THUNDERDOME

OK, I've been trying to figure out how we could do a list of the greatest literature of all time. There's just one way I can see. Let's discuss two books, argue about which is better, choose one to put higher on the list, and keep going until we've judged the relative merits of all literature anywhere anytime?! Anyone up for it?

If so, I'm willing to throw out a couple to start, or someone else can. Maybe we start simple, with a couple widely read novels, like pitting an American stalwart like Twain's Huck Finn against an old line Brit like Dicken's Oliver Twist?

We don't need another hero
All we want is what's beyond
the thunderdome

Thunderdome

Thunderdome versus Huck Finn?

Thunderdome losing thunderdome would be BAAAADDDD.

(But Thunderdome has better music...)

Oliver Twist beats Huck Finn in a landslide.

How does Oliver Twist fare against Can You Forgive Her?

4: No it does not!

Huck Finn is funnier. And the 19th century really needed the laughs.

Hard to say. Alice, who was in need of forgiveness, did she get it? She is tall & well made with dark brown hair & eyes. Is a fine, handsome, high-spirited young woman. Her personality is staid & self-possessed, with nothing of the girlish in her manner. Unable to decide on a husband, but finally choosing the stolid John Gray rather than the excitable George Vavasor, her cousin. Sir Edward Marsh could find no sympathy in his heart for Alice, intimate of Lady Glencora Palliser.

George. Stockbroker. Hopes to marry his cousin, though his hopes are dashed, with much help from himself, in the end. He has an ugly scar on's face. Wayward as a youth. Lived in open defiance of what was proper. Was generally regarded to be on the 'high road to ruin.' He reforms?! Does not gain a seat in Parliament. After trying to send his rival to the next whorl of the spiral. Emigrates to the colonies (U.S.).

Trollope's novel deals with a class unknown to the denizens' of OLIVER TWIST. Though I did enjoy last evening an OT with Oliver Reed and one of my very favorite of favorites Leonard Rositter. I don't know if we can draw a useful comparison between the two works. They had different fish to fry, no?

5> Does too!

Dickens is one of those writers who I find it really hard, impossible so far, to name a single best book. I'd probably choose Pickwick and one or two of the later books like Bleak House, Nickleby or Copperfield, but I sure like all the others...except Two Cities. And there are quite a few I have not read yet: Mutual Friend, Curiousity Shop, Hard Times, Dorrit, Chuzzlewit, Dombey, Rudge and...Oliver Twist.

I am with Porius. I can't compare books so different. Now if it was Copperfield v Nickleby - that is fair, they are in some ways almost the same book! Which is better? I mightgo with Nickleby but I think the weight of opinion rests with Copperfield.

Two plucky 19th century lads in a transatlantic grudge match. I think it comes down to the supporting cast, here, and I have to say strengths and weaknesses are pretty well matched in that regard as well. Tom Sawyer and Jim--guile, cunning, ability to improvise. Fagin and the Artful dodger--ditto. I think if it's an out-and-out brawl the yanks take it, but if it's some kind of rogue's task like recovering the gem from the serpent temple, it goes to the Brits.

Even closer relation between COPPERFIELD & GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Not many commentators were enthusiastic about Dickens' forays into Trollope's territory. Sir Mulberry Hawk, and co., not up to Trollope's toffs. It's difficult to compare Trollope and Dickens. Just the thought of the 'Inimitable' skulking around a BARCHESTER TOWERS for more than a few chapters brings a blush to the cheek of the Jung person.

I think the Brits would be aghast that a Twain was favorably compared to the sacred Dickens by a bunch of Yanks - these comments are generally from Yanks, aren't they?

But Twain's Huck Finn is an awful lot funnier and just as socially relevant as Oliver Twist, isn't it? And without all the filler? I give it to Twain for packing as much as Dickens into a neater, more cohesive and less verbose package. I think it will survive better over time as well, as Dicken's language is starting to feel swampy.

