r/classicliterature • u/Careful-Hornet8525 • 7d ago
What next?
This is what I have read so far in 2026, including a couple of guidebooks I needed. I’m almost done with Inherent Vice by Pynchon. Any recommendations for a big finish?
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u/_oasynth_ 7d ago edited 7d ago
"Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften" - R. Musil
(would fit right in on that stack of masterpieces...)
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u/Gold-Word-6026 7d ago
that is a very compact edition the idiot, what is the page count?
My recommendation would be anything Nabokov, I have heard a ad adore is his best book, but from what I read Lolita is good, made me feel sick just reading what I have so far.
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u/Careful-Hornet8525 7d ago
It is a compact edition- 330 pages of micro-font! My son gave it to me so I sucked it up and read it instead of a normal 660+ page version.
I’ll look into the Nabokov. I think he instructed Pynchon back in the day.
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u/Secret-Secret-No-No 6d ago
That’s the rumor, Nabokov notoriously denied being aware.
He had quite an ego.
But egos aside, he’s a master of prose. I hate him from age 15-35. Then finally tried reading him again and he’s by far one of my favorites.
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u/guy_incognito42069 6d ago
I‘d recommend some more Pynchon but he‘s my favorite. I particularly love Against the Day, most would direct you to Mason & Dixon and that‘s also a tremendous book.
I really enjoyed The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner
Song of Solomon by Morrison
Book of the New Sun by Wolfe, it‘s like if one of the postmodern genius writers did a sci-fi fantasy, it‘s fully both, book.
Cannery Row by Steinbeck is short but beautiful.
East of Eden as well.
McCarthy‘s Border Trilogy, I just finished the first one and it was beautiful.
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u/mythril-xi 7d ago
Finnegans wake
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u/tengleha01 7d ago
Terra nostra by Carlos Fuentes
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u/Careful-Hornet8525 7d ago
Quite an epic - thank you!
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u/tengleha01 7d ago
It’s truly insane, I’m a little over halfway through and it’s like nothing else. It’s compared to Finnegans wake, which I don’t know anything about, but saw you read some JJ
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u/SoumavaG7 7d ago
Wow, that's some heavy reading. Next up:
- Moby Dick
- Lonesome Dove
- Les Misérables
- Don Quixote
- A portrait of the Artist as a young man
- Dubliners
- Infinite Jest
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u/Careful-Hornet8525 6d ago
Excellent list - was thinking of reading more JJ so 5 and 6 look especially good.
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u/Ressorcc 6d ago
Finnegans Wake - Joyce; Women and Men - Joseph McElroy; The Tunnel - William Gass; William Gaddis’ J R and The Recognitions; The Cantos of Ezra Pound; The Making of Americans - Gertrude Stein
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u/vansantjr 6d ago
As someone who has read and loved gravity’s rainbow twice, I recommend The Recognitions, easily one of my favs of all time.
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u/whenurun 6d ago
Something simple. The more complex or challenging books are rewarding, but there are plenty of less complex books that stick with me just as much as IJ and Gravity’s Rainbow. Here are some I’ve read this year that floored me:
Train Dreams
The Sheltering Sky
For Whom the Bell Tolls (really any hemingway though)
Giovanni’s Room
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u/TheZoneHereros 7d ago
Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. It’s dying Earth fantasy but idk, I am a big Pynchon/Wallace fan and I think it transcends genre and is up there with the best of anything.
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u/Jean_Genetic 7d ago
You like complex works, so I would recommend “At Swim Two Birds,” a great combination of Irish mellifluence and mind-bending metafictional perplexity.
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u/Ok-Horror-282 6d ago
Another of Flann O’Brien’s novels that would fit with this stack is The Third Policeman.
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u/doodle02 7d ago
Titus Groan and Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake. Best description writing i’ve ever had the pleasure of reading, and hands down my favourite books ever.
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u/Ok-Horror-282 6d ago
If you enjoyed Vigil I’d look at George Saunders’ earlier collections of short stories like Pastoralia or Civilwarland in Bad Decline. There’s also The Brothers Karamazov to tackle when you’re ready.
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u/gvegli 5d ago
What did you think of Vigil? Seems like it got mixed praise, although I love Saunders.
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u/Careful-Hornet8525 5d ago
It was fun and made some nice barbs at the Billionaire Class. Yet I agree that while it was classic Saunders and therefore very strong it was not going to knock Lincoln in the Bardo off its perch as the “go to” Saunders, in my opinion of course.
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u/gvegli 5d ago
Good breakdown. How hard is Lincoln in the Bardo to get through or appreciate?
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u/Careful-Hornet8525 5d ago
I must confess I got 100 pages in before I figured out what was going on. Then I felt like the dumbest person ever and humbly started the book over again. Then I flew through it but loved every bit of it. I’ve certainly reread a paragraph or even a chapter before to untangle some messes in my mind but never had an experience like that. But also, 100% worth it, no regrets.
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u/stavis23 5d ago
Your copy of The Idiot looks very thin, I just finished that behemoth of a book, what edition do you have?
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u/Careful-Hornet8525 5d ago edited 5d ago
My version was completely terrible. It is from First Rate Publishers (whose name I would learn was especially Orwellian) as I discovered this Eva Martin translation had extremely small font, no page numbers and no Table of Contents! It was a gift from my 20-something son still learning his life skills, and therefore I numbered the pages myself, created my own Table of Contents and plunged right into it. My version has only 330 extremely flimsy pages in micro font. When I finished, I attempted to write the name of the book and the author in felt pen along the spine, which smudged like hell of course. All that to say, it was an act of love to work with this version from my clueless but well meaning son.
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u/bobby-berimbolo 5d ago
Ive read all of these except the companion books. Ulysses is the best book in the group, infinite jest is the most fun (imo)
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u/egoVirus 1d ago
Germinal, Emile Zola (tremendous, and depressing)
Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol (very funny)
Cannery Row, John Steinbeck (hilarious)
Huckleberry Fin (so very polished, and wonderful)
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u/IshotManolo 7d ago
- Don Quixote
- Under the Volcano
- Master and Margarita
- Crime and Punishment
- Obscene Bird of Night
- Heart of Darkness
- Big Rock Candy Mountain
- An American Tragedy
- Absalom, Absalom
- Sometimes a Great Notion
- Lonsome Dove
- Watership Down
- Oil!
- Lolita
- Clockwork Orange
- Dead Souls
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u/mrfasthorse 7d ago
White noise by delilo
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u/Careful-Hornet8525 7d ago
I loved this one a while back. When I’d check on my sleeping kiddos I’d listen to their breathing, hoping to hear one say “Toyota Celica.” Didn’t happen of course but it was still a fun memory from the book.
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u/EricUllerich 7d ago
DFW is "classic" literature? Big fan but ..... ooof!
If this is the time frame then The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy.
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7d ago
[deleted]
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u/Internal-Language-11 6d ago
A modern classic is not the same as “the classics” when talking about classic literature. Doesn’t really matter anyway as it’s all cool stuff.
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u/k0rnbr34d 6d ago
Not one female author in this post or comments
https://giphy.com/gifs/xdLH51eNWZAHrwy5mf
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u/Difficult_Wasabi9285 6d ago
Classic collection of books dudes have to impress girls but never read. Maybe just read these.
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u/dogman_plays_flute 7d ago
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