Make you think classics

[Hoss]

Howdy,
As a 32 year old man, I've recently read "1984" for the first time and I'm almost finished with "Atlas Shrugged." I know these are books that are traditionally read at a younger age, but I never got around to them. And in a way I am glad because of the level of understanding I was able to bring to these books as a working, voting adult.

Are there any classics with a political/sociological slant that you would recommend? I already have Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia", Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" and Solzhenitsyn "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" on my list.

[Slam_Bradley]

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is an incredible read.

Off the top of my head I'd suggest Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and (going back a few years but political) Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.

[Hoss]

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is an incredible read.

Off the top of my head I'd suggest Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and (going back a few years but political) Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.


I read Brave New World in college and loved it.

Gulliver's Travels? Really? I might be showing my ignorance but I had not idea it was political.

[Agent Helix]

It's a satire.

[Karl J. Barnes]

I read Brave New World in college and loved it.

Gulliver's Travels? Really? I might be showing my ignorance but I had not idea it was political.

Gulliver was a pretty satiric swipe at the Royal Academy of Science(I believe).

Albert Camus' The Rebel essays of WWII and the like and The Plague has some political/social commentary.

[Hoss]

Cool, I'll add Gulliver to the list.

[FroggieBKT]

Gulliver was a pretty satiric swipe at the Royal Academy of Science(I believe).



Among other things. Each of the places Gulliver visits tends to at least partially represent some aspect of society. Most of it still feels applicable today. It is maybe the funniest book I've ever read.

[Doodle Bob]

For a slightly more American perspective, you cannot go wrong with Frank Norris' unjustifiably ignored "The Octopus" and, of course, "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. Both of these are slightly less hifalutin' and more reality-based than 1984 or Atlas Shrugged, but they are good reads.

[Hoss]

For a slightly more American perspective, you cannot go wrong with Frank Norris' unjustifiably ignored "The Octopus" and, of course, "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. Both of these are slightly less hifalutin' and more reality-based than 1984 or Atlas Shrugged, but they are good reads.

The Jungle - excellent! I'll look at Norris' too. Thanks

[Expletive Deleted]

If you haven't read it already, Aristophanes' LYSISTRATA. It's a comedy, but there's a strong anti-war bent to it.

There's always Warren's ALL THE KING'S MEN, which is better than its movie would suggest.

I don't particularly care for Golding's LORD OF THE FLIES, but it's a "classic" allegorical novel.

[Doodle Bob]

There's always Warren's ALL THE KING'S MEN, which is better than its movie would suggest.

Yes! I was trying to think of that one but it was not emerging from my subconscious.

A couple of other modern American classics are hands-down two of my all-time favorites: The Adventures of Augie March and Henderson the Rain King, both by Saul Bellow. Both are realistic and naturalistic, but not everyone's cup of tea. Augie March, in particular, while a serious contender for the Great American Novel, is rather structureless plotwise: Augie drifts from one part of preWWII Chicago to another and even out to Mexico to act as bodyguard for Leon Trotsky.

Anyway, back to my earlier recommendation, if you liked The Jungle, you will very much enjoy The Octopus, which chronicles the very hostile takeover of California farmland by the railroad industry. It's a great slice-of-life novel. Unfortunately, it's only 1 of 3 novels that Norris wrote: he died at a very young age.

[VanEyck]

Anything by Dickens.

[Tobias March]

Hey War of the Worlds man - a better 19c critique of imperialism you're not likely to find.

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad.

I'd like to second Gulliver and Brave New World.

Actually if you liked 1984 I read We (http://www.amazon.co.uk/We-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0140185852/sr=8-1/qid=1164161841/ref=pd_ka_1/202-0993451-1673435?ie=UTF8&s=books) a short time ago. It is strongly believed Orwell more or less plagiarised it save in the knowledge that Zamyatin's novel wouldn't reach the west.

Ok, sorry, it was a homage :D

And sure throw in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 - cos it's just great.

[Hoss]

Cool -

Thanks you all. I'll be using this thread for a while so please keep posting as you think of stuff.

[Slam_Bradley]

Not blatently political, but The Martian Chronicles can be read as an allegory of the European colonization of North America.

[hoffmandu]

All Quiet on the Western Front is a decent one.

[Karl J. Barnes]

Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls.

[niall mc cann]

If you haven't read it already, Aristophanes' LYSISTRATA. It's a comedy, but there's a strong anti-war bent to it.


Ooh! Synchronous! I just saw a production of that on tuesday. It is really funny.

[Adam Crocker]

Actually if you liked 1984 I read We (http://www.amazon.co.uk/We-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0140185852/sr=8-1/qid=1164161841/ref=pd_ka_1/202-0993451-1673435?ie=UTF8&s=books) a short time ago. It is strongly believed Orwell more or less plagiarised it save in the knowledge that Zamyatin's novel wouldn't reach the west.

