What are your favorite novels from an aesthetic/writing style point of view?
March 17, 2009 9:19 AM Subscribe
What are your favorite novels from an aesthetic/writing style point of view?
I'm aware of this thread, but it seems more specific than my question. (Perhaps not?)
I'm aware of this thread, but it seems more specific than my question. (Perhaps not?)
Response by poster: Oh, I should have mentioned -- Russian is also acceptable.
posted by archagon at 9:23 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by archagon at 9:23 AM on March 17, 2009
One day I will stop talking about how much I love Lolita on Metafilter, but today is not that day, even if you kindly referenced my own question. If you haven't read it, your reading life is basically a sterile and windy tundra.
I'd love to help you out but I need a little more guidance. What do you mean by aesthetics? Vocabulary? Plot?
posted by zoomorphic at 9:24 AM on March 17, 2009 [4 favorites]
I'd love to help you out but I need a little more guidance. What do you mean by aesthetics? Vocabulary? Plot?
posted by zoomorphic at 9:24 AM on March 17, 2009 [4 favorites]
Little, Big
some of the most beautiful sentences in the world live there...
posted by jammy at 9:29 AM on March 17, 2009 [2 favorites]
some of the most beautiful sentences in the world live there...
posted by jammy at 9:29 AM on March 17, 2009 [2 favorites]
zoomorphic, you stole my answer! Lolita extended my fiction comparative measuring stick about a thousand points. I started with the Alfred Appel annotated version and while I dislike having to flip back and forth to read the notes, they definitely explained a lot of the references along the way.
posted by amicamentis at 9:29 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by amicamentis at 9:29 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: By aesthetics, I mean the local details of the writing style: how well the writing flows, use of interesting metaphors, vocabulary, etc. It's hard for me to define because I honestly haven't read very many novels that wowed me on this level.
I guess I'm looking for the literary version of poetry and music: beautiful to read even if you don't understand what it's trying to say -- if, indeed, it's saying anything at all.
posted by archagon at 9:33 AM on March 17, 2009
I guess I'm looking for the literary version of poetry and music: beautiful to read even if you don't understand what it's trying to say -- if, indeed, it's saying anything at all.
posted by archagon at 9:33 AM on March 17, 2009
Response by poster: Also, please ignore my definition of aesthetics and use your own. There's so much more to it than that, and my paltry explanation does not do it justice.
posted by archagon at 9:35 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by archagon at 9:35 AM on March 17, 2009
Henry James's novels require work, but repay it well. On first reading, the writing seems laboured and wilfully obscure, but because it prevents quick reading it allows the events of the story to brew in one's mind, almost as if one had experienced them oneself. And James is a master of the striking metaphor:
"The next moment she was on her mother's breast, where, amid a wilderness of trinkets, she felt as if she had suddenly been thrust, with a smash of glass, into a jeweller's shop-front ..."
What Maisie Knew is a good place to start.
posted by kitfreeman at 9:35 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
"The next moment she was on her mother's breast, where, amid a wilderness of trinkets, she felt as if she had suddenly been thrust, with a smash of glass, into a jeweller's shop-front ..."
What Maisie Knew is a good place to start.
posted by kitfreeman at 9:35 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
This question is way subjective and I have no idea what you want but here is my best guess: Ben Marcus, Notable American Women; Cynthia Ozick, The Puttermesser Papers; John Barth, The Floating Opera (seriously dude check this one out); not a novel but read it anyway: Gary Lutz, Stories in the Worst Way; same deal on this one: Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons; Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2 or The Gold Bug Variations or Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance or The Echo Maker; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (this one is non-negotiable); and the most important one of all: the King James version of Ecclesiastes which is just too good to describe and you're like, how the heck did this get included with all the other nonsense?
Oh also obviously everything by David Wallace but I recommend that every time and I was feeling a bit repetitive and here it is anyway.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:48 AM on March 17, 2009
Oh also obviously everything by David Wallace but I recommend that every time and I was feeling a bit repetitive and here it is anyway.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:48 AM on March 17, 2009
Ulysses set the standard of aesthetics in the novel almost 100 years ago. Rarely have novels surpassed it in that time. The parts that are tedious are incredibly tedious. However, the aesthetic payoff of Ulysses is immense. The book as a whole is an unbelievable achievement. There are parts that easily rival Shakespeare. It's unfortunate that the book is so rarely read.
posted by milarepa at 9:48 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by milarepa at 9:48 AM on March 17, 2009
Cliche but honest answer: The Great Gatsby.
posted by hellogoodbye at 9:48 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by hellogoodbye at 9:48 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
I really liked Beautiful Losers on this level. Not so much on other levels.
posted by I Foody at 9:52 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by I Foody at 9:52 AM on March 17, 2009
Later Michael Ondaatje. In the Skin of a Lion, The English Patient, Anil's Ghost.
posted by meerkatty at 9:53 AM on March 17, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by meerkatty at 9:53 AM on March 17, 2009 [2 favorites]
1. Gravity's Rainbow
2. The Waves
3. Lolita
4. Excellent Women
5. Pride and Prejudice
posted by jamjam at 9:55 AM on March 17, 2009
2. The Waves
3. Lolita
4. Excellent Women
5. Pride and Prejudice
posted by jamjam at 9:55 AM on March 17, 2009
Calvino's Invisible Cities
Anything by Haruki Murakami
posted by tachikoma_robot at 9:55 AM on March 17, 2009
Anything by Haruki Murakami
posted by tachikoma_robot at 9:55 AM on March 17, 2009
Neuromancer by William Gibson.
