Time Magazine's Top 100 Novels

[Karlie]

I've only read six of these. I don't read much.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
The Catcher in the Rye
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Lord of the Flies
Things Fall Apart
To Kill a Mockingbird

I also agree that there are some really good books missing from the list.

[amber]

Originally Posted by Jyqm

And regardless what you think of her philosophical or literary merits, Ayn Rand made her living from being highly annoying. Woman was a total bitch, and probably one of the worst misappropriators of her own philosophy.

mmm....From what I've seen of her, which is some interviews and a biographical documentary...and I've read a few things...she seems really smart. And no, I don't agree with her philosophy as a political system.
What's the part about her being a bitch? What do you mean, specifically? I know she cheated on her husband or something, but meh.

[Serrart]

Originally Posted by David

Advice: Don't read "Ulysses" alone. Read it in tandem with Stuart Gilbert's study, which is available in an easy-to-flip-around-it paperback.

Why not alone? I did it and it was a great experience.

About the list, I've read:
American Pastoral - Philip Roth
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Beloved - Toni Morrison
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
The Day of the Locust - Nathanael West
The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles
The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby . F. Scott Fitzgerald
I, Claudius - Robert Graves
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch - William Burroughs
On the Road- Jack Kerouac
A Passage to India- E.M. Forster
The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene
Red Harvest - Dashiell Hammett
The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - John LeCarre
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowrey

Romy

[catinthedark]

Let's see.... I have 18. Certainly didn't love them all.

Animal Farm
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
Atonement
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
The Catcher in the Rye
The Corrections
The Great Gatsby - most unfavourite book everrrrr
A Handful of Dust
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Lord of the Flies
1984
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
A Passage to India
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Rabbit, Run
Things Fall Apart
To Kill a Mockingbird

[David]

Originally Posted by Serrart

Why not alone? I did it and it was a great experience.

Let me retract that injunction, then, because I think that reading "Ulysses" without consulting criticism, analysis or other explanation is certainly preferable to not reading it at all, & even very satisfying to some people, as you say it was to you. But to the thousands of others who have found Joyce's language, themes & references to be too great a strain on their attention or endurance, I'd say that Stuart Gilbert's book (written with Joyce's assistance) is just about the best aid a reader could find.

I taught undergrads at U.C. Davis as a graduate assistant, & we all read "Ulysses" along with Gilbert's book, & I think without Gilbert, the students would have been quite lost -- little sheep wandering among Joyce's towering crags. Gilbert helped us all understand the structure & symbolism of "Ulysses," as well as its thousands of literary, political, scientific, aesthetic, metaphysical & even anatomical references. For example, I remember how useful the discussion was of the "Oxen of the Sun" episode in the hospital, with its esoteric parody of the various phases of literary style -- from Anglo-Saxon to mediaeval Latin to Middle English to 17th century to 18th century . . . echoes of Carlyle, De Quincey, Malory, Browne, Pepys, Swift, Addison, Walpole, etc. etc. Even if we had been capable of recognizing these stylistic allusions, I think we'd have still been totally unaware of what it all had to do with the development of an embryo. And we'd have been fairly lost in the great "Nighttown" sequence, with its black magic & animism & specters & more arcane references, this time to Balaam's ass or Flaubert's "Saint Antoine" or God-knows-what-all.

"Ulysses" is so chock-a-block full of life & art & knowledge that to anyone who tells me he or she wants to read it, I just habitually recommend starting with the Gilbert book -- or even reading it in tandem with Joyce. It's actually set up so you can do that. It's still in print in a good Vintage paperback, & it will unlock so many treasures in "Ulysses" for you that you're bound to find your "voyage to Ithaca" so much richer for it.

[David]

Originally Posted by catinthedark

The Great Gatsby - most unfavourite book everrrrr

I'm sorry you don't like it! Did an English class ruin it for you, by any chance?

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

I finally read this Spark novella about ten years ago because I was such a fan of the Ronald Neame film. I think the movie did the book full justice & then some, even though Neame is a mostly conventional director.

[amber]

I think that's weird, too, Gatsby is one of my very, very favorite books.
I just want to say I have this desire to say "uh, Rabbit, Run - you got through that okay?" But I don't remember when I read it, or if I really read it. I think I may have, in highschool, picked it up, read a bit, and saw that it was boring. I'm not sure, though. But I did enjoy "Brazil" by Updike, so maybe "Rabbit, Run" isn't as bad as I'm thinking.
I also think "Witches of Eastwick" should be on there.

[ragandbone]

Originally Posted by David

I finally read this Spark novella about ten years ago because I was such a fan of the Ronald Neame film. I think the movie did the book full justice & then some, even though Neame is a mostly conventional director.

