Fiction Recommendations .

[Nihil Obstat]

I'm not really wanting to make a serious effort at changing your mind. I think it's easier and less blood-pressure-spiking to slowly assimilate you into my way of thinking over many months of solid common sense and simple presentation of my point of view.
[img]http://records.viu.ca/~soules/medi402/walker/borg1.GIF[/img]

[Fragments]

'The Rainbow' by D.H. Lawrence,
If you liked 'Catcher In The Rye' then try 'The Perks of Being A Wallflower' by Stephen Chbosky if you hated Catcher but liked Salinger's writing, try 'Franny and Zooey' again by Salinger.
If you're feeling brave 'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess- the writing and the use of language is outstanding. However I found it quite disturbing.

Got loads more, just give me a PM

[Archaeology cat]

How do you feel about F Scott Fitzgerald? I personally like his works (and not just [i]The Great Gatsby[/i]). [i]Tender is the Night[/i] was good, I thought.

George Orwell?

And of course, if you've not read all of Shakespeare's plays, you can pick up some of the others.

[Innocent]

I'm currently re-reading [i]Jane Eyre[/i] by Charlotte Brontë. (The last time I read that book was during my childhood.) I find that I enjoy it much more now.

Next in line for me is Jane Austen's [i]Persuasion[/i].

Have you read a modestly sized volume C.S. Lewis wrote titled, "[url="http://www.amazon.com/Experiment-Criticism-Canto-C-Lewis/dp/0521422817"]An Experiment in Criticism[/url]?"

Edited August 17, 2010 by Innocent

[MithLuin]

My problem with Rand is that her fiction is too much like propaganda for her philosophy. Still, it is well-written propaganda. My mom read [i]Fountainhead[/i] and decided to be an architect. A good friend of mine in elementary school had 'Ayn' as her middle name - guess who she was named for?

If you enjoyed Beowulf, I highly recommend reading [i]The Lord of the Rings[/i] by J.R.R. Tolkien. He also enjoyed Beowulf, and it shows in his depiction of the Rohirrim.

My father enjoyed Faulkner. I read [i]Light in August[/i] and didn't think much of it, so I didn't try his other works, but that's probably not fair of me. I'm not a fan of Fitzgerald - I didn't particularly care for [i]The Great Gatsby[/i] or [i]Tender is the Night[/i] - there is a deep, inevitable melancholy hanging over his work. One atypical book by Mark Twain is his 'Joan of Arc' - it's not satirical like his other fiction. One of the best versions of the saint's story (certainly better than Shakespeare's portrayal in Henry VI or George Bernard Shaw's in [i]Saint Joan[/i].)

Most of the fantasy mentioned so far is nothing I would be interested in. But a great book is [i]Watership Down[/i] - it's about rabbits. If you can get past [i]that[/i], it's quite an interesting epic story with some social commentary on human societies as well.

[Archaeology cat]

How do you feel about Norse saga? I've not yet read Tolkien's [i]The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun[/i] (though I'm familiar with their story). Or there are the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda.

[eustace scrubb]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1282062574' post='2158913']
My problem with Rand is that her fiction is too much like propaganda for her philosophy. Still, it is well-written propaganda.[/quote]

Thank you for saving me the effort of having to type my answer to Nihil.

Anyhow, it's that + my [i]extreme[/i] distaste for her philosophy that are why I can't stand her.

[Hassan]

I don't think it's well written. She just leads the reader by the hand to her points. Which are dramatic and obvious enough in the first place. They aren't cleverly argued or beautifully shown. She's just lecturing her philosophy to her reader, and lecturing in a way that suggests she doesn't think much of her reader's capacities for subtlety, nuance, or inference, in a barely disguised and shallow literary form. When I read her I picture in my mind a parent setting a child down to teach them some basic lesson in a simple, parable form.

[goldbug16]

I just read "Gilead" by Marilynn Robinson and it was wonderful! Just so simple and fresh. It's such a great read.

[MithLuin]

True enough, [b]Hassan[/b], which was why I called it propaganda. Lots of authors try to infuse their world view into their writing, and some are even attempting to be persuasively apologetic about it. (I'm thinking in particular of existential writers, such as Camus, Sartre, Hesse) She crosses the line into propaganda, because it's clear she's trying to force the reader to see things her way - it's allegory, and (on top of that) deliberately deceptive. For instance, one could argue that the point of [i]The Fountainhead[/i] is that brilliant visionary artists should be allowed to do their thing, without interference from all those 'little people' who [i]just don't get it[/i]. We're shown examples of these geniuses at work, and (cleverly) are made to identify with them. But really, the reader is [i]not[/i] considered part of that group - we're the little people! As soon as you realize that...well, the story reads like propaganda, not a well-written story.

But it is well written...for propaganda. If that was her purpose, she went about it cleverly.

Okay, though, we'll cross Ayn Rand off the list, since you're obviously not interested in reading more of her work for fun.

About Shakespeare...I hesitate to recommend just reading his work. It's almost always better to go see a production of the play than to just sit and read it. I don't know what you've read of his, but obviously Hamlet and Macbeth are worth reading. Both are quite quotable. Longest play = Hamlet. Bloodiest play = Macbeth. Goriest play = Titus Andronicus. Play where death is code for sex = Antony and Cleopatra. Play that was written as a comedy but has come out sort of tragic = The Merchant of Venice. The comedies are funnier when performed. Sitting and reading Midsummernight's Dream can just be tedious.

[eustace scrubb]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1282141648' post='2159490'](I'm thinking in particular of existential writers, such as Camus, Sartre, Hesse)[/quote]

Those guys are seriously the[i] worst[/i].(ideologically speaking). When someone tells me about how awesome Camus is, I want to hand them a Thomas Merton book immediately. On that note, did Merton ever write any fiction?

[dominicansoul]

[IMG]http://i802.photobucket.com/albums/yy305/laetitia_crucis/Random/nunemoticon.gif[/IMG]

[Wikitiki]

I don't care what you people think. I will continue to adore Ayn Rand and her characters' hundred-page speeches.

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='Wikitiki' timestamp='1282145668' post='2159522']
I don't care what you people think. I will continue to adore Ayn Rand and her characters' hundred-page speeches.
[/quote]


you should read Terry Goodkinds books. kind of Ayn Rands philosophy and speeches, boiled down to 5 page speeches and considerably more story.

[Archaeology cat]

Read Coleridge!