What classics would you recommend?

[danlo]

Half-Asleep in Frog Pyjamas and Another Roadside Attraction are cool, Still Life's still the best---Lore-I know why you didn't like Even Cowgirls: you haven't been hitting the bong hard enough!

[Loredoctor]

[Avatar]

Lore-I know why you didn't like Even Cowgirls: you haven't been hitting the bong hard enough!

In that case, I'll probably enjoy them. Will give them a go. Thanks.

--A

[BerryGirl]

Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre'. Also, Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights' is a work of pure genius. Shame she died so young - who knows what else she could have given to the world....

[Avatar]

Haven't seen you about for a while BerryGirl. Agree on the Bronte sisters pretty much. Definitely both worthy of mention in a discussion on "Classics". There was a third sister too, can't remember her name though.

--A

[Loredoctor]

Wuthering Heights is wonderful.

[Matthias]

Frankenstein (The Modern Prometheus) by Mary Shelly.

read it for class and thought it was probably one of the most depressing horror/gothic classics out there. Loved it though. Will definitely reread soon.

[sgt.null]

the collected works of Edgar Allen Poe
the collected works of HP Lovecraft

[Bhakti]

Most anything by Hesse. But the grand masterpiece is Magister Ludi, or The Glass Bead Game, whichever it's called when you find it.

[Loredoctor]

the collected works of HP Lovecraft

Good choice.

[Wyldewode]

An abrieviated list of classics not previoulsly mentioned:

Gilgamesh
Beowulf--Séamas Heaney has a new translation of this, and Tolkien's is in the works.
Antigone by Sophocles
Song of Roland

Authors:
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Walt Whitman
Thomas Hardy
A.E. Housman
Sigfried Sassoon
Wilfred Owen
James Joyce
Dylan Thomas
W.H. Auden


This is just skimming the surface. . . I'll have to come back later with specifics.

[Holsety]

Cervantes Don Quixote
...
Aeschylus The Oresteia
...
Flaubert Madame Bovary

Thumbs up for Aeschylus, he's my favorite Greek writer. But if you're including Bovary I'd suggest skipping Don Quixote, and vice versa, at least until later - the two are compared, and for good reason; they might satirize different genres, but ultimately one doesn't need both, at least if'n you ask me. I prefer DQ but Bovary is shorter.

I'd add Ada by Nabakov
Nicolas & Alexandra
The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway
Two Years Before the Mast by Dana
Pultarch's Lives
Homage the Catalonia by Orwell
The Stranger by Camus
The Heart of Darkness by Conrad
and Razor's Edge by Mamaugh

It's just my opinion, but I would reccomend Richard Wright's The Outsider over Camus' The Stranger. And I suppose I'll add on Savage Holiday and Pagan Spain as well, the only nonfiction works of Wright I've been able to purchase and read.

EDIT-The Stranger involves a character more "developed" than Cross Damon - that is, Meursault has already become 'an individual'. But The Outsider was, to me, much more interesting.

Some Classic I like:
...
Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake
...
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

Gormenghast! Good choice!

The mention of japanese author reminds me of Natsume Soseki's work I am a Cat, which is absolutely genius; a reflection on the transformation of the Meiji era through the eyes of a lazy housecat.

[A Gunslinger]

The best (Classic) book ever written: To Kill a Mockingbird. Apologies if this has already been mentioned. I almost named my son Atticus.

[Holsety]

Ooh ooh I almost forgot. John Dos Passos! Well, I've only read the USA trilogy; it has its ups and downs, but all in all it's a pretty nice book. The biographical sections are particularly interesting, and his use of the "stream of conciousness" technique is pretty fun to read.

He's written a number of other works, but I've not read a one. I'm thinking about seeing what his District of Columbia series is like, though.