Elik82's 1001 book list

Greetings!
Before I start reading new books from the list I thought it would be handy to figure out which of the books I've already read in the past, prior to 2021.
Going to start with the following:
The Golden Ass
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Around the World in Eighty Days
Journey to the Center of the Earth
The New York Trilogy
Labyrinths
The Nose
Crime and Punishment
Zorba The Greek
If This Is a Man
Vipers' Tangle
Metamorphoses
Portnoy's Complaint
The Human Stain
Operation Shylock
The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Chess Story
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Kafka on the Shore
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Stranger in a Strange Land
Catch-22
A Clockwork Orange
The Good Soldier Svejk
The Master and the Margarita
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Love in the Time of Cholera
Austerlitz
The Emigrants
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul
Confederacy of Dunces
Perfume
Black Box
Candide
The Catcher in the Rye
The Kindly Ones
A Tale of Love and Darkness
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
Everything is Illuminated
The Corrections
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Voss
In the Heart of the Seas
Of Mice and Men
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Moby Dick
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Plague

First book of 2021:
The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas - there's not a great deal of plot happening throughout the book, it's divided into 160 short chapters of unequal length where the protagonist relates the story of his life, interspersed with witty/impertinent comments. Has a modern feel to it though it was published in 1881. Naturally it has an element of critique of the contemporary Brazilian society and is influenced by Schopenhauer's philosophy.
Apart from some overly philosophical bits, it had a nice flow to it, the modern translation (I read the one by Neil McArthur) makes it very readable.
I'll give it

You read some interesting ones already. I will be looking forward to following your reading and your reviews.

>3 Henrik_Madsen: Thank you! I also had a look at your reviews to help me decide what to read next. Will give a try to The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

>4 elik82: Oh I just hated that one! LOL!

>5 Tess_W: I loved it - different tastes and all that!

I'm Not Scared - that was a real page turner, read it in 2 days. The story is told from the perspective of a 9-year-old boy being naive, clever, funny at times. A dark secret shakes his world. Relations among a group of children and with the adults are an important aspect.

The Time Machine - this was a jolly good short read. A 19th century time traveller arrives in the distant future where mankind has evolved into something quite different. Upon his return he tells his listeners about his Darwinian-Marxist observations.

I'm Not Scared took you TWO days? What kept you?

;-)

It is brilliant isn't it!

>9 arukiyomi: yep, totally captivating!

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - this book had a few interesting aspects. The language was full of arcane expressions (which was easy to look up, thanks Kindle!) and some dialogues were in Scots. Once you get used to the style it's enjoyable, minus some tedious bits. The first part of the book related the story from the narrator's point of view while the second part was told by the anti-hero. The questions of religion which may have made this book sensational 200 years ago were less interesting for me, but the ambivalence of devil-influence vs. schizofrenia was clever. I see why it is worthy of inclusion in the 1001-book list.

>11 elik82: Nice review. I also, more or less, enjoyed this, but it looks like you got more out of it than I did. :)

>12 ELiz_M: Thanks! I looked at your recent reviews too for inspiration. I'll get to The Green Hat and Memory of Fire at some point.

We - A dystopian tale, written in 1921 and banned in Russia, first published in English in the US. Foreshadowing the soviet totalitarianism and impacting Huxley and Orwell, among others, has an interesting premise but for some reason I never got into the book. It is presented as a diary, starting with describing this society but quickly moves to dreams and musings and I found myself losing the thread.

The Water Babies - A Victorian moralistic fairy tale about a chimney sweeper boy who turns into a "water baby" and undergoes edifying and didactic encounters in the water. I found it tedious and didn't enjoy the reading. It seems like the reason this book was included on the 1001 books list is that the author embraced Darwin's theory and critiqued the stale scientific society of his day (1863) within a fairy tale. It was popular for years and some editions contain beautiful illustrations.

Heartbreak Tango was this month's group read. The style of excerpts from letters, diary, police reports and the like was interesting, allowing the occasional glimpse into a protagonist's life. But overall I didn't feel immersed in the story.