I've started reading Sōseki recently, and his work has really struck me.
posted by Camel of Space at 10:00 AM on March 17, 2009
I've started reading Sōseki recently, and his work has really struck me.
posted by Camel of Space at 10:00 AM on March 17, 2009
I enjoy Lord Dunsany, especially The King of Elfland's Daughter, which is so rich as to be lush. Curiously, everyone I know (myself included) who has read it found it to so purple as to be unreadable on the first go, and then found it enchanting on the second try.
One of Dunsany's stylistic heirs is Jack Vance, whom I find eminently readable (and re-readable). He did grind out a lot of space opera in the fifties, so there are a few clunkers with his name on the spine, but no one beats him when he is on his game.
I am less familiar with the works of these authors, but everything I have read from Annie Dillard (especially Pilgim at Tinker Creek) and Anne Morrow Lindbergh (particularly Gift From The Sea) contains passages of astonishing beauty.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:02 AM on March 17, 2009 [2 favorites]
One of Dunsany's stylistic heirs is Jack Vance, whom I find eminently readable (and re-readable). He did grind out a lot of space opera in the fifties, so there are a few clunkers with his name on the spine, but no one beats him when he is on his game.
I am less familiar with the works of these authors, but everything I have read from Annie Dillard (especially Pilgim at Tinker Creek) and Anne Morrow Lindbergh (particularly Gift From The Sea) contains passages of astonishing beauty.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:02 AM on March 17, 2009 [2 favorites]
Visions of Cody, off the top of my head. Not really a novel, but when he wants to go man go, prosewise (purplish perhaps), J. Kerouac really goes.
Martin Amis' London Fields has its moments.
Cormac McCarthy writes pretty good, too.
posted by notyou at 10:03 AM on March 17, 2009
Martin Amis' London Fields has its moments.
Cormac McCarthy writes pretty good, too.
posted by notyou at 10:03 AM on March 17, 2009
Aesthetics/style is pretty much the only reason I read novels these days.
Glad to see I'm not the only Nabokov fan around here. Ditto on Lolita and Pale Fire, and I'd add Ada, Invitation to a Beheading, The Gift (a tough one) ... and, really, everything of his that I've ever read. He's the best.
DeLillo, especially Ratner's Star and The Names.
I love Anthony Burgess, especially the Enderby novels.
posted by Dr. Wu at 10:05 AM on March 17, 2009
Glad to see I'm not the only Nabokov fan around here. Ditto on Lolita and Pale Fire, and I'd add Ada, Invitation to a Beheading, The Gift (a tough one) ... and, really, everything of his that I've ever read. He's the best.
DeLillo, especially Ratner's Star and The Names.
I love Anthony Burgess, especially the Enderby novels.
posted by Dr. Wu at 10:05 AM on March 17, 2009
Vonnegut, especially God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. George Saunders, especially "Jon". Capote, In Cold Blood. Ellis, American Psycho. Another vote for Pale Fire.
posted by equalpants at 10:18 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by equalpants at 10:18 AM on March 17, 2009
Sort of a weird answer, but Faulkner's writing is beautiful to me, stripped and elemental and elegantly musical. I read and reread The Wild Palms/If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem over and over again just for the pure pleasure of the words.
posted by peachfuzz at 10:19 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by peachfuzz at 10:19 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
Sandra Cisneros, A House on Mango Street. This is a story told in a series of vignettes and some of them have deeply moved me with their beauty. Both as individual pieces and strung together as a whole, this is beautiful writing.
Anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His style is magical realism and is very moving.
Ernest Hemingway has his own aesthetic and it is one I enjoy very much.
Same with Samuel Beckett.
I also think Douglas Adams has beautiful writing both for utter originality and awesome, crazy metaphors.
posted by sickinthehead at 10:28 AM on March 17, 2009
Anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His style is magical realism and is very moving.
Ernest Hemingway has his own aesthetic and it is one I enjoy very much.
Same with Samuel Beckett.
I also think Douglas Adams has beautiful writing both for utter originality and awesome, crazy metaphors.
posted by sickinthehead at 10:28 AM on March 17, 2009
Cormac McCarthy writes pretty good, too.
Ah, but not. The Road reads like this:
I'm scared.
What do you want to do.
Nothing.
Nothing?
Okay.
Okay.
He did this and he did that and they slept while he was cold.
Personally, The Catcher in the Rye.
posted by cmgonzalez at 10:32 AM on March 17, 2009
Ah, but not. The Road reads like this:
I'm scared.
What do you want to do.
Nothing.
Nothing?
Okay.
Okay.
He did this and he did that and they slept while he was cold.
Personally, The Catcher in the Rye.
posted by cmgonzalez at 10:32 AM on March 17, 2009
I'm going to do something that I will be completely lambasted for:
I really, really admire the writing in Stephen King's IT.
The way the past is interwoven with the present is absolutely wonderful and terrifying. The "subtexts", lines in parentheses and italics that don't totally make sense on the upper part of the consciousness, are seamless and somehow intuitive. I can't really explain why I love it so much, but oh I do.
There. Now you can flag my comment or mock me in MeMail or what-have-you. I know most of Stephen King isn't stellar writing, but I feel this novel is possibly his most masterful work.
posted by Night_owl at 10:33 AM on March 17, 2009 [3 favorites]
I really, really admire the writing in Stephen King's IT.
