My Favorite Novel

[bendk]

I am curious to see how diverse TLOers are as to their choice of favorite novels. I am going to start this thread off by cheating. I am going to name two: The Confidence Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville and The Trial by Franz Kafka. Both of these books are considered "literature" but they are also considered (by some) to belong in the horror genre. Both are listed in the book Horror 100 Best Books edited by Stephen Jones & Kim Newman. The late Michael McDowell chose Melville's novel and The Trial by Kafka was chosen by Steve Rasnic Tem who is a big Kafka admirer. Tem has written at least two excellent Kafkaesque horror stories, "The Disease Artist" and "At the Bureau". More recently in The Book of Lists: Horror he chose Kafka's short story "A Country Doctor" as his most memorable short horror story. Ligotti's "The Last Feast of Harlequin" makes the list as well. He has good taste.



The Confidence Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville


"The novel's title refers to its central character, an ambiguous figure (some think the Devil) who sneaks aboard a Mississippi steamboat on April Fool's Day. This stranger attempts to test the confidence of the passengers, whose varied reactions constitute the bulk of the text. In this work Melville is at his best illustrating the human masquerade. Each person including the reader is forced to confront that in which he places his trust."

"The novel is written as cultural satire, allegory, and metaphysical treatise, dealing with themes of sincerity, identity, morality, religiosity, economic materialism, irony, and cynicism. Many critics have placed The Confidence-Man alongside Melville's Moby-Dick and "Bartleby the Scrivener" as a precursor to 20th-century literary preoccupations with nihilism, existentialism, and absurdism."



"The Trial (German: Der Process) by Franz Kafka was first published in 1925, a year after Kafka's death from tuberculosis. It tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor the reader."


What is your favorite novel?

[Sam]

I have a hard time naming a favorite anything, let alone a novel. I like different novels for different reasons, depending on my mood, where I am, and how much time I can dedicate to getting lost in another world. I count many favorite novels!

That said, I'll make what is probably a fairly banal choice for TLO... The novel I have read and re-read the most, and have the most editions of, would be "At The Mountains of Madness" (H.P. Lovecraft, as if anyone reading this didn't know). At just over 41,000 words, it barely squeaks past novella status, but I'll still claim it. I first read it at a relatively young age, and it had a huge impact on my developing world view. I most recently read S.T. Joshi's annotated version and loved it all over again.

Serious runners up include "Neuromancer" (William Gibson), "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (Douglas Adams), "American Gods" (Neil Gaiman), and "Cugel the Clever" (Jack Vance). Nothing too weighty, but all extremely enjoyable books.

I've added some new authors to my looming To Read shelf based on what some fine people have said here at TLO, so it may very well be that Kafka, Borges, Ballard, and other more intellectual writers end up on my list some day. Until then, I am content to be the simple country cousin at your literary soiree.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[Joe Pulver]

Only one? Roszak's FLICKER . . . But it's tied w/ Klien's The Ceremonies and Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird.Yes, that's cheating . . . The others that rate in my top 10 are all crime/noir/hardboiled, except DUNE . . .

[bendk]

Quote Originally Posted by Joe Pulver

. . The others that rate in my top 10 are all crime/noir/hardboiled, except DUNE . . .

Would love to hear them, Joe. I also enjoy the crime/noir/hardboiled stuff, though I am not well read in the genre. I know Ligotti has stated that he likes Raymond Chandler.

[ElHI]

It's frightening to see how many novels that have already been cited in this thread would have made in my top 20 of favourite books...

For the sake of originality, I would chose Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki. Layers upon layers, stories within stories, realities interlacing. You never really know where nor when you are in this book. I love it.

Maybe that wouldn't have been my first choice if I had replied to bendk first post... Or it may have been... Anyway, I'm sure I can come back to this thread in a week time and come up with a different choice.

As for a novel that I loved as a teenager but hate now, I don't think there are any (in fact, I've never hated a book. I just don't read books I might dislike). But I recently re-read most of Elric's stories by Moorcock, and I've enjoyed them far less than what I had expected based on my memories of them. They still have their moments though...

[Joe Pulver]

Quote Originally Posted by bendk

Quote Originally Posted by Joe Pulver . . The others that rate in my top 10 are all crime/noir/hardboiled, except DUNE . . . Would love to hear them, Joe. I also enjoy the crime/noir/hardboiled stuff, though I am not well read in the genre. I know Ligotti has stated that he likes Raymond Chandler.

It's rather common but . . .
Chandler The Big Sleep
All of Vachss' novels. I'm a huge fan of the "Burke" series.
Jack O'Connell's Word Made Flesh and The Skin Palace. It's a high crime that O'Connell is not a god! !!
Will Beall L. A. Rex
Dennis Lehane is a national treasure. Gone, Baby, Gone! !! 'NUFF SAID!
Crais' "Elvis Cole" books -- Some people have sit-coms, I use doses of Elvis
Christa Faust Money Shot [cue the BB's "Fun Fun Fun"! !!]
Jim Thompson The Criminal
Ellroy The Big Nowhere
More than a few of Ken Bruen's!
George Pelecanos
Mosely! !! ! !!
Iceberg Slim PIMP
NOTE: I read Clark Howard's THE ARM at 12. Got hooked deep. It's never left me.

As I said, a common list . . .

[Soukesian]

I've thought long and hard about this, and I'd have to nominate The Box of Delights by John Masefield. This is a 1930's kids book that my father read me aloud at bedtime. It features child-pleasing elements such as gangsters, pirates and witches, thrown together more or less at random, in a narrative based around a conflict between the immortal time-traveling occultist Cole Hawlings (surely the original of Dr. Who, and portrayed by Patrick Troughton in the BBC adaptation) and a Crowleyesque villain, Abner Brown, equipped with John Dee's brazen head

I've read pretty widely over the years, and though Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance and John Crowley have come pretty close, I've yet to find an adult novel - with adult-pleasing elements that I will forebear to specify - which pleases me half so much.

[DoktorH]

Favorite novel? just one? I have different favorites for different reasons, so here we go...
For comedic value: American Psycho. there's a couple passages that made me laugh so much i nearly fell out of my seat. like my favorite novella, "My Work is Not Yet Done," it's a slasher movie in prose from the slasher's perspective.

For educational value: Hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy. Don't panic and carry a towel. best advice ever.

as a cautionary tale: one flew over the cuckoo's nest. best thing to do around certain types of people is pretend to be a deaf-mute.

as a book I'd like to live in: Anathem, by Neal Stephenson. Science-monks that are carefully shielded to avoid any bias from the ever-shifting outside world, occasionally called upon to actually save it, but mostly left to their own devices.

[waffles]

I've lost track of the number of times I've re-read Charles Stross's The Atrocity Archives. Yep, definitely my favorite novel (although it has been several years since I've read At the Mountains of Madness).

[G. S. Carnivals]

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Its sheer girth, intelligence, humor, and horror offer much for the reader who is up for a challenge. I read the novel (over a six week span!) around 1980. I wonder how long it would take me to reread this now without the luxury of elective stoned collegiate reading time.