I'm going to finally read War & Peace and Anna Karenina in 2026. Even if it takes me all year to do it, I feel that would have been a year well spent. Also, I appreciate your disorganized reading approach. When I was younger, I felt the need to keep long reading lists and elaborate reading schedules. Now I pick my next books according to what might be called the Buckley-Noonan test: I think what book I'd be most disappointed not to have read if I died tomorrow and then I read it.
War and Peace: Okay - amazing book - EXCEPT: I can't take the chapters where Tolstoy pauses the story and starts expounding his philosophy of history, with the repeated damning of Napoleon and the praise of Kutuzov. Those chapters I find frankly dull: whatever you think of Napoleon et al., this doesn't seem to me a very profound reading of him, and also distracts from the narrative. There is a place for that sort of material in a book: I love the whaling digressions in Moby Dick, because they seem to me to contribute to the grand symbolism of the general narrative. But I can't find much in the War and Peace digressions which add that sort of depth to the story of Pierre and Natasha and Andrei and the rest - and I notice that lovers of War and Peace (of whom I count myself one - with this severe reservation) rarely mention them. Or do you think I'm missing something there?
Atlas Shrugged: I've always been put off reading this, not by the politics per se, but by the knowledge that the climax of the book consists of a 100-page speech by the hero expounding his (or the author's) political philosophy. This sounds like the worst aspects of War and Peace on steroids, and I would really like to know how an aesthetic admirer of the book (as opposed to an admirer of the philosophy in question) deals with it.
Brideshead: my least favorite Waugh novel, I'm afraid - the sentimental Catholicism does nothing for me (it reminds me too much of The End of the Affair, which is my least favorite Graham Greene novel ...). I've read it twice, and disliked it more the second time than the first. (I should say I don't mind Catholicism in a book - quite the contrary, which is why I love some of Greene's other books. But Catholicism + sentimentalism is something else.)
So glad to see another shout-out to All's Well, which is definitely my top Shakespeare play that most people don't know about!
Definitely going to look at more Burke: I know the Reflections, but I've never read anything else by him - thanks for the reminder!!
It's funny: I loved those weird, rule-breaking digressions in War and Peace. As for Atlas Shrugged, I consider myself having read it despite the fact I skipped the gargantuan speech at the end. He just regurgitates everything Rand has already covered: give yourself permission to skip it and you'll find, as Henry says, a very readable genre novel.
I didn't mind Tolstoy's reflections, even the extensive ones, but the whale blubber in the middle of Moby Dick killed it for me. There was no way past the exploration of the whaling industry since on the back of my head I suspected that it was probably obsolete information. As far as it's length, I read it in Swedish when I was 20-something, and listened to it in the car while driving to and from work in the early 2010s. 48 cassette tapes. Time just flew by. ;-)
The whale blubber chapter is a perfect example of what I mean by the way in which the digressions in Moby Dick contribute to the symbolic texture of the work. In that chapter Melville (for example) shows the whale's imperviousness to the environment, compares it to the greatest of cathedrals, he describes it as "mystic-marked" with indecipherable signs like hieroglyphics: a creature that transcends human powers and contains hidden secrets of the world inaccessible to humans. All this and more turns the quest of the Pequod for Moby Dick into something much more far-reaching than a whaling expedition.
I can't see anything comparable that one gets from the philosophy-of-history chapters in War and Peace: but again, maybe I'm missing something.
Thank you for framing the whale blubber chapter which had stopped me in my tracks. I have long had that nagging feeling that I should give Moby Dick a second try (after all, I loved the Illustrated Classics version as a kid!)
Gary Saul Morson’s “Anna Karenina in our Time” is indispensable for not misreading Anna Karenina. This year I finished W&P for something like the sixth time. Tolstoy’s great gift is following ordinary human thought more closely: in finer increments than any other novelist.
Advice to new readers: Don’t sweat the French: It is Tolstoy’s belief that nothing important is said in French. Don’t sweat the historical theory, unless you’re the type that has to read every word. The novel is about so much more. Just accept the fact that you’re going to read it again.
I know Tolstoy said War and Peace wasn't a novel, but I'd still pick it as the best candidate for the (admittedly silly) title of greatest novel of all time. Which translation(s) do you like best?
