Big reading projects for 2024

[JaneyGee]

Do you have any reading projects planned for the coming year? How about the big monsters? I try and get through one every year. Last year, I read (and loved) George Eliot's Middlemarch. The year before it was Dickens' Bleak House, and the year before that it was The Canterbury Tales (though I confess I skipped a bit).

These little projects haven't always been a success btw. I gave up on The Divine Comedy (didn't even reach the end of the Inferno) and also on Proust. I slogged my way to the end of Milton's Paradise Lost, and though I liked parts of it, found it hard going overall.

I've got a weird, almost supernatural faith in the canon. It's like a substitute for religion. Harold Bloom is my go-to guide, and I generally follow his advice. My 2024 reading list is:

Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway
Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre
Jane Austen: Emma
Daniel Defoe: Moll Flanders
Joseph Conrad: Lord Jim
Ian McEwan: Atonement
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse 5
Scott Fitzgerald: Tender is the Night
Ford Madox Ford: Parade's End
Ted Hughes: Collected Poems
Oscar Wilde: Collected Essays

I doubt I'll read even half of them, but that's the plan. I'm also determined to give Proust another crack.

@JaneyGee Your post makes me want to read Proust! Tbf Ds is reading in translation, not in French. I have quite a few French books on my tbr pile. The trouble is I seem to like the thought of reading in French more than the reality.

I think I’ve seen you somewhat in thrall to Bloom on other threads on here. Respectfully, I would temper your Bloom worship. Absolutely, he was a gifted literary critic of a certain type, though only on a certain type of text, and his obsession with anxiety of influence and his arcane ‘Kabbalah/Gnostic’ phase deforms his readings of even some of these (not good on Yeats, for instance, because of his lack of knowledge of Irish literature), but mostly because of his limited ideas and restrictive canonicity. Pretty much white male literary giants locked in mortal combat with their predecessors, and anyone else writes the minor ‘literature of resentment’.

I mean, if you’re looking to expand your reading horizons in the literature of the past, I’d be looking beyond just Bloom.

I've had Shantaram by GD Robert in my pile of books to be read for ages but it looks a bit heavy going.

I’ve just read Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith, and it was wonderfully funny. It’s very slight, so quick to read, and the prose is so simple, it’s hard to believe it was written in the 19th Century.

I found it very enlightening, in that it details the daily life of an ordinary couple rather than balls and country houses. The comic timing is perfection, as is the depiction of the infuriating young adult son. Ahem.

It isn’t so much Bloom himself (though I do love his writings and massively recommend him). It’s more that he’s the only critic I trust. And I trust him because he was ruthlessly honest, and made a point of judging works purely on merit. If the literary establishment hadn’t caved in to the woke bullies, I’d read other critics. But I just don’t trust their opinions. I love literature deeply, and need and want the guidance of people who are cleverer and better read than me. But contemporary critics constantly praise certain writers just because they are from a minority, not because they are genuinely great writers. And the opposite is also true. They dismiss or ignore great writers because they tick the ‘wrong’ boxes. For example, the greatest British poet since Ted Hughes is probably Geoffrey Hill. But almost no one has even heard of him. Why? Because he was a patriotic, conservative white man who wrote poems about English history, so the literary establishment dislikes him. Yet Zadie Smith (a fairly mediocre writer) is constantly rammed down our throats.

I stick to Bloom not because I love him, but because I love literature. I care about the canon. It’s all we’ve got. It’s quite literally the best that has been thought and expressed by the human race. It’s the collective wisdom of humanity. And that is now under serious attack. The fact is, the vast majority of great western writers have been white Europeans. And the left hate that. So serious attempts are now underway to dismantle the canon altogether. I’ve seen it described as ‘racist’, as ‘a bourgeois conspiracy’, even as ‘a tool of oppression’. I’ve also seen a book in Waterstones which sets out a new ‘woke’ canon. Anyone who cares about the future should be fighting this madness.

