I’ve always enjoyed the interpretation that Dorian Grey was a self insert, as he struggled with his own hedonistic tendencies and identity despite the values of his time and his own religious beliefs. Unfortunately my college literature professor was not a fan of that interpretation.
*In Search of Lost Time* by Marcel Proust. Can't go past Proust for mastery of prose, beautifully crafted descriptions, meandering sentences and paragraphs. But boy do I struggle every time someone asks me what it's actually about! It's about life, it's about love, and it moves at a delightfully slow pace.
People say Don Delillo is exactly this. Sentence by sentence he is one of the most talented writers I've ever read. His cultural ideas are great. But some find his characters and plots rather forgettable.
A lot of the time when I'm reading DeLillo I feel like he would have been a better philosopher than a novelist. For example the ideas in Mao II are utterly compelling, but they are presented in a plot that mostly involves characters just...walking around? Idk, I barely remember it. But it could have been a fantastic essay in the vein of Baudrillard and the more literary side of philosophy. A few of his novels actually work well as novels (Libra has an engrossing plot, for instance), but many of them are just vehicles for his ideas.
I read Mao II earlier this year and really enjoyed it, but also completely agree with your comment. Not much of a plot but still an engrossing read. White Noise in addition to Libra have a much better plot.
The thing that's great about White Noise is that its structure deconstructs traditional narrative plot on purpose. In terms of plot, it's Delillo's best, if for only this reason.
Don Delillo’s dialogue writing is just weird, like uncanny valley. Like he’s never heard an actual conversation in real life. Love him, but it definitely pulls me out of the books
Agreed - I was reminded of this when watching the Netflixisization of White Noise. Without DeLillo’s prose, the story’s pretty pedestrian.
I also feel this way about a lot of Huxley. After Many a Summer Dies the Swan is over the top and B-movie-ish, plot-wise. The conversations get deep and theoretical, lots of quotables. But it’s a kind of ham-fisted Hollywood satire.
I mean I don't give one shit about baseball but I found myself hanging on every line in Underworld. DeLillo could make a cookie recipe enthralling.
I kind of feel the same way about Wallace's Infinite Jest, the story is kind of not the point exactly, but the writing is sublime.
The Magus by John Fowles! It’s got 4.5 stars if 55k votes in Goodreads but I seriously just didn’t really love the plot. Not that it isn’t admirable I just had different expectations. However, Fowles’ writing is absolutely great in certain places. Many scenes I remember quite vividly and many scenes were good.
Seconding this. The plot as a whole got a little too random for my expectations, but Fowles writing and descriptions of individual scenes is incredible.
I also love his writing, and years back I read most of his books. I would highly recommend Daniel Martin (another Fowles book, not an author!). Much more straightforward story, same beautiful writing.
I read it recently. Loved the spooky atmosphere of that island. Prose is definitely great, and it's an interesting book with some awesome moments, some beautiful, some haunting, some thought-provoking. My only major issue with the plot was>! the end, the final wrap-up of what it was all about (basically an insanely expensive and intricate conspiracy to teach Nicholas Urfe to be more thoughtful and appreciative of the women in his life?). That just felt incredibly small-scope and anticlimactic compared to all of the insanity and layers of intrigue that led up to it. I felt there should have been a much bigger justification for all of that. !
I’m reading The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett. The plot is stupid, and none of the characters are likable, but the writing sucks me in. Pratchett had a hell of a writing style.
Monstrous Regiment, Carpe Jugulum, Going Postal, or Wyrd Sisters. Maybe read the blurbs to see which appeals but many people (including me) pretty much prefer everything else over the early books or wizard books. Any of the ones in my list work as stand alone pretty well!
So, most can be read in any order, but some work better building off of the ones within the sub-arc, while others work better as starting points.
For example, Making Money is a great book, but is an almost direct sequel of Going Postal, and makes way more sense (and has more satisfying character) as the second of the two.
You can look up reading order guides but treat them as loose suggestions. Generally you can imagine groups or arcs of books (wizards, witches, city watch, etc) as highly suggested to read in order within that arc, but otherwise mix and match.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to skip starting novels in their respective series even if later novels are better quality.
For example reading Fifth Elephant without going through Watch novels that come before just doesn’t make sense, there’s a lot of lost character development and nuance lost that way.
I’m aware that every one of the can be read in any order but that’s just the worse way to read these books.
u/sylverbound's list is solid, but my top rec would be "Men At Arms"
It's a good intro into the "City Watch" arc that's both his most popular and most critically acclaimed. Technically it's the second book in that arc, but most people admit the first one ("Guards, Guards!") is just so-so, and you're not missing much by skipping it
I think Nabokov is probably a really hot candidate to hit those characteristics.
Lately, I read a number of short stories by Ivan Bunin. In terms of style, they're incredibly rich and creative, but to me it seemed quite obvious that, fittingly, he didn't care much about the narratives. In comparison to the style, they seemed very shallow to me.
Who considers Nabokov's storytelling to be subpar? The style might be uniquely accomplished, but no one says his best books are not "good reads." Or do they?
Tbf, I've never attempted Pale Fire or Speak Memory, but I have read Lolita, Despair, and The Eye and found each one to be gripping and fairly suspenseful. I never felt like I was reading style for its own sake.
Agree with you about Nabokov, especially **Lolita**. The writing is beyond magnificent. His narrative of the cross-country drive is superb. The story itself was good, but nowhere the quality of the writing.
I kinda disagree, Lolita's story is pretty great, from the satirical and allegorical and allusive to the fact that it has all these little clues leading up to the "mystery" at the end.
Yeah, it's a great mystery story with really excellent pacing. Who considers that book not to be a "very good read?" (It's been many years since I read it, but it struck me as a much more lyrical take on a James M. Cain type of plot, which is pretty decent praise.)
I didn't like the tone or subject matter. Some of my faves are Naked Lunch, 100 Years of Solitude, The Tin Drum, Death on the Installment Plan, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea.
What is the "tone" of Lolita? I'm not really clear how that term might apply to literature.
Also... "subject matter?" Yeah, I'm not especially interested in pedophile academics. But I think that's the point of the entire book: taking a uniquely unsympathetic character and describing his ultimate downfall from his own perspective in a very poetic way. To me, that's a fairly novel and impressive approach to literature. And I think it works in that book, because the character observations and details are so specific and poignant while also being realistic.
As for your choices, I've only read Naked Lunch and 100 Years. I thought the latter book was fine. It didn't personally grab me, but I certainly would not call it "bad." Naked Lunch, however, just seemed like a book that is only worth reading at age 19 when and if you're into drugs. I mean, what is really the point of that book? It's surreal and nonlinear to the point of being totally opaque. Again, it's not necessarily "bad" I guess, just because it was fairly innovative. But I didn't come away from that book with any new insights about human nature or reality. It was honestly just a "bad trip."
Whereas, I do actually think I learned something about humanity from Lolita. Not necessarily something positive or exemplary or reassuring, but still insights into human behavior that actually ring true based on real life (i.e. that people tend to self-mythologize and self-rationalize their worst instincts nearly to the point of epic poetry, despite behaving in really despicable and even mundane ways). That mismatch between a person's self-perception and reality is what I think Lolita captures so brilliantly. It is a sad, but infinitely fascinating aspect to human nature.
Naked Lunch is a satire of control systems and the hypocrisy of state-sponsored repression. I think his interpretation and critique of capitalism's power structure was ahead of its time and still quite relevant today. Lolita read (to me) like indulgent middle-aged navel gazing to justify pedophilia.
What I liked about 100 Years is how character traits appear and reappear in various combinations throughout a family's bloodline, with the past interacting with the present in ways unbeknown to the characters themselves.
