The most memorable big book I've read is Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks. Flicker, a hugely entertaining genre piece by Theodore Roszak, also comes to mind. But for some reason (laziness?) I've generally shied away from books that run much past 300 pages. I started reading a new translation of Ivan Goncharov's Oblomov tonight, and it got me thinking that New Year's might be a good time to dedicate myself to tackling some of the doorstops on my bookshelves. If everything was as entertaining as the first 38 pages (of 559) of Oblomov, it would be a snap. Here are some goals for the year (and I might also finish the half-finished, 814-page An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, with the bookmark still stuck where I left it at least five years ago):
◘ The Death of a President by William Manchester, 647 pages
◘ Arabia Deserta by C.M. Doughty, 1148 pages
◘ The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, 900 pages
◘ Kristin Labransdattar (trilogy) by Sigrid Undset, 1043 pages
◘ Complete Works of Rabelais, 841 pages
◘ Boccaccio's Decameron, 655 pages
◘ The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse, 520 pages
Why make a point of reading these long-form works? Because it is a revolt, a personal one but not meaningless for that, against all the technology-enabled gabble that assaults the senses. The Web is a sewer, and these books will keep me from wasting time down there, I'm hoping.
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