented country.

[CD]

Leave Proust out and I agree.

Let me know when you actually read Proust.

[Henk]

Let me know when you actually read Proust.

Proust is autobiographic so of a lower status then the bigger writers. Real literature isn't autobiographic.

[DavidW]

Proust is autobiographic so of a lower status then the bigger writers. Real literature isn't autobiographic.

One True Scotsman Fallacy.

[Air]

1. Gone with the Wind - Mitchell
2. Lord of the Rings Trilogy - Tolkien
3. The Iliad - Homer
4. War and Peace - Tolstoy (not finished yet, but I'm starting to love it)
5. The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
6. Les Miserables - Hugo

[Ten thumbs]

Actually I forgot something, so I'm taking Gormenghast out (it wasn't completely finished anyway) and replacing it with:
Henry James: The Golden Bowl

[Florestan]

Proust is autobiographic so of a lower status then the bigger writers. Real literature isn't autobiographic.

Wrong.

[CD]

My list of favorites has changed a bit since I posted here almost two years ago (wow...):

Elias Canetti - Auto-da-fe
Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain
Hermann Broch - The Sleepwalkers
Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time (Though I've only read four of the seven novels, they are substantial enough for me to place them among my favorites. I intend to read the others pretty soon.)
Robert Musil The Man Without Qualities (which reminds me I still need to read Young Torless!)
James Joyce - Ulysses (Only finished two days ago as I type this, but I think it has had a substantial impact on me, to the point that I can't stop thinking about it!)

[CD]

Actually I forgot something, so I'm taking Gormenghast out (it wasn't completely finished anyway) and replacing it with:
Henry James: The Golden Bowl

Kudos for actually finishing it. I couldn't, and I love difficult literature.

[Brünnhilde ewig]

Not six but TEN of the Kurt Wallander mystery stories by Henning Mankell.

Three of them recently were the hit on the BBC Mystery series with Kenneth Branagh as the Swedish detective.

[secondwind]

Real literature isn't autobiographic.

I would contend that all literature is autobiographical, one way or another.  I would probably even contend that all art is autobiographical. 
( Ducking behind computer screen, braces self for onslaught of slings and arrows. . . )

[Franco]

I would contend that all literature is autobiographical, one way or another.  I would probably even contend that all art is autobiographical. 
( Ducking behind computer screen, braces self for onslaught of slings and arrows. . . )

I agree with you, in the larger sense of term.

[Henk]

I would contend that all literature is autobiographical, one way or another.  I would probably even contend that all art is autobiographical.  
( Ducking behind computer screen, braces self for onslaught of slings and arrows. . . )

I agree. But with Proust it's one-on-one. That's an important difference. With Proust it's just one-way direction from the writer to the book he writes. With good art it's a two-way-direction from the artist to his work, and from the work to the artist, as Harry Mulisch says.

Mulisch says "in the same degree I write the book, the book writes me".

[matti]

Not six but TEN of the Kurt Wallander mystery stories by Henning Mankell.

Oh I like those too! Have you read the Stieg Larsson trilogy yet?

[Herman]

Mulisch says "in the same degree I write the book, the book writes me".

well, Proust could've said the same thing  -  except he didn't talk as much about himself as HM does.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

well, Proust could've said the same thing  -  except he didn't talk as much about himself as HM does.

Agreed.

[Brünnhilde ewig]

Oh I like those too! Have you read the Stieg Larsson trilogy yet?

You Temptor, you!    No, I have not red the Stieg Larsson - yet. The Kurt Wallander books have kept me long enough from reading Thomas Bernhard, Thomas Mann, Günter Grass . . . not to mention cleaning my house, doing my laundry, seriously listen to music - - -

[matti]

You Temptor, you!    No, I have not red the Stieg Larsson - yet. The Kurt Wallander books have kept me long enough from reading Thomas Bernhard, Thomas Mann, Günter Grass . . . not to mention cleaning my house, doing my laundry, seriously listen to music - - -

In that case I'm afraid I'll have to advice you not to read any Larsson. Apart from the tasks you mentioned, they will also keep you from sleeping... they are that good. Stay away from them! 

[Ten thumbs]

Kudos for actually finishing it. I couldn't, and I love difficult literature.

Okay and I loved it but I confess I got stuck with 'What Maisie Knew'. That is one I must go back to.