The way the past is interwoven with the present is absolutely wonderful and terrifying. The "subtexts", lines in parentheses and italics that don't totally make sense on the upper part of the consciousness, are seamless and somehow intuitive. I can't really explain why I love it so much, but oh I do.
There. Now you can flag my comment or mock me in MeMail or what-have-you. I know most of Stephen King isn't stellar writing, but I feel this novel is possibly his most masterful work.
posted by Night_owl at 10:33 AM on March 17, 2009 [3 favorites]
On review, I think sickinthehead has a great recommendation with Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I especially liked One Hundred Years of Solitude.
posted by Night_owl at 10:35 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by Night_owl at 10:35 AM on March 17, 2009
It isn't my favorite book on all levels, but in terms of appreciation for pure writing style and skill, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.
posted by seppyk at 10:51 AM on March 17, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by seppyk at 10:51 AM on March 17, 2009 [2 favorites]
Mark Helprin writes some mighty poetic prose and his descriptions are just lovely. I'm thinking specifically about Winter's Tale, but A Soldier of the Great War is typical of his prose as well.
posted by elendil71 at 10:52 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by elendil71 at 10:52 AM on March 17, 2009
The Remains of the Day
posted by kirkaracha at 11:02 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by kirkaracha at 11:02 AM on March 17, 2009
3 leap immediately to mind:
- Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
- Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
- A Confederacy Of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
posted by torquemaniac at 11:04 AM on March 17, 2009 [2 favorites]
- Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
- Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
- A Confederacy Of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
posted by torquemaniac at 11:04 AM on March 17, 2009 [2 favorites]
He did this and he did that and they slept while he was cold.
That's sort of the point, though, isn't it? You don't take a story is based on loneliness, desolation, and the limitedness of the main characters' world and pack it full of Dickensian description; that would detract from the book in an inexcusable fashion.
Of course, that's the question: do you want art, or do you want something aesthetically pleasing?
posted by dagnyscott at 11:09 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
That's sort of the point, though, isn't it? You don't take a story is based on loneliness, desolation, and the limitedness of the main characters' world and pack it full of Dickensian description; that would detract from the book in an inexcusable fashion.
Of course, that's the question: do you want art, or do you want something aesthetically pleasing?
posted by dagnyscott at 11:09 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
Another vote for Michael Ondaatje, especially In the Skin of a Lion.
also, Willa Cather - what she writes seems simple, but it's not and that's part of the loveliness of it.
posted by nnk at 11:09 AM on March 17, 2009
also, Willa Cather - what she writes seems simple, but it's not and that's part of the loveliness of it.
posted by nnk at 11:09 AM on March 17, 2009
My favorite piece of writing, John Crowley's Little, Big was already referenced by jammy earlier, but I do urge you to try his other stuff as well. The Solitudes has finally come to a close after four books and about twenty-five years, and I'm re-reading the whole thing... delicious. (Oh, and he has a blog.
For astonishing stylistic fireworks, you can't beat Tom Robbins. Still Life With Woodpecker is usually a good place to start on his stuff.
posted by MrVisible at 11:13 AM on March 17, 2009
For astonishing stylistic fireworks, you can't beat Tom Robbins. Still Life With Woodpecker is usually a good place to start on his stuff.
posted by MrVisible at 11:13 AM on March 17, 2009
Not my favorite book of all time - or even close, actually - but Ann Patchett's Bel Canto has some of the most beautifully written prose I can remember reading.
posted by bluejayway at 11:15 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by bluejayway at 11:15 AM on March 17, 2009
I read David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas recently after some hubbub here, and it was just beautiful.
posted by jquinby at 11:17 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by jquinby at 11:17 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
1. The Country of Pointed Firs - Sarah Orne Jewett
2. A Sport and a Pasttime - James Salter
posted by Joe Beese at 11:18 AM on March 17, 2009
2. A Sport and a Pasttime - James Salter
posted by Joe Beese at 11:18 AM on March 17, 2009
...also just read The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Short, sublime. The ending will probably haunt me for some time to come. I want nothing to do with the film, now or ever.
posted by jquinby at 11:20 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by jquinby at 11:20 AM on March 17, 2009
The Invisibles by Grant Morrison.
posted by christhelongtimelurker at 11:23 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by christhelongtimelurker at 11:23 AM on March 17, 2009
n-thing Nabokov. I adore the musical nature of his autobiography, Speak, Memory.
posted by you're a kitty! at 11:24 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by you're a kitty! at 11:24 AM on March 17, 2009
Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red and Beauty of the Husband. Any refutation of this suggestion is wrong.
Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon is maybe best but she's always uniformly excellent
Nthing Nabokov, Ada is his most embellished after Lolita
Ian McEwan, Atonement
Peter Carey's Illywhacker
Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things
Cynthia Ozick, Heir to the Glimmering World
James Joyce, The Dead
Deborah Eisenburg, Twilight of the Superheroes, especially "Some Other, Better Otto"
Virginia Woolf's Orlando and Mrs. Dalloway
J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace
Chang Rae Lee, A Gesture Life
Nicole Krauss, History of Love
Rimbaud, A Season in Hell and most of the other French Surrealists
posted by zoomorphic at 11:25 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon is maybe best but she's always uniformly excellent
Nthing Nabokov, Ada is his most embellished after Lolita
Ian McEwan, Atonement
Peter Carey's Illywhacker
Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things
Cynthia Ozick, Heir to the Glimmering World
James Joyce, The Dead
Deborah Eisenburg, Twilight of the Superheroes, especially "Some Other, Better Otto"
Virginia Woolf's Orlando and Mrs. Dalloway
J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace
Chang Rae Lee, A Gesture Life
Nicole Krauss, History of Love
Rimbaud, A Season in Hell and most of the other French Surrealists
posted by zoomorphic at 11:25 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor. Unbelievable. One of the only genuinely funny novels I can think of.
Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled.
Sidney's The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.
The prologue of DeLillo's Underworld, which has been separately published as Pafko at the Wall. Libra is also great.
(I also would have said Joyce and Faulkner and Nabokov and McCarthy and McEwan, but they've been mentioned a lot already.)
posted by painquale at 11:34 AM on March 17, 2009
Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled.
Sidney's The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.
The prologue of DeLillo's Underworld, which has been separately published as Pafko at the Wall. Libra is also great.
(I also would have said Joyce and Faulkner and Nabokov and McCarthy and McEwan, but they've been mentioned a lot already.)
posted by painquale at 11:34 AM on March 17, 2009
I recently read Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America. Its writing style was what struck me the most from reading it. Slattery uses an almost conversational style, but also had a little bit of stream-of-consciousness in it. He'll describe intense parts of the story with very brief and cut-off sentences that I thought added to the intensity because my reading pace would speed up and my imagination would go wild.
posted by phrygius at 11:37 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by phrygius at 11:37 AM on March 17, 2009
Anyone who doesn't include Wodehouse's Jeeves works is itching for a fight. A brief excerpt, chosen at random from the collection The Most of PG Wodehouse (Scribner, 1960):
"I pushed my way through the bushes. The going was sticky and took about eight and elevenpence off the value of my Sure-grip tennis shoes in the first two yards; but I persevered and presently came out in the open and found myself in a sort of clearing facing the Octagon[...] The Right Hon., not having spotted the arrival of the rescue party, was apparently trying to make his voice carry across the waste of waters to the house; and I'm not saying it was not a good sporting effort. He had one of those highish tenors, and his yowls seemed to screech over my head like shells."
posted by The White Hat at 11:44 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
"I pushed my way through the bushes. The going was sticky and took about eight and elevenpence off the value of my Sure-grip tennis shoes in the first two yards; but I persevered and presently came out in the open and found myself in a sort of clearing facing the Octagon[...] The Right Hon., not having spotted the arrival of the rescue party, was apparently trying to make his voice carry across the waste of waters to the house; and I'm not saying it was not a good sporting effort. He had one of those highish tenors, and his yowls seemed to screech over my head like shells."
posted by The White Hat at 11:44 AM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
Be sure to check out Jonathan Lethem. My favorites so far are Fortress of Solitude and Gun, With Occasional Music.
posted by MrVisible at 11:44 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by MrVisible at 11:44 AM on March 17, 2009
The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Just perfect.
posted by Danf at 11:57 AM on March 17, 2009
posted by Danf at 11:57 AM on March 17, 2009
Toni Morrison, Beloved. Her writing is so beautiful I sometimes realize that I'm not paying attention to what's going on in the book.
posted by coolguymichael at 12:01 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by coolguymichael at 12:01 PM on March 17, 2009
I'm going to mostly second what others have said:
-- The Great Gatsby
-- Catcher in the Rye
-- Huckleberry Finn
-- Almost anything by John Updike
-- Bel Canto
-- One Hundred Years of Solitude
-- Lonesome Dove
-- Lolita
-- Wuthering Heights
-- 1984
-- Blood Meridian
-- Anything by Raymond Carver
-- Anything by Shakespeare
posted by grumblebee at 12:06 PM on March 17, 2009
-- The Great Gatsby
-- Catcher in the Rye
-- Huckleberry Finn
-- Almost anything by John Updike
-- Bel Canto
-- One Hundred Years of Solitude
-- Lonesome Dove
-- Lolita
-- Wuthering Heights
-- 1984
-- Blood Meridian
-- Anything by Raymond Carver
-- Anything by Shakespeare
posted by grumblebee at 12:06 PM on March 17, 2009
-- Anything by Wodehouse
posted by grumblebee at 12:06 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by grumblebee at 12:06 PM on March 17, 2009
I really like Milan Kundera. He has a soft and hazy but very insightful way of narrating that really gets to me - he slips back and forth in time and space, from the perspective of one character to another, and one moment he is speaking in compelling archetypes and the next in the explicit, mundane details of everyday life. I'm not a huge fan of the Unbearable Lightness of Being, but I love both Immortality and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Try reading the first few pages of the latter - you'll know immediately if you love him or hate him.
posted by shaun uh at 12:12 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by shaun uh at 12:12 PM on March 17, 2009
Mieville - I just read his collection of short stories and those are hit or miss, but his longer works have a lovely baroque-but-not-weighty feel to them.
Melville - I usually re-read Moby Dick yrly (I'm one of those people) and the description and the subject-heading chapters make it eminently readable in short nibbles.
posted by Weighted Companion Cube at 12:50 PM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
Melville - I usually re-read Moby Dick yrly (I'm one of those people) and the description and the subject-heading chapters make it eminently readable in short nibbles.
posted by Weighted Companion Cube at 12:50 PM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
Anything by David Mitchell. I have this aching nostalgia somewhere in my midsection just thinking about Ghostwritten.
posted by Gotham at 12:51 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by Gotham at 12:51 PM on March 17, 2009
Seconding Samuel Beckett.