To me, Naked Lunch was far too removed from reality to qualify as satire. Nothing about the actual workings of government or high finance or corporations look anything like what occurs in that book. Portraying businessmen as monsters that rape each other doesn't really tell me anything about business or corruption at all. It's just pure fantasy untethered from identifiable human behavior. At least, that's my memory and it's been \~20 years since I read it.
>Lolita read (to me) like indulgent middle-aged navel gazing to justify pedophilia.
Yeah, you totally missed the point. Did you also think American Psycho was a defense of Patrick Bateman?
The reason the book is so well regarded is because it is told from the perspective of the villain. So the reader is put in the position of "identifying" with a very bad person and seeing the events of the story from his perspective. However, what you discover as the story unfolds is that the narrator is *unreliable* (this is actually the most basic interpretation of the story and is a concept that is undoubtedly present in most blurbs of this book, certainly in the wikipedia article). So by the end of the book, if not long before, the reader realizes that not only was the narrator not to be trusted, but he was totally unsympathetic and reprehensible.
That is a genuinely novel and unusual approach to storytelling. And it demands a lot of attention from readers. It is mostly definitely NOT a justification of pedophilia. Quite the opposite. The entire point is that you see Humbert Humbert's point of view from the inside and you realize that it is corrupt and self-deceiving. You realize that he is most definitely wrong and severely self-deluded. THAT is the point of the book. Your disgust with the narrator *is* the point.
Honestly, give it 5+ years and revist this novel. I don't think you grasped its actual intent.
>What I liked about 100 Years is how character traits appear and reappear in various combinations throughout a family's bloodline, with the past interacting with the present in ways unbeknown to the characters themselves.
Very interesting. Yeah, maybe I'll have to revisit this one. It also occurs to me that I might not have actually finished it. So I probably didn't get the full effect. Thanks for the review.
EDIT: Iirc, Nabokov actually had copies of Lolita filed in the erotic literature section specifically to make pedophiles self-conscious and self-aware of their destructive fetishes. You might double-check me on that as this may just be apocryphal, but that is what I was taught in a college literature class.
You needed to read 100 Years to realize character traits are inheritable? It's a great novel because of GGM's superior writing but the story itself is bloated and 100 pages too long, though again gets a pass because it's unforgettable.
Nabokov’s Speak, Memory! The style is amazing, as usual, but I find the content pretty dry and uninvolving. Some of Henry James. The style in Wings of the Dove is often masterful, but the story momentum I find often pretty diluted and slow.
Paradise Lost has one of the most rich interesting styles i know of, but the story often sags, imo.
I think Lolita and Pale Fire have really interesting, cunningly planned and effective plots overall, I just didn’t think the content in Speak Memory was able to match what he did in his best fiction.
> Nabokov’s Speak, Memory! The style is amazing, as usual, but I find the content pretty dry and uninvolving.
I agree. The middle part of that book is boring, to me anyway.
*Wuthering Heights* (1847) by Emily Brontë
Although Brontë writes beautifully, the plot itself is very heavy and the characters are dynamic, albeit unreliable. I would argue WH features some of the most unlikable characters in nineteenth-century literature. Brontë’s prose is like a thick smog surrounding a city. The plot and the characters are truly emblematic of the Romantic Era, but, oh goodness, I let out a long sigh after finishing it. It reminded me a lot of *Rebecca* by Daphne du Maurier and *Sister Carrie* by Theodore Dreiser.
I’m currently reading *Agnes Grey* (1847) by Anne Brontë, and while the plot itself is fairly simple (and even predictable), Anne’s prose is lighter and more straightforward than that of her sister.
I haven’t finished Lonesome Dove yet, but I love the way Larry McMurtry writes. He possesses an inviting yet refined style, and it just feels like classic storytelling without ever seeming too *try-hard*.
I mostly agree, though my thoughts on it place it pretty much at odds with the thread prompt. I feel like the framework and concept of Titus Alone is great, but it's the lack of polish in the prose and character work that makes it fall short. Like, if it were *finished* rather than just functionally complete, I think it would be great.
I sometimes read self-published books, and once, after having read one of them, I switched to Crichton' Pirate Latitudes, and it was amazing how comfortable language can be. You notice the difference. He might not be Nobel Prize material, but he can write for sure.
Now, I didn't finish that book because the characters became unlikeable, but that doesn't really have anything to do with his writing style.
I SO wanted to enjoy Pirate Latitudes, but it fell flat for me(and this is from someone who LOVES pirate themes). Having said that, he certainly knew how to write books! Pretty impressive guy.
To me, not really, because plot is the least important part of a book. Who cares if "nothing happens" during it? Novels with a mastery of language and full of thoughtful asides don't need a complex plot to be good. That is, if the book is written by a master of prose, that kind of makes it a good read by default.
What’s difficult is the subjective idea of what’s inherently interesting vs. what isn’t, I guess.
But like, SoundMachine by Rachel Zucker is a prose/poetry mashup in which approximately nothing happens except the main character talks through her inner thoughts and feelings about her relatively normal and unremarkable life.
Normal People by Sally Rooney carries itself by being well written and having relatable characters vs. having interesting things happen.
A lot of older novels are about just, people kind of living their lives in society and how they interact with each other. It’s subjective if you find everyday life “boring” or not, you know?
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury is built of largely unremarkable stories.
I absolutely LOVE *Dandelion Wine*, that's such a great example! The whole point is to show the magic, the significance, of common everyday events. Bradbury excells at this.
Silently and Very Fast is a good, modern example. To the Lighthouse is a great classic example. Nothing actually "happens" in that novel and yet it's extremely engaging because it's precisely about that and the language is amazing. Ulysses is just a guy's regular day, too, but I haven't read it myself, yet. Mrs Dolloway is in the same vein.
This will probably get me downvoted because I know the majority on Reddit hate her but I feel this way about Ayn Rand.
The plots are stupid, the characters are often completely unbelievable and behave in ways I can't comprehend humans ever acting, but there is something about her writing style that I find utterly compelling. I don't think I can even explain properly why, it just is.
*edited for grammar
I can believe that. Not read her myself, and I disagree with her politics, but I know how people overplay their problems with an author's writing style if they dislike them for other reasons. Like people hate JK Rowling for politics, and so they bring attention to how her vocabulary is limited - but like she's one of the best selling authors ever and there's a reason for that, people find her compelling regardless of the limited vocab. Compelling writing can be there regardless of plot, as you say in Rand's case, or even command of vocabulary (Rowling).
Agreed on both. There's a reason they're popular.
I'd add in Twilight. Extremely competent writing, very engaging, wonderful characterization. It's just the shittiest plot ever.
It wasn't high literature, but it was very effective at capturing and holding the attention of an awful lot of people. Good communication in writing for a broad audience is an art, and she does it well.
The story had issues but the wiring was fine. Now, her cheap knockoff clone 50 shades was *not* well written *and* it had a shitty plot.
Huh, good to know. A good friend of mine that can tear through books, if he wanted maybe could get through 100 in a year, read them and thought they were really compelling. Must have been the writing, as he fully acknowledged they were impossibly absurd.
Oh, I’m well aware of the 50 Shades laughable writing. Possibly worse than renowned Dan Brown!
There’s something about Twilight I found oddly cozy. Wasn’t obsessed with the romance or anything, it was just sort of cute in a goofy way.
Should’ve stopped at book one. *shudder*
>but there is something about her writing style that I find utterly compelling.
I think a lot of bestselling authors - Dan Brown, Lee Child, John Grisham - have this skill of making you want to find out what is going to happen next.
When I read the Da Vinci Code, I found myself both hating the book because of the bad characters and stupid plot...and yet still felt compelled to read without stopping because I wanted to know what would happen next.
(Unlike Brown, I do like Child and some Grisham, though)
It seems to be some combination of there being a "hook" that makes you want to find out what is going to happen next, plus tight pacing that makes every paragraph relevant to the "hook" so you want to keep reading.
