More Underrated classics : - Silas Marner by Mary Anne Evans ( aka George Elliot ) - Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac - The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Lev Tolstoy - The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit - A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell
For more Gene Wolfe, you might try Soldier of the Mist. Where Severian has a perfect memory (so he says), Latro forgets everything from day to day (Memento?). What you are reading are his notes to himself so he will know who he is and what he is doing. It takes place in Ancient Rome where the gods are real.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is also my favorite Bronte novel as well! Some of my favorite classics that I think are underrated are : - Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell - Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell - One Day in the Life of Ian Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - The Odd Women by George Gissing - The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole - Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins - (Not a Novel but) A Moveable Feast by Hemingway - The Ladies' Paradise by Emile Zola
Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope (since you like Ivanhoe) Crime & Punishment by Dostoevsky (Modern classics) Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden
I am once again asking for Liene to spill her opinions on lots of Walter Scott books that aren't Ivanhoe. Doing a Scott marathon atm and (whilst some are incredibly boring) others are an absolutely divine pleasure. My fav. underrated classics are... hmmmm that's a tricky one. Rabelais for the Renaissance, the Gargantua and Pantagruel pentalogy are satiric fantasies par excellence, the double whammy of I, Claudius by Robert Graves and Memoirs of Hadrian by Margeurite Yourcenar (one of the most profound books I've ever read) for historical novels, Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess for the twentieth century, and many many books by P. G. Wodehouse for what he was able to do with the English language. No-one other than maybe Shakespeare could make verbal art sing so gloriously as that man did, and I just bask in his warmth and splendour whenever I read him (my favourites would probably be The Code of the Woosters (1938) and Joy in the Morning (1947)). I also never see any of the fantasy community online talking about either Günter Grass or Salman Rushdie, which is so weird to me because they are both so self-evidently among the greatest writers of the second half of the twentieth century.
I feel like The Master and Margarita is kind of underrated in the West, whereas in central and eastern Europe it's considered one of the greatest novels ever written. Definitely a must-read for fans of urban fantasy, political satire, theology and cats. Behemoth remains literature's greatest and most quotable cat.
The problem with " Master and Margarita" becoming more acknowledged in the West is that we just don't have the background information to make the layered content and background references sing. And for some reason there is no annotated edition.
I love the Dune series of books but you're right that Book of the New Sun is so much better. Once one gets to a second reading of both, there's no comparison.
Ivanhoe has a lot of fun workmanship details, that were absolutely new and revolutionary for its time. (1820.) Like change of narrative perspective between chapters, fake old-timey language to simulate a historical feel, double-layered characters, sympathetic villains... There's one scene that ends in a cliffhanger when suddenly trumpets blare: then the story loops back and narrates the experience of another character until - again - the scene is cut of by the blaring trumpet: and finally a third time. Knitting these three narratives together to a point where you as a reader realise that they are taking place in or around the same castle, at exactly the same time. It's neat, and it hardly feels dated or archaic at all. Edgar Allan Poe. Almost nobody need to read all of Poe, but if you're into fantasy or horror you should read at least some of the short stories. They're weird. Mary Shelleys Frankenstein. Have not aged gracefully, at all. Awful purple prose and weird victorian preachiness in an ugly marriage: it's a really hard read, but not rewarding your efforts in any way shape or form. If somebody tells you this is a masterpiece, they are a pretentious donkey. Skip. Bram Stokers Dracula. Like Ivanhoe a surprsingly fun and easy read. It is made as a literary "found footage" story. It's supposedly a collection of letters, diaries and newspaper clippings, collected and curated by one of the protagonists. Lot of subtext, if you can remember that these people's accounts are unreliable. What they say is going on won't always match what Stoker wants you to think is going on. Robert Louis Stevenson: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It's short and way better written by modern standards than any of the previous entries. A superficially easy and fast paced supernatural mystery that you'll get throgh in like two or three hours. With oodles of subtext and themes that you can enjoy or ignore. Cheers
Even though I studied british & american literature, we never read/ talked about these. Instead we focused on the usual suspects. However, a lesser knowned classic I enjoyed was Dickens' 'Sketches by Boz'. It is one of his earliest works and is a collection of short pieces aka sketches about London scenes and people. As the title suggests, the writing has a 'sketched' effect rather than elabored, highly detailed portrait. My personal favourite piece is 'Shabby-Genteel People'
I think you would like this one. Silverlock by John Myers Myers (not a typo). Written on 1949. Ivanhoe and Robin Hood makes an appearance, as well as many others. The main character who starts off very unlikable, grows a lot after being ship wrecked on The Commonwealth of Letters.
Can't recommend this enough! It is a reader's favorite, and a writer's favorite. For the more literary / intellectual "readers of the fantastic" crowd it used to be a rite of passage. Kind of only disappeared from modern thought in the late nineties. Nesfa makes a lovely edition.
I really should read Lud and Moonstone. And there are a couple other Walter Scotts I'd like to get to. Of course i love the Brontes. I just started The Ambassadors by Henry James, and there's always an adjustment period with him lol.
I totally agree on The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I prefer Dune (the first three books in that series) to The Book of the New Sun and I have reread Dune more frequently but BotNS is a fascinating read. Personally I would add Death Comes for the Archbishop, Middlemarch, and The Franchise Affair to my list.
Ivanhoe is an amazing book. Read it many times. Due for a re-read. Haven't read Book of the New Sun. Need to do it. Lud of the Mist will be read. I really loved Jonathan Strange. For me, Moby Dick is a very funny book. And also like a Ton Clancy novel getting into the nits and bolts of the operation of a whaler like TC described the working of an attack submarine.