Start with his first trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnameable; If you get through that and appreciate it, you will be ready for the second: Company, Ill seen/Ill said, Worstward Ho.
The later books are harder to read, and some mistake them for free verse poetry rather than novels. Beckett is a flavor of writing all its own, and an acquired taste to be sure, but it exists in a world apart from anything else I have ever read. If the other great novels are Physics, the novels of Beckett are Mathematics, if that makes any sense - abstracted, years ahead, enormous in scope, yet minimal.
posted by idiopath at 12:52 PM on March 17, 2009
Start with his first trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnameable; If you get through that and appreciate it, you will be ready for the second: Company, Ill seen/Ill said, Worstward Ho.
The later books are harder to read, and some mistake them for free verse poetry rather than novels. Beckett is a flavor of writing all its own, and an acquired taste to be sure, but it exists in a world apart from anything else I have ever read. If the other great novels are Physics, the novels of Beckett are Mathematics, if that makes any sense - abstracted, years ahead, enormous in scope, yet minimal.
posted by idiopath at 12:52 PM on March 17, 2009
I should also mention, re: Beckett: he has a perverse, often obscene sense of humor, and a skepticism of humanity that sometimes borders on nihilism, and most people find his books depressing.
posted by idiopath at 12:54 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by idiopath at 12:54 PM on March 17, 2009
I'm now remembering to mention Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, T. Coraghessan Boyle, William Faulkner, and William Vollmann, as well. Vollmann's output is massive and daunting, but well worth wading through - his imagery is remarkable.
On the non-florid side, I greatly admire the leanness and humor of both Gregory MacDonald (of the "Fletch" series) and Elmore Leonard.
posted by Dr. Wu at 1:01 PM on March 17, 2009
On the non-florid side, I greatly admire the leanness and humor of both Gregory MacDonald (of the "Fletch" series) and Elmore Leonard.
posted by Dr. Wu at 1:01 PM on March 17, 2009
Wodehouse writes damn solid sentences, and Joyce is amazing (if overwhelming at times).
posted by paulg at 1:16 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by paulg at 1:16 PM on March 17, 2009
Backing up the recommendation for Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem, which has precise, achingly beautiful writing — especially in the final passages, which had tears streaming down my face as I finished it on the commuter train. Just the most amazing thing. I hadn't read anything like it since that so very famous long final passage in Joyce's The Dead.
Just read The Sound and the Fury for the first time, and it's pretty amazing, too. You can totally see where Cormac McCarthy is coming from.
Not sure if they qualify as novels, but W.G. Sebald's books are beautifully written, even in translation, especially The Rings of Saturn.
posted by Joey Bagels at 1:17 PM on March 17, 2009
Just read The Sound and the Fury for the first time, and it's pretty amazing, too. You can totally see where Cormac McCarthy is coming from.
Not sure if they qualify as novels, but W.G. Sebald's books are beautifully written, even in translation, especially The Rings of Saturn.
posted by Joey Bagels at 1:17 PM on March 17, 2009
Like Weighted Companion Cube, I came in here to suggest Chine Mieville, especially Perdido Street Station. It's truly beautiful, even when it is describing some of the most awful things you can imagine.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:19 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by Rock Steady at 1:19 PM on March 17, 2009
China Mieville is good too.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:20 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by Rock Steady at 1:20 PM on March 17, 2009
Response by poster: Thanks for the recs so far, guys!
Sadly, I didn't really enjoy Catcher and Gatsby (at least from an aesthetic standpoint) when I read them a few years ago. Perhaps I should give them another shot.
posted by archagon at 1:23 PM on March 17, 2009
Sadly, I didn't really enjoy Catcher and Gatsby (at least from an aesthetic standpoint) when I read them a few years ago. Perhaps I should give them another shot.
posted by archagon at 1:23 PM on March 17, 2009
I love Nabokov and Garcia Marquez and Murakami and Faulkner and James and Joyce and Beckett and Austen and Melville as much as the next person. And I'm pretty sure I adore Wodehouse more than the next person, no matter who the next person is.
But in the interests of branching out, let me suggest five extraordinary stylists who are too often overlooked:
Percival Everett. Holy crap, this man can write. My favorite of his books is Erasure, which is an hilarious satire on the publishing industry AND a brilliant experimental novel AND a bitter look at race and pop culture in America AND a compact, concise book in which I would not change one word. But all his books are daring and insightful and carefully crafted; you can't go wrong with any of them.
Fred D'Aguiar. Fred D'Aguiar is the novelist who writes like a poet and the poet who packs a novel's worth of impact into each of his poems. Oh, and he's a fine playwright, too. The Longest Memory is one of the best novels ever written in English.
Richard Russo is a miraculous writer. He captures the everyday life of blue-collar folks in the Northeastern US with elegance and humor. I think Mohawk is his best book, but Empire Falls has its champions as well. (Just that title is astonishing--"Empire Falls" is both the setting and the historical context for the novel.)
Louise Erdrich sneaks up on you. You start reading her books for the plot, and then you notice the beauty of her prose. Love Medicine will probably always be my favorite of her books, but The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse is the most dazzling in terms of technique.
