Anyone a reader of pre-20th century novels?

Post by **peter** » Wed Oct 29, 2014 11:12 am

I've read 'Drood' V., and enjoyed it very much. Simmons has written a very well recieved science-fiction series 'Hyperion', which I have yet to read and 'Drood' has very much 'whetted my appitite' to see what else Simmons can do.

re 'Phantom of the Opera' - this is another on my 'must read' list!

Post by **Vraith** » Wed Oct 29, 2014 5:47 pm

peter wrote:I've read 'Drood' V., and enjoyed it very much.

'Hyperion', which I have yet to read and 'Drood' has very much 'whetted my appitite'

to see what else Simmons can do.

On first: Oh. Good. I guess I was correct, but late to the party.

Second: Really? Get on it.

Last: Simmons can do quite a lot. Hyperion is a bit related to this thread, too.
Connects to pre-20. Keats and Chaucer the totally obvious ones, but subtler stuff as well.

I've tried "Phantom." Can't get far. Maybe I will eventually...it took me half a dozen tries to get past first 100 pages of "Brothers Kar."...so sometimes persistence works for me.

Post by **peter** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 10:11 am

The only other Simmons book I read was 'Summer of Night'. it was really creepy at first but then sort of morphed into a written version of the Halloween or Poltergeist films of the eighties. Still a good read, but I just kept seeing 'film-screenplay' screaming out from behind it as I read. I could hardly believe it was by the same guy that wrote 'Drood'! [Which in fairness does also have a sort of 'filmable' quality about it; wasn't Del Torro going to do one at some point?]

Post by **Vraith** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:45 pm

peter wrote:The only other Simmons book I read was 'Summer of Night'. it was really creepy at first but then sort of morphed into a written version of the Halloween or Poltergeist films of the eighties. Still a good read, but I just kept seeing 'film-screenplay' screaming out from behind it as I read. I could hardly believe it was by the same guy that wrote 'Drood'! [Which in fairness does also have a sort of 'filmable' quality about it; wasn't Del Torro going to do one at some point?]

I hadn't heard about Del Torro...I once heard someone was going to do Hyperion, but it's been a couple years now.
I think all the Simmons I've read is quite filmable, but I don't think any of his work has been filmed?
Of course, I'm one of the few people who thinks the Chron's wouldn't be that hard to film, they could be great. The biggest problem is length. Not that it isn't filmable, but that it would take LOTS of film. [Simmons/Hyperion would take lots of film, too, to do it right]

The way the world works, I suspect Simmons detective books would be most likely to actually get made.

Post by **michaelm** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:55 pm

aliantha wrote:The reviewer thought the male lead -- not the Phantom, the other one -- was too much of a milquetoast. But of course, that's exactly the way Hugo wrote him. Clearly the reviewer had never read the book.

Don't you mean Leroux?

Website · Post by **Iolanthe** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 5:27 pm

How did I miss this thread!!

I have downstairs full sets of Hardy, Austin, Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books, the Brontes, George Eliot, and Trollope (Barchester, Palliser and some others). Don't have any Thackeray but have read Vanity Fair, likewise Forster's Room with a View.

My favourite Hardy is Under the Greenwood Tree which I did for O Level English Lit, or The Trumpet Major, or The Woodlanders - hell, I love them all. Got Wuthering Heights as a school prize but prefer Jane Eyre.

I have (and have read) Iliad and Odyssey, Herodotus The Histories , Tacitus The Annals of Imperial Rome, Livy The Early History of Rome, Virgil The Aeneid and Apollonius The Voyage of Argo (just showing off there folks ). Also have the Epic of Gilgamesh (surprised to see that mentioned above). Some of these aren
't actually novels though, are they?

Dickens I have just got into, but I've not got too many of his yet. I've been getting the free ones for Kindle.

In fact it's probably fair to say that I've read far more pre 20th century novels than I have post 20C, although I have read a large number of detective novels (I once had all the Agatha Christies).

Post by **michaelm** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 12:09 pm

Under the Greenwood Tree is on my to read list - there aren't many that I haven't read, but that one somehow slipped through the cracks and I seem to always hear people saying that it's one of his best.

I've also read quite a few classical Greek and Roman authors too, and it's surprising how familiar the stories are in some of them. Homer's two epic are referenced in so many books that it would probably be irritating if I hadn't read them and still had to puzzle over the references in other books. I actually had to read both of them at school - I think the Iliad for English class and the Odyssey for Classical Studies class. I went on to read a lot more though - Virgil, Plato, Sophocles, Ovid, etc.

The Epic of Gilgamesh was something I read because at the time I was going through a period of reading as many very old texts as I could, and that one is certainly one of the oldest works that has any kind of length to it.

I think it's probably also true of me that I have read more books written prior to the 20th century than books written during or after.

Post by **peter** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 4:37 pm

Ok - now let's be honest and I'll start. I read The Odessy and was not captured by it. I read Paradise Lost and it didn't do it for me. I read The Complete Angler and it sent me to sleep. At some point I came to a decision that if I wasn't enjoying a book - be it a classic or otherwise - I'd put it down [unless I had a very good reason not to]. Robinson Crusoe was sacrificed on the alter of this self-serving decree, and why not! If I pick up War and Peace, Vanity Fair and Far from the Madding Crowd - am I truly going to like'em?

Post by **Vraith** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 5:11 pm

peter wrote:Ok - now let's be honest and I'll start. I read The Odessy and was not captured by it. I read Paradise Lost and it didn't do it for me. I read The Complete Angler and it sent me to sleep. At some point I came to a decision that if I wasn't enjoying a book - be it a classic or otherwise - I'd put it down [unless I had a very good reason not to]. Robinson Crusoe was sacrificed on the alter of this self-serving decree, and why not! If I pick up War and Peace, Vanity Fair and Far from the Madding Crowd - am I truly going to like'em?

Odyssey was OK, I don't think I've met a Milton I didn't hate. [Maybe the most hated class I ever took. "Milton" 15 weeks of reading him every day, reading commentary/criticism/analysis of him, 100-ish total pages of writing about him...torture]
Sometimes I'm nicer about him, when he comes up...but no more.

I think there's a chance you might like War and Peace.

Post by **peter** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 5:14 pm

You know me well enough V. to know that I'm a sucker for a good story. if W & P can deliver that, then I'm on board!

.

Post by **aliantha** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 5:55 pm

michaelm wrote:
aliantha wrote:The reviewer thought the male lead -- not the Phantom, the other one -- was too much of a milquetoast. But of course, that's exactly the way Hugo wrote him. Clearly the reviewer had never read the book.
Don't you mean Leroux?

Slip of the fingers, obviously.

Post by **michaelm** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 8:34 pm

aliantha wrote:
michaelm wrote:
aliantha wrote:The reviewer thought the male lead -- not the Phantom, the other one -- was too much of a milquetoast. But of course, that's exactly the way Hugo wrote him. Clearly the reviewer had never read the book.
Don't you mean Leroux?
Slip of the fingers, obviously.

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Anyone a reader of pre-20th century novels?