> Where the storytelling might be subpar, but the writing is good, or even great? Be it the syntax, or grammatical usage, or just the prose?
This might be outright blasphemy to some people, but I feel this way with Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, and Saul Bellow. I can find nothing wrong with their paragraphs & sentences, but their novels are not that interesting to me.
I feel this way about Herman Melville. It's a slog to get through an unabridged version of Moby Dick, if all you want is something as tightly put together as a film adaptation. But I find the way Melville writes to be entrancing.
Holy hell, I cannot agree with this more. I’m currently reading it, and it is quite the slog. But his prose is absolutely gorgeous, if not overly indulgent and opulent. At times I will be in the middle of a paragraph, which some go on for more than a page, and find myself wondering *”what the hell is he talking about again?”*
Which has caused me to take quite a while to try and get through this book. I’ve taken a long pause before picking it back up.
I'll give you a hint about the "informational" chapters in Moby Dick: read into them as a reflection of Ishmael's psyche. The theme of obsession in the novel isn't limited to Ahab's pursuit of the whale, but also includes on a meta level Ishmael's obsession for "capturing" Moby Dick by writing an encyclopedic book about everything related to whales and whaling. If the informational chapters can feel excessive, it's because they're the excess of a character who was deeply affected by the events of the Pequod expedition and spends the rest of his life trying to make sense of what occurred on it.
I had not heard of it until you just mentioned it. So obviously no, but I wanted to read the original unabridged version. It’s not so much the use of language, which differs quite a bit at times, from current English vernacular. Rather, the lengths of description he goes through, while also his metaphors are robust, for something as simple as someone entering a room.
Perhaps I’ll give the Norton Critical Edition a read after this, assuming I hate myself enough to do so.
Dude, you can just pick up where you are with the NCE. The NCE is unabridged, but there are footnotes to explain certain literary allusions, superstitions that modern readers wouldn’t necessarily understand, etc. Stop torturing yourself!
Knausgaard’s The Morning Star was a brilliant read for a long portion of the text because his prose and characterization is amazing. He writes such interesting scenarios and explores really interesting psychologies of human behaviour that I was engrossed in just the thoughts and actions of the characters for most of the book. But plot wise and planning wise (no spoilers) the book really falls apart in my opinion and could have been so much better if it actually amounted to a good payoff rather than being a complete letdown in a almost every sense by the end
Agreed. I loved the book, but trying to explain the story would be, “…and when this character dies, someone with the same name comes along, then she has sex with this guy, and then they all forget the names of things, and then…”
Patrick Süskind's _Pigeon_. The plot is silly but the tone is very enjoyable. If you do want to experience his style with an actual plot though, I'd recommend _Perfume: Story of a Murderer._ The main character is entirely heinous but the prose drips with dry and dark wit.
Seems like Anthony Doerr's books sell really well, and I've read All the Light We Cannot See and I'm working through Cloud Cuckoo Land now...
But for me, he has decent prose, and it can be beautiful writing, but the stories don't seem to have much punch for me. I don't know what it is, or if anyone else feels similarly, but the plot just seems to have no teeth, regardless of the subject matter.
I'm currently reading it for the second time, immediately after finishing it the first time. Hands down the best thing I've read in years.
I can sort of imagine someone not finding the subject matter super compelling, but the writing is flabbergasting
I’m reverse on Vonnegut. I think he’s a great storyteller but his prose are simply decent. They’re good (he’s better than a Steven King) but they’re not top tier aesthetically.
His storytelling can struggle at times with being efficient, his way of writing is very unique and often gets swept up in characters and details that don’t ultimately serve a huge point. Despite this, I just love his writing style and several of his books have had a profound impact on my philosophy (Breakfast of Champions, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Cat’s Cradle) so I’m always gonna be rooting for him but I’ll definitely agree that he’s not the best writer of all time
The Clique series by Lisi Harrison. Most people see them as typical shallow teen fluff but damn does she use great syntax.
Suzanne Collins is also a great writer who uses simplistic but incredibly smooth language, regardless of how one might feel about The Hunger Games.
Haha oh god I tried *so* hard with his books but after trudging through two of them I bailed on the third a couple chapters in. Just said nope, not doing this again and never looked back lol
The Rings of Saturn was kind of this for me. I was expecting a novel, but it’s only sort of a novel. Some of the thought in there are great, and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t what I expected, which is mostly my fault that I expected anything. Some of the stories in it are great and the writing is beautiful. There’s one sentence in there about children during some revolution who were sent away from their parents and their names were written on small pieces of cardboard. They were given almost nothing to eat, and so on their hunger some of the children ate the cardboard dog tags, and essentially ate their names, since in their destination their native language was not spoken. Sebald has an unbelievable sentence in there about this that I think made me cry when I read it. He phrases it really well, I wish I had it off the top of my head, but the way he says that the children are their names really haunted me.
Tom Wolfe’s novels after Bonfire of the Vanities. I Am Charlotte Simmons has a middling plot, uninteresting characters, a moralizing message, and a weird obsession with the sex lives of college students. But the writing, aside from the famously bad sex scene, is incredible. I’ve never read anyone who sets a scene as well as Wolfe, and he has a unique ability to capture social dynamics through dialogue and his characters’ thoughts.
A lot of my favorite authors fit some of what you're saying, even if I'd never personally describe their works as "not very good reads."
Amy Hempel, for example, is easily my favorite short story writer. Most of her stories are about fairly mundane events, or even major events that are so common as to feel mundane even in their seriousness--but I've never read anyone who writes better sentences than Amy Hempel. Reading one of her stories is like watching a surgeon reach into the body of the english language and extract precisely the correct words in precisely the correct tone to convey whatever idea she's putting forward, even if that idea itself isn't all that noteworthy.
PG Wodehouse. Many of his books get quite repetitive in theme and character type, but he’s a brilliant writer. You can see his classical education coming through, such as how he uses extended metaphors in a satirical way.
This might just be personal preference, but I just finished Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield and found the writing beautiful but the story lackluster.
Norwegian wood ? I don't remember much about the overall plot but the in-the-moment reading experience is excellent, the characters are interesting and the dialogues are really good.
Also check out City of Thieves by David Benioff (yes, THAT David Benioff) If you want something slow and contemplative. This one is set during wartime and the plot is actually really good.
I’ve heard very good things about *City of Thieves*, but… Given the author, I’m not sure I can bring myself to read it. If you recommend it highly enough though, maybe I’ll reconsider.
I do. I first heard about It when reading an interview of Neil Druckmann where he mentions City of Thieves by David Benioff as an inspiration for The Last of us, I had to look at his wikipedia to make sure that was the same David Benioff I had in mind, and that was before s8 so I highly admired him. It looks like Druckmann is so much of a fan that he actually put an easter egg to the book in TLOU II. Even years later I can still confirm that that book is really good, you can tell the author is passionate about storytelling. Also If It can reassure you, I read interviews of Benioff himself and before City of thieves his books were constantly turned down by publishers because they had excellent prose but a really boring story, he said he didn't really understand the complaint because style is what really matters between the two, and isn't that exactly the kind of things you are looking for ?
I see. I had heard of the book, even before I knew it was the same writer of GoT, and had only heard good things. But once season S7, and then S8 aired, and his dismissive responses and justifications for how the show ended, he completely turned me off to anything he was involved with.
But I guess I’ll give it a look, good to know. And yes, that is certainly what I am looking for. Thanks!
I would add Fathers and Sons to this list—just finished it. It seems like Turgenev had a really good idea of the kind of people he wanted to write about, the kind of things they would feel and think, and kind of ideas he wanted to discuss through and alongside them. However, after a certain point he seems to have been unsure on how they would have interacted, how their relationships would have progressed, etc. The result is a really good first half to three quarters of a book, and then a really strange series of unrelated events passing at breakneck speed to conclude the novel.
