The 600-Page Book Club

[Stevie B]

I have a button, similar to the one above, pinned to my office bulletin board, but the truth is that I have a tendency to delay reading larger books. I think about all of the unread books I own, and I figure why read one book when, during the same amount of time, I could finish two or three others. I also realize, however, that longer books have often provided more satisfying reading experiences, so one of my goals for the coming year is to tackle some of those larger books (600 pages or more) that have been gathering dust on my bookshelves. I'm curious to know what are several bigger books you've especially enjoyed, and what are a few you're looking forward to reading in the near future. Here are a few titles that make my lists:

Big Books I've Enjoyed
Ken Kesey: Sometimes a Great Notion
Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina
Wallace Stagner: The Big Rock Candy Mountain

Big Book Queue
Halldor Laxness: World Light
Hugo Claus: The Sorrow of Belgium
Robert Tressell: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

 

[Leseratte]

Bigs books I have enjoyed:

João Guimarães Rosa- Grande Sertão Veredas
All of Dickens extensive novels
Most of the novels by Henry James
Most of the novels by Dostoyevsky
Hardy-The Return of the Native
Moby Dick
Cervantes-Don Quijote
Alexander Döblin- Berlin Alexanderplatz
Salman Rushdie- The novels written before the exil
E T A Hoffmann- Memoirs of Tomcat Murr
More recently:
Frank Witzel: Die Erfindung der Rote Armee Fraktion durch einen manisch depressiven Teenager im Sommer 1969.(More or less: The Invention of the Red Army Fraction by a manic depressive Teen in the Summer of 1969)
Olga Tokarczuk- The books of Jacob - Sp
Nino Haratischwilli- The Eighth Life (For Brilka)),Sparse Light
Back later. Some bug. It started at the mention of Rushdie.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

We were speaking of Louis Guilloux, and he has got at least one such: Le jeu de patience, 811 pages in the first edition, Prix Renaudot 1949. “An intricate text demanding patient reconstitution by the reader. Micro- and macro-history collide: the horrors of war, and anarchist and Popular Front politics or right-wing coups, impinge violently on private dramas. It is a haunted kaleidoscope, often hallucinatory."

That sounds GOOD.

 

[Stevie B]

Bigs books I have enjoyed:

João Guimarães Rosa- Grande Sertão Veredas
All of Dickens extensive novels
Most of the novels by Henry James
Most of the novels by Dostoyevsky
Hardy-The Return of the Native
Moby Dick
Cervantes-Don Quijote
Alexander Döblin- Berlin Alexanderplatz
Salman Rushdie- The novels written before the exil
E T A Hoffmann- Memoirs of Tomcat Murr
More recently:
Frank Witzel: Die Erfindung der Rote Armee Fraktion durch einen manisch depressiven Teenager im Sommer 1969.(More or less: The Invention of the Red Army Fraction by a manic depressive Teen in the Summer of 1969)
Olga Tokarczuk- The books of Jacob - Sp
Nino Haratischwilli- The Eighth Life (For Brilka)),Sparse Light

Great books. Many on your list, like the majority of the larger ones I've read, are older classics. I'm also reminded that a number of them, despite their length, are books readers don't want to end. It's a treasure when you find one of those.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Because I read so many books “at once”, I mix in the very long and multi-volume ones and they just take more months to finish, is all. This has the advantage of making them seem less intimidating than if I was reading just that one book.

 

[Stevie B]

We were speaking of Louis Guilloux, and he has got at least one such: Le jeu de patience, 811 pages in the first edition, Prix Renaudot 1949. “An intricate text demanding patient reconstitution by the reader. Micro- and macro-history collide: the horrors of war, and anarchist and Popular Front politics or right-wing coups, impinge violently on private dramas. It is a haunted kaleidoscope, often hallucinatory."

That sounds GOOD.

View attachment 1388

I sometimes say that I wish my parents, who were both fluent in French, spoke French at home so I could have learned it growing up. On the other hand, I was also the one who often skipped doing my French homework in junior high school. It's one of those things I would change if I could go back in time.

 

[Benny Profane]

I'm reading two of these "calhamaços" (big books in Portuguese): Explosão: Romance de Etnografia ["Explosion: Novel About Etnography"] by Hubert Ficthe and Neue Leben ["New Lives"] by Ingo Schulze.

