Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of… the 1850's, pt.2 (1856-1859)

haven't read madame bovary yet (it's on the list) but i have read madame bovay's ovaries

It's not like, say, the 60s and 70s rock canon, where you can comfotably ignore what's at the top with plenty of great stuff around the margins. Although you couldn't say that about the 50s...so maybe these years of the novel are like the 50s.

I feel like this is a judgement you can only make if you've actually read most of the deep cuts I've been including (many of which are obscure merely by being outside of the UK/USA/France/Russia circuit)? I haven't either, of course.

The lack of celebrated German novelists in the mid-century is a bit of an oddity from my uninformed perspective (this isn't a knock against your poll, it's a general observation). Poetry and theatre are a different story, of course.

I noticed that too! Dunno if it's down to wikipedia's flaws or if it truly wasn't a big time for the German novel.

feel like this is a judgement you can only make if you've actually read most of the deep cuts I've been including (many of which are obscure merely by being outside of the UK/USA/France/Russia circuit)? I haven't either, of course.

alternatively, the 13th floor elevators are only interesting if you're committed to the interestingness of some particular and basic rock moves (whereas dylan and the stones are interesting beyond them)

similarly, a lot of british prose fiction of the 19th c is probably interesting if you're committed to the interestingness of the basic moves of victorian narrative

tho idk if trollope is the 13th floor elevators or the stones of this analogy

actually trollope is the grateful dead of victorian fiction, probably

I remember a William Gass essay where he wondered what it was like for Victorian novelists like Trollope and Thackeray who thought they were the shit when the translations of the Russian writers suddenly started popping up.

I doubt it made a dent into their superiority complex, except perhaps on an unavowable level.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Haha who read the (not translated into English afaict) Bernardo Guimarães? Is it really good?

Really sad how we read like zero Brazilian lit in Portugal.

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of… the 1860's, pt.1 (1860-1864)

I've been working my way through 1859 recently. Here's how I'd rank:

1. Adam Bede
2. A Tale of Two Cities
3. On Liberty
4. The Lifted Veil (Eliot)
5. Family Happiness (Tolstoy)
6. The Bertrams (Trollope)
7. Home of the Gentry (Turgenev)
8. The World of Ice (Ballantyne)
9. Oblomov (Goncharov)
10. Village of Stepanchikovo (Dostoevsky)
11. The World of Ice (Ballantyne)
12. Our ---: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (Wilson)
13. Popular Tales from the Norse
14. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (Meredith)

Adam Bede is the only Eliot I haven't read.

How's Richard Feverel? I've started The Egoist three times, assuming Meredith and I are simpatico (otoh I like his poetry and wish it were more anthologized).

why 1859? it's a big year for me as it's also the year of the earliest recorded sounds

I’ve been reading through the 19th century year by year—1859 is where I’m at now

Fevered has an interesting concept—a father raising a son in an experimental system. Of course the son rebels. I lost some interest along the way though.

Did you start at 1800? If so, holy moley that's impressive.

Nice going! I've been curious to read a book by George Meredith for the somewhat silly reason that I have the book "The True History of Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives" by Diane Johnson on my bookshelf, but feel like I should read something by George Meredith first.

xpost yeah, six years ago. It seemed like 90% of the novels published between 1810 and 1830 were written by Sir Walter Scott.

In the mid twentieth century replace Scott with Simenon.

Do you read anything else, or do you go all 19th century all the time?

I mostly just read children's books to my son now, and comic books

But I used to read mainly new books, so this project is a bit of a corrective