What book?

[Sam172]

Okay, challenge for you all.

I'm looking for a good fiction book. The only criterias are:

- It must have a deep meaning
- It should be obscurely written, but not too much so (so it should about be on par with 'We', by Yevgeny Zamyatin)
- It would be preferable if it's not been written in the past 20-30 years



Any ideas? :D

(oh, a nice soul-going-rambling book wouldn't go amiss either :))

[jimkopelli]

Ok, I've seen this thread up for a while, and I thought of one.

You may already have read this.

Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keyes.

Info here. (http://www.danielkeyesauthor.com/algernon.html)

[Geoff]

Or Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

It might be too mainstream (but so what?) the message is an interesting one, and it was written long enough ago.

-Geoff

[Star]

Deep meaning, soul-gone-rambling it is, then.


Germinal, by Émile Zola.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Both about migrant workers, how rambling is that.

[CoHo]

What about Ulysses?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/3810193.stm

[Sam172]

What about Ulysses?

I was thinking about that actually, it seemed somewhat random...






Germinal, by Émile Zola.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck


The Grapes of Wrath....I keep meaning to read that.
I'll look into Germinal :)





Or Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Another one I keep meaning to get around to, thanks for reminding me about it. I do have a penchant for dystopias ^_^





Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keyes.

Never heard of it, thanks for the suggestion. I'll look into it :)




- I can see myself spending more money on Amazon soon :p

[Star]

- I can see myself spending more money on Amazon soon :p

Don't they have libraries over there?

This is a little pet peeve of mine, people who buy books; probably because I used to waste so much money on them myself. If you fear the cooties of other library patrons, maybe you can release the ones you buy into the wild, bookcrossing (http://www.bookcrossing.com/) style, when you've finished with them. =)

[Sam172]

hahahahahaha


Library?


Oh we have one. It's a hut...that's only open one day a week, and mainly has childrens books :p. I do mean a hut...it's no more than 6 x 4 foot...a tiny porta-cabin.

The one in town is better, but it's still pretty small considering the size of the place. The have 1 copy of Brave New World available according to their website....so if they have that..then they may have anything :p


The best one is a 40 minute train ride away, to the very large and very swish Norwich Library

[Heather Harrison]

If you want something perhaps rather dark, but with deep meaning, practically anything by Charles Dickens may fit the bill. I especially like "Tale of Two Cities".

Or there is always the venerable classic, "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky (note that the spelling of this author's name may vary depending on the translation). This is a long, dark, deep, and incredibly engrossing book.

If you like stories that involve people trying to survive in poor social conditions, "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair is a good choice. It is a fictional story of an immigrant family trying to survive in the terrible conditions of the Industrial Revolution, specifically the meat-packing industry. This book was very influential in its time, considerably aiding the cause of labor, and today it is considered a classic.

I would agree with the suggestion of "Grapes of Wrath", a classic work which everyone should read. "Of Mice and Men" or practically anything else by John Steinbeck would be excellent choices.

Moving on to a different genre, to recommend one that I am sure everyone is very familiar with, "Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien is, in my opinion, a classic which stands out from all others in the fantasy genre. The movies are good (and this greatly surprised me), but the book has far more depth.

These are just a few examples; I could probably think of a number of others.

Heather Harrison

[cjs55]

Lolita - Nabakov (I suppose possibly not obscure enough)

[jimkopelli]

If you haven't read Flowers, you absolutely should.
That goes for the rest of you, too.

[shaytana]

Well, I don't know how many of these books meet your criteria but here is my current list of books that have been recommended to me over the years but haven't gotten around to reading yet.

Chuck Palahniuk – Survivor, Lullaby
Frank Herbert – Dune series (reading it right now)
G.B. Shaw – anything by him (anyone recommend a book to start with?)
George RR Martin – Wild Card series
Irvine Welsh – Prono, Maribou Stork Nightmares, Glue
Jack Kerouac – On the Road
Joesph Conrad – Heart of Darkness
Kurt Vonnegut – anything by him (anyone recommend a book to start with?)
Laurell K. Hamilton - The Anita Blake Vampire Series
Levin - Anna Karerina
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Orson Scott Card - Ender Series (read the first two)
Richard Condon - Manchurian Candidate
Robert Anton Wilson – Illuminatus Trilogy
Scott Adams – Gods Debris
Stephen King – Dark Tower series
Tim Powers – Anubis Gates
Umberto Eco – The name of the Rose
W. Somerset Maugham – Of Human Bondage
William Golding - Lord of the Flies
William S. Burroughs – Naked Lunch

[jimkopelli]

Ooh... Lord of the Flies... haven't read that in a while... also recommended by moi.

[Heather Harrison]

I noticed "On the Road" in that listing - it is an excellent choice. I read it about a year ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Heather Harrison

[meshou]

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig. Can't think of a better book for an INTP. Absolutely brilliant.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Long Dark Teatime of the Soul by Douglas Adams. It feels like light reading, gets extremely mind-fucky, especially toward the ends. More obscure than Hitchhiker's Guide, I like it just as well.

Anything by Terry Pratchett. Especially the book he did with Neil Gaiman, Good Omens. Again, lightish feeling reading, but parts of it are wonderfully twisty.

[gypseymothlee]

The Life of Insects by Victor Pelevin

[Serotonin]

"Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon.

[cathmc]

Shaytana: re Vonnegut, I'd say start w/ Slaughterhouse V - considered his masterpiece for good reason.

I second, or third, the Grapes of Wrath suggestion - the book that made me become a literature major in college - and the Gravity's Rainbow suggestion,

Other ideas:
One Hundred Years of Solitude/Garcia Marquez - my favorite favorite novel of all time so if you don't like it please keep it to yourself :)

The Sound and the Fury/Faulkner.