What is your favorite "great literature" that isn't depressing as hell?

[Flaxbee]

I usually read mysteries and non-fiction books about art and architecture. But I'd like to find some good fiction to read that doesn't make me want to just slit my throat and get the misery of human suffering over with (I kid). The last two I read, while very very good, were depressing - The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers and Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. Beautifully written, but goddamn.

So many people are suffering - lost opportunity, lost potential, financial crises, arms and legs blown off in useless wars. I don't want to read about that right before bed.

So, for this Pollyanna, any suggestions? Thanks :hi:

[madinmaryland]

1. Sonia is crashed on a blanket in front of the window. Roosevelt is bathing.

Sorry for the thread hijack.

:hi:

[Flaxbee]

3. hey, if you're gonna hijack, I think photos are required

:hi:

When did you get back from Washington? And what's Panda doing?

[madinmaryland]

7. Panda is crashed in the biggest cat bed.

I got back from Washington state a week and a half ago. Was sick for the week after. Feeling better now.

Uh-oh. Panda just got wigged out about something.

[madinmaryland]

8. Panda pic...

[Flaxbee]

14. Wow! Those are some impressive teeth on Panda!

Our oldest female has lost - in the past 4 months - three of her 'fangs' - top two, and the bottom left one just came out last Friday. Poor girl. Her gums are healthy and pink, but she's at least 14 and may need dentures soon. :)

[Orsino]

2. Pride And Prejudice.

Completely ignores the plight of the working classes.

[Flaxbee]

5. Oh come on, the Bennets seem very good to their servants

As do the Dashwoods in Sense and Sensibility.

[Orsino]

11. That's what I meant. n/t

[LiberalEsto]

29. But Austen does write about enclosure, if only briefly

I can't remember which of her books mentions enclosure, but I think it was more than one. Enclosure (fencing off of common land for private use) was practiced by wealthy landowners as a means of increasing their holdings and depriving, thereby impoverishing, people who previously were able to graze their livestock on the community's common land.

In any case, Austen mentions that some unpleasant character or other is busily enclosing property in addition to his other misdeeds. It's her way of showing what a total heartless bastard the individual is. It was pretty daring of her to mention it, given that she lived under the British monarchy that was allowing enclosure as well as committing it.

[LiberalEsto]

4. All of Jane Austen's novels

Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park and Persuasion.

[Flaxbee]

6. I haven't read Emma or Persuasion

Will make an effort to do so.

Any other authors who may discuss social concerns or issues w/o wallowing in misery?

[LiberalEsto]

30. Persuasion is my favoriteof Jane's novels.nt

[pokerfan]

9. What about Candide?

assuming you haven't read it.



Optimism is its secondary title but of course Voltaire was being sarcastic.

[Chan790]

12. Not nearly as depressing as Zadig or annoying as Micromegas.

Reading Candide is one of the great joys of my life as a young Catholic boy. Sure it made me mouthy and nearly got me expelled after I made Sr. Judy cry but totally worth it. Some of the best apt descriptions of Jesuits ever.

[Flaxbee]

15. I read it ages ago for a humanities course - I'll have to revisit it

Thanks for reminding me.

[graywarrior]

13. My choice, also.

[Flaxbee]

16. Gray!!!

:hi: :hug:

[graywarrior]

17. Flaxbee!

:hi: :fistbump:

[Chan790]

10. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Not depressing, just odd. That's all Murakami-san though. Sometimes disturbing, sometimes sad, but rarely depressing. I'm still not sure how to feel about Kafka on the Shore...that and Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World are as close as he gets to depressing.

Oh, there's an entire chapter of Kafka that you should probably skip if senseless animal cruelty upsets you greatly. You'll know it when you get to it. Gave me nightmares and caused me to dump a half-bottle of scotch because I simply didn't want it in my home.

[Flaxbee]

18. I think I'll have to skip that one ... animal cruelty

makes me want to take a baseball bat to anyone involved. And once I've read something like that, the image stays with me forever. Can't do it.

[Gabi Hayes]

19. moby dick is hilarious in spots, especially the beginning

[Withywindle]

25. I agree, but it's also pretty big on the animal cruelty.

OP doesn't want any of that.

(I do love the homoeroticism, too. Not so much subtext as a classic example of Getting Stuff Past the Censors.)

[PassingFair]

20. MOST Dicken's novels have "happy" endings.

Lessons learned and all that rot.

[lunatica]

21. Don't read Shakespeare for crying out loud

Well, maybe The Taming of The Shrew.

[woo me with science]

22. Hmm. The Divine COMEDY?

Oh, wait...

[woo me with science]

23. Mark Twain

Lots of choices there. Rollicking, touching, scathing, insightful. Lots of great stuff.


Extract from "The Diary of Adam and Eve"

MONDAY.--This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don't like this; I am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals.... Cloudy today, wind in the east; think we shall have rain.... WE? Where did I get that word-- the new creature uses it.

TUESDAY.--Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls-- why, I am sure I do not know. Says it LOOKS like Niagara Falls. That is not a reason, it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name anything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along, before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered--it LOOKS like the thing. There is a dodo, for instance. Says the moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it "looks like a dodo." It will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do.

WEDNESDAY.--Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it to myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals make when they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always talking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but I do not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and any new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this new sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my ear, first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to sounds that are more or less distant from me.

FRIDAY. The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty-- GARDEN OF EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it LOOKS like a park, and does not look like anything BUT a park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is a sign up:

KEEP OFF

THE GRASS

My life is not as happy as it was.

[fishwax]

24. hehe -- I was going to mention The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter when I saw the thread title

so perhaps none of my suggestions would be to your liking :)

But a few others, all of which are less likely to be a downer than that novel:

My Antonia, by Willa Cather
The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler (a mystery--well, detective novel, at least--that is also great fiction--it's not exactly happy, but Chandler's style is great enough that it makes up for the dark underbelly of human nature depicted therein :))
Ragtime, by E. L. Doctorow
Caramelo, by Sandra Cisneros

[Flaxbee]

26. I just want to avoid animal cruelty, and human despair

I can handle dark, murky human nature. That's fine.

I'll check out those you listed, thanks. :)

[solara]

27. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll; Black Beauty by Anna Sewell;

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (Although it made me twitch); The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain; The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett; Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson; Little Women by Louisa May Alcott;

Have fun!

:hi:

[woo me with science]

35. Nice ones! nt

[wickerwoman]

28. Gulliver's Travels

Any of the Shakespeare Comedies (The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, A Comedy of Errors).

I think Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) is hilarious but that's probably an acquired taste.

John Barth is pretty funny (Giles Goat-Boy; The Sot Weed Factor). Also Saul Bellow (Henderson the Rain King).

Robert Graves (I, Claudius).

I keep typing and untyping Anthony Burgess for A Clockwork Orange and Iain Banks for The Wasp Factory. I suspect I just have a really sick sense of humor. I tend to go for books that take on depressing subject matter in a twisted and funny way.

Your mileage may definitely vary.

[hifiguy]

31. Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey-Maturin series

has a lot of humor and humanity amidst the occasional naval battles and carnage and is the most beautiful use of the English language I know this side of Shakespeare.

Just be prepared to read all 20 books. :)

[stanwyck]

32. Either of Jonathan Franzen's two books

The Corrections or Freedom. Darkly funny and thoughtful. I love both books.

[Brickbat]

33. "Possession," by A.S. Byatt. Fantastic writing, and a great story.

[bif]

34. "Everything's Illuminated"

Jonathan Safran Foer