# Ode to the long novel



## Steerpike (Sep 20, 2014)

From Huffington Post:

An Ode To Unaccelerated Reading

I agree re: Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, and 2666. I'm reading Infinite Jest now, and so far agree with that one as well. The Brothers Karamazov should have been chosen in place of Crime and Punishment, however.

Anyone else have comments on these? Middlemarch is in my to-read pile, as is 1Q84.


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## skip.knox (Sep 21, 2014)

John Dos Passos' USA trilogy.
War and Peace (obviously; and better than Karenina; also agree about Karamazov)
Buddenbrooks; and, for the truly unaccelerated, The Magic Mountain
I notice they don't mention Lord of the Rings or Gormenghast. Kinda snooty, if ya asks me

My general comment: I make a concerted effort to slow down my reading. I try to make myself read every word. Sometimes I abandon a book because I don't enjoy reading every word in every sentence, but that's okay. There are plenty of other books.



Also, that wasn't an ode.


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## Steerpike (Sep 22, 2014)

I have The Magic Mountain in my stack. I don't have Buddenbrooks, but I want to read Mann.

Gormenghast is excellent, of course.

I'll have to look into Dos Passos. Never heard of him.


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## Chessie (Sep 23, 2014)

Oh, Ana Karenina. What a beautiful tale. Tragic yet artistic. I've only read part of Crime and Punishment so I should finish it someday before giving a true opinion on it.  I will say this though, why is Victor Hugo not on that list? Longest book ever was Les Miserables.


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## skip.knox (Sep 23, 2014)

I recommend Buddenbrooks first. It's at least about a family. The Magic Mountain is a story in which virtually nothing whatever happens, for five hundred pages. And yet, somehow, one remembers it.


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