Don’t get me wrong, we do need new voices. The African American experience, for example, is an important and tragic one. But the writers should be there on merit. Bloom admired Ralph Ellison, and thought his Invisible Man the best novel by an African American. That’s why it’s on my bookshelf, you see - because I trust Bloom’s judgement. The woke critics are shooting themselves in the foot. If I knew they were being totally honest in their judgements, I would be more open to reading the black and Asian writers they promote. As it happens, I’m very interested in Chinese literature and philosophy. Very interested. I remember Hermann Hesse saying that the west grossly underestimates the brilliance and subtlety of Chinese thought. Aldous Huxley also admired Chinese and Indian writers, and felt the same. But I would need to find a reliable guide through the books of those cultures. In other words, a guide with no political axe to grind. Someone who judged every work in an honest and objective way.

To the poster who has Shantaram - read it! It's an amazing story and very engrossing. I'd also love to recommend another epic, chunky read: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. Heartbreaking but absolutely extraordinary. Lots of inspiration for my next blockbuster here!

I read Shantaram too - it’s a rollicking read, a great adventure, nothing to be afraid of!

But which other critics have you read, @JaneyGee? Why do you consider one ‘honest’ and unbiased and everyone else fatally flawed by ideological biases? Bloom is as blinkered by his own biases as anyone, and more than some.

Geoffrey Hill is not as well known as other poets of his generation because his work, while brilliant, is gnarled syntactically, densely allusive, and low on popular appeal. It’s not an academic conspiracy because of his politics. It’s exactly like Thomas Kinsella, while an astonishing poet, being far less known than his contemporary Seamus Heaney. Kinsella, like Hill, would go almost unread if not for academic research on his work, but neither are going to find excerpts from their work being spontaneously being scribbled on walls during Covid, as Heaney’s was.

Thinking that the canon is being damaged by people republishing, reading, teaching and researching writers who were never published or produced, or were subsequently forgotten, because of their class, race, or sex, or bad luck is like thinking the institution of marriage is being damaged by including same-sex relationships. It’s expanded, not attacked. It’s not a matter of the ‘great’ being magically remembered and canonical through all time because they’re worthy. Even many the works of someone like Shakespeare would have been lost had his friends got together the First Folio. He wasn’t anything special in his lifetime.

The internet has been great for making forgotten texts available to read and teach again. If the texts aren’t available, no one can read them and see whether they’re of value.

For me, I can appreciate and enjoy both, but it's impossible to make a true comparison between great writers writing in English and great writers read in translation, because so much depends on the quality of the translator's work. I'm not going to squabble about the Dead White Male versus "woke" writers ( I don't like the word woke btw ) but just to reiterate .. unless you're bilingual, how can you really make a meaningful comparison about anything other than plot?

Moving on .. no one should be daunted by War and Peace - it's great. If there are too many battle scenes you can skim them a bit, although I was surprised by how much I enjoyed these sections. Can I recommend the Pevearr/Volokhonsky version .. they are a husband-and-wife team. She does a literal translation into English; he then edits it and they work together revising to arrive at a final version.

As for my own plans for reading next year .. having read the Barsetshire Chronicles in lockdown, I started the Palliser novels last year and will continue in 2024, interspersed with other books.

As far as big challenges, I did attempt Zola's Rougon/Macquart series but ground to a halt after five or six books. Previously, I'd loved Germinal and The Ladies' Paradise (both brilliant but entirely different in subject and tone) however the others were less gripping unfortunately. I might have another bash at some point.

Thanks to the PP who posted the list of 100 novels - I love a book list! I've read 57; there are some I will never attempt but others look interesting. Les Miserables has been on my mental TBR pile for ages, as well as A Tale of Two Cities.

Of other books mentioned, I abandoned The Brothers Karamazov and although I got through The Magic Mountain, I have to say it was a slog. I love a big chunky book but I prefer a very simple clear writing style, like that of Steinbeck or George Eliot. So The Grapes of Wrath and Middlemarch are more my sort of thing. And I love Jane Austen; as a PP said, she's not a challenge; almost more of a comfort read.

You are quite right that Bloom has his own blindspots and prejudices. For example, his famous canonical list doesn't include Tolkien, Ted Hughes, P. G. Wodehouse and many other superb writers, yet has five or six works on there by Philip Roth (who I loathe). My point is that he had the right attitude. He made a point of judging works objectively – on their aesthetic merits. I don't admire him because he was always right, or because his judgement was impeccable, but because he had the right approach.

