At the Providence Newspaper Guild Follies (see elliotswatching) last night, not all talk was about politics and comedy - at least for me - as I discussed current reading with P.D., who has a huge interest in warfare and the military; he admired me for reading War and Peace, and I told him, as I've told many, W&P is very long but, other than the quirks of Russian nomenclature, it's not difficult - and that he ought to try it, even if he reads just the War chapters (he'd be the first). We got into discussion about reading classics; he asked me my "favorite" novel - a difficult question, but I did note that I could probably get by for the rest of my life be reading and re-reading only 20 novels. Which ones? Well, off the top of my head, here's a list (unranked, with no more than 2 per author):
1. Sentimental Education
2. Madame Bovary
3. War and Peace
4. Anna Karenina
5. Brothers Karamazov
6. Crime and Punishment
7. Swann's Way
8. The Past Regained
9. Magic Mountain
10. Bleak House
11. Great Expectations
12. Ulysses
13. Middlemarch
14. The Great Gatsby
15. A Passage to India
16. Moby-Dick
17. Pride and Prejudice
18. The Known World
19. Don Quixote
20. Absolum, Absolum
I know, too white too western too male. And what I would miss reading novellas and stories. And what else is missing?
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