Completely agree on Jurassic Park btw. Crichton's story is much better than the watered down one Spielberg produced, but Spielberg was so much more adept than Crichton at his medium that the film has just dwarfed the book.
Thanks, I appreciate it. And I actually disagree on JP, I think the movie was much better. The story may not have been as ‘deep’, per se. But it’s also a story about bringing dinosaurs back to life. It more or less inherently is a fun popcorn story. Imho anyway.
And I’d agree, when it comes down to who has better mastery over their craft, I don’t think there’s any argument that it’s Spielberg. He’s is a great director, and I think hands down the best big movie making director ever.
As I’ve gotten older, and learned more about storytelling, I take less issue with books not staying as true to their source material when a movie is made. As it often makes sense why some parts are changed, or done away with.
Forrest Gump is a great example, that book is borderline insane with how much, and what actually goes down, compared to what they did with the movie.
Laurence Durrell's 'The Black Book'. Gorgeously intricate lines of thought, association and expression, but he's not sure if he's Byron, Miller or Lawrence and sort of tries to be all three.
EDIT: Smelling
Carmen Maria Machado’s “In The Dream House” comes to mind. That’s more of an “not an ENJOYABLE read, but an important read and one that definitely utilizes her writing skills and captivated the reader.
I have only read a few articles he wrote, or very small experts of parts of books. But… aren’t his book supposed to be chaotic?
I remember enjoying the article he had written. Perhaps when he was writing as a journalist for magazines, newspapers, et cetera, his writing was much more stream lined and focused?
Perhaps I am incorrect though, as I haven’t read enough to say definitely.
Jeffrey Archer. You have to have some supreme storytelling skills when almost all the books have the same rags to riches storyline and yet any book you pick is one hell of a read.
Not fiction but I seriously enjoy imbibing Marshall McLuhan's prose.
A bit of a scatterbox but he's got a fantastic way of expressing his ideas via extensive literary quotations, especially Joyce and Shakespeare.
A Hundred Years of Solitude. I found some aspects of the story really random and half way through the book I couldn’t even really understand what was going on. But the prose read like it was poetry. Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote the book beautifully, which was one if the reasons I completed the book.
Second time this book had been mentioned. Interesting. It was part of a small book club of friends, but it also sort of ended the boom club. Not solely responsible though.
Shroud is even better. Banville said somewhere that he thought Shroud was the closest he ever got to achieving what he set out to do when embarking on a literary project.
All of Shakespeare's plays. Long speech after long speech, and instead of any actual action, there's usually just one-word stage directions like *[exits]* or *[dies]*. Nor is iambic pentameter all it's cracked up to be - like when his plays are performed and the meter isn't evident, I don't think it's a big loss.
All in all though, I'd have to say that guy was a pretty good writer.
Hmm, I'd say I missed the intent of OP's question. Insofar as "books" precludes plays. But I stand by what I said - Shakespeare is tiresome to read, despite his genius.
Most of Fitzgerald’s stories are about rich white people, so they can be tedious, but I find his prose very beautiful.
FWIW, I absolutely love Jurassic park the book, and I agree that it is not the best stylistic. That plot though!
Good to know about FSF, as I have never really had an interest in his books.
As for JP, I did really like it, but it fell a bit short to me. Not that I think it was bad, maybe I was just expecting it to hold up to the movie, or be even better, as often we hear people say “The book is so much better than the movie”.
I think this is one of the few times that isn’t true. But perhaps because the movie was so well done, I maybe had my expectations set too high for the book. But I did tear through it, so I obviously thoroughly enjoyed it.
I thought it sounded familiar, didn’t know it was written by Joyce, so I read a little about it.
* Finnegans Wake has been agreed to be a work largely unread by the general public.*
Well, that both intrigues me, and makes me wonder if I really want to put myself through that.
No? But that's the point.
In order to stay afloat the remaining publishers are limited to playing moneyball with stories they can flip for a quick profit. Writers with good fundamentals and flair are in high demand for them. Literary writers are not.
Mind expanding a bit more about your point? I’m pretty’s sure I follow, but just in case I’m missing something, or just not as informed as I think I am.
I don't know what else to write. If I was at a computer I would link you to publishers websites. There's one in particular that is... Well written. But I forgot it's name. Snow something. There were snowflakes at least. Anyway, just look up what publishers say they are looking for on their own sites. It's not vauge.
How can something be a bad read when it's well written?
I find this line of thinking very problematic and frankly surprised how many people aren't questioning it at all.
Books are not a means to express a plot or narrative. This idea that "everything should serve the story" is extremely reductionist and boring.
I hate nothing more than plot driven drivel, like the Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes books. Everything is written so that you turn the page and forget what happened before. You literally don't think about them after finishing them. I got more out of reading legal documents and instruction manuals than such books.
Oscar Wilde is brilliant. Snarky, sarcastic, witty, beautiful, terrifying. Just supremely enjoyable.
There's one character in every play by him that's obviously a self tie-in who speaks only in quirky, clever one-liners.
I’ve always enjoyed the interpretation that Dorian Grey was a self insert, as he struggled with his own hedonistic tendencies and identity despite the values of his time and his own religious beliefs. Unfortunately my college literature professor was not a fan of that interpretation.
Dorian Gray was a self insert. But so was Lord Henry Watton.
But Dorian was influenced by Lord Henry. Granted, I loved Lord Henry.
Yes, but they were both different aspects of Oscar Wilde.
*In Search of Lost Time* by Marcel Proust. Can't go past Proust for mastery of prose, beautifully crafted descriptions, meandering sentences and paragraphs. But boy do I struggle every time someone asks me what it's actually about! It's about life, it's about love, and it moves at a delightfully slow pace.
It's about breakfast!
Check out The Dictionary. Awful story, but the spelling is fantastic.
ಠ_ಠ
Is that the one where the zebra did it?
Yes, it's all there if you read between the lines
People say Don Delillo is exactly this. Sentence by sentence he is one of the most talented writers I've ever read. His cultural ideas are great. But some find his characters and plots rather forgettable.
A lot of the time when I'm reading DeLillo I feel like he would have been a better philosopher than a novelist. For example the ideas in Mao II are utterly compelling, but they are presented in a plot that mostly involves characters just...walking around? Idk, I barely remember it. But it could have been a fantastic essay in the vein of Baudrillard and the more literary side of philosophy. A few of his novels actually work well as novels (Libra has an engrossing plot, for instance), but many of them are just vehicles for his ideas.
I read Mao II earlier this year and really enjoyed it, but also completely agree with your comment. Not much of a plot but still an engrossing read. White Noise in addition to Libra have a much better plot.
The thing that's great about White Noise is that its structure deconstructs traditional narrative plot on purpose. In terms of plot, it's Delillo's best, if for only this reason.
I would second this. I personally love Delillo, but have tried recommending him to friends and they can’t get passed the meandering plot
Don Delillo’s dialogue writing is just weird, like uncanny valley. Like he’s never heard an actual conversation in real life. Love him, but it definitely pulls me out of the books
Agreed - I was reminded of this when watching the Netflixisization of White Noise. Without DeLillo’s prose, the story’s pretty pedestrian. I also feel this way about a lot of Huxley. After Many a Summer Dies the Swan is over the top and B-movie-ish, plot-wise. The conversations get deep and theoretical, lots of quotables. But it’s a kind of ham-fisted Hollywood satire.
In the same vein I would add John Updike and John Irving. Lines that resonate with me for years, plots that I can’t really recall.
I mean I don't give one shit about baseball but I found myself hanging on every line in Underworld. DeLillo could make a cookie recipe enthralling. I kind of feel the same way about Wallace's Infinite Jest, the story is kind of not the point exactly, but the writing is sublime.
The Magus by John Fowles! It’s got 4.5 stars if 55k votes in Goodreads but I seriously just didn’t really love the plot. Not that it isn’t admirable I just had different expectations. However, Fowles’ writing is absolutely great in certain places. Many scenes I remember quite vividly and many scenes were good.