 

[Stevie B]

Because I read so many books “at once”, I mix in the very long and multi-volume ones and they just take more months to finish, is all. This has the advantage of making them seem less intimidating than if I was reading just that one book.

Great idea. I've also had a couple of short-term memberships to audio book clubs. I made sure to order the larger books I wanted to read to get more bang for my buck.

 

[Stevie B]

I'm reading two of these "calhamaços" (big books in Portuguese): Explosão: Romance de Etnografia [Explosion: Novel About Etnography] by Hubert Ficthe and Neue Leben ["New Lives"] by Ingo Schulze.

New Lives tempted me once, but I was put off by a large number of negative reviews on Goodreads. It's one of the few books I've seen on that website where the average rating falls below a 3. You'll have to let us know your thoughts once you're done.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

I also studied French (and Latin) in middle and high school. My speaking / listening skills were always so-so (and that is true for me in Spanish now), but my reading ability was MUCH better because I absorbed grammar and vocabulary easily, and of course I’m just ATTRACTED to reading.

Even today, I have a copy of Jules Verne’s Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours that I think I could get through, albeit slowly and with considerable dictionary assistance.

I had a year of Russian at university, wish I had kept up with that. I couldn’t make the sounds, but I LOVED the Cyrillic alphabet, and the grammar was a snap after Latin.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

New Lives tempted me once, but I was put off by a large number of negative reviews on Goodreads. It's one of the few books I've seen on that website where the average rating falls below a 3.

Oh, I would take that as a plus. ?

I use Goodreads (and LibraryThing) to keep track of things, but I try not to look at the reviews, and I have a rule never to answer them, because I’d get banned in five minutes. I have tried to move my life in a mild, benign direction, but a lot of the idiots at Goodreads just irk the hell out of me.

 

[Stevie B]

I also studied French (and Latin) in middle and high school. My speaking / listening skills were always so-so (and that is true for me in Spanish now), but my reading ability was MUCH better because I absorbed grammar and vocabulary easily, and of course I’m just ATTRACTED to reading.

Even today, I have a copy of Jules Verne’s Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours that I think I could get through, albeit slowly and with considerable dictionary assistance.

I had a year of Russian at university, wish I had kept up with that. I couldn’t make the sounds, but I LOVED the Cyrillic alphabet, and the grammar was a snap after Latin.

I spent a couple of summers in a Haitian village where I was surprised to discover I was able to recall more French than I thought I had ever learned. Unfortunately, that only went so far as the people in the village spoke Creole and I had to learn many new words and phrases.

 

[Stevie B]

Oh, I would take that as a plus. ?

I use Goodreads (and LibraryThing) to keep track of things, but I try not to look at the reviews, and I have a rule never to answer them, because I’d get banned in five minutes. I have tried to move my life in a mild, benign direction, but a lot of the idiots at Goodreads just irk the hell out of me.

In general, I put a little more faith in reviews on Goodreads than I do in those I find on Amazon. Goodreads reviewers tend to be more critical whereas Amazon reviewers want to give 5 stars to every book they read. In the end, I try not to let ratings on either website dictate my reading decisions, but a series of negative reviews will raise a red flag.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Thomas S. Klise’s The Last Western (1974), close to 600 pages, is the very definition of a cult novel, and my favorite “neglected book”. The “Argus Communications” imprint was Klise's own. Many years ago in Chicago, I talked with a gentleman who had known Klise and who confirmed this.

Now, why Klise didn’t go the mainstream route is unknown to me. The Last Western is very much in line with what Barth and Pynchon and others were doing, but from a specifically Catholic perspective. Was that a problem for the big publishers? Or did Klise simply prefer to self-publish because that way, he had complete control of the text and presentation? I don’t know, but his strategy was certainly prescient.

To give the flavor of the book is difficult, but one can say that it is simultaneously very serious and very funny, and that it weaves its subjects -- Roman Catholicism, baseball, racial politics, Latin American revolution, big business, and film-making, among others -- into an extremely impressive tapestry. The Last Western's near-future setting makes it a speculative science fiction novel as well (R.A. Lafferty and Philip José Farmer both blurbed it). The prose is first-rate (and very accessible, unlike that of some mega-novelists).

