What is your opinion on long novels? (War and Peace, Infinite Jest, In Search of Lost Time, The Recognition, Don Quixote)
Do you avoid long novels based purely on their length? I know I am immediately hesitant to read a book if I see it is 800+ pages
theyreallreallygood
That's just as stupid as not wanting to watch a movie or not wanting to play a game because it's too long. If you actually like it there shouldn't be a problem with more of it.
This just further cements my idea of Veeky Forums being filled with a bunch of pseuds that only like that idea of reading instead of actually doing it.
I prefer shorter novels.
It's actually more to do with the fact that a long novel requires a more lengthy commitment, and there is always that anxiety of whether it deserves that commitment on a personal taste level.
Length of novel is overrated. I had more trouble with some short work than with War and Peace. It's all in the writing. Tolstoy is easy to read, so the progress is easy. Most of the long novels are the same. I've read the first book from Prout's magnus opus, and it's the same. Then you have Flaubert, and Shakespeare, and you're immediately forced to read slower if you want to take anything from what they wrote. Each sentence is well thought out, and you need constant attention not to miss a thing. I believe there's connection in how fast a thing was written to how fast you can read it.
I like them much more than I used to. They're often comfy to read and accompany you over a certain amount of time, you don't finish them in a couple of days or even weeks, so your feelings and thoughts towards the book have time to change and wander around.
Pretty good
David Foster Wallace. I weep for his disappearance. I just read his biography, “Every Love Story is a Ghost Story” by D.T. Max. I’ve read Wallace’s “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men” and just got “The Broom of the System.” I certainly haven’t read “Infinite Jest.” I don’t think I would read a thousand-page novel until I’m in a nursing home.
Love'm. Usually sorry when they end. Have read Proust twice and can honestly say book 7, when he waxes philosophical and ties most loose ends together, is my favorite. I hit about four tomes a year-- and fill in the rest with whatever-- an equal amount of lit and non-fiction..
Poe believed that literature should be able to be digested in one sitting (novels, plays, poems, etc.).
And then he wrote Eureka, 100 pages that feel like a thousand.
>Poe
>the original Stephen King
Don't care.
there's a few things here and I don't want to devolve into the "muh maximalism" argument right off the bat. When you have books that start approaching that critical tome length often times the novel will sort of create a mythology around itself; whether or not this is intentional is besides the point. The sheer volume of "stuff" means that every idea presented will probably be repeated at some point in another incarnation and the books themes will not be so much repetitious as much as dynamic as opposed to a more static defense you'll find in criticism or shorter texts. For some examples though, the one's I'm pulling from are the one's I've read:
Don Quixote
IJ
Brothers Karamazov
Women and Men
Miss Macintosh my Darling
Terra Nostra
GR
Terra Nostra
JR and Recognitions
2666
"If i had more time, I would have written a shorter letter".
People who write long novels actually have less time than those who write shorter ones. Also, they have more inclination to narrowing down their word choice and meaning rather than expanding it across a thousand pages.
It's why poets are the highest tier of literature.
It's why Buckethead and metal guitarists are shit.
Oooh...a thousand notes a minute. Not impressive when a single note can bring a tear to my eye.
I sort of want to get into this idea a little more but find that whenever i do on Veeky Forums I end up talking to myself. If anyone has any legitimate questions regarding big fatty books or any of the tomes I have mentioned above I'd love to answer to the best of my ability
>Most long novels are the same
just because a book is long doesn't mean you can automatically transfer properties of its readability from one text to another. would you say Ulysses is easy to read?
Kek.
ok
tell for yourself. Never read anything because you feel you ought to be, treat it seriously and if the text rewards inspection, it's worth continuing. If not, chuck it
I'll agree with the comfiness aspect, long books straight up feel like friends of mine whenever I see them mentioned as opposed to shorter and often more accessible works
why do you take time to post this nonsense. just start infinite jest, I read pretty much all you did before I tackled it and found it largely unnecessary. the only prep you need for IJ is a first reading of IJ
tell me more about proust because I've been putting it off
lol true
get off this board
>Terra Nostra
I haven't seen this book mentioned here before. I haven't read it either. I know two people that have read it, one says it falls under its own weight and the other says it's one of his top 3 books. It sounds pretty interesting from what he told me.
as much as I disagree with that assessment I sort of "get it." Fuentes is one of those Novel prize writers who'll never actually get the nobel, I'll agree that the idea behind TN is a little overly ambitious at times but the book is relentless throughout, so there's no fluffy moments of boredom or lack of content. He writes pretty percisely and isn't afraid to jump ahead a couple hundred years from one paragraph to another.
Proust. I think many are turned off by how involved (but not at all convoluted) the prose is in the first two books, which concern Marcel's interpretation of his own childhood, and all the banal wonders that swirl about it. The third and longest book (my second favorite) essentially concerns two parties that occur while the Dreyfus affair is at white heat: Marcel's coming of age here. Book 4, bam! Marcel, a needy child, is now a horribly suspicious lover and has a grisette girlfriend, and here you find the book become a potboiler you just can't put down. This lasts through the fifth and much of the sixth until....in his solitude, M discovers John Ruskin and begins his literary career. Book 7 is all aftermath of characters and musings on the nature of art time and life. Sound boring? It's wonderful.
t. someone who doesn't know anything about metal
Any novel over 390 pages is self indulgent garbage.
That should be possible if you can read really fast. See: Teddy Roosevelt
did you read in spanish?
Bad bait.
thanks user, i'm def going to pick it up either way but I'm always down to hear an opinion by someone who's read it
my spanish is a little mediocre so I did it in english mainly/would look at the spanish version at times but my mexican friend would attest that my spanish is passable at best.
so you'd say the translation is good then?
I've only read a few, but the ones I have are some of the best books I've ever read - both 1000+pgs.
>This just further cements my idea of Veeky Forums being filled with a bunch of pseuds that only like that idea of reading instead of actually doing it.
Well fucking duh
Veeky Forums has a stupid fetish for long novels. Most people here are so retarded that they won't read a book if it isn't at least 500+ pages long. You see? Pure pseuds. Long books can be either good or shit, but for Veeky Forums they will be certainly perfect, whatever. 1000 pages? Means quality.
Now go read what you want and forget this fucking retarded shitplace for idiotic oafs.
I can enjoy them as as much as short ones. I would say ONLY "requirement" for me is to be in certain state of mind to start and indulge myself, be it a book, movie or perhaps a game.