Maggie Smith is just brilliant in that movie, inspiring and vain, piteable and monstrous. I should read the novella.

[amber]

Originally Posted by ragandbone

Maggie Smith is just brilliant in that movie, inspiring and vain, piteable and monstrous. I should read the novella.

When is she not?
Just saying. Maggie Smith is greatness. She was heartbreaking in Quartet.
How weird, I thought Lillian Hellman wrote the play/movie. Hmm, perhaps I should read that.

[ragandbone]

Originally Posted by amber

When is she not?
Just saying. Maggie Smith is greatness.

Very true

Originally Posted by amber

She was heartbreaking in Quartet.

Oh, I had forgotten about that movie. I want to see that again.
I saw The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on TV when I was a child, and I just thought she was silly and enthusiastic, and I liked her brogue; it was only a few years ago, when I showed the film to someone else, that I "got" how controlling and desperate she was all contained within her love for "Her Gairrrls". It gave me chills this last time. That must be in the book.

[amber]

Originally Posted by ragandbone

Very true

Oh, I had forgotten about that movie. I want to see that again.
I saw The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on TV when I was a child, and I just thought she was silly and enthusiastic, and I liked her brogue; it was only a few years ago, when I showed the film to someone else, that I "got" how controlling and desperate she was all contained within her love for "Her Gairrrls". It gave me chills this last time. That must be in the book.

I used to own it, because Isabelle Adjani is one of my personal goddesses. you should watch it again.
I've never seen it, but have read about it, reviews, criticism, Analysis, blah.
Now I have to go check who did the screenplay and the play.
Isn't that interesting how different your perspective is? Well, it's interesting to me.

[ragandbone]

Originally Posted by amber

I used to own it, because Isabelle Adjani is one of my personal goddesses.

Get out! And to think I back-spaced over my Isabelle Adjani comment in that last post. I loved her in Camille Claudel, The Story of Adele H, Queen Margot and (perfect for this season) and Nosferatu. I have the spooky soundtrack to that last one as well.

[amber]

Originally Posted by ragandbone

Get out! And to think I back-spaced over my Isabelle Adjani comment in that last post. I loved her in Camille Claudel, The Story of Adele H, Queen Margot and (perfect for this season) and Nosferatu. I have the spooky soundtrack to that last one as well.

Dude! (girl) If you have not seen L'ete Mutrier, you must. It's the definitive Adjani performance. It's scenery chewing, Adjani style. It's a tour de force. (which is totally different then, say, Bette Davis style)
I love Queen Margot, as well. Quartet is a favorite, but more for maggie's performance....
never, ever, backtrack over an Adjani comment.
It's funny, though, after seeing L'ete, I always want more from her other movies. She's quite subtle in a lot of them, compared to that one. (very subtle, I thought, in story of Adele H. Man, no one goes crazy, or cries, better than Adjani. I'd bet my nothing on it.)

[ragandbone]

Originally Posted by amber

Dude! (girl) If you have not seen L'ete Mutrier, you must. It's the definitive Adjani performance. It's scenery chewing, Adjani style. It's a tour de force. (which is totally different then, say, Bette Davis style)

I am heading to my Netflix page right now! Oh no, they don't have it. Rats!

Originally Posted by amber

no one goes crazy, or cries, better than Adjani. I'd bet my nothing on it.)

Unhinged despair- I can't get enough of it! I like it when she draws the lipstick around the perfect Adjani mouth in Camille Claudel. I saw that movie (and Adele H) just after reading "Madness and Civilization" for a class, and I became mad about madness. Bwaha Bwahahaha.

[amber]

Originally Posted by ragandbone

I am heading to my Netflix page right now! Oh no, they don't have it. Rats!

Unhinged despair- I can't get enough of it! I like it when she draws the lipstick around the perfect Adjani mouth in Camille Claudel. I saw that movie (and Adele H) just after reading "Madness and Civilization" for a class, and I became mad about madness. Bwaha Bwahahaha.

It's so nice that my semi soulmate is right here on the ledge!!!
Camille Claudel is heartbreaking. Madness in acting is always compelling.
Honestly, I found L' ete Mutrier in my video store. She is crazy and unhinged yet sexy through the whole thing. And of course beautiful. Just like our Stevie.
You will not be disappointed, if you are a fan of the "super defining performance that may be over the top".
It's like Davis's "All About Eve" or her "Jezebel", if you see what I'm saying.

It's the least subtle performance you'll see from her, therefore the most magnificent. I believe it's also during the "coke, and dating Warren Beatty years" (1980) (Cancer with Aries is bad, mmkay?)
So, god willing, you will find it, is my point. You've got to see this. It's magnificently bizarre, like no other early 80's French movie.

*checking in as an actress geek!*