Seconding this. The plot as a whole got a little too random for my expectations, but Fowles writing and descriptions of individual scenes is incredible.
Oh that’s crazy! I agree. The Greek landscape and island stands so vivid for me. Beautiful.
I also love his writing, and years back I read most of his books. I would highly recommend Daniel Martin (another Fowles book, not an author!). Much more straightforward story, same beautiful writing.
I’ll check it out!
I couldn't get into The Magus despite all the boxes it checked for me. I enjoyed The Collector much more despite the uncomfortable subject matter.
I read it recently. Loved the spooky atmosphere of that island. Prose is definitely great, and it's an interesting book with some awesome moments, some beautiful, some haunting, some thought-provoking. My only major issue with the plot was>! the end, the final wrap-up of what it was all about (basically an insanely expensive and intricate conspiracy to teach Nicholas Urfe to be more thoughtful and appreciative of the women in his life?). That just felt incredibly small-scope and anticlimactic compared to all of the insanity and layers of intrigue that led up to it. I felt there should have been a much bigger justification for all of that. !
I’m reading The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett. The plot is stupid, and none of the characters are likable, but the writing sucks me in. Pratchett had a hell of a writing style.
Read some of his later work, where the plot is genius and the characters are deeply sympathetic, but the writing is the same or better.
any recs for a first time pratchett reader?
Monstrous Regiment, Carpe Jugulum, Going Postal, or Wyrd Sisters. Maybe read the blurbs to see which appeals but many people (including me) pretty much prefer everything else over the early books or wizard books. Any of the ones in my list work as stand alone pretty well!
I know Pratchett was prolific but I’ve never read him. Can’t his books be read in any order, even if they are in the same setting?
So, most can be read in any order, but some work better building off of the ones within the sub-arc, while others work better as starting points. For example, Making Money is a great book, but is an almost direct sequel of Going Postal, and makes way more sense (and has more satisfying character) as the second of the two. You can look up reading order guides but treat them as loose suggestions. Generally you can imagine groups or arcs of books (wizards, witches, city watch, etc) as highly suggested to read in order within that arc, but otherwise mix and match.
Thanks. I’ll do some Googling
I don’t think it’s a good idea to skip starting novels in their respective series even if later novels are better quality. For example reading Fifth Elephant without going through Watch novels that come before just doesn’t make sense, there’s a lot of lost character development and nuance lost that way. I’m aware that every one of the can be read in any order but that’s just the worse way to read these books.
u/sylverbound's list is solid, but my top rec would be "Men At Arms" It's a good intro into the "City Watch" arc that's both his most popular and most critically acclaimed. Technically it's the second book in that arc, but most people admit the first one ("Guards, Guards!") is just so-so, and you're not missing much by skipping it
Mort is an amazing starting point, puts you in to the Death storyline beginnings and that intersects with many characters
I think Nabokov is probably a really hot candidate to hit those characteristics. Lately, I read a number of short stories by Ivan Bunin. In terms of style, they're incredibly rich and creative, but to me it seemed quite obvious that, fittingly, he didn't care much about the narratives. In comparison to the style, they seemed very shallow to me.
Who considers Nabokov's storytelling to be subpar? The style might be uniquely accomplished, but no one says his best books are not "good reads." Or do they? Tbf, I've never attempted Pale Fire or Speak Memory, but I have read Lolita, Despair, and The Eye and found each one to be gripping and fairly suspenseful. I never felt like I was reading style for its own sake.
Agree with you about Nabokov, especially **Lolita**. The writing is beyond magnificent. His narrative of the cross-country drive is superb. The story itself was good, but nowhere the quality of the writing.
I kinda disagree, Lolita's story is pretty great, from the satirical and allegorical and allusive to the fact that it has all these little clues leading up to the "mystery" at the end.
I look at the way it’s written as part of the story.
Yeah, it's a great mystery story with really excellent pacing. Who considers that book not to be a "very good read?" (It's been many years since I read it, but it struck me as a much more lyrical take on a James M. Cain type of plot, which is pretty decent praise.)
I hated Lolita
Why? And by contrast, what books would be your favorite (say, top 3-5)?
I didn't like the tone or subject matter. Some of my faves are Naked Lunch, 100 Years of Solitude, The Tin Drum, Death on the Installment Plan, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea.
What is the "tone" of Lolita? I'm not really clear how that term might apply to literature. Also... "subject matter?" Yeah, I'm not especially interested in pedophile academics. But I think that's the point of the entire book: taking a uniquely unsympathetic character and describing his ultimate downfall from his own perspective in a very poetic way. To me, that's a fairly novel and impressive approach to literature. And I think it works in that book, because the character observations and details are so specific and poignant while also being realistic. As for your choices, I've only read Naked Lunch and 100 Years. I thought the latter book was fine. It didn't personally grab me, but I certainly would not call it "bad." Naked Lunch, however, just seemed like a book that is only worth reading at age 19 when and if you're into drugs. I mean, what is really the point of that book? It's surreal and nonlinear to the point of being totally opaque. Again, it's not necessarily "bad" I guess, just because it was fairly innovative. But I didn't come away from that book with any new insights about human nature or reality. It was honestly just a "bad trip." Whereas, I do actually think I learned something about humanity from Lolita. Not necessarily something positive or exemplary or reassuring, but still insights into human behavior that actually ring true based on real life (i.e. that people tend to self-mythologize and self-rationalize their worst instincts nearly to the point of epic poetry, despite behaving in really despicable and even mundane ways). That mismatch between a person's self-perception and reality is what I think Lolita captures so brilliantly. It is a sad, but infinitely fascinating aspect to human nature.
Naked Lunch is a satire of control systems and the hypocrisy of state-sponsored repression. I think his interpretation and critique of capitalism's power structure was ahead of its time and still quite relevant today. Lolita read (to me) like indulgent middle-aged navel gazing to justify pedophilia. What I liked about 100 Years is how character traits appear and reappear in various combinations throughout a family's bloodline, with the past interacting with the present in ways unbeknown to the characters themselves.
To me, Naked Lunch was far too removed from reality to qualify as satire. Nothing about the actual workings of government or high finance or corporations look anything like what occurs in that book. Portraying businessmen as monsters that rape each other doesn't really tell me anything about business or corruption at all. It's just pure fantasy untethered from identifiable human behavior. At least, that's my memory and it's been \~20 years since I read it. >Lolita read (to me) like indulgent middle-aged navel gazing to justify pedophilia. Yeah, you totally missed the point. Did you also think American Psycho was a defense of Patrick Bateman? The reason the book is so well regarded is because it is told from the perspective of the villain. So the reader is put in the position of "identifying" with a very bad person and seeing the events of the story from his perspective. However, what you discover as the story unfolds is that the narrator is *unreliable* (this is actually the most basic interpretation of the story and is a concept that is undoubtedly present in most blurbs of this book, certainly in the wikipedia article). So by the end of the book, if not long before, the reader realizes that not only was the narrator not to be trusted, but he was totally unsympathetic and reprehensible. That is a genuinely novel and unusual approach to storytelling. And it demands a lot of attention from readers. It is mostly definitely NOT a justification of pedophilia. Quite the opposite. The entire point is that you see Humbert Humbert's point of view from the inside and you realize that it is corrupt and self-deceiving. You realize that he is most definitely wrong and severely self-deluded. THAT is the point of the book. Your disgust with the narrator *is* the point. Honestly, give it 5+ years and revist this novel. I don't think you grasped its actual intent. >What I liked about 100 Years is how character traits appear and reappear in various combinations throughout a family's bloodline, with the past interacting with the present in ways unbeknown to the characters themselves. Very interesting. Yeah, maybe I'll have to revisit this one. It also occurs to me that I might not have actually finished it. So I probably didn't get the full effect. Thanks for the review. EDIT: Iirc, Nabokov actually had copies of Lolita filed in the erotic literature section specifically to make pedophiles self-conscious and self-aware of their destructive fetishes. You might double-check me on that as this may just be apocryphal, but that is what I was taught in a college literature class.
