Definitive novels for writers

Hard question. The first book that came to mind (probably because I've just read the post about Stephen King's speech) is Misery. There's a lot of stuff in there about writing.

I'd also say The Da Vinci Code...for advice on how not to write a good book

A Christmas Carol by Dickens. In a tie for second would be Great Expactations and A Tale of Two Cities. Sure, he was paid by the word and often had diarrhea of the pen, but he created unforgettable characters, impeccable atmosphere, scenes that grab you and won't let go.

Novel

As many have said, the definitive American novel of all time is Huckleberry Finn. Ernest Hemingway said it was the novel from which all modern American literature came.

"I believe that 'Huckleberry Finn' is one of the great masterpieces of the world, that it is the full equal of 'Don Quixote' and 'Robinson Crusoe,' that it is vastly better than Gil Blas, 'Tristram Shandy,' 'Nicholas Nickleby' or 'Tom Jones.'" --H. L. Mencken.

"Huckleberry Finn himself is the most American of heroes: he is the boy-man in a male world... and solitary--alone even among others, a first-person narrator who is at home in nature and, like Cooper's Natty Bumppo, at a loss in town, yet as able to cope with the venality and evil of knaves as any Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler version of the Scout. As alienated as a James Baldwin youth, and as deeply engaged in the search for a proper father as a Faulkner boy, Huck Finn, an American orphan... is, above all, a lonely survivor, one who accommodates to his changing world..." --Eric Solomon


"Huckleberry Finn took the first journey back. He was the first to look back at the republic from the perspective of the west. His eyes were the first eyes that ever looked at us objectively that were not eyes from overseas. There were mountains at the frontier but he wanted more than mountains to look at with his restive eyes--he wanted to find out about men and how they lived together. And because he turned back we have him forever." --F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"Huckleberry Finn takes the breath away." --V. S. Pritchett

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The praise goes on and on. It has been said that it is impossible to really understand modern American literature with first reading Huckleberry Finn at least three times, and I believe it. If there is a single, defining novel in English, this one is it.

'Definitive' and 'my favourites' are often two completely different things. I can go through a list of the so-called best ones of all time and groan at how many bored me to tears or made me SPeBWaS the damn things.

I'll have to have a think about this.

I think it was Thackeray who was asked what were the three best novels of all time and he said, "Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina and Anna Karenina."

That one's on my list but is it the best? Most definitive? Not sure...

Course, my favourite is a tie between Gone With the Wind and I Know This Much Is True, so go figure...

I have to ask what SPeBWaS is. Is it a strange Scottish thing?

Scarletpeaches Book/Wall Syndrome, first diagnosed in 2001 upon publication of DVC.

Have a rep point for making me laugh.

I don't think it's possible to really create a definitive list -- one person's masterpiece may not speak to another person at all, and sadly (and particularly on this board, which is mystifying) a lot of people will dismiss a book that didn't speak to them as junk, rather than recognizing the craft that lies behind it.

That said, some books that stand out to me as exceptionally well-crafted are Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye, virtually anything by Trollope, Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, virtually anything by Henry James, Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell (a potboiler but as tightly constructed as you could ever hope for) and A.S. Byatt's Possession.

definitive

ClaudiaGray said:

I don't think it's possible to really create a definitive list -- one person's masterpiece may not speak to another person at all, and sadly (and particularly on this board, which is mystifying) a lot of people will dismiss a book that didn't speak to them as junk, rather than recognizing the craft that lies behind it.

That said, some books that stand out to me as exceptionally well-crafted are Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye, virtually anything by Trollope, Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, virtually anything by Henry James, Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell (a potboiler but as tightly constructed as you could ever hope for) and A.S. Byatt's Possession.

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I tend to agree, but I firmly believe there are at least a hundred or so novels every writer should read, even if they don't like them.

There's always something you can learn, even from bad books, but something being on the 'classics' list or being popular is in no way a guarantee that I'll want anything to do with it. I'll give any book a fair go but if I don't like it, I won't hold back from saying so, no matter how popular it is with other people.

My favorite book so far has been "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas. I haven't read it in 30 years but I thought it was well written then.

On my must-buy-to-cherish-forever list right now are:

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - excellent plotting and good characterization

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller - great dialogue, deft writing on every level, very unusual plot structure

Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O. Mitchell - a great example of a literary work with a highly enjoyable story, fantastic sense of place, very vivid

Already owned and equally cherished:

My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok - a wonderful study of the father-son relationship (as are all his books for that matter) which is also a wonderful example of creating an antagonist you can nonetheless sympathize with.

Children of Men by P.D. James. This was a departure from her normal murder mystery novels. It left me breathless. Apart from very skilled writing, good descriptions, characterizations and plotting, it's only in the final chapter that everything comes together and you realize what the book was really about and, while the conflict has been resolved, the questions stirred up mean that you can't just close the book and forget it. It haunts you. If you've seen the movie, be advised that the book is an entirely different story written around the same central conceit, but bearing very little resemblance to the book.

Gilgamesh (sex and violence)

Beowulf (Grendel's mom's coming, and is she p*ssed!)