You mention Richard II and Henry IV. I've heard good things about the series The Hollow Crown. What do you think? I've read the two Henriad tetralogies, but it's been a long time-- about 25 years-- so I'm wondering whether I should re-read the plays first or instead.
Atlas Shrugged is a camp classic, and I have some unhinged thoughts about why Francisco d'anconia and Hank Rearden are one of the great romances of all time. I don't need to agree with Ayn Rand's economics to see that.
I also read Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France this past year.
I’m curious why you rank The Magician’s Nephew as the greatest children’s book? I think most people prefer other Narnia stories (mainly The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe), including me. As a kid I remember thinking it was weird, although almost all of those books except TLTWTW and Prince Caspian were sort of weird. As an adult, I appreciate The Last Battle much more than I did as a kid. But what’s the case for The Magician’s Nephew? I assume you saw something in it reading it as an adult that I missed when I was 8 or whenever I read it.
My favorite as a kid was always The Horse and His Boy, and my favorite on a reread 20 or so years ago was The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. But I'm ready to reread The Magician's Nephew!
I read or listen to Master and man every year, it's just wonderful. The horse is practically a character. And I'm not ashamed to have enjoyed Atlas shrugged - in fact I even enjoy when people tell me it's shit. I feel less programmed when they do, and I found the famous train scene quite exciting as a paean to humanity. Do you know The Willows by Algernon Blackwood? Quite a cool short meditation on man in a hostile nature.
I finished reading War and Peace this year and the scenes that have stayed with me are Andre and the tree (Andre and nature, really), the comet, and Andre and the dream door. An amazing experience reading and finishing the book.
I am so so happy you tracked down a copy of *Deep Secret!* That book has become one of my comfort reads when I am sick.
Please continue reading DWJ--there are so many gems in her back catalogue (if I may suggest one, I'm especially partial to the weirdness of *Dogsbody*).
Interesting. I couldn't put it down. I don't recall seeing contempt but rather a widespread yet generally sympathetic disappointment, save for the nonfictional Napoleon, who receives an epic "J'Accuse!" of sorts from Tolstoy in his "Bethink yourselves!" antiwar dudgeon. Do you think Tolstoy had contempt for Prince Andrei or Natasha? Certainly, they're both flawed, but one might have thought them as worthy of loyalty, affection, and admiration as realism allows.
i only read a quarter of the way in and just couldn't take it. I liked Andrei (I don't remember Natasha) and i felt Tolstoy did too. Otherwise everyone else seemed so insipid by deliberate design.
Bro, I felt quite the opposite about Tolstoy's attitude towards his characters. Prince Andrei is truly noble, almost too good for this world, but he is lovable. Pierre is very flawed, but so anxious to do the right thing and we see the purity of his heart. Even Napoleon is interesting and somewhat understandable. He is the purported villain of the whole thing and yet I had a bit of sympathy for him, due to Tolstoy's bringing out the humanity in everyone. Except maybe Helene. At least she's a good politician, but not so admirable. Well, that's true to life as well.
I believe I previously recommended to you A Fraction of the Whole. Will be most interested in your view if you get round to it. And I think for your sensibility The Siege of Krishnapur is a ‘must read’.
You should definitely go for Chiang's second collection (Exhalation)
"The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" touches on memory, storytelling and the written word.
"Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" takes theoretical physics, questions around free will and a little poetic license and produces something astonishing in roughly 70 pages.
I'm going to finally read War & Peace and Anna Karenina in 2026. Even if it takes me all year to do it, I feel that would have been a year well spent. Also, I appreciate your disorganized reading approach. When I was younger, I felt the need to keep long reading lists and elaborate reading schedules. Now I pick my next books according to what might be called the Buckley-Noonan test: I think what book I'd be most disappointed not to have read if I died tomorrow and then I read it.
A couple of thoughts/questions about this list.
