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Ranking Every Book I've Ever Read/Reading List
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 10  9.5 This is it, my all-time favorite; Gaddis' epic masterwork of post modern thought is a meditation on the disjointed state society has found itself in and the subjectivity of reality, a story which can be both an unbearably bleak tragedy of the human soul and a screamingly hilarious satire of modern life, as it beautifully sprawls for it's 956-page length, marked by some of the most fascinating characters ever put down to paper, terriffyingly reminiscent of ourselves
m08221196's rating:
 
132 7.8 Joyce's mastery of prose is one full display here; the plot of "Ulysses" is nothing more than a 15-page short story, but through Joyce's absolute virtuoso, this tale of the dull day in the life of several middle class Dubliners in 1904 is transformed into a multifaceted epic of comic absurdity. The amount of styles on display here is amazing, even more is how Joyce can incorporate them all into this one work and have it become the masterpiece it is. On every page can be found unmatched creativity and literary gold
m08221196's rating:
427 8.1 The very definition of "subversive"; Heller sets his sights (and astonishing wit) on the horrors of war, and makes the funniest damn thing ever. Rather than a plot, "Cath-22" is comprised of series of episodes set in nonlinear order, and every one of those episodes is wonderful. I've never laughed harder than I have the alfalfa farmer who made his living not growing alfalfa. When it wants to be, though, it can show the tragedy of war (and of humanity as a whole, for that matter) in a very poignant manner. "Catch-22" is probably the only war novel I could ever read
m08221196's rating:
109 7.9 Faulkner introduces us to the Compsons, a rather screwed up bunch of people suffering great internal strifes. The main cast is comprised of Benjy, a 33-year old with down sydrome unable to truly understand the nature of all the unhappiness he's experienced throughout life, Quentin, a neurotic Harvard student tortured by the memories of his incestual past, and Jason, a brutal cynic who idles away his time in his own misery, and we see things told through the point of view for the first three chapters and then, finally, through an omniscent third-person detailing the events of the family's black servants; a breath-taking disply of emotions and styles (including one of the greatest examples of stream of consciousness I've ever read in chapter 2)
m08221196's rating:
 
14 7 Allow me to get personal with you for a minute here; I've never fit with what you could call "society". Since childhood, I've found myself unable to connect with peers, so I've spent a large part of my life trying to mold myself into something people would like. I've felt trapped in a world where I am hopelessly out of place for sometime. It was reading "No Longer Human", perhaps the darkest and most painfully honest account of alienation ever written, that allowed me to understand my condition better; the "inhuman condition", I suppose you could say
m08221196's rating:
590 8.1 Put aside any preconceived notions you may have regarding the subject matter and experience "Lolita" as the high artistic achievement that is. At once a work of masterful prose and a powerful psychoanalysis, "Lolita" can be in parts tragic, funny, dark, and disturbing. With Humbert Humbert, Nabokov created one of the most terrifyingly real characters in fiction
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13 8.1 Here's the whole thing for free http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ns/k1.html
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 Great/VeryGood
Or just plain good
571 7.9 Unrealistic, perhaps even heavy-handed at times, but still a brilliant book as far as I'm concerned. Bradbury's attack on people's banality and their dependence on technology, in my eyes, rings true like little else, not to mention that, strictly as a novel, it's also an absolute page turner, very-well written, featuring a great cast of characters, and is, in turns, both funny and terrifying
m08221196's rating:
474 8.3 The cult phenomenon of a novel intorduces us to Billy Pilgrim, shattered by the horrors of war, the dullness of modern existence, and an alien abduction, only to end up a pathetic old man raving to himself, until he is "unstuck in time", reliving moments of his unhappy existence over again. The story encompasses human tragedy and comic absurdity, but the way vonnegut tells the story in a way which never leans to strongly in either direction, turning this odd story into a standard narrative; in a way, I think this makes it even more endearing. Vonnegut, thank you for making that inferno of malaise known as Summer School Period 1 so much more pleasurable
m08221196's rating:
755 8 This is how you write an allegory; clear, easy-to-understand symbols that still manage to avoid the territories of gross unsubtlety and insulting to the reader, and a story that serves both the purpose of expressing the author's ideals and giving you something to simply enjoy as story
m08221196's rating:
 Meh/Bad
385 7.5 Shakespeare just leaves me cold; yes, some of his monologues can be rather impressive, but I get nothing out of it beyond the sense that I'm reading something kind of pretty. I didn't really care about either character, nor the families' feud
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104 7.7 Basically, the same problems I have with all Shakespeare, this time in the form of story so chock full of whimsy that my stomach is left feeling a bit nauseous
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73 7 Heavy-handed, painfully unsubtle, and WAY too much melodrama
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778 8 An uninteresting statement on prejudice that's dated horribly meets the bullshit of innocence (or at least how Mrs. Lee sees innocence) to make a work that tormented me with it's baseness for several weeks in Freshman year
m08221196's rating:
 
130 7.7 The inanity of a work like "House of Leaves" is something that needs to be seen to be believed. A lot of people would dub this an "experimental" novel, but I call this what it is; masturbation. As opposed to say, James Joyce or Virginia Woolf, the experiment in "House of Leaves" isn't in the way the author uses his prose or tells his story, but in cheap, hollow, "style". I have a hard time believing Danielewski himself even thinks this is good; part of me is convinced he meant to create a sort of parody of the post-modern aesthetic.
m08221196's rating:
75 6.5 Rand's horrific prose that disregards any sense of subtley whatsoever, her sociopathic philosophy, and her uninteresting characters that serve as nothing more than vehicles of the aformentioned philosophy, all wrapped up in a 700+ page novel, is, to my mind, the literary equivalent to Hell
m08221196's rating:
To Read |
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Also I envy you; so many great books ahead of you.
m: Really as long as you realize that Shakespeare doesn't much sympathize with the title characters you're good.
Also read Hamlet already, goddam, son, it's gonna blow yr adolescent mind
Also I need to disagree with you about To Kill A Mockingbird, probably the best book there is about prejudice and childhood's end. Personally I like the structural idea in it as well, it's naive, yes. But it's naive only to a point and there's a purpose for it, considering that it's written through child's eyes and children are perceptive, yet naive... And children are usually free of the prejudice that hinders adult's vision to some point and thus see the obvious where all the else see what they want to see...
But then again... One cannot like everything I suppose, and it's always more interesting to hear constructive criticism on classics than just plain old "It was good."
keep it up, mate.