Sarah Waters is the best historical novelist writing today, and one of the best historical novelists ever. My favorite of her books is the one that got the least media hype: Affinity is an extraordinary, wrenching novel about crime and spiritualism and love and friendship and death and the meaning of everything.
posted by Sidhedevil at 1:24 PM on March 17, 2009 [6 favorites]
But in the interests of branching out, let me suggest five extraordinary stylists who are too often overlooked:
Percival Everett. Holy crap, this man can write. My favorite of his books is Erasure, which is an hilarious satire on the publishing industry AND a brilliant experimental novel AND a bitter look at race and pop culture in America AND a compact, concise book in which I would not change one word. But all his books are daring and insightful and carefully crafted; you can't go wrong with any of them.
Fred D'Aguiar. Fred D'Aguiar is the novelist who writes like a poet and the poet who packs a novel's worth of impact into each of his poems. Oh, and he's a fine playwright, too. The Longest Memory is one of the best novels ever written in English.
Richard Russo is a miraculous writer. He captures the everyday life of blue-collar folks in the Northeastern US with elegance and humor. I think Mohawk is his best book, but Empire Falls has its champions as well. (Just that title is astonishing--"Empire Falls" is both the setting and the historical context for the novel.)
Louise Erdrich sneaks up on you. You start reading her books for the plot, and then you notice the beauty of her prose. Love Medicine will probably always be my favorite of her books, but The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse is the most dazzling in terms of technique.
Sarah Waters is the best historical novelist writing today, and one of the best historical novelists ever. My favorite of her books is the one that got the least media hype: Affinity is an extraordinary, wrenching novel about crime and spiritualism and love and friendship and death and the meaning of everything.
posted by Sidhedevil at 1:24 PM on March 17, 2009 [6 favorites]
Response by poster: By the way, I'm asking this question because I realized that I haven't really been amazed by a novel's aesthetics ever since "All Quiet on the Western Front" back in high school.
posted by archagon at 1:28 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by archagon at 1:28 PM on March 17, 2009
Mark one more for Blood Meridian, Lolita, Moby-Dick, and especially the Alexandria Quartet. Adding "A Universal History of Iniquity" and other Borges, plus Graham Greene and Paul Bowles. On the crazier side, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Naked Lunch."
posted by ecmendenhall at 1:47 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by ecmendenhall at 1:47 PM on March 17, 2009
Best written humor in English, Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim.
posted by theora55 at 2:47 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by theora55 at 2:47 PM on March 17, 2009
and P.G Wodehouse, many of whose sentences require thoughtful parsing before one cam nove to the nest. In Spring, Jeeves, a livelier iris gleams upon the spotted dove.
posted by theora55 at 2:49 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by theora55 at 2:49 PM on March 17, 2009
Nthing Alexandria Quartet. Some others that I dredged up while I am now in front of my bookshelf:
Junot Diaz, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - This might be too geek-contemporary for your blood, but Diaz writes with rich exactitude in the same vein of Nabokov and DFW.
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Amy Bloom, Away - gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous
Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex - which I know was mentioned in your linked thread, but you're basically just re-asking the question.
Jeanette Winterson, Weight
Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
Borges, The Aleph and Other Stories
Jose Donoso, Obscene Bird of Night
Djuna Barnes, Nightwood
John Gardner, Grendel
D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love
posted by zoomorphic at 3:22 PM on March 17, 2009
Junot Diaz, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - This might be too geek-contemporary for your blood, but Diaz writes with rich exactitude in the same vein of Nabokov and DFW.
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Amy Bloom, Away - gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous
Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex - which I know was mentioned in your linked thread, but you're basically just re-asking the question.
Jeanette Winterson, Weight
Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
Borges, The Aleph and Other Stories
Jose Donoso, Obscene Bird of Night
Djuna Barnes, Nightwood
John Gardner, Grendel
D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love
posted by zoomorphic at 3:22 PM on March 17, 2009
There are a lot of excellent suggestions here so far, but I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned Mervyn Peake, author of the Gormenghast trilogy. he was a poet, and his writing is haunting and beautiful and he never 'steps out of character', every detail of those books is etched with a wry, morbid sense of dread and a bleak forboding. wonderful in just the way your are describing.
posted by OHenryPacey at 3:48 PM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by OHenryPacey at 3:48 PM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]
As referenced above, anything by Tom Robbins; my favorite to start with would be Jitterbug Perfume.
Also mentioned above, Richard Russo, Risk Pool especially.
And using *my* definition of aesthetic, Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith certainly fits the bill as unique writing that wows.
posted by ourroute at 4:06 PM on March 17, 2009
Also mentioned above, Richard Russo, Risk Pool especially.
And using *my* definition of aesthetic, Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith certainly fits the bill as unique writing that wows.
posted by ourroute at 4:06 PM on March 17, 2009
Gotta throw in another vote for Ulysses. It broke it wide open.
posted by schrodycat at 4:14 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by schrodycat at 4:14 PM on March 17, 2009
I complete adore Kazuo Ishiguro for his wonderful poetic language. I've yet to read his latest, Never Let Me Go...I really should get to that.
Be really, really careful with Cormac McCarthy. I find him staggeringly pretentious and the two novels of his I have tried, Blood Meridian and The Road, exercises in profound frustration and irritation. Naturally, YMMV.
I recently started on Gene Wolfe's The Book Of The New Sun series. I'm only about a chapter in for a number of reasons, primarily the rich density of the language, and the fact that I actually want to read passages and pages and paragraphs and sentences more than once, not just to understand them, because they are just so...energizing, so well-crafted.