The Twainian satire will survive and prosper, though few will do it as artfully as old Marcus. Still, a worthily Quixotic heir to Cervantes. But isn't everyone a little bored with socially relevant narrative at this point? Isn't Dickens just a wordier Balzac, anyways? Yes, good stuff, but I don't think Dickens stands quite so high above his competitors as does Twain.

Dickens over Trollope in a walk, just because I have trouble getting through (and getting Trollope), which may be my general aversion to the antropology of the 19th Century British Stiff (Austen doesn't do it for me either). Dickens on the stiffs: they're evil and selfish. Trollope on the stiffs: they're funny. Dickens is right. And, despite not focusing on the humor as much as Trollope, Dickens is funnier.

I think the Brits would be aghast that a Twain was favorably compared to the sacred Dickens by a bunch of Yanks - these comments are generally from Yanks, aren't they?

I agree.

Especially in considering that Mark Twain is like the veritable Hee Haw of Literature while Charles Dickens its Masterpiece Theatre.

An excellent analogy. Dickens is a boring old rehashed pbs program with mediocre flat acting watched by little old ladies (and Freequay) that makes all literature sound and look pretty much the same. Twain is a raw and often politically incorrect but funny and original variety show that broke new ground in its time.

I would not have been quite so cruel to Dickens, but it does make the point. We'll put down Freeque as a "Twain".

I think Huck has the edge over Twist right now, in a close match (subject to any late voting that may occur).

How about a couple of heavyweights next: Dante's Inferno versus Shakespeare's Othello!

It's like Godzilla versus Kong!

On Copperfield versus Great Expectations, I'm virtually neutral. But for the best Dickens, I'd throw Tale of Two Cities in the Ring.

I vote for Twain (I found Dickens a fuddy-duddy in 8th grade, and I still find him a fuddy-duddy -- I can't believe Copperfield was in love with dumb Dora).

Dante, the character, in The Inferno gets to travel through hell as a tourist and encounters a world of experiences, while Othello has to travel through hell in his head. I don't know how to compare these two. As a greater, more significant work, I'd have to vote for Dante -- unless we can add Lear and Hamlet and Macbeth to Othello to create a comparable body of work -- then I'd vote for Shakespeare.

You completely twisted the meaning of my analogy to your irreprobate and uncouth American advantage.

Twain, humourous? If you're in to Bob Saget hosting America's Funniest Home Videos "humour," then Twain's hysterical. Twist that analogy for your vile purposes, UnA_musing!

Dickens is a fuddy-duddy?! The gall! The unmitigatedness of the gall in the extreme! I protesteth. If Dickens is a fuddy-duddy, then Twain is frumpy. Becky Thatcher was a bitch. I hate her.

17: I was under the impression that we were discussing Huck Finn, not Tom Sawyer. While Tom is a character in HF, Becky is not.

10: I disagree. The characters that approximate Fagin and the Artful Dodger from Huck Finn are the Duke and the King, not Tom or Jim.

To me, there's no comparison - HF takes it. I enjoyed Oliver Twist, but it's not even the best Dickens book, not even in the top three or so from my point of view, and HF is funnier and better written, with only a few ridiculous coincidences (actually, only one that I can remember, the fact that Huck ends up at Aunt Polly's by mistake and finds out that she thinks he's Tom) as compared to everything written by Dickens (sorry, I love him, but the coincidences in all of his novels are so so so much a key part of his plots, it's a little silly after a while).

Am I the only Brit around here willing to defend Dickens against these American sods and their hucksterism? That's tosh, what you just said, Anna! Everything by Dickens! O the bollocks of it all! I'm so upset I can't think clearly and am running out of British declarations of disdain, so I will depart ... until tomorrow ... brace yourselves ...

It's difficult to know where to start. Dickens was not quite 25 when OT was pub. in monthly numbers. It wasn't a whole like HF, but written for monthly pub, while working on other things. Clemens was 50 when HF hit the press. There's something of a difference here. C. was a hoary veteran with 7 or 8 books to his credit. A specious comparison, etc. no matter how you look at it. Dickens was a greenhorn, how else can you see it.