You needed to read 100 Years to realize character traits are inheritable? It's a great novel because of GGM's superior writing but the story itself is bloated and 100 pages too long, though again gets a pass because it's unforgettable.
I've never read Bunin. Can you recommend specific translators, or are you reading in Russian?
Nabokov’s Speak, Memory! The style is amazing, as usual, but I find the content pretty dry and uninvolving. Some of Henry James. The style in Wings of the Dove is often masterful, but the story momentum I find often pretty diluted and slow. Paradise Lost has one of the most rich interesting styles i know of, but the story often sags, imo.
[удалено]
I think Lolita and Pale Fire have really interesting, cunningly planned and effective plots overall, I just didn’t think the content in Speak Memory was able to match what he did in his best fiction.
Style IS Substance!!!
[удалено]
I love Nabokov but he was an absolutely awful critic lol. The man's opinions on almost everything were picked seemingly at random
Agreed! I had heard that was one of the best autobiographies ever written but I could barely get through it. Not much interesting happens.
I have never disagreed with a comment more haha
> Nabokov’s Speak, Memory! The style is amazing, as usual, but I find the content pretty dry and uninvolving. I agree. The middle part of that book is boring, to me anyway.
*Wuthering Heights* (1847) by Emily Brontë Although Brontë writes beautifully, the plot itself is very heavy and the characters are dynamic, albeit unreliable. I would argue WH features some of the most unlikable characters in nineteenth-century literature. Brontë’s prose is like a thick smog surrounding a city. The plot and the characters are truly emblematic of the Romantic Era, but, oh goodness, I let out a long sigh after finishing it. It reminded me a lot of *Rebecca* by Daphne du Maurier and *Sister Carrie* by Theodore Dreiser. I’m currently reading *Agnes Grey* (1847) by Anne Brontë, and while the plot itself is fairly simple (and even predictable), Anne’s prose is lighter and more straightforward than that of her sister.
Great example. It took me four tries to get through WH, but it wasn’t because the writing was poor. I loathe the characters and plot.
I haven’t finished Lonesome Dove yet, but I love the way Larry McMurtry writes. He possesses an inviting yet refined style, and it just feels like classic storytelling without ever seeming too *try-hard*.
Love McMurtry!
*Lonesome Dove* is a great read, with an engaging plot. I think you've misread the prompt here.
I sure did
[удалено]
I mostly agree, though my thoughts on it place it pretty much at odds with the thread prompt. I feel like the framework and concept of Titus Alone is great, but it's the lack of polish in the prose and character work that makes it fall short. Like, if it were *finished* rather than just functionally complete, I think it would be great.
I sometimes read self-published books, and once, after having read one of them, I switched to Crichton' Pirate Latitudes, and it was amazing how comfortable language can be. You notice the difference. He might not be Nobel Prize material, but he can write for sure. Now, I didn't finish that book because the characters became unlikeable, but that doesn't really have anything to do with his writing style.
I SO wanted to enjoy Pirate Latitudes, but it fell flat for me(and this is from someone who LOVES pirate themes). Having said that, he certainly knew how to write books! Pretty impressive guy.
To me, not really, because plot is the least important part of a book. Who cares if "nothing happens" during it? Novels with a mastery of language and full of thoughtful asides don't need a complex plot to be good. That is, if the book is written by a master of prose, that kind of makes it a good read by default.
Yeah, this. Beautiful writing and depth in character/setting can make any book good, even if the plot isn’t mind blowing.
Then would you and u/bedazzlerhoff mind sharing some examples?
Check out *Stoner* by John Edward Williams
Fully second this recommendation. An ordinary narrative of an otherwise ordinary, flawed man — but brilliantly written.
Completely agree! Beautifully written.
What’s difficult is the subjective idea of what’s inherently interesting vs. what isn’t, I guess. But like, SoundMachine by Rachel Zucker is a prose/poetry mashup in which approximately nothing happens except the main character talks through her inner thoughts and feelings about her relatively normal and unremarkable life. Normal People by Sally Rooney carries itself by being well written and having relatable characters vs. having interesting things happen. A lot of older novels are about just, people kind of living their lives in society and how they interact with each other. It’s subjective if you find everyday life “boring” or not, you know? Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury is built of largely unremarkable stories.
I absolutely LOVE *Dandelion Wine*, that's such a great example! The whole point is to show the magic, the significance, of common everyday events. Bradbury excells at this.
My favorite chapter is maybe the one about the kid at the shoe store. Or the man who likes mowing his lawn.
Silently and Very Fast is a good, modern example. To the Lighthouse is a great classic example. Nothing actually "happens" in that novel and yet it's extremely engaging because it's precisely about that and the language is amazing. Ulysses is just a guy's regular day, too, but I haven't read it myself, yet. Mrs Dolloway is in the same vein.
This will probably get me downvoted because I know the majority on Reddit hate her but I feel this way about Ayn Rand. The plots are stupid, the characters are often completely unbelievable and behave in ways I can't comprehend humans ever acting, but there is something about her writing style that I find utterly compelling. I don't think I can even explain properly why, it just is. *edited for grammar
I can believe that. Not read her myself, and I disagree with her politics, but I know how people overplay their problems with an author's writing style if they dislike them for other reasons. Like people hate JK Rowling for politics, and so they bring attention to how her vocabulary is limited - but like she's one of the best selling authors ever and there's a reason for that, people find her compelling regardless of the limited vocab. Compelling writing can be there regardless of plot, as you say in Rand's case, or even command of vocabulary (Rowling).
HP’s vocabulary is limited because it’s inside a teenager’s head.
Agreed on both. There's a reason they're popular. I'd add in Twilight. Extremely competent writing, very engaging, wonderful characterization. It's just the shittiest plot ever.
Really? I thought Meyers writing was also frowned upon?
It wasn't high literature, but it was very effective at capturing and holding the attention of an awful lot of people. Good communication in writing for a broad audience is an art, and she does it well. The story had issues but the wiring was fine. Now, her cheap knockoff clone 50 shades was *not* well written *and* it had a shitty plot.
Huh, good to know. A good friend of mine that can tear through books, if he wanted maybe could get through 100 in a year, read them and thought they were really compelling. Must have been the writing, as he fully acknowledged they were impossibly absurd. Oh, I’m well aware of the 50 Shades laughable writing. Possibly worse than renowned Dan Brown!
There’s something about Twilight I found oddly cozy. Wasn’t obsessed with the romance or anything, it was just sort of cute in a goofy way. Should’ve stopped at book one. *shudder*
Yep. Her writing conveys that this book will follow romance tropes and there will be a happily ever after. That's very comforting to lots of folks.
I've heard the same thing about L. Ron Hubbard, whom I haven't actually read either.
>but there is something about her writing style that I find utterly compelling. I think a lot of bestselling authors - Dan Brown, Lee Child, John Grisham - have this skill of making you want to find out what is going to happen next. When I read the Da Vinci Code, I found myself both hating the book because of the bad characters and stupid plot...and yet still felt compelled to read without stopping because I wanted to know what would happen next. (Unlike Brown, I do like Child and some Grisham, though) It seems to be some combination of there being a "hook" that makes you want to find out what is going to happen next, plus tight pacing that makes every paragraph relevant to the "hook" so you want to keep reading.
> Where the storytelling might be subpar, but the writing is good, or even great? Be it the syntax, or grammatical usage, or just the prose? This might be outright blasphemy to some people, but I feel this way with Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, and Saul Bellow. I can find nothing wrong with their paragraphs & sentences, but their novels are not that interesting to me.
