Literary Discussion and Analysis Thread

Though I’m a bit surprised that nothing of this nature has been posted previously, I nevertheless would like to offer my services as a miniature scholar of literature to help all of those at TWC in their endeavors to garner greater command of the classic works that define the boundless limits of the power of the human mind, the ingenuity of the inner-self. However, it would be a blow to austerity if I told you that this thread did not have dual purposes; yes, this thread is geared primarily towards those (by force or not) studying canonical literature, and working together to help anyone who’s interested in garnering key concepts, which will include essay instruction and help. But, this thread is also intended to advertise the Creating Writing section of this site; only a few brave souls have ventured to post anything there lately, and I thank them for giving me something to review.

Keeping in mind that I am only one man, with one man’s opinion, anyone who wishes to add input to anything posted in this thread would be greatly appreciated. Now, I know that many of the wonderful forum goers have a particular regard for Sci-fi and Fantasy novels, and I acknowledge that many of them are well written and offer themes that are just as transcendent as an academic work of literature, but I have to insist that those who wish to discuss those novels refrain from posting in this thread. Some examples of appropriate novels to discuss in this thread would be Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and others of that caliber. Examples of core canonical writers include Faulkner, Hemingway, Whitman, Wordsworth, Henry James, etc. Basically, anything that the public tyrants make you read.

I suppose that it would be prudent if I gave you some information about myself, but I admit it’s really difficult; I don’t like blatantly arguing my own personal merits for others, I prefer to let them speak for themselves, but here goes. As you might imagine, I read… A LOT. Ever since I was 10 years old, I’ve been reading novels; no, I didn’t have an anthology next to my bed and refer to it every night. I mostly read Fantasy because of the wish to be plucked from this world and placed against dragons, emperors, and learn the mysteries of the arcane. Gradually, and then almost instantly I replaced my favoritism of fantasy with a fiction all its own, of the literary variety. It came first with Great Expectations, and then with Wuthering Heights, and then quickly evolved into my insatiable quest to consume the master works that authors, people, worked laboriously to produce. Not to sound vain, but I’ve probably put in thousands and thousands of hours into reading, and, lest books run out, I will probably never quit reading.

Just as a few parting ideas in the OP, I would like to thank everyone from the Critic’s Quill and the other branches of Content for promoting art – all art is important – within TWC. Remember, if you have crafted any short stories or poems be sure to post it so all TWCers have a chance to admire your handiwork. Also, I won’t fail to mention the Tale of the Week. It’s all pertinent.

I'm not sure what you're offering here, are you asking people to post pieces for you to critique? If so, feel free to critique my unfinished 'The Sarissa Sun' piece (apologies for the self-promotion ). I'd also suggest you look at 'In the Dragon's Jaws', a wonderful piece of historical fiction set during the Chinese Boxer Rebellion.

Apologies if this isn't the actual intention you had with the thread.

Subliminally, that is this thread's fuction, but I was also offering essay prompt help, thematic help, etc.

I'm not really sure I can review either of those if they've been featured in the CQ. Lemee check, though. Oh, and thanks for replying

Some examples of appropriate novels to discuss in this thread would be Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and others of that caliber. Examples of core canonical writers include Faulkner, Hemingway, Whitman, Wordsworth, Henry James, etc. Basically, anything that the public tyrants make you read.

I can't really add anything, from this list I only read 'For whom the bell tolls' and 'War and peace'.
I love Tolstoy, I don't like Hemingway's simplistic views as much*


Just some offers for you if you didn't try:
Vonnegut: Timequake
Mailer: Naked and dead
Dostoyevsky: Crime and punishment
Saramago: Blindness
Greene: The power and the glory



*a good example is for whom the bell tolls which is basicly from the material gathered during his time in the civil war. A less simplistic fellow - Orwell - wrote 1984 from similar material. Orwell understood what's going on a little better

Careful when reading Hemingway; his style might appear terse or simplistic, but its undertones - the emotions it conveys - are some of the most powerful in literature. Many of his works feature emotionally scarred characters (Robert Jordan, Fredrick Henry, the Pilar) who have to work through their own deficencies. Thematically some of his works (For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms) have few peers in terms of universal appeal. I can never understand why 'The Sun Also Rises' is included as one of his great works. I could barely finish reading it. It's probably just our preferences in books, though.