Any of the Canterbury Tales--The Miller's Tale if you like bawdy sex and scatological jokes

Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-glass

Kim by Rudyard Kipling. I was surprised at how this was both an adventure and spy story, and how the MC's depth moved me.

Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado"

Winnie the Pooh. I was 4.

I read a lot of Agatha Christie, Hardy Boys and Ian Fleming when I was young. The writer who made me want to write was Toni Morrison. The person who made me think I could do it better ("anything he can do I can do better") was Nicholas Sparks. He was the reason why I am now published.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. How could I forget? It just hit all the right notes.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. A great story on its own, it is probably the only contender in the category of Unforgettable Opening Lines and Unforgettable Closing Lines in the Same Novel.

Disclosure: My idea of a truly great book is one with a compelling story, vivid characters, and enough depth to make you want to suit up and go deep sea diving multiple times to explore.

callalily61 said:

Gilgamesh (sex and violence)

Beowulf (Grendel's mom's coming, and is she p*ssed!)

Any of the Canterbury Tales--The Miller's Tale if you like bawdy sex and scatological jokes

Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-glass

Kim by Rudyard Kipling. I was surprised at how this was both an adventure and spy story, and how the MC's depth moved me.

Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado"

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There are few books I love more than Gilgamesh.

I would include The Great Gatsby for the perfect example of how to pull a book out of nowhere in the last ten pages. And proof that the first five pages can sometimes be really, really boring.

The Outsiders for original YA (I still maintain it was Hinton, not Salinger, who created YA) and The Perks of Being a Wallflower for modern YA.

I think in terms of form,style and social commentary A Clockwork Orange should rank on that list.


I emphatically agree with the Huckleberry Finn statement by Mr. Ritchie.
I have accreditadation as a Twain scholar from some of the papers I wrote, he has been a large influence in my life. I think I even took an entire semester course on nothing but Huck. Unlike the course mentioned below it was one of the better classes of my life.

In terms of the reference to Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales. . . well. I have spent this entire sememster doing almost nothing but studying Chaucer and I suppose it ranks as a definitive novel (if it can really be called that) but I might disagree to having it as a writers reference, definitive type of book. Believe me too, I just wrote 6000 words on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Troilus & Criseyde last night and have that class in fifteen minutes. I will take a pass (and an A in the course).

Other than that. . . hmmm. . . Of Mice and Men, Grapes of Wrath, The Old Man and the Sea, Everthing That Rises Must Converge a collection of shorts by Flannery O'Connor. Something by Nietzsche should reach that list along with Darwin's Natural Selection.

In addition to what everyone else has suggested, here's my short list and why: GATSBY for style and mood; THE SOUND AND THE FURY for characterization; A FABLE for allegory development; EAST OF EDEN for dialogue (and a fairly good story, by some accounts); A FAREWELL TO ARMS for narrative; TO THE LIGHTHOUSE for stream of conscious brilliance; NANA for scene depiction (the later the translation the better); SWANN'S WAY for imagery; DEATH IN VENICE for voice(s); A CURTAIN OF GREEN for noir; ANNE OF GREEN GABLES for pacing; MIDDLEMARCH for interlacing storylines; PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY for sub-plot development; THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME for complex plot treatment; THE SCARLET LETTER for tension; SHE for just plain fun; and anything by London to see how sentences can be strung together. Then, for next week....

I thought about this list a little more and added a couple, one for simile, LORD JIM, and one for the use of metaphor, THERE EYES WERE WATCHING GOD (Zora Hurston is the author, if you might not be familiar with this title).

Echo JAR (and others) on Huck Finn. Likewise, Clockwork Orange and Hundred Years of Solitude. Rob's is a good list, too. I'd add The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, as the grand progenitor of truly modern SF, and a hellish good narrative, too. For noir, I'd put forth The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain. For Western, The Ox-Bow Incident, by Walter Van Tilburg Clark (though Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage, while a lesser novel, is highly creditable, too).

I'll also put forth We, by Evgeny Zamyatin. It is the definitive 20th Century distopian political novel, written shortly after the Russian Revolution, and it greatly influenced the much better known Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler, and 1984, by George Orwell. The latter, in fact, comes close to being a direct ripoff of Zamiatin's novel.

caw

scarletpeaches said:

There's always something you can learn, even from bad books, but something being on the 'classics' list or being popular is in no way a guarantee that I'll want anything to do with it. I'll give any book a fair go but if I don't like it, I won't hold back from saying so, no matter how popular it is with other people.

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All true, but liking a book is far from the only reason to read it. I'd say 99.9& of the old classics are great writing, great storytelling, and great characterization, even when we don't like them on a personal level. I can think of half a dozen I dislike strongly on a personal level, but none of them are bad books, and each is a piece in a very large puzzle that can aid any writer.

For me personally?

Two:

Don DeLillo's White Noise.

All of Stephen King. One of my personal favorites is (*call me stupid*) Insomnia, which even King himself hated.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy - I read it well before Oprah picked it for her book club. I read the first sentence at about 10:00 in the morning and the last about 10:00 that night. It's heartwrenching, desolate, bleak and absolutely gripping. He took humanity's worst nightmare and found something in it both fragile and beautiful.