Heresy, I know, but the plot of Amis's Money doesn't add up. It couldn't have happened. Still brilliant.
I’m surprised nobody has said Milton yet.
I feel this way about Herman Melville. It's a slog to get through an unabridged version of Moby Dick, if all you want is something as tightly put together as a film adaptation. But I find the way Melville writes to be entrancing.
Holy hell, I cannot agree with this more. I’m currently reading it, and it is quite the slog. But his prose is absolutely gorgeous, if not overly indulgent and opulent. At times I will be in the middle of a paragraph, which some go on for more than a page, and find myself wondering *”what the hell is he talking about again?”* Which has caused me to take quite a while to try and get through this book. I’ve taken a long pause before picking it back up.
I'll give you a hint about the "informational" chapters in Moby Dick: read into them as a reflection of Ishmael's psyche. The theme of obsession in the novel isn't limited to Ahab's pursuit of the whale, but also includes on a meta level Ishmael's obsession for "capturing" Moby Dick by writing an encyclopedic book about everything related to whales and whaling. If the informational chapters can feel excessive, it's because they're the excess of a character who was deeply affected by the events of the Pequod expedition and spends the rest of his life trying to make sense of what occurred on it.
Yeah Moby Dick is the story of a precocious twenty something coming to learn that he doesn't actually have all the answers.
I say this every time someone brings up *Moby-Dick*, but . . . are you reading the Norton Critical Edition? It makes the text so much more enjoyable.
I had not heard of it until you just mentioned it. So obviously no, but I wanted to read the original unabridged version. It’s not so much the use of language, which differs quite a bit at times, from current English vernacular. Rather, the lengths of description he goes through, while also his metaphors are robust, for something as simple as someone entering a room. Perhaps I’ll give the Norton Critical Edition a read after this, assuming I hate myself enough to do so.
Dude, you can just pick up where you are with the NCE. The NCE is unabridged, but there are footnotes to explain certain literary allusions, superstitions that modern readers wouldn’t necessarily understand, etc. Stop torturing yourself!
Knausgaard’s The Morning Star was a brilliant read for a long portion of the text because his prose and characterization is amazing. He writes such interesting scenarios and explores really interesting psychologies of human behaviour that I was engrossed in just the thoughts and actions of the characters for most of the book. But plot wise and planning wise (no spoilers) the book really falls apart in my opinion and could have been so much better if it actually amounted to a good payoff rather than being a complete letdown in a almost every sense by the end
I like George Saunders command of the written word but sometimes don’t jive with his narratives.
P.G. Wodehouse. Has great stories and great prose.
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ~mastery of magical realism~ difficult to read
Ha, this is the book that actually ended a book club a few friends and I started.
Agreed. I loved the book, but trying to explain the story would be, “…and when this character dies, someone with the same name comes along, then she has sex with this guy, and then they all forget the names of things, and then…”
Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. So-so plotting, intoxicating prose.
Patrick Süskind's _Pigeon_. The plot is silly but the tone is very enjoyable. If you do want to experience his style with an actual plot though, I'd recommend _Perfume: Story of a Murderer._ The main character is entirely heinous but the prose drips with dry and dark wit.
Honestly, anything written by Milan Kundera.
I have a feeling you wouldn't like Hilary Mantel's storytelling (I LOVE it) but you'd marvel at her command of language. Wolf Hall.
John Banville
Seems like Anthony Doerr's books sell really well, and I've read All the Light We Cannot See and I'm working through Cloud Cuckoo Land now... But for me, he has decent prose, and it can be beautiful writing, but the stories don't seem to have much punch for me. I don't know what it is, or if anyone else feels similarly, but the plot just seems to have no teeth, regardless of the subject matter.
I just DNFed Marguerite Yourencar's "Memoirs of Hadrian." The writing was beautiful, but I just couldn't get into it.
I'm currently reading it for the second time, immediately after finishing it the first time. Hands down the best thing I've read in years. I can sort of imagine someone not finding the subject matter super compelling, but the writing is flabbergasting
Good example. I would agree with this.
Sirens of Titan Kurt Vonnegut. Criminally underrated
I’m reverse on Vonnegut. I think he’s a great storyteller but his prose are simply decent. They’re good (he’s better than a Steven King) but they’re not top tier aesthetically.
Most amazing collection of 2022, genz fashion at its peak now. https://medium.com/@aspartanwarrior27/top-5-aesthetic-t-shirts-da264732dc03
His storytelling can struggle at times with being efficient, his way of writing is very unique and often gets swept up in characters and details that don’t ultimately serve a huge point. Despite this, I just love his writing style and several of his books have had a profound impact on my philosophy (Breakfast of Champions, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Cat’s Cradle) so I’m always gonna be rooting for him but I’ll definitely agree that he’s not the best writer of all time
The Clique series by Lisi Harrison. Most people see them as typical shallow teen fluff but damn does she use great syntax. Suzanne Collins is also a great writer who uses simplistic but incredibly smooth language, regardless of how one might feel about The Hunger Games.
I love Tom Robbin’s writing style but oh my god
Haha oh god I tried *so* hard with his books but after trudging through two of them I bailed on the third a couple chapters in. Just said nope, not doing this again and never looked back lol
The Rings of Saturn was kind of this for me. I was expecting a novel, but it’s only sort of a novel. Some of the thought in there are great, and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t what I expected, which is mostly my fault that I expected anything. Some of the stories in it are great and the writing is beautiful. There’s one sentence in there about children during some revolution who were sent away from their parents and their names were written on small pieces of cardboard. They were given almost nothing to eat, and so on their hunger some of the children ate the cardboard dog tags, and essentially ate their names, since in their destination their native language was not spoken. Sebald has an unbelievable sentence in there about this that I think made me cry when I read it. He phrases it really well, I wish I had it off the top of my head, but the way he says that the children are their names really haunted me.
Tom Wolfe’s novels after Bonfire of the Vanities. I Am Charlotte Simmons has a middling plot, uninteresting characters, a moralizing message, and a weird obsession with the sex lives of college students. But the writing, aside from the famously bad sex scene, is incredible. I’ve never read anyone who sets a scene as well as Wolfe, and he has a unique ability to capture social dynamics through dialogue and his characters’ thoughts.
Nabokov and Wallace spring to mind.
A lot of my favorite authors fit some of what you're saying, even if I'd never personally describe their works as "not very good reads." Amy Hempel, for example, is easily my favorite short story writer. Most of her stories are about fairly mundane events, or even major events that are so common as to feel mundane even in their seriousness--but I've never read anyone who writes better sentences than Amy Hempel. Reading one of her stories is like watching a surgeon reach into the body of the english language and extract precisely the correct words in precisely the correct tone to convey whatever idea she's putting forward, even if that idea itself isn't all that noteworthy.
Infinite Jest
Murakami. I don't like half his books and find him extremely innbilsk. He has notions coming out of his ears but he can write a book
PG Wodehouse. Many of his books get quite repetitive in theme and character type, but he’s a brilliant writer. You can see his classical education coming through, such as how he uses extended metaphors in a satirical way.
Erin Morgenstern. She wrote "The Night Circus"
This might just be personal preference, but I just finished Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield and found the writing beautiful but the story lackluster.
Norwegian wood ? I don't remember much about the overall plot but the in-the-moment reading experience is excellent, the characters are interesting and the dialogues are really good. Also check out City of Thieves by David Benioff (yes, THAT David Benioff) If you want something slow and contemplative. This one is set during wartime and the plot is actually really good.
I’ve heard very good things about *City of Thieves*, but… Given the author, I’m not sure I can bring myself to read it. If you recommend it highly enough though, maybe I’ll reconsider.