Decline and Fall - a social satire of Britain in the 1920s. Mostly lighthearted and fun to read. As the protagonist moves through various situations it's an opportunity to make fun of the institutions of education, prison, politics as well as ridicule the upper classes.

Kokoro - If you haven't read Japanese literature before, be prepared for the slower pace, introspection and oblique dialogs. Divided into 3 parts, the last one which is a long letter from the sensei is the crux of the book. Whilst the protagonist searches his path in the world, the Sensei is agonizing over his own life choices.
It's a glimpse of an outmoded Meiji-era world, in contrast with the modern ways of the early 20th century.
For me it was a and I'm looking forward to read Soseki's other books.

The Tin Drum - What a whirlwind of grotesque! I can definitely see why this book is on the list. Some unforgettable scenes and characters in German society during 1930s-40s, thorugh the memoirs of Oskar Matzerath.

The Sun Also Rises - beautifully written in Hemingway's lean style. A group of expats mainly spending their time drinking on holiday in Spain, powerful descriptions of bullfighting.
I read previously "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and found it very impressive, but this being Hemingway's debut novel is worth a read.

Invisible Cities was curious, reminded me of some of the short Borges pieces. It's about our perceptions how we interpret the world around us. All the descriptions of the various imaginary cities and the interspersed dialogues between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan can be quite profound.

Cheese - Reading it in the original was a nice challenge. Loved the story and the humour. Though we live in a very different society now, there are many similarities in setting up a business and what it takes.

The Glimpses of the Moon - Nick and Susy make an agreement to get married for a year and use the benevolence of their rich friends to stay in their villas, be invited to chic parties and all other fun activities which the rich of the 1920s keep themselves busy with. But during this time they discover that this lifestyle comes with a cost and they grow apart from each other. The middle part of the book where they both try to figure out what to do with their lives, felt tedious to me. There were fun parts but overall there was too much of the boring inner dialogues to my liking.

When I saw that The Story of the Lost Child was on the list I decided I might as well read the entire series, and it was worth it!
Gripping storytelling following a lifetime of a complicated friendship, growing closer and drifting further. It touches so many themes and of course the backdrop of Naples and Italy.

>24 elik82: I have just finished My Brilliant Friend. Nicely written and the ambiguous/fluid friendship of the two girls was intriguing, but not compelling enough for me to read all four books. Decided to skip through to The Story of the Lost Child but maybe I should invest the time in the full quartet.

>24 elik82: >25 puckers: Read the second book in the series, it’s excellent and will help with understanding the last book. I found the third book much less good, but it’s also helpful in getting the full impact of the final book.

>26 annamorphic: Thanks for the advice. I know many people (including >24 elik82: above) have loved the quartet, and the last lines of the first book do leave you hanging somewhat in anticipation so I’ll stick with it and add yet another book to the TBR pile!

Death in Venice wanted to read it for a long time, actually it was quite short so got through it very quickly.
Well written, an older writer falls in love with a younger boy, a lot happens in his mind rather than in the real world.
There are many autobiogrphical elements. Can be read as a story about repressed homosexuality or as an allegory to the decline of Europe.

Oroonoko is a tragic love story between an African prince who is later enslaved and the beautiful Imoinda. It starts in Africa and later continues in the then British colony of Surinam.
It was interesting to learn about the author, a female professional writer in 17th century Britain and the historical context.
It was very readable and language was surprisingly not archaic.

De Kleine Johannes (The Quest) starts as a chirpy fairy tale but morphs into a gloomy world. It tries to say something about morality and religion but I found it too heavy going.

Like Life I came across this book on a Goodreads post where people were discussing the merits of the 1001 list and somebody was decrying the fact that a book of short stories made it to the 1001 list while other genres didn't. Since I enjoy short stories I decided to give it a go. The first six were fun but not leaving a lasting impression. I did like the not-entirely-wholesome personality of the protagonists. The last two I couldn't follow, maybe they were weird or I was too tired. Overall

Back here after a break! An exhibition dedicated to Dos Passos in Madeira prompted me to read
Manhattan Transfer which was a nice portrayal of New York of a century ago. Sometimes hard to follow as the story rapidly switches the characters it follows, but it tells their stories mainly through dialogs as they go about their lives in New York.