Sarah's Classics Challenge

[Sarah]

I decided to go ahead and participate in this challenge. I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to complete it but I'll give it a shot.

Old School
1.Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Pt I 4★, Pt II DNF
2.Madame Bovaryby Gustave Flaubert 4★ Read 4/2/15
3.The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Read 4★ 5/7/15

New School
4.Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco 3★ Read 7/31/15
5.The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald 5★ Read 5/23/15
6.Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak 2★ Read 12/4/15

My Wild Card Six
7.The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins 4★ Read 11/26/15
8.The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 5★ Read 11/11/15
9.The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco 5★ Read 9/28/15
10.Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 4★ Read 4/27/15
11.The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner 3★ Read 12/19/15
12.For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway Read 4★ 2/4/15

Alternates
1.Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence 2★ Read 8/20/15
2.The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction by Stephen Crane 4★ Read 10/16/15

Hopefully I've got everything organized properly.

[Andrea AKA Catsos Person]

I read "The Grapes of Wrath" this year for the first time. I really enjoyed it. I hope that do as well!

[Sarah]

I'm a huge Steinbeck fan but somehow I keep missing that one!

[Andrea AKA Catsos Person]

"Grapes" was my first experience with Steinbeck.

[Sarah]

I actually read East of Eden when I was 7 or 8. (!!!) It's been my favorite book ever since. Do I've been a Steinbeck fan for 30 years and I still haven't read Grapes. It's strange.

I'm glad you liked it. I'm excited to finally get to it. Did you read other Steinbeck novels afterwards?

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

I almost selected The Name of the Rose for my list. I've been thinking about reading it for a couple of years. I don't think you need anymore encouragement for The Grapes of Wrath. It is as good as everyone says, you should enjoy it. In the last couple of years I have read The Sound and the Fury, The Red Badge of Courage, and Doctor Zhivago, all solid reads. Will be interested in anything you have to say Lady Chatterley and Madame Bovary. Good luck and don't worry about finishing, it will all work out.

[Janet]

I loved Grapes of Wrath as well. I have not read East of Eden yet but have only heard good things about it. Impressive that you read it at 7 or 8.

[Sarah]

I've always been a bit insane about reading. East of Eden is such a wonderful book, though. I'm glad I've read it instead of putting it off like Grapes of Wrath.

I read The Red Badge of Courage in high school and really loved it. I want to read it again very badly. I'm pretty excited about this challenge. Most of the ones I chose I already own but never got around to reading them.

[Sandy]

I have Moonstone on my 2015 challenge too.

For Whom the Bells Toll was part of my 2014 challenge and have to admit it defeated me. Just could not get into it. I did enjoy The Name of the Rose and Woman in White. Happy reading.

[Sarah]

I'm not sure if I'll like it but I really want to try. I'm unsure about The Name of the Rose because I've heard it's difficult. I really want to read it though.

[Sarah]

If it weren't for Umberto Eco my list would be ALL DWM. As it is they're all white and male. Sadly, I really want to read them all and I was very happy about the composition of the list. I'll have to fill in with lots and lots of minorities.

[Aleta]

I want to read almost every single title on this list! I have Catch-22 on my shelf, taunting me for not having attempted it yet lol. There's just not enough time in one lifetime to read the books I want!

Seems yu'll be able to cross quite a few big classics off the tbr-list this year :)

[Sarah]

I always joke that the only valid reason for Bella to become a vampire at the end of Twilight is that she's would have eternity to read everything. And no need for sleep! There are just too many great books or there and we can't read them all. :(

[Aleta]

Funny! :) I've never bothered with Twilight (although my friends made me watch the first movie - I laughed all the way through it lol!), it's not really my kind of thing, but that reasoning I like!
I know, it's quite sad really, all the great books we'll miss. There should be a way to get the time back we spend on books we didn't like, so we could use it on new ones :)

[Sarah]

That sounds like a plan to me. :)

I loved the Twi books but the movies definitely inspired laughter.

[Alissa]

I have Catch-22 on my Challenge list this year as well, and I also mean to get to Madame Bovary and The Grapes of Wrath if I can. I'll be looking forward to your thoughts as you read. Love your list!

[Sarah]

Thank you : ) I'm very excited.