Two of my other favourites are William Styron and Stewart O'Nan (particularly A Prayer For The Dying).
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:22 PM on March 17, 2009
Be really, really careful with Cormac McCarthy. I find him staggeringly pretentious and the two novels of his I have tried, Blood Meridian and The Road, exercises in profound frustration and irritation. Naturally, YMMV.
I recently started on Gene Wolfe's The Book Of The New Sun series. I'm only about a chapter in for a number of reasons, primarily the rich density of the language, and the fact that I actually want to read passages and pages and paragraphs and sentences more than once, not just to understand them, because they are just so...energizing, so well-crafted.
Two of my other favourites are William Styron and Stewart O'Nan (particularly A Prayer For The Dying).
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:22 PM on March 17, 2009
Crap, Mervyn.
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:24 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:24 PM on March 17, 2009
I am excited and dismayed that I am the first to mention Roddy Doyle's A Star Called Henry.
Alive, alive alive.
Also, a wonderful, fascinating and amazingly written memoir, Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
posted by Brody's chum at 4:35 PM on March 17, 2009
Alive, alive alive.
Also, a wonderful, fascinating and amazingly written memoir, Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
posted by Brody's chum at 4:35 PM on March 17, 2009
I can't stop recommending How I Became a Nun by Cesar Aira (another novel, Ghosts, has just been translated into English and I'm waiting for it to arrive in the bookstore) and Camera by Jean-Phillipe Toussaint. Both are slight tomes, quick reads. But incredibly, incredibly beautiful.
posted by Felicity Rilke at 5:40 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by Felicity Rilke at 5:40 PM on March 17, 2009
Anything by Zadie Smith, Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
posted by sa3z at 6:55 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by sa3z at 6:55 PM on March 17, 2009
By aesthetics, I mean the local details of the writing style
And no one's mentioned Flaubert? Get the Francis Steegmuller translation of Madame Bovary; reading it was like diving into a warm pool of soft, delicious language and bobbing slowly on the surface.
And all the Lolita fans who haven't read Nabokov's Pale Fire should grab a copy asap. It's a fascinating stylistic experiment that first presents you with a poem and then a hilarious and constantly unfolding analysis of that poem from one of the oddest characters you'll ever meet, who claims to be a friend of the poet. It's full of Nabokov's rich language but is a gorgeous puzzle too. One of my favorite books.
Henry James's novels require work
Only some of them. Daisy Miller and The Aspern Papers, e.g., don't really require work.
posted by mediareport at 8:15 PM on March 17, 2009
And no one's mentioned Flaubert? Get the Francis Steegmuller translation of Madame Bovary; reading it was like diving into a warm pool of soft, delicious language and bobbing slowly on the surface.
And all the Lolita fans who haven't read Nabokov's Pale Fire should grab a copy asap. It's a fascinating stylistic experiment that first presents you with a poem and then a hilarious and constantly unfolding analysis of that poem from one of the oddest characters you'll ever meet, who claims to be a friend of the poet. It's full of Nabokov's rich language but is a gorgeous puzzle too. One of my favorite books.
Henry James's novels require work
Only some of them. Daisy Miller and The Aspern Papers, e.g., don't really require work.
posted by mediareport at 8:15 PM on March 17, 2009
A favourite of mine not already mentioned whose prose I love is Arthur Machen's novel The Hill of Dreams.
posted by misteraitch at 11:45 PM on March 17, 2009
posted by misteraitch at 11:45 PM on March 17, 2009
I always love these threads, so many books to add to the before-I-die list.
Seconding many of these recommendations, particularly Garcia Marquez, Rushdie and Murakami. I highly recommend David Mitchell as well.
Not seeing much genre fiction here, but for a bit of a departure, consider Jeff Noon's Nymphomation, which has a style unlike anything I've read before or since.
I am glad to see that zoomorphic already gave the underappreciated Jeanette Winterson a shoutout, but I am compelled to mention her Sexing the Cherry as well. It's a slim book, but lovely on many levels.
posted by herichon at 12:24 AM on March 18, 2009
Seconding many of these recommendations, particularly Garcia Marquez, Rushdie and Murakami. I highly recommend David Mitchell as well.
Not seeing much genre fiction here, but for a bit of a departure, consider Jeff Noon's Nymphomation, which has a style unlike anything I've read before or since.
I am glad to see that zoomorphic already gave the underappreciated Jeanette Winterson a shoutout, but I am compelled to mention her Sexing the Cherry as well. It's a slim book, but lovely on many levels.
posted by herichon at 12:24 AM on March 18, 2009
Nthing Gatsby and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and Márquez. 100 Years is fantastic, and also Love in the Time of Cholera.