Ok, sorry, it was a homage :D

Never finished We but yes and no. The arc of the story and the character's rebellion is roughly the same. (Then again it is similar for Brave New World as well.) As is the idea of a totalitarian society where all citizen's lives are controlled and there is a single figure at the top. But there the similarities end. Zamyatin's book portrayed a society where scientific rationalism had triumphed overall. And the society portrayed was highly abstract and fantastical, almost like something out of a fable.

In contrast future London, or Airstrip One, is extrapolated from his experiences in war and post-war London and his knowledge of what conditions and rationing was like. His description of the areas of the city with the Proles came from actual experience and Winston's work at the Ministry of Truth is in part patterned on his office experience at the BBC. Far from being an abstract fable, Orwell's Oceania is a very real, believable environment, taking aspects of his actual experience and patterning them to his worst fears. D-503 merely has device cleanly remove his soul. Winston Smith has it tortured out of him.

In any case We was first published in English in 1924 and Orwell had reviewed it in 1946.

[Adam Crocker]

I just realized that no one has mentioned Arthur Koestler's Darkness At Noon. It's a fantastic read Hoss. It's about an Old Boshelvik in prison being interrogated by the secret police.

[Sabrina_Fried]

Sad to say I don't have any book to contribute that hasn't already been mentioned in this thread, but I would just like you all to know that my wish list on Amazon has doubled thanks to this thread :)

Sabrina

[RickThunderclees]

Anything by Dickens.
I second this.

Also, I recommend anything by Twain as far as classics go, and the novel by On the Beach by Australian novelist, Nevil Shute. There isn't anything special about Shute's writing style, however the story is amazing, involving innocent civilians waiting to die of nuclear fallout. Very powerful.http://www.amazon.com/Beach-Nevil-Shute/dp/0345311485/sr=8-1/qid=1164510109/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0440138-2391241?ie=UTF8&s=books


_bar

[berk]

For me, it's The Iliad that has to come first: when you read it, try comparing it to other things from that era or sort of culture - the Bible first and foremost - to get yourself thinking about what a great step forward it was for the human imagination.

A few that stand out from the stuff I've read recently (last year or two):

The Man Without Qualities - Robert Musil
- pre-WWI Austria setting; follows a gifted young man who seems to have no direction in life, and who ends up getting involved behind the scens in Austrian politics. I think this one is the kind of thing most people mean when they use the term "novel of ideas" - lots of philosophical discussions and internal monologues; you might not think so from this description, but it's a real page-turner; the characters are so interesting and well-drawn, the reader becomes very involved with them.

The Trial - Franz Kafka
- everybody's heard about this, so it proabably doesn't require much explanation; I read it for the first time only a few months ago; it's totally riveting, and you can really see how Kafka anticipated so much of what's obsessed us for the last 80-90 years or so - questions of how, or perhaps if, the individual can live in the face of a power that dwarfs his own strength, - whether the power is that of the state or God himself - and all that fows from those questions - the nature of arbitrary power (or is that the arbitrary nature of power?), freedom, free will, totalitarianism, and on and on.

Against Nature - J.K.Huysmans
- late 19th century French decadence; des Esseintes, a dissolute Parisian, tired of the sensual life, retires to the suburbs and attempts to construct an idealized existence based on his own peculiar tastes and aesthetic ideas. If that sounds limited, it isn't: des Esseintes is so caught up in aesthetics that he relates to everything through that approach, so he the ideas he explores are often concerned with what we would call morality, psychology, theology, and so on, not just his favourite colour (though there's that too!). Weird. In a good way.

Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man - James Joyce
- only read this a couple weeks ago, after it was recommended in the Ulysses thread on this board; a book I'd always avoided in the past just because "coming of age" stories have always bored me; I should have known better, though: Joyce apparently didn't have it him to write anything that didn't explore new territory, not only stylistically (which isn't what we're interested in this thread), but in terms of content; and the content of this one is ideas; yes, those ideas are related to the growth and maturation of the title character, but they're of great interest and ingenuity part from that connection as well. Politics, history, religion, literature, the arts in general, the individual's relation to the world, his country, his culture, his family, his history ... Joyce covers a lot of ground in a pretty short novel.

Watt - Samuel Beckett
- strange book, but it will definitely make you think if the stylistic peculiarities don't turn you off and you find yourself intrigued by the possible significance (including the possibility that the significance is that there is no significance) behind Beckett's seemingly meaningless series of incidents. This is probably the one in this short list I feel least sure of recommending; I can see a lot of people being bored by it, however much I liked it myself. Come to think of it, Murphy might be a better choice to start with (another book I can thank this board for introducing me to).

[Hoss]

Neat. Finished Atlas. Started Gulliver's.

You guys rock.