You are consistently picking winners. For generations Moonstone was the biggest classic by Wilkie Collins. Ubiquitous, really well-known. I think that only changed in the 90s- there were several "Woman in White" adaptations in quick succession that might have raised interest on the other book. Or maybe it was the more recent obsession with "strange tales" in the zeitgeist? It's hard for me to think of Ivanhoe as forgotten, it was required reading in a lot of schools into the 60s. Looking for an Ivanhoe with all the pageantry? Will the Elizabeth Taylor one do? Have you read "Master of Ballantrae?" Like dueling Scotsmen? How about Sir Walter Scott doing a Count of Monte Cristo like revenge story? As always keep up the great work!
I don't read that many classics, tbh. I want to though! So thank you for making this video 💖 I'm adding all these books to my endless tbr 😅 I have to admit I am pretty basic with my favourite classics: Shakespeare, Austen, Oscar Wilde, Orwell... I've read multiple books by them. But my recommendations would be: -Octavia E. Butler. I love the way she writes. She was truly a gamechanger for the genres of sci-fi/dystopian. -Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo or El Aleph by Borges have really cool concepts and storytelling style. -Perfume by Patrick Suskind and The Yellow Wallpaper are two books that still haunt my head. -Asimov's short stories always explore cool concepts. -I guess if folklore/fairy tales count I always love those antologies too. They're very nostalgic for me. Probably the reason I also love fantasy.
Thank you for some excellent recommendations, although I tried to read "Ivanhoe" back in high school in 1964 and only made it 50 pages into the book. I was an avid reader already, but found the prose to be like a brick wall. I recently read "Lud" after reading "Stardust" and becoming aware of the link between them. I found it very delightful and was astounded to learn that it was written in 1922. I always enjouy your vlogs. Thanks again!
@leonember9234 Yeah. It's not a favourite by any means, but it is very, very good. I don't generally enjoy "disturbing" media when it's very centered on the body, violence and s*xual violence and stuff like that 😅 (I'm too soft sorry) I much prefer psicological horror, like The Yellow Wallpaper. But Perfume truly has never left my mind since I read it. This book is perfect for people who like dark books like Bunny by Mona Awad or books with unhinged characters, tho.
I grew up reading classics (in Romania). (I was born in 1978 and I started reading at the age of 3, at 4 I read my first novel.) Idk who's considered underrated. 🤔 Mary Elizabeth Braddon? Unpopular opinion: I think Anthony Trollope is way better than Charles Dickens. And Mary Elizabeth Braddon is better than Wilkie Collins.
I didn't like Lud in the mist, the moonstone was fantastic(I liked no name by Collins but this was better), I liked phantom mostly because it was so different from the musical/movie, Tenent of Wildfell hall is my favorite Bronte(I hated Jane Eyre, Heights was good but this was just better), and Ivanhoe is on my TBR because I've seen you talk about it a few times now. Mansfield Park is actually my favorite Austen, North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell and The tenth man by Graham Greene were good as well
Gene Wolfe's main inspiration was supposedly Tales of The Dying Earth by Jack Vance published from 1950 to 1984. I haven't read those yet, but in case you have or if it's on your reading list then it would be great to share your thoughts. Thanks.
Unrelated to the video, but i see the carry on trilogy behind u which makes me want an updated shelf tour! I really like your old one and you said you didn't want to do it again, but adding a quick overview in one of your vlogs would be nice😅
I recently read Lost Horizon by James Hilton and absolutely loved it. It's the story of Shangri-la if you're not familiar. Great book, and a quick read too.
We have a similar reading experience because I read mostly Classics and historical fiction before college. After college, fantasy became my main genre. The only one of those I read is Phantom of the Opera. It's been quite awhile but I do remember I liked it. I like the musical, too. One Classic series I read after college that I really liked was The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy from the 1920s. I watched the PBS masterpiece show and really liked it then read the first Trilogy. I wondered why I'd never heard of it before because it was awesome. I was kind of obsessed with it for awhile, tbh.
I wonder if you have read Tristam Shandy? I've always found that book hilarious, and clever, and yes, long-winded😂 But. I've never met someone who liked it. Also, I would absolutely adore an Ivanhoe adaptation❤
Period pieces and historic settings fill the same void that Fantasy and Science Fiction settings do. They take me somewhere else. . . . maybe explains my alcoholism lol. Gaiman has good taste . . .too bad I find all his material a solid "C" letter grade. He has great ideas that don't go anywhere
I couldn't finish Dune, didn't care for the prose or the dialogue. Gene Wolfe is great though. Another one that's not as well known is Little, Big by John Crowley. It's fantasy I guess. Written around same time as New Sun, and the prose might be even better although New Sun is still more complex a story. Edit: Gene Wolfe's Peace novel might have his best prose. And Tenant of Wildfell Hall is awesome. One more random thought: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann is one of my favorite books but I don't think it's considered underrated. However, he wrote a looong quartet of books called Joseph and His Brothers, which rarely gets talked about. You should read it, it's only 1600 pages.
WizardKnight. YOU MUST READ IT. Became my favorite book of all time, even after botns. It is THE most underrated book of all time (Also, it made me re-read lotr all over again lol)
@@LienesLibrary WHAT!?!? That truly surprises me. I didn’t think anyone read that book lol Marc aramini is one of the only people who has videos on it and he stopped after like, 3 chapters. I’ll have one out in July/April, but not chapter by chapter like him.
