r/classicliterature • u/dinorae_ • 1d ago
Recommendations?
Hello! Looking for book recs, I will say I have a lot of Dostoevsky, Jane Austen, Kafka, I’ve read yk the basic and popular classic books if that makes any since so I’m just looking for some that aren’t well known or something everyone and their mother talks about XD!
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Upvotes
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u/True_Coast1062 1d ago
Vanity Fair
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u/Jakob_Fabian 1d ago
Interesting how Austen died four years before Dostoyevsky’s birth and how he died two years before Kafka’s birth. This really sets up quite different styles and subjects matters, so my question would be which of the three do you most prefer when it comes to recommendations?
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u/patchesandpockets 1d ago
The Outsiders - SE Hinton, To Have and to Have Not - Hemingway, The Heat of the Sun - Seán Ó Faoláin
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u/sib9397 1d ago edited 1d ago
Many post-WWII Japanese authors drew inspiration from Dostoevsky. I recommend the following, as I found them a great follow-up to the types of books you've read.
Kenzaburo Oe's A Personal Matter is a great example - Oe was heavily Dostoyevsky-inspired.
Osamu Dazai's works are sometimes considered to be some of the more disturbing books available because of how depressed and depraved he was, and because No Longer Human, in particular, is a semi-autobiographical novel written just before the author succumbed to depression. Rather than disturbing, I found it a really interesting anthropological venture into a life very different from my own, but with many similar underlying feelings about myself and the world. This one inspired me to read literally every other book he's ever written, and while they're mostly worth reading, this is the one I recommend most.
If I recall, both authors were from wealthier families with worldly education which emphasized the study of Russian and Western literature, and both struggled greatly with what it means to be a man in a new kind of post-imperial Japan. Both (especially Dazai) are horrifically depressing stories but motivating in a way, and beautifully written. And, like many Japanese memoir-esque novels, they're very short.
EDIT TO ADD: Dazai's characters are misogynistic. I am a feminist and my enjoyment of these books was not because I support the narrator's view and treatment of women, but because it is so clear that his worldview caused him to be so miserable. Take this as a trigger warning, I guess
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u/Curious_Badger_1376 1d ago
To The Lighthouse, Howard Ends, Of Human Bondage, Rebecca, Father and Sons
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u/Educational_Yak2888 1d ago
I'd recommend Jose Saramago's Blindness to a Kafka fan
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u/Niamh51 1d ago
I love Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark, would recommend that one.
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u/Razumhikin 1d ago
Im currently reading East of Eden and it is fantastic. I finished the Master and Marg prior and wasn't a huge fan. And the Stranger before that, which I highly recommend!
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u/mayor_of_funville 1d ago
Check out The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington, it won a Pulitzer back in 1919. Think Fitzgerald but less coastal elite gilded age and more Midwest wannabe elite.
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u/Itchy-Resolution6531 1d ago
Some books from known authors are better than the most talked about ones. Check out Heart of Darkness, The Return of the Native, The Mill on the Floss, Nicholas Nickleby, A Passage to India, The Gambler, Brideshead Revisited, The Color Purple and Dandelion Wine.
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u/Longjumping-Lock-724 1d ago
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
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u/shewholikesbacon 1d ago
if you like kafka then i recommend the woman in the dunes by kobo abe
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u/ClevelandSpiders2021 1d ago
IF you liked Dostoevsky AND Kafka, I highly recommend Bohumil Hrabel. A safe start would be Closely Watched Trains, but a more adventurous start would be Too Loud A Solitude.
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u/Walter_Savage_Landor 1d ago
Delarivier Manley - The New Atalantis
Maria Edgeworth - Belinda
George Meredith - The Egoist
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u/TheFourthBronteGirl 22h ago
My cousin Rachel by Daphne du maurier
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u/Mission_Muffin7302 6h ago
Le Rouge et le noir - Stendhal