True, Hill is difficult. He was never going to be a popular poet, like Betjeman or Larkin, but I barely hear his name. I've searched Youtube, for example, and can find only one or two clips, nothing more. That is partly down to the density and difficulty of his writing, but it's also because he's just not wanted. The liberal-left have almost complete control of the literary and academic world. And they dislike him because he's a white Englishman and a cultural conservative.

I totally disagree about the canon being expanded not attacked. I have no problem with new writers coming into the canon, so long as I can be sure they are there ON MERIT. Bloom often complained that writers like Alice Walker and Maya Angelou were being absurdly overpraised and over-promoted. Today, the same is true of Zadie Smith. That is bad enough. But a serious attempt is now underway to discredit, 'cancel' and replace as many white writers as possible. I got an email from my old university just this year informing me that they plan to 'de-colonise' their library. I mean, that is straight out of Orwell's 1984. What they mean is simply this: "we're going to remove as many books as possible by dead white people and replace them with books by non-white, non-European people, even if the books we remove were better."

It isn't that the literary establishment is 'woke', but that they are caving in to a minority of bullies and fanatics. To take a random example, I once tuned in to a Radio 4 programme about Jane Austen. Within five minutes they were discussing slavery, and how one of her minor characters owns a sugar plantation, or something. And that was it – that was all they were interested in. Believe me, a lot of people do not just want the canon expanded. They want it replaced. I actually saw a book in Waterstones which promotes a new canon. The subtitle was 'De-Colonise Your Bookshelves!' The whole approach is nasty, aggressive and hate-filled. It isn't a question of "hey, you know, Dickens and George Eliot were great writers, but you should also try these – it's interesting to hear new voices." Instead, their attitude is "don't read these disgusting dead white people. The so-called canon is a conspiracy by bourgeois white Europeans. It's racist and evil and needs to be dismantled."

Proust is definitely my main big read project for this year. I agree that reading it in French isn't that hard (so long as you can read French!). Many of the narrative passages rattle along nicely, but some of the meditative passages with long, long sentences with subordinate clauses within subordinate clauses are quite challenging. I do have the English translation alongside but sometimes it's not that helpful. I have treated myself to the newer translation to see if that helps.

Everyone I have consulted says the same thing – sloooow down. If you strain for the end of the sentence or paragraph, or long for the plot to get moving, he'll defeat you. Reading Proust is a commitment. I'm just hoping that the more I read him, the more I'll adjust to his style and pace, and that something will click.

Hello - which bible app would you recommend? TIA

I’m reading Proust with a group of friends - we started in lockdown and meet on Zoom to discuss after every 100 pages or so (which is about as much as you can practicably read and digest, in our experience). We’ve just come to the end of volume 4, of the 7, so it is indeed a long process.

But it’s been great reading with other people, and the discussion has made it much more of an immersive experience. It helps to have people to bounce things around with and to discuss thorny questions (like, why on earth do all these rich, titled society people keep inviting the narrator, a quite ordinary young man from a not especially elevated family, to all their social gatherings?!). We’re definitely committed to finishing the whole thing now.

I'm also aiming to read more Trollope in 2024, because I love his books and haven’t read enough of them. And I’d like to make a start on Zola.

Jane Austen is often dismissed as being about romance whereas her books are full of war (there are sailors and soldiers in several of her books) and the slave trade so they are more political than they are given credit for which is probably why Radio Four were discussing it. There's this idea that there were no black people in Britain before Windrush but they can be found in historic literature if you look for them. That's just undoing the whitewashing of decades of BBC adaptations.

@highlandcoo while I get your point and appreciate it I generally take the view that it's better to have partially understood a great work in an imperfect translation than to not attempt to read it at all. Reading can be about plot, history and culture as well as style and you can still get a lot from a book without reading it with a literary mindset.

There was an article in the Times about reading Proust, behind the paywall I'm afraid but just a heads up.

new year’s resolution — read Marcel Proust (all 3,200 pages) www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cc7163ad-816d-4b03-a5eb-b6dd85da0529?shareToken=0baeb12850760d32b2bfad41d758866c Proust

@TonTonMacoute Thanks! It wasn't behind a paywall for me.

I'm using the Nicky Gumbel / Alpha one. Only one day in, but have discovered it includes a listening option, which seems like a useful feature.