Tell me, what are some of those books you listed about? I've heard of 'Crime and Punishment', but none of the others.

Originally Posted by Carloginias

Careful when reading Hemingway; his style might appear terse or simplistic, but its undertones - the emotions it conveys - are some of the most powerful in literature. Many of his works feature emotionally scarred characters (Robert Jordan, Fredrick Henry, the Pilar) who have to work through their own deficencies. Thematically some of his works (For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms) have few peers in terms of universal appeal. I can never understand why 'The Sun Also Rises' is included as one of his great works. I could barely finish reading it. It's probably just our preferences in books, though.

Actually I like some Hemingway books. My favourite from him is 'The sun also rises' actually

BUT I think he wasn't a person who understood everything he was spectator of. A great example of this is the portrayal of the commies in For whom the bell tolls.

Tell me, what are some of those books you listed about? I've heard of 'Crime and Punishment', but none of the others.

Timequake: It is really hard to tell what a Vonnagut novel is about. You have to read one to understand my problem now. For one, he rarely uses a plot which is identifiable. There is something which acts as a thought to return to, but it is mainly used to sew together small stories of a few pages. Vonnegut was said to use the 'blackest of black humour', but actually I always thought that he was an optimistic guy.

Naked and dead: At first sight this is a 'usual' WW2 book. You know the usual: young guys on the train, training at the marines, and service on the pacific theater. However what makes this special is that in a way it is very similar to Catch22: While it takes place in the war, this is not a war book. This is the general conflict discussed between a fascist and a democratic/liberal ideology through 4 characters.

Blindness: Saramago seems to like big cataclisms. Blindness is about the effects of an infectous desease causing blindness. After in a - not named - city the desease starts, the infected are quaranteed in an asylum. The main characters (a doctor couple and their first patients) are there in the beginning, and since the guarding soldiers are often infected too, the living conditions swiftly become worse and worse. Basicly this shows the readers how a ghetto is formed and what are the reasons which keep it in existence. When the infected people riot, they find that the whole city is a deserted wasteland where the disease already took it's tall. The doctor couple then start to reorganise society with the help of who are immune to disease. Saramago has an other similar book (Death with interruptions) what is about a fictional (but well though out in consequenses) situation where La Muerte doesn't take away the people who supposed to die. Again a very well thought out story from the portuguese master! (actually I liked Death with interruptions until the end, where I was disappointed a bit)

The power and the glory: Well, I have never read a non-original novel from Greene, even though he sometimes referred to some of his books as 'mainly for entertainment not seriousness'. This story is about the battle of 2 people, a not named catholic "whiskey priest" and a die-hard "redshirt" soldier. The priest never wanted to be a hero, but he became one. He just found himself alone, all the other priests captured and executed (or forced to marry) during the suppression of the church in Mexico. The other figure is an idealistic young soldier, who passionatly hunts down the clergy, as he thinks that the corrupt chuch is a barrier in the way of the needed extensive reforms of Mexico.
Basicly they only meet each other twice, and this becomes a 'will' game between the 2. The priest want to help the population's need for faith, but the liutenant continously takes hostages and executes them until the priest gives himself up. Greene is brilliant in portays. I mean it often happens that I buy a book from him and after reading the back info I say to myself: yeah, this will be so boring! But the original characters he can creates is always a winner!

Originally Posted by shikaka

I can't really add anything, from this list I only read 'For whom the bell tolls' and 'War and peace'.
I love Tolstoy, I don't like Hemingway's simplistic views as much*


Just some offers for you if you didn't try:
Vonnegut: Timequake
Mailer: Naked and dead
Dostoyevsky: Crime and punishment
Saramago: Blindness
Greene: The power and the glory



*a good example is for whom the bell tolls which is basicly from the material gathered during his time in the civil war. A less simplistic fellow - Orwell - wrote 1984 from similar material. Orwell understood what's going on a little better

War and Peace was absolutely amazing.

Originally Posted by thatguy

War and Peace was absolutely amazing.

