The Great Novel I Never Read

It's book week at Slate and they posted this entertaining entry:

Six years ago, Slate asked critics to reveal their "gravest literary omissions": the most important books they'd never read. Norman Podhoretz confessed that he'd tried, and failed, to finish Bleak House. The New Yorker's Alice Truax said she was particularly weak on American novels: Moby-Dick, The Grapes of Wrath, and Sister Carrie.

For this year's fall fiction issue, we've sent our old survey question to a different group: contemporary authors. It turns out that professional writers find it just as hard to get through the classics as the rest of us. Never managed to finish Ulysses? You're in good company.

Since it didn't seem fair to dwell on sins of omission, we offered an alternative question: What's your guiltiest pleasure? As you'll see, some authors took this opportunity to drag skeletons out of their literary closets.

I have to admit that there are quite a few that I haven't got around to, despite having studied literature as an undergraduate. Let's see, I'll stick with the great novels that have been sitting on my bookshelf for some time: Fyodor Dostoyesvsky's The Devils, Thomas Mann's Doctor Fautstus, and Gunter Grass' The Tin Drum. I'm sure I coud list many more, but those are the ones staring me in the face. How about you?

Comments

[Eric]

Under the Volcano
I've never read a Dickens or a Proust novel
I have wanted to read Sinclair Lewis's "Babbit" but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

[MC]

Under The Volcano is a sort of underground classic IMHO-the film version with Albert Finney is interesting in its own right.

I've only read a couple of Dickens-Great Expectations (full disclosure I had to teach it as a long term substitute) and Hard Times (pretty short for a Dickens novel).

I haven't read any Proust yet either-suppsodedly one of the greatest novels of all time.

Babbit is pretty good critique of complacent, middlebrow culture and society that still resonates today. However, I'm not sure that Sinclair Lewis rates among the literary giants.

[phatrick]

You should check out the review by Jay MCinery (I can't remember how to spell it) in last Sunday's NY Times of "How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read." An entertaining review of a what sounds like an interesting - and actually sort of serious book. Personally, I've always felt a bit bad about not reading any Proust.

[MC]

Yeah, I've read a couple of reviews about that book. I don't hink I need to read it though, becuase I always talk about things that I don't know anything about with authroity.

[phatrick]

Agreed. Having read the review, I'm just going to talk about it like I read it. Somehow, I think the author would understand.