I re-started Proust today. My last attempt, a few years ago, was a failure. Looking back, I realise that you just can't read him like a conventional novelist – I mean like George Eliot or Jane Austen or even Virginia Woolf. You have to be patient, and not think of him as a writer to tick off your list. A La Recherche is twice as long as War and Peace, and it's written in such a slow, meandering way that you have to adjust your pace. That's the key. It's like walking alongside a very, very slow-moving friend who is constantly pointing things out to you. Either slow your pace to match his, and look at the things he's looking at, or make your excuses and leave. (Was that your experience?).

To my surprise, I found that I could read quite a lot of Proust in French. He really isn't that hard. My French is pretty wretched. I didn't study it at A-Level, let alone university, so never thought I'd be able to understand him (I've taught myself). I have a parallel text, with the original one side, and the English translation on the other. In fact, Proust is easier to read in French than Joseph Conrad is in English! He's certainly easier to read than Walter Pater or John Ruskin.

@JaneyGee yes, we've slowed it right down. We've had a couple of quite long breaks. I find myself re-reading sections quite often. It’s much funnier than I ever thought it would be, too. You do have to enter Marcel World, and come to the realisation that’s it’s not quite like any other novel you’ve ever read.

I'm not reading in French but I have the parallel text to refer to (we're using the latest Penguin translation) and it’s frequently very interesting comparing the two; whole side-discussions can be sparked up on those alone. It’s also extraordinary how well-read Proust was - the breadth of his literary and artistic references is truly awe-inspiring.

A reading group is a very good idea. He's the perfect author to share and discuss.

Do you find him a comforting/consoling writer? Some (Alain de Botton, for example) seem to think of him in that way. I've even seen A La Recherche described as a self-help book.

Hmmm, I have to be brutally honest @JaneyGee - not really. In fact we’ve been more bemused by the narrator’s various obsessions (with titled/high society people; with different women etc) than with anything that might be a universal message for all mankind. Although there are very beautiful passages and moments where you suddenly think ‘he’s got this exactly right - this is just how life feels’. He’s very good on grief, for example. But there’s a lot of other verbiage around those moments.

Mind you, my answer may be coloured by the fact that Vol 4 (which I’ve just finished) seems to be acknowledged as the most difficult and dense to wade through, given its very extended ruminations on the depredations of Baron de Charlus and his visits to his friends the Verdurins at their rented holiday home, which at times seem to go on forever, so at the moment I’m just feeling quite happy that I’ve made it to the end. It’s very obvious that Proust ran out of time to revise, and the earlier volumes are definitely the most ‘completed’ ones. The polish of the writing is very variable. In fact I read somewhere that some people think you ought to stop at the end of the third book and not bother with the rest….

I have heard a Proust expert (on YouTube) tell readers not to worry too much about reading every word, and not to feel guilty about dipping in and out, reading passages from later volumes, then going right back to the start, and so on. I am thirty pages into volume one, but I’m also dipping in and out of volume two (the scene on the train with his grandmother, the first morning in Balbec, with the description of the sea, his meeting with Saint Loup, etc). I approached Ulysses in the same way - reading certain chapters in depth, dipping in and out, skipping bits, and so on. It’s only way I can tackle these two works. I also find it very helpful to read long and in depth summaries of them both. That way when you dive in you know where you are. You can hold the entire story in your mind.

I wouldn’t approach other works in that way. With, say, Great Expectations, Mrs Dalloway, Sons and Lovers (to take some random examples) there’s no reason why you shouldn’t read them from start to finish. But the brutal fact is that Proust is too long and there are too many other books I want to read.

Excellent ideas in this thread, thank you! Creating a reading list feels like a winter project.

Like several PP, I'm aiming to read more in translation this year. Prioritising the P&V War and Peace and Tyler Tale of Genji (I've read the Waley translation, which takes a very different approach).
And potentially The Books of Jacob. Slight trepidation as it's translated by Jennifer Croft and I've far preferred the Antonia Lloyd-Jones translations of Tokarczuk so far. Also, it's just a bloody awkward size to hold: short and stout😅

Have the Proustians here read this? https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n01/michael-wood/break-your-bleedin-heart