In David Lodge’s novel Changing Places, a group of literature professors play a game called ‘Humiliation’. Each participant must name a widely celebrated literary work they have never read but assume everyone else has. Points are awarded for every other player who has read the book, making your own admission the most humiliating. The game rather wonderfully showcases the anxiety of academia, as the players have to risk their academic reputations. The winner in the novel is the professor who has never read Hamlet.
War and Peace might well be high on many lists. A friend who works with charity book sales tells me that there are huge numbers of copies of Tolstoy’s classic, with bookmarks often inserted around the 4th chapter. The confusing names have obviously been too much for some readers. Feeling guilty every time they look at the unfinished copy, they hand it over to charity.
I have never read Finnegan’s Wake, but I doubt I’d win ‘Humiliation’ with that one – most people have not read Joyce’s last novel. George Bernard Shaw felt life was too short to spend time on such a convoluted novel – I tend to agree. I have read Ulysses twice, but I plan to die without having added Finnegan’s Wake to my list of books read. I think Joyce was trying to be too clever for his own good and created an unreadable novel (feel free to disagree). Just reading the opening paragraph is more than enough for me. I have not read every one of Shakespeare’s plays, nor have I seen all of them performed, so perhaps not having read Titus Andronicus would get me some ‘Humiliation’ points, but I’m not sure. I have read Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, Melville’s Moby Dick, and I’ve read War and Peace twice. I’m afraid I am woefully badly read when it comes to Asian or African literature, but for the English professors in Changing Places books from those parts of the world hardly seemed to count.
Please join in the fun and send me your suggestion. Here’s a list that might help you.
So … what books have you never read that you feel you should have read? Send me one suggestion, and I’ll create a mini poll so we can see which book is named most often. What is the world’s most ‘unread’ classic novel, I wonder? I’ll keep a record of all of you who respond and a winner will be announced in next month’s newsletter. This lucky person will receive a gift copy of my Great Writers and the Cats who Owned Them.
Please add your vote to join the fun. You can vote for more than one book. Or, simply leave a comment.
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Changing Places by David Lodge
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
Ulysses by James Joyce
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
Susannah Fullerton: Great Writers & the Cats Who Owned Them
Susannah Fullerton: Leo Tolstoy is born
Susannah Fullerton: Finnegans Wake is published
Susannah Fullerton: Ulysses
Susannah Fullerton: Ulysses is published in full
Susannah Fullerton: Moby Dick is published
Susannah Fullerton: William Shakespeare
Susannah Fullerton: Marcel Proust is born
Susannah Fullerton: Novels that are especially boring
Margy
I listened to an audio book of Ulysses during COVID as I walked my city for exercise. Unfortunately I don’t remember much of it! I would have said Don Quixote was a book I’d never read but that is changing as we speak. Not many get that out of the library as they had to retrieve it from storage for me.
Jane Hills
Any novel by Elizabeth Strout. Her writing sinks unto my soul.. I read them over and over again.
Her last one brought me to tears.
She is not a literary genius, the novels are not difficult, nor demanding, just ‘ordinary’ as most of us are!
Susannah Fullerton
I also love her books – she’s a very fine writer, and her books are wonderfully readable, unlike Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’.
Janet
First of all, anyone who admits to never having read Huckleberry Finn should never get any award for anything,.
You asked what we have never read and that is all I am answering. I got up to page 17 of Ulysses and I cn’t say I retained one single word or thought. Just too hard for me.
And though I wish I had read Moby Dick, I never did. Shame on me.
I have read most of the books listed, so okay.
I love the helpful comment above but I will leave it to others to follow graham H’s advice.
Melissa
I had to read Huck Finn for school, I am not certain I finished it (I was a good student, so probably did). All I remember is that I hated it. It bored me silly, I couldn;t even tell you why.
Susannah Fullerton
I recently read ‘James’ by Percival Everett which made me see Huck Finn in a new way. I also had to read it at school and wasn’t that impressed, but fortunately I went back to it as an adult and adored it.
Graham H.
“Feel free to disagree”? Thanks! I’d love to! For starters, Finnegans Wake does not have an apostrophe before the s. That’s the whole point! As for reading it – and, yes, I get it that it does not have a beginning and an end, it is one giant circle – starting at the first paragraph on page 1 is probably not a great idea. And if you stop on page 1, then you’re missing out on some ripping prose, later in the book! My advice, for what it’s worth, would be to start about 10 lines from the end and get a run-up: “My leaves have drifted from me.” and read straight through to the end from there and then straight back to page 1 without pausing, and go on from there. Good luck!