[Pink]

Madame Bovary and Catch 22 were both books that took a while for me to get into, but by the end they were one of my favourite reads of the year.

I'll be trying to read a few of your other choices next year as well.

[Aleta]

Vampires and such have never interested me, so I don't think I'll ever read it, but I do identify with the whole books being better thing! It's so rare to see good movie adaptations. Sometimes it's almost heartbreakingly bad lol, like with My Sister's Keeper. Yikes that was awful!

Pink, what translation of Madame B did you read? Have been putting that one off due to the many bad translations of French lit to English (or Danish, where there's mostly just one translation and it's always awful).

[Sarah]

I'm glad to hear that about Bovary and Catch 22! I'm really looking forward to them.

I have the Penguin Classics edition of Madame Bovary. Hopefully it's a good one.

[Aleta]

They're usually good, but have heard that with Alexandre Dumas and Jukes Verne for instance, they're not that great. Apparently in most translations of them so many things were cut out that they're entirely different. Oxford classics seem to often be recommended when it comes to French lit. But with Flaubert I have no idea.

[Sarah]

I wish there was a reliable publisher. My Barnes & Noble edition of Don Quixote was a nightmare. I use B&N and Penguin the most. I would love to know about Bovary. It would be terrible to not get a good feel for the real book.

[Aleta]

Same here. I had a few mishaps with French lit and Wordsworth before figuring out that they were terrible. I usually use those most as well, but also Oxford's which are very reliable and widely used in college classes here.

[Pink]

The Madame Bovary book I have is a Penguin Classics edition, translated by Geoffrey Wall. As this is the only edition I have, I don't have any idea whether it's a good or bad translation. What I will say is that I found the first 100 pages or so incredibly boring. I complained long and hard to a friend who recommended it to me, but was advised to keep going. I kept reading and by the end I was completely in love with the story and Emma Bovary.

[Sarah]

That's good to know. I would hate to give up just when it was getting good!

[Sarah]

I'll have to try some Oxford ones. That gives me another option, so thanks.

[Aleta]

Interesting. I've never been able to get past page 1 and thought it might be the various translations. But perhaps it's simply that I need to give it a proper try then.

[Amanda]

I listened to Madame Bovary this year. Juliet Stevenson's narration was fantastic. I really enjoyed it.

[Pink]

This year I listened to Juliet Stevenson narrate Middlemarch and I enjoyed it so much, she was fantastic and I cannot recommend her audiobook narrations enough!

[Amanda]

I listened to Middlemarch this year too. Agree she is so fantastic.

[Sarah]

I've been curious about Middlemarch. I don't listen to audiobooks very often but it sounds like a cool idea.

[Kent]

Sarah wrote: "I actually read East of Eden when I was 7 or 8. (!!!) It's been my favorite book ever since. Do I've been a Steinbeck fan for 30 years and I still haven't read Grapes. It's strange.

I'm glad you l..."

I also read East of Eden when I was younger (not that young!) and it has always been my favorite Steinbeck. As to "Grapes", finally got around to it this year and found it something of a let down.

I may have to add Foucault's Pendulum. I loved The Name of the Rose earlier this year.

You must get to For Whom the Bell Tolls. One of my all time favs

[Desertorum]

I have Foucault´s Pendulum in my list as well and I really look forward to it because I really really liked Name of the Rose (even I read it quite young)! And I stumbled on the Foucault´s by accident because I didn´t know that Eco had written anything else than the Rose (strange I never checked) :)
This year I read Lady Chatterley´s Lover and found it interesting even though not the most easiest read. It was my first D.H.Lawrence and it made me read more about the author.

[Sarah]

For Whom the Bell Tools is the first one I plan on reading! I'm so excited. It's waiting for me anxiously in the downstairs closet.

I had a third Eco book (The Prague Cemetery) but these two are the ones I've heard of over the years. I've heard The Name of the Rose is very difficult, so I'm a bit nervous about that one.

[Sarah]

It's actually completely killing me to wait until the first for For Whom the Bell Tolls! I want to start it NOW. I was dying from the moment I set up the challenge.

[Tytti]

Sarah wrote: "I had a third Eco book (The Prague Cemetery) but these two are the ones I've heard of over the years."

It was only published 2010 so that's why you have heard more about the other two.