War and Peace was pretty good; however, I found it to be extremely repetitive. Throughout the course of the books (it was divided into several of them), Tolstoy/the omniscient narrator continued to hammer in one or two themes that he iterated over and over and over again. While the narrative itself was quite good and realistic, I could barely finish it due to the last few chapters being little more than just a dull review of his thoughts.

I don't know if its because Orwell's stuff has so pervaded modern society that we already know about all of it before we read his books, but I find 1984 to be rather dull and self-evident compared with other Dystopic literature. His writing style is not my favourite, and really I think Brave New World is much more insightful, as well as more suited to my tastes.

Originally Posted by Copperknickers II

I don't know if its because Orwell's stuff has so pervaded modern society that we already know about all of it before we read his books, but I find 1984 to be rather dull and self-evident compared with other Dystopic literature. His writing style is not my favourite, and really I think Brave New World is much more insightful, as well as more suited to my tastes.

I think Animal farm is the best from Orwell. That is sheer brilliance!

Currently reading Crime and Punishment after finished Bleak House by Dickens recently. For me, it was easily the best novel I have ever read with the satire being right down my alley. Dickens' portrayal of London within the novel is shear brilliance with the personification of the city found within the first chapter and throughout the novel being an example. Though it's the balance he creates with satire and villanry of the Courts of Chancery and Beaurocracy as a whole within the text that does it for me, while also his treatment of the aristocracy (in particular Sir Leicster and his relatives) is hilarious.

Originally Posted by Yoda Twin

Currently reading Crime and Punishment after finished Bleak House by Dickens recently. For me, it was easily the best novel I have ever read with the satire being right down my alley. Dickens' portrayal of London within the novel is shear brilliance with the personification of the city found within the first chapter and throughout the novel being an example. Though it's the balance he creates with satire and villanry of the Courts of Chancery and Beaurocracy as a whole within the text that does it for me, while also his treatment of the aristocracy (in particular Sir Leicster and his relatives) is hilarious.

Is that one of Dickens' early works or later works? While his writing style naturally improved over the course of time, I found that I enjoyed the content of his later works much more than some of his earlier ones (Oliver Twist).

Originally Posted by Carloginias

Is that one of Dickens' early works or later works? While his writing style naturally improved over the course of time, I found that I enjoyed the content of his later works much more than some of his earlier ones (Oliver Twist).

It's his ninth novel, written in 1852 - 1853 so kinda in the middle. The detail he places in his criticism of the law is massive, though based a good years before he wrought it and many consider it to be an important historic piece in terms of legal history

Yeah, he actually makes some references to the British legal tradition in David Copperfield.

So, does anyone have anything else they'd like to share? Even if you didn't necessarily enjoy reading some of the books, it would make for an interesting discussion.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

This is a complex and deep novel, and at around 800 pages, not a quick read. If you can get past the mathematics of the first 50 pages, you'll never regret it. Part WWII, part sci-fi, it will twist your brain into a pretzel as it explains in fiction form the black arts of cryptography and code-breaking. The geek factor is REALLY high, with alot of insight into the history of computers. You'll laugh so hard at times you'll be crying.

I'll definitely have to give it a read; although, most modern fiction makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

For anyone who's interested, I've just created a TWC Book Club. Feel free to join; oh, an anyone who can make an icon for it would be greatly thanked.

I'd like like to mention Catch 22 again, heh, I'm serious, I really did enjoy that much. Its perfect for people who love dark humour, irony, sarcasm, and general strangeness. Also counts as a good war book. So...sounds alot like TWC in general!


Also, while its not exactly classic literature, as is more the work of a modern journalist, but "AK47" by Michael Hodges is an exceelent peice of journalism. The book, obviously, revolves entirely around the AK47. But this isn't some gun book, there is no talk about calibres and muzzel velocites, this is like a biogrophy, the story slowly recounts the history of the man Kalishnikov and the weapon he made. In the process of explaining the guns history, Hodges goes into great depth explaining the gun itself, what it is, simply the AK47 is not just a gun. He explains the raw power the weapon has over the human mind and spirit, how is twists and assimilates itself into any culture it comes into contact with. Reading the book you come away with a sense that the AK is more then a gun, its a malevolant force of nature, a cruel and twisted lifeform.