Score

Could you clarify the purpose of this list ? When I think of the "longest sentence" my thoughts go to William Faulkner and Henry James.

Well, I would like to know which books get the readers dizzy, exhausted, or maybe even bored to death while following, because of the amazing length of the sentences. I remember, when I was a college student, I examined a Joseph Conrad novel, in terms of its linguistic value, the structure of his sentences, and the positive and negative effects it has on the plot.

What I shall never forget is diagramming sentences from Silas Marner.

Susanna wrote: "What I shall never forget is diagramming sentences from Silas Marner."

Try the first sentence from Reynold's Price, A Long and Happy Life.

Have not read Reynolds Price, but shall take your word for it.

Isn't the world record for longest sentence ever in Absalom, Absalom!?

Could be; there are some gollywhoppers in Absalom.

Susanna wrote: "Could be; there are some gollywhoppers in Absalom."

Sticks in my mind that Faulkner wrote a sentence 49 pages long. Did he ? And is it a real sentence, like you could make one of those diagrams we did back in 1950 ? I hear it's different now.

Few novelists love conjunctions more than Proust. The rambling SOC of Molly Bloom's soliloquy in "Ulysses" and the blinding effect of no punctuation throughout Saramago's "Blindness" stand out for me. James wrote lovely, long sentences but never really said much. Nice list.

“Listening to her spooling out impractical and transcendental picture-concepts like a hyperventilating tickertape he felt the weight lift from him, floating in a sweet and putrid lager fart to dissipate beneath the starry, vast obsidian pudding bowl of closing time, inverted and set down upon the Burroughs as though keeping flies away.”
― Alan Moore, Jerusalem

I guess it's not pages long, but it's a pretty drawn out sentence for something simple.

One book immediately came to mind, Godenslaap 😃. I read it as part of a challenge and one of the other participants mentioned it had such awfully long sentences. I hadn't even noticed as I enjoyed the book and the writing style immensely but when I had a look, it turned out the other participant was right 😊