[Kent]

Name of the Rose is complicated, and honestly I probably wouldn't have made it straight through if I hadn't been on vacation that week, but that added richness is what elevates it to another level.

[Pink]

I've been working through Hemingway this year, but haven't read For Whom the Bell Tolls yet, I am looking forward to tackling it one day, just got to find some time to fit it in!

If you are considering Middlemarch, I would definitely recommend the audio version. I'm new to this format and have found it really depends on the narrator, but I think this was actually improved by Juliet Stevenson.

[Sarah]

That's great about The Name of the Rose! It sounds so interesting but when I saw that you could buy reading guides I got a bit intimidated.

I've just started trying audio so I'll have to keep that in mind about Middlemarch. Juliet Stevenson seems to be the choice to buy when she's available. I'll have to see what else she's read.

[Sarah]

I love this feedback because it helps me feel like I actually can accomplish all of this. It also helps me feel less nervous. So thanks everyone!

[Tytti]

You all have so great and big books in your challenges, mine are just, well short usually... :-)

[Aleta]

I found this while researching the best translation of Madame B. It may or may not be a Julian Barnes introduction to the new Lydia Davis penguin translation, and I didn't read it all as it's ver long, but I found this:

Wall and Davis are the two who stick closest to the original sentence structure and are least ‘interpretative.

Further down he writes of some things being best in the Davis and some in the Steegmuller though, so perhaps you'd actually have to read all three to get the best understanding of the novel!
It's clearly not conclusive, but it seems Penguin should be a good choice for this :)

[Kainzow]

So many good books in that list.
Madame Bovary,The Beautiful and the Damned,Catch 22 and The Sound and the Fury are all books I've heard great things about.They are on my to read list as well.

For Whom the Bell Tolls must be good,as it is among Hemingway's best known works.The Name of the Rose intimidates me because I simply have no idea what it is all about.As for Lady Chatterley's Lovers,I wonder if it is better than Sons & Lovers which everybody calls a masterpiece.

Finally,Doctor Zhivago,as I said previously on someone else's thread,leaves me skeptic.I wonder if it as good as other great Russian novels....

[Sarah]

Thank you Aleta!

I saw the movie of Zhivago many years ago and I'm hoping the book is as good. As for Lady Chatterly's Lover, I was told it was the best of his books. I have Sons and Lovers and need to get to that one at some point, too.

[Sarah]

Tytti, I actually made my two alternates short books in case the others are too much! There are some meaty ones on here but then I see challenges that have Odyssey and Ulysses and I'm left gaping. I don't know if I'll ever attempt those.

[Tytti]

I have so many thick books I want to read but I can't put them in any order. I am worried that I would like to read some book but would be "forced" to read something else for the challenge. I rather keep my options open when it comes to those novels over 500 pages. So now I have vampires, ghosts and the Golem. :-P

Sarah wrote: "As for Lady Chatterly's Lover, I was told it was the best of his books."

I have heard otherwise, or at least that it's only famous because it was so "controversial". I might read it, though, for the bingo because it IS so famous for being banned.

[Sarah]

I'll have to read Lady Chatterly's Lover and Sons and Lovers so I can compare them. I've never read Lawrence. I'm not doing the bingo challenge but it would be a really good choice. It's kind of cool to kill off a bingo square with a classic. That's like a double whammy of accomplishments.

I just checked out Juliet Stevenson on Audible and she has read so many great books! She's done several Virginia Woolf ones that I really want to read. It looks like she's mostly worked with female authors, although not always. It's pretty cool.

[Tytti]

Sarah wrote: "I'm not doing the bingo challenge but it would be a really good choice. It's kind of cool to kill off a bingo square with a classic."

Well it is a classics bingo, after all. But I am hoping to find something more controversial, hmm.. maybe something by de Sade. They must have been banned somewhere...

[Sarah]

That would be pretty fascinating.

I thought the classics bingo didn't have to use classic books?

[Tytti]

No, not really I guess, I think everyone can choose what they like because even defining a classic is difficult, but I tend to pick them anyway, unless there is another reason to choose some other book. But there are probably more banned books in classics, they don't do that as much these days. I have come across only one modern book that might be interesting, it's a Cuban book and banned there.