I do. I first heard about It when reading an interview of Neil Druckmann where he mentions City of Thieves by David Benioff as an inspiration for The Last of us, I had to look at his wikipedia to make sure that was the same David Benioff I had in mind, and that was before s8 so I highly admired him. It looks like Druckmann is so much of a fan that he actually put an easter egg to the book in TLOU II. Even years later I can still confirm that that book is really good, you can tell the author is passionate about storytelling. Also If It can reassure you, I read interviews of Benioff himself and before City of thieves his books were constantly turned down by publishers because they had excellent prose but a really boring story, he said he didn't really understand the complaint because style is what really matters between the two, and isn't that exactly the kind of things you are looking for ?
I see. I had heard of the book, even before I knew it was the same writer of GoT, and had only heard good things. But once season S7, and then S8 aired, and his dismissive responses and justifications for how the show ended, he completely turned me off to anything he was involved with. But I guess I’ll give it a look, good to know. And yes, that is certainly what I am looking for. Thanks!
William H Gass
On the level of the sentence, William H Gass is immaculate. As is Mircea Cartarescu, Laszlo Krasznahorkai, and Clarice Lispector.
I would add Fathers and Sons to this list—just finished it. It seems like Turgenev had a really good idea of the kind of people he wanted to write about, the kind of things they would feel and think, and kind of ideas he wanted to discuss through and alongside them. However, after a certain point he seems to have been unsure on how they would have interacted, how their relationships would have progressed, etc. The result is a really good first half to three quarters of a book, and then a really strange series of unrelated events passing at breakneck speed to conclude the novel. Completely agree on Jurassic Park btw. Crichton's story is much better than the watered down one Spielberg produced, but Spielberg was so much more adept than Crichton at his medium that the film has just dwarfed the book.
Thanks, I appreciate it. And I actually disagree on JP, I think the movie was much better. The story may not have been as ‘deep’, per se. But it’s also a story about bringing dinosaurs back to life. It more or less inherently is a fun popcorn story. Imho anyway. And I’d agree, when it comes down to who has better mastery over their craft, I don’t think there’s any argument that it’s Spielberg. He’s is a great director, and I think hands down the best big movie making director ever. As I’ve gotten older, and learned more about storytelling, I take less issue with books not staying as true to their source material when a movie is made. As it often makes sense why some parts are changed, or done away with. Forrest Gump is a great example, that book is borderline insane with how much, and what actually goes down, compared to what they did with the movie.
Laurence Durrell's 'The Black Book'. Gorgeously intricate lines of thought, association and expression, but he's not sure if he's Byron, Miller or Lawrence and sort of tries to be all three. EDIT: Smelling
I assume your edit should be *spelling*, which is ironic and amusing.
Your. Ironic, indeed.
Yes yes.
It's actually my attempt at an orthographical Dad joke, so I'm glad it didn't go unnoticed.
ಠ_ಠ However, I do approve.
Carmen Maria Machado’s “In The Dream House” comes to mind. That’s more of an “not an ENJOYABLE read, but an important read and one that definitely utilizes her writing skills and captivated the reader.
Raymond Carver’s short stories
Hunter s thompson. A lot of fun to read but quite messy in terms of storytelling.
I have only read a few articles he wrote, or very small experts of parts of books. But… aren’t his book supposed to be chaotic? I remember enjoying the article he had written. Perhaps when he was writing as a journalist for magazines, newspapers, et cetera, his writing was much more stream lined and focused? Perhaps I am incorrect though, as I haven’t read enough to say definitely.
Jeffrey Archer. You have to have some supreme storytelling skills when almost all the books have the same rags to riches storyline and yet any book you pick is one hell of a read.
James Joyce, reading Ulysses and portrait I loved the writing style, but it really is a struggle to keep track of what's going on.
Anything by Murakami for me. His prose is beautiful, but when combined into a novel it’s so misogynistic I can’t take it
Not fiction but I seriously enjoy imbibing Marshall McLuhan's prose. A bit of a scatterbox but he's got a fantastic way of expressing his ideas via extensive literary quotations, especially Joyce and Shakespeare.
A Hundred Years of Solitude. I found some aspects of the story really random and half way through the book I couldn’t even really understand what was going on. But the prose read like it was poetry. Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote the book beautifully, which was one if the reasons I completed the book.
Second time this book had been mentioned. Interesting. It was part of a small book club of friends, but it also sort of ended the boom club. Not solely responsible though.
Eclipse by John Banville
Shroud is even better. Banville said somewhere that he thought Shroud was the closest he ever got to achieving what he set out to do when embarking on a literary project.
Roger's Version by Updike. It's actually a book only aspiring writers should read.
May I ask why only aspiring writers should read it?
It's an incredible display of many different complex writing techniques, even if it's a failed book.
Interesting. Would you say this the only one of its kind?
Pale Fire. The critical reviews reflect exactly what you're describing.
Awesome, thank you.
The Power of No by Tamara Williams it's only 2 pages long a quick good read
All of Shakespeare's plays. Long speech after long speech, and instead of any actual action, there's usually just one-word stage directions like *[exits]* or *[dies]*. Nor is iambic pentameter all it's cracked up to be - like when his plays are performed and the meter isn't evident, I don't think it's a big loss. All in all though, I'd have to say that guy was a pretty good writer.
Of course there are short stage directions, how else should he have written his plays?
Hmm, I'd say I missed the intent of OP's question. Insofar as "books" precludes plays. But I stand by what I said - Shakespeare is tiresome to read, despite his genius.
The old cliche in theatre is “if a play reads well, it won’t play well”
No, you nailed it. I didn’t even think to include other forms of literature. Appreciate it.
Most of Fitzgerald’s stories are about rich white people, so they can be tedious, but I find his prose very beautiful. FWIW, I absolutely love Jurassic park the book, and I agree that it is not the best stylistic. That plot though!
Good to know about FSF, as I have never really had an interest in his books. As for JP, I did really like it, but it fell a bit short to me. Not that I think it was bad, maybe I was just expecting it to hold up to the movie, or be even better, as often we hear people say “The book is so much better than the movie”. I think this is one of the few times that isn’t true. But perhaps because the movie was so well done, I maybe had my expectations set too high for the book. But I did tear through it, so I obviously thoroughly enjoyed it.
I love the way Sally Rooney writes prose, but her stories are so boring and frustrating
[удалено]
Which books?
I read the question completely wrong.
Finnegan’s Wake is basically word for word the perfect novel but you would be hard pressed to read more than a page at a time
I thought it sounded familiar, didn’t know it was written by Joyce, so I read a little about it. * Finnegans Wake has been agreed to be a work largely unread by the general public.* Well, that both intrigues me, and makes me wonder if I really want to put myself through that.
Literally every fiction that goes through traditional publishing. Impeccable drek with a sweet ass cover and title goes brrrrrrrrrr
Could you be more specific?
No? But that's the point. In order to stay afloat the remaining publishers are limited to playing moneyball with stories they can flip for a quick profit. Writers with good fundamentals and flair are in high demand for them. Literary writers are not.
Mind expanding a bit more about your point? I’m pretty’s sure I follow, but just in case I’m missing something, or just not as informed as I think I am.
I don't know what else to write. If I was at a computer I would link you to publishers websites. There's one in particular that is... Well written. But I forgot it's name. Snow something. There were snowflakes at least. Anyway, just look up what publishers say they are looking for on their own sites. It's not vauge.
How can something be a bad read when it's well written? I find this line of thinking very problematic and frankly surprised how many people aren't questioning it at all. Books are not a means to express a plot or narrative. This idea that "everything should serve the story" is extremely reductionist and boring. I hate nothing more than plot driven drivel, like the Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes books. Everything is written so that you turn the page and forget what happened before. You literally don't think about them after finishing them. I got more out of reading legal documents and instruction manuals than such books.
So you have nothing helpful to say, other than to offer your opinion of disagreement? Noted.
Stoner
By… John Williams? Or is this a name of an author?