I am frankly a little baffled as to why the novel has never been re-published. Maybe the Klise family has put up roadblocks? Both the old hardcover and paperback editions are pretty pricey these days (although the book is available at the Open Library). There is a tiny but rabid following, as you can see by glancing at the reviews at Goodreads and Amazon. Any halfway decent literary publicist could make a re-issue into an “event” (“Legendary Lost Novel Resurfaces”, the stuff writes itself).

As the fan reviews indicate, this is a book that gets into your bloodstream. It has a GLOW to it. I still use scenes, lines, characters, as mental reference points in many situations.

 

[Verkhovensky]

I'm currently reading Quo Vadis by Sienkiewicz, which I probably can squeeze into this thread since I've found on the aforementioned Goodreads that there are some editions out there with 600+ pages (mine has "just" 488).

Neapolitan Novels / My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante is usually counted as a tetralogy of novels, but I would argue that it is really one novel which was published in four volumes so it would be easier to sell - I doubt many people would buy a 1,800 page book. This is also supported internally, since the work is divided into six "books", with first two being rather short and making up the first volume (around 350 pages), third book making up the whole second volume (around 440 pages), fourth book making up the whole third volume (around 500 pages) and fifth and sixth book making up the final, 500-page volume.

 

[Liam]

There are big books and then there are BIG books,

Henry James often seems to be "longer" than he actually is because of the density of the language.

The longest novel I have ever read is probably John Cowper Powys's A Glastonbury Romance. His historical novels Porius and Owen Glendower are reputed to be even longer.

All three books are probably twice as long as David Copperfield (supposedly Dickens's longest novel), and possibly as long if not longer than War and Peace.

Musil's A Man without Qualities has been on my TBR list forever, but I never seem to get around to it.

My other lengthy favorites would include The Brothers Karamazov, The Lord of the Rings, The Woman in White, Parallel Stories, Le Morte d'Arthur...

I'll add to the list if I remember anything else,

 

[Stevie B]

The longest novel I have ever read is probably John Cowper Powys's A Glastonbury Romance. His historical novels Porius and Owen Glendower are reputed to be even longer.

I've noticed in the past that many of his books are door stoppers. Was A Glastonbury Romance worth the trip?

 

[Patrick Murtha]

I have a copy of A Glastonbury Romance at hand, must get to it. Need to order the first volume of The Man Without Qualities.

Among titles mentioned earlier in the thread, I have Sometimes a Great Notion on my iPad. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is one of those books that, like the Musil, sets off spasms of Book Guilt for me, so I shouldn’t delay too much longer.

Book Guilt, I assume some of the rest of you live with that? It’s one reason that I read a lot of books at once, I at least want to GET STARTED, and get some of that title / author under my belt NOW. I do finish what I start, so in a sense, once I’ve read the first chapter of a book, I feel secure that I’ve bagged it.

 

[Stevie B]

I have a copy of A Glastonbury Romance at hand, must get to it. Need to order the first volume of The Man Without Qualities.

Among titles mentioned earlier in the thread, I have Sometimes a Great Notion on my iPad. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is one of those books that, like the Musil, sets off spasms of Book Guilt for me, so I shouldn’t delay too much longer.

Book Guilt, I assume some of the rest of you live with that? It’s one reason that I read a lot of books at once, I at least want to GET STARTED, and get some of that title / author under my belt NOW. I do finish what I start, so in a sense, once I’ve read the first chapter of a book, I feel secure that I’ve bagged it.

Given your vast reading, Patrick, it seems to me that you should be the last person to suffer from book guilt. I, on the other hand, suffer from book-buying guilt, but it is only a mild case as I continue to make purchases.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Every day I look at the literary / cultural / historic birthdays for that date, and it can be either inspiring or dispiriting, depending on my mood. ?

As for book-buying, I only wish I had more money to spend (and of course, more hours to read the books with).

I need to have shelves made for the house I’m renting here in Tlaxcala, too. In Mexico, having shelves and other furniture custom-made by local craftspeople is cheaper than purchasing anything ready-made in a store, and by doing so you get to support the street-level economy, too.