War and Peace: Okay - amazing book - EXCEPT: I can't take the chapters where Tolstoy pauses the story and starts expounding his philosophy of history, with the repeated damning of Napoleon and the praise of Kutuzov. Those chapters I find frankly dull: whatever you think of Napoleon et al., this doesn't seem to me a very profound reading of him, and also distracts from the narrative. There is a place for that sort of material in a book: I love the whaling digressions in Moby Dick, because they seem to me to contribute to the grand symbolism of the general narrative. But I can't find much in the War and Peace digressions which add that sort of depth to the story of Pierre and Natasha and Andrei and the rest - and I notice that lovers of War and Peace (of whom I count myself one - with this severe reservation) rarely mention them. Or do you think I'm missing something there?
Atlas Shrugged: I've always been put off reading this, not by the politics per se, but by the knowledge that the climax of the book consists of a 100-page speech by the hero expounding his (or the author's) political philosophy. This sounds like the worst aspects of War and Peace on steroids, and I would really like to know how an aesthetic admirer of the book (as opposed to an admirer of the philosophy in question) deals with it.
Brideshead: my least favorite Waugh novel, I'm afraid - the sentimental Catholicism does nothing for me (it reminds me too much of The End of the Affair, which is my least favorite Graham Greene novel ...). I've read it twice, and disliked it more the second time than the first. (I should say I don't mind Catholicism in a book - quite the contrary, which is why I love some of Greene's other books. But Catholicism + sentimentalism is something else.)
So glad to see another shout-out to All's Well, which is definitely my top Shakespeare play that most people don't know about!
Definitely going to look at more Burke: I know the Reflections, but I've never read anything else by him - thanks for the reminder!!
It's funny: I loved those weird, rule-breaking digressions in War and Peace. As for Atlas Shrugged, I consider myself having read it despite the fact I skipped the gargantuan speech at the end. He just regurgitates everything Rand has already covered: give yourself permission to skip it and you'll find, as Henry says, a very readable genre novel.
I didn't mind Tolstoy's reflections, even the extensive ones, but the whale blubber in the middle of Moby Dick killed it for me. There was no way past the exploration of the whaling industry since on the back of my head I suspected that it was probably obsolete information. As far as it's length, I read it in Swedish when I was 20-something, and listened to it in the car while driving to and from work in the early 2010s. 48 cassette tapes. Time just flew by. ;-)
The whale blubber chapter is a perfect example of what I mean by the way in which the digressions in Moby Dick contribute to the symbolic texture of the work. In that chapter Melville (for example) shows the whale's imperviousness to the environment, compares it to the greatest of cathedrals, he describes it as "mystic-marked" with indecipherable signs like hieroglyphics: a creature that transcends human powers and contains hidden secrets of the world inaccessible to humans. All this and more turns the quest of the Pequod for Moby Dick into something much more far-reaching than a whaling expedition.
I can't see anything comparable that one gets from the philosophy-of-history chapters in War and Peace: but again, maybe I'm missing something.
Thank you for framing the whale blubber chapter which had stopped me in my tracks. I have long had that nagging feeling that I should give Moby Dick a second try (after all, I loved the Illustrated Classics version as a kid!)
Gary Saul Morson’s “Anna Karenina in our Time” is indispensable for not misreading Anna Karenina. This year I finished W&P for something like the sixth time. Tolstoy’s great gift is following ordinary human thought more closely: in finer increments than any other novelist.
Advice to new readers: Don’t sweat the French: It is Tolstoy’s belief that nothing important is said in French. Don’t sweat the historical theory, unless you’re the type that has to read every word. The novel is about so much more. Just accept the fact that you’re going to read it again.
Thank you. I downloaded a free copy of War and Peace last night. I'm excited to get started.
Yay!
I know Tolstoy said War and Peace wasn't a novel, but I'd still pick it as the best candidate for the (admittedly silly) title of greatest novel of all time. Which translation(s) do you like best?
You mention Richard II and Henry IV. I've heard good things about the series The Hollow Crown. What do you think? I've read the two Henriad tetralogies, but it's been a long time-- about 25 years-- so I'm wondering whether I should re-read the plays first or instead.
Oh it’s a novel. I like the new one from penguin. Hollow Crown is very good yes.
Thanks
I second Henry, the Hollow Crown is stunning, above all Richard II.
Atlas Shrugged is a camp classic, and I have some unhinged thoughts about why Francisco d'anconia and Hank Rearden are one of the great romances of all time. I don't need to agree with Ayn Rand's economics to see that.