Also: Mother Night, also by Vonnegut. There are some breathtakingly chilly paragraphs in there, and it's accessible since this is one of Vonnegut's most straightforward novels.
posted by shadytrees at 7:16 AM on March 18, 2009
Also: Mother Night, also by Vonnegut. There are some breathtakingly chilly paragraphs in there, and it's accessible since this is one of Vonnegut's most straightforward novels.
posted by shadytrees at 7:16 AM on March 18, 2009
Beloved (Toni Morrison) and As I Lay Dying (Faulkner)
posted by jrichards at 7:36 AM on March 18, 2009
posted by jrichards at 7:36 AM on March 18, 2009
Gene Wolfe and John Updike are my favorites.
posted by prozach1576 at 8:47 AM on March 18, 2009
posted by prozach1576 at 8:47 AM on March 18, 2009
Third-ing In the Skin of a Lion. That was the first book in years that I actually bothered to pull out a notebook and write down quotes that I adored.
posted by punchdrunkhistory at 3:00 PM on March 18, 2009
posted by punchdrunkhistory at 3:00 PM on March 18, 2009
Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata. Or anything by him, really. The novel is in translation from Japanese, so some of the flow is surely missing, but the strength is really in his ability to evoke sharp images, and to breathe life into static objects (in Thousand Cranes, tea cups are imbued with character, if you can fathom that). Very precise writing, though very esoteric. If you like the Japanese aesthetic, he is very, very Japanese.
And as an interesting side note, if you ever read Memories of My Melancholy Whores and found it lacking, it was basically a pale imitation of Kawabata's The House Of The Sleeping Beauties.
posted by lubujackson at 4:03 PM on March 18, 2009
And as an interesting side note, if you ever read Memories of My Melancholy Whores and found it lacking, it was basically a pale imitation of Kawabata's The House Of The Sleeping Beauties.
posted by lubujackson at 4:03 PM on March 18, 2009
Oh! How could I forget The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy? That was the first book that actually made me appreciate what I now consider aesthetics. It was the first book that made enjoy the actual writing style, instead of just reading for the story. Just beautiful writing.
On preview, zoomorphic did mention it. Phew.
posted by sa3z at 7:04 AM on March 19, 2009
On preview, zoomorphic did mention it. Phew.
posted by sa3z at 7:04 AM on March 19, 2009
I wanted to put in a word for a few unique voices that are incredibly distinctive.
1. Laura Riding Jackson, "Progress of Stories" - not a novel, but it is prose ... mostly. Witty, metaphysical, intensely imaginative. Stylistically absolutely unique. A forgotten modernist gem.
2. Djuna Barnes, "Nightwood" - like a more urbane, less science-obsessed, female Thomas Pynchon. That's definitely an eccentric description, but it's how I've always thought of her. Another forgotten modernist gem.
3. Raymond Roussel, "Locus Solus" - it's a shame so much of the world's best prose is in French. This is out of print, expensive, and inevitably loses something in translation because of the continual stream of amazing puns. But I am forced to put it on here because of the fantasy selections that made it above (which I don't mean to disparage). But THIS is fantasy. If fantasy is the imagination unleashed, with shockingly original images and ideas on every page, images that continually leave you scratching your head that ANY human being could have an imagination so fertile, then Roussel may be the only fantasy novelist in history. And I've read the 19th century greats - MacDonald, Dunsany, Brockden Brown, Morris. There are no fairies and dragons in Roussel, however. Just plenty of things that have never been imagined before.
Finally, I wanted to put in a word for Anthony Burgess for being the most successful writer I've seen at creating the plausible illusion of a genuine furutist patois. Far more successful than, say, William Gibson, who is very overrated, Burgess makes you believe his droogies are real and they really speak that way in "A Clockwork Orange".
posted by macross city flaneur at 8:01 PM on March 20, 2009
1. Laura Riding Jackson, "Progress of Stories" - not a novel, but it is prose ... mostly. Witty, metaphysical, intensely imaginative. Stylistically absolutely unique. A forgotten modernist gem.
2. Djuna Barnes, "Nightwood" - like a more urbane, less science-obsessed, female Thomas Pynchon. That's definitely an eccentric description, but it's how I've always thought of her. Another forgotten modernist gem.
3. Raymond Roussel, "Locus Solus" - it's a shame so much of the world's best prose is in French. This is out of print, expensive, and inevitably loses something in translation because of the continual stream of amazing puns. But I am forced to put it on here because of the fantasy selections that made it above (which I don't mean to disparage). But THIS is fantasy. If fantasy is the imagination unleashed, with shockingly original images and ideas on every page, images that continually leave you scratching your head that ANY human being could have an imagination so fertile, then Roussel may be the only fantasy novelist in history. And I've read the 19th century greats - MacDonald, Dunsany, Brockden Brown, Morris. There are no fairies and dragons in Roussel, however. Just plenty of things that have never been imagined before.
Finally, I wanted to put in a word for Anthony Burgess for being the most successful writer I've seen at creating the plausible illusion of a genuine furutist patois. Far more successful than, say, William Gibson, who is very overrated, Burgess makes you believe his droogies are real and they really speak that way in "A Clockwork Orange".
posted by macross city flaneur at 8:01 PM on March 20, 2009
Lots of good suggestions here.
The only book that has every made me think that reading it is like having a very lucid dream is "Sometimes a Great Notion" by Ken Kesey.
It's very dense, but the character development and how the book is structured is just amazing. I highly recommend it.
posted by elder18 at 6:23 PM on March 23, 2009
The only book that has every made me think that reading it is like having a very lucid dream is "Sometimes a Great Notion" by Ken Kesey.
It's very dense, but the character development and how the book is structured is just amazing. I highly recommend it.
posted by elder18 at 6:23 PM on March 23, 2009
Anything by Dennis Lehane, Richard Price and George Pelecanos.
posted by alteredcarbon at 3:44 PM on April 26, 2009
posted by alteredcarbon at 3:44 PM on April 26, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by teamparka at 9:21 AM on March 17, 2009 [4 favorites]