The Book You Haven't Read

[hawkeye7269]

I can't remember reading anything from the 18th century, unless you count Mary Wallstonecraft, but that was like, 1796 or something. And I, too, am a LOTR junkie. I had a course called "Medieval Tolkien" (<-- sunglasses to disguise dorky LOTR fanaticism)

Not dorky at all! LOTR is pretty clearly the modern inheritor of the epic tradition, and Tolkien was thinking of those ancient english and welsh myths when he was creating Middle-Earth. It's like Beowulf and Jerusalem Delivered and the Aeneid and Myth wrapped in one lovely package of hobbits and rings. And really, the fact that he wrote a deeply religious novel without going the direct allegory route a la Narnia is pretty darned impressive.

[Stately Plump]

Not dorky at all! LOTR is pretty clearly the modern inheritor of the epic tradition, and Tolkien was thinking of those ancient english and welsh myths when he was creating Middle-Earth. It's like Beowulf and Jerusalem Delivered and the Aeneid and Myth wrapped in one lovely package of hobbits and rings. And really, the fact that he wrote a deeply religious novel without going the direct allegory route a la Narnia is pretty darned impressive.

Yeah, we actually read LOTR alongside Beowulf, Gawain and the Green Knight, and Sir Orfeo (maybe a few others... it was a few years ago) but it was fascinating to read the parallels between his work and the medieval classics. He was, after all, first and foremost a medieval scholar! LOTR was more like an afterthought (though, an afterthought into which he put great care and effort).

[GodzillaGrad]

I have not read Richard III, Macbeth, Ulysses, Moby-Dick, Spenser, Chaucer, Milton, Bronte, Henry James, nor much poetry... so pretty much everything on the GRE subject test. And I call myself an English major!

If someone says Hamlet I reckon they win.

I've never read Hamlet. Seriously.

[menard]

Long books are my downfall. I repeatedly start them, wander away from them for weeks or months, and then feel I need to start them again to properly experience them. I'm unhappy that I haven't made it through Proust, Juliette, and The Making of Americans.

[marlowe]

Well, Tolkien was THE medieval scholar. In many ways, he is credited with the resurgence in medieval scholarship in the Academy, and his lecture to the British Academy is considered the beginning of this most recent epoch of study on the Middle Ages.

Sadly, I have never read LOTR. This fact is nearly as criminal as the medieval/renaissance scholar that hadn't read Canterbury Tales (lolo?).

I read The Hobbit when I was six or seven and was totally overwhelmed by what followed. Never picked it up again.

[marlowe]

Well, Tolkien was THE medieval scholar. In many ways, he is credited with the resurgence in medieval scholarship in the Academy, and his lecture to the British Academy is considered the beginning of this most recent epoch of study on the Middle Ages.

Sadly, I have never read LOTR. As a medievalist, this fact is nearly as criminal as the medieval/renaissance scholar that hadn't read Canterbury Tales (lolo?).

I read The Hobbit when I was six or seven and was totally overwhelmed by what followed. Never picked it up again.

[Armenlly]

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko

Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe

[vesperalvioletta]

Most notable misses for me are The Catcher in the Rye, Romeo and Juliet, and To Kill a Mockingbird. I feel a bit sacrilegious saying so, but they're all so deeply ingrained in American culture that I don't feel like I've missed much ?‍♂️ 

[havemybloodchild]

I pretty much haven't read any Russian lit.  Not sure why, I'm sure I'd love it, just haven't gotten around to it.

 

[jadeisokay]

start with the master and margarita! 

i never finished sense and sensibility and got halfway through pride and prejudice. love the colin firth version, though! 

[northwestnative]

Only read one Faulkner, Light in August, and, well, meh? Never did Frankenstein or Wuthering Heights. Never read Paradise Lost or Chaucer.

[FiguresIII]

The Bible

[dilby]

For me it's like, the entire 18th century lol

[Tessjane77]

I never finished Catch-22, am seriously lacking in plays, and my only Virginia Woolf is Orlando. Whoops.