I've never thought of it that way, but "camp" is such a great description of that book, haha.
I also read Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France this past year.
I’m curious why you rank The Magician’s Nephew as the greatest children’s book? I think most people prefer other Narnia stories (mainly The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe), including me. As a kid I remember thinking it was weird, although almost all of those books except TLTWTW and Prince Caspian were sort of weird. As an adult, I appreciate The Last Battle much more than I did as a kid. But what’s the case for The Magician’s Nephew? I assume you saw something in it reading it as an adult that I missed when I was 8 or whenever I read it.
I might blog about it
Please do!
If I had to choose, I think my top three are Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Magician's Nephew, and TLTWATW, in that order.
And who can deny the greatness of Dawn Treader's opening line? "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
My favorite as a kid was always The Horse and His Boy, and my favorite on a reread 20 or so years ago was The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. But I'm ready to reread The Magician's Nephew!
I read or listen to Master and man every year, it's just wonderful. The horse is practically a character. And I'm not ashamed to have enjoyed Atlas shrugged - in fact I even enjoy when people tell me it's shit. I feel less programmed when they do, and I found the famous train scene quite exciting as a paean to humanity. Do you know The Willows by Algernon Blackwood? Quite a cool short meditation on man in a hostile nature.
I finished reading War and Peace this year and the scenes that have stayed with me are Andre and the tree (Andre and nature, really), the comet, and Andre and the dream door. An amazing experience reading and finishing the book.
What's your go-to recommendation for Odyssey translations for someone who hasn't touched it since high school? Is it Mendelsohn?
Follow your nose I would say. I like Wilson. But prefer the prose of EV Rieu
I really liked the Emily Wilson translation. We’re reading it on Interintellect as a group starting in January if you want to join!
I am so so happy you tracked down a copy of *Deep Secret!* That book has become one of my comfort reads when I am sick.
Please continue reading DWJ--there are so many gems in her back catalogue (if I may suggest one, I'm especially partial to the weirdness of *Dogsbody*).
the Atlas Shrugged review reads like quintessential Tyler Cowen; I almost can't believe he didn't write it. (that's a good thing, needless to say.)
thanks for the list!
i really tried with War and Peace. Couldn't do it. Felt like Tolstoy had so much contempt for his characters.
Interesting. I couldn't put it down. I don't recall seeing contempt but rather a widespread yet generally sympathetic disappointment, save for the nonfictional Napoleon, who receives an epic "J'Accuse!" of sorts from Tolstoy in his "Bethink yourselves!" antiwar dudgeon. Do you think Tolstoy had contempt for Prince Andrei or Natasha? Certainly, they're both flawed, but one might have thought them as worthy of loyalty, affection, and admiration as realism allows.
i only read a quarter of the way in and just couldn't take it. I liked Andrei (I don't remember Natasha) and i felt Tolstoy did too. Otherwise everyone else seemed so insipid by deliberate design.
Dostoyevsky is more my style.
Bro, I felt quite the opposite about Tolstoy's attitude towards his characters. Prince Andrei is truly noble, almost too good for this world, but he is lovable. Pierre is very flawed, but so anxious to do the right thing and we see the purity of his heart. Even Napoleon is interesting and somewhat understandable. He is the purported villain of the whole thing and yet I had a bit of sympathy for him, due to Tolstoy's bringing out the humanity in everyone. Except maybe Helene. At least she's a good politician, but not so admirable. Well, that's true to life as well.
I'm glad you liked it but I just don't see it
Too bad, but I guess it's not for everyone. Luckily, there are TONS of great books out there.
I believe I previously recommended to you A Fraction of the Whole. Will be most interested in your view if you get round to it. And I think for your sensibility The Siege of Krishnapur is a ‘must read’.
Thanks!
I never tire of rereading Homer, Greek tragedies, even Plato, Thucydides, Tacitus, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Montaigne, Emerson, Dostoevsky, and FN.
What an endless joy to love reading since I was 7.
You should definitely go for Chiang's second collection (Exhalation)
"The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" touches on memory, storytelling and the written word.
"Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" takes theoretical physics, questions around free will and a little poetic license and produces something astonishing in roughly 70 pages.