Name a great novel from a great author

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I love these two. A Dead Man in Deptford by Burgess is also brilliant. A talented writer and his musical compositions are also enjoyable.

I read The Silmarillion while stuck home, sick over the summer. I found it very passionate and sincere. One person's vision set out without very bravely.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

The Idiot—Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I also love the Silmarillion, it's the history of Middle Earth. There are even some Tolkien fans who treat it like a holy book.

The Romance of a Shop - Amy Levy (1888)


The Romance of a Shop is an early “New Woman” novel about four sisters, who decide to establish their own photography business and their own home in central London after their father’s death and their loss of financial security. In this novel, Amy Levy examines both the opportunities and dangers of urban experience for women in the late nineteenth century who pursue independent work rather than follow the established paths of domestic service. By outfitting her characters as photographers, Levy emphasises the importance of the gendered gaze in this narrative of the modern city.

This Broadview edition prints for the first time since the 1880s Levy’s essay on Christina Rossetti and a short story set in North London, both published in Oscar Wilde’s magazine The Woman’s World. Other appendices include poetry by Levy, Michael Field, Dollie Radford, and A. Mary F. Robinson, and essays on Victorian photography, literary realism, “the woman question” at the end of the nineteenth century, and the plight of women working in London.

COMMENTS
“It is an unexpected pleasure to have Amy Levy’s fascinating 1888 novel, The Romance of a Shop, in a well-annotated modern edition. Levy, an Anglo-Jewish poet and novelist who was educated at Newnham College and frequented the London circles of Eleanor Marx and Olive Schreiner, has been the subject of increasing interest over the last ten years. Levy’s novel chronicles the romance of work and the trials of independent urban life for the ‘new woman’; Susan David Bernstein gives us a splendid edition, with appendices that include Levy’s essays and poems, reviews, and other invaluable contemporary materials.” — Deborah Nord, Princeton University

I can see why. Tolkien obviously did.

This has always been one of my favorites, and a book I've read several times. I find it amusing and a little annoying when people complain that the characters are thin, and it's basically a novel made out of aphorisms. I think it's because the novel's sentiments and aphoristic style are so striking that this bothers people. Certainly, authors like Tom Clancy write less interesting characters without actually having something to say. But they are easier to ignore.

I think I also love it because it feels like an essay in novel form, and I love Wilde's essays. Some of my favorite novels have this quality, such as Gulliver's Travel's, The Fall, or American Psycho. Probably A Clockwork Orange, too. In those books the narrators essentially develop viewpoints in the guise of story. Wilde does this through multiple characters, but a dialogue like The Decay of Lying really feels like part of Dorian Gray.

George Orwell - Burmese Days and A Clergyman's Daughter

Perhaps not as great as his more famous work, but I found these thoughtful, observant, and with a satisfyingly direct energy. I also enjoyed the formal experiments in the latter, influenced by Joyce's Ulysses.

Speaking of which:

James Joyce - Ulysses and Finnegans Wake

Virginia Woolf - Jacob's Room

I found this one very moving, especially the view of the middle-aged woman, watching the inexperienced youth around her, moving through a world she's invisible in. Yet, she makes this world work.

Virginia Woolf - The Waves

Her version of Nietzsche's eternal return, Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation, Finnegans Wake, and Spinoza's Ethics. She s the kind of person I like to think about and wish I could meet.

The characters are thin?! Wow I haven't seen that.

Perhaps it's because the themes are so epic and universal, in contrast?

It seems many readers dwell on plot or character without analysing their function or psychological realism.

Have you read Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner?

Charlotte Brontë's Villette? (See Virginia Woolf's review)

I love Woolf but somehow I couldn't pull myself through The Waves.

Haha! Very true. I think Sir Henry is hysterical and found the characters relatable to real life. Perhaps some readers don't like them because they're not very flattering. Yes, Wilde's voice is all over the book, but it is his, and I think there is a great level of irony there. He appears to glorify what is, ultimately, condemned. I never get tired of reading it.



Neither, though they are both books I would read. If only I could get rid of this full-time job Eventually I'll get to them. I have not actually read Charlotte Brontë, which must make me an unjustified sinner in your world.

Villette is hilarious too, for its understated use of irony.

You work?!

Pity. lol

I just saw this ^. Not at all. If you're going to start with any Brontë, I'd recommend Emily's philosophical devoirs (essays) from Brussels. She was first and foremost a great essayist and poet. Then Charlotte's essays to compare.