I can't possibly say Dickens is this or that knowing how hard he toiled all his 58 years or thereabouts. His output makes us look silly by comparison, if it is comparison that we must have. I can't help but recall a little sentence by C.G. Lichtenberg: A book is a mirror: if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out. I am firmly in the camp of the asses. When it comes to steamrolling time I reserve my judgement on matters of this sort. For all the gas-bagging I do here?

What's the point in preferring one Trollope over another. I enjoy them one at a time. Make them feel like they're the only Trollope in town.

HAHAHA, very well done sir!

it's a no-brainer (god I hate modern English, but feel compelled to use it in an ironic sense here.)

we must have both Huck Fin and Oliver Twist.

A-musing, I disagree with you entirely about Dickens. Dickens' s language is starting to look startlingly modern, especially when put next to the pyrotechniques of Pynchon, DFW, Gaddis and those American masters (decidedly not Franzen).

Next.

I think he's just pretending.

Oh, Huck Finn beats Oliver Twist and may even beat The Odyssey.

Oliver Twist a Turkey Carpet. There's an idea.

25> nah -- not The Odyssey

25:

*spit-take*

Dante seems to have been impervious to all the torments of Hell, but unable to affect anything while he was there, making him a sort of ghostly or spectral presence. Virgil may have known how to fight as a ghost, but not Dante. Othello, evidently, was too badass for his own good. They reach an impasse that is only overcome when I equip Othello with +2 gauntlets of ghost touch from the second edition Dungeon Master's Guide, and then he puts out Dante's light--with extreme prejudice.

>12 A_musing: Dickens on the stiffs: they're evil and selfish. Trollope on the stiffs: they're funny. Dickens is right. And, despite not focusing on the humor as much as Trollope, Dickens is funnier.

Well said!

Dante's Inferno: near perfect, incredibly original, breaking ground in Western poetry in general, rising well above any other Italian peer, despite stealing a lot of images and concepts from the East, sustained over phenomenal length, exploring themes that are eternal

Shakespeare's Othello: near perfect, original, rising above but not well above his English peers, packing enormous material into a brief space, exploring themes that are often disturbingly modern

After due consideration, I'm throwing my lot in with Dante because: (1) they're both groundbreaking, but Dante more so, given his time and his peers and the culture he breaks from; and (2) it's longer.

Would it change with a +2 gauntlet? Not if I give Dante a +1 sceptre at the same time. Advantage: Dante, though it breaks my Billy-loving heart

As to whether both should go on the list, in this or any other match, of course, EVERYTHING goes on this list.

But this is Thunderdome: Two Books Enter, One Book Leaves. Death is Listening.

So what next? Dante v. Huck, or do we bring on two new contestants? If the latter, (and without implying that women can only compete against women), what about a giant of 19th-century realism, Jane Austen, weighing in with Pride and PrejudiceEmma, versus a giant of twentieth-century modernism, Virginia Woolf, wielding her To the Lighthouse monkey-grip style?

To the Lighthouse, in a heart beat. Go, Virginia!

Austen sees the stiffs as marriageable material, a fairly poor conceipt for even a short story, let alone a novel.

So far I have learned that, not only are zombies evil and selfish, they are not good marriage material. Also, the wag that recently re-wrote Austen merely added more zombies.

I really didn't like Huck Finn. It felt full of stock characters, Huck, Jim, The Duke, The King. They weren't really characters but straw men with which to do battle. In some ways it was only one step above a picaresque. Lazarillo de Tormes was a much more interesting story. At least it had an exotic feel and I cared about him. Huck Finn was just one in a long line of American road trips. As I've said elsewhere the Tom Sawyer ending seemed like a Deus ex Machina to me. There were some pfunny parts and of course Twain's sarcasm is second to none, but the equal of Oliver Twist? I hardly think so.

Okay, I've got my flame retardant gear on. As Bill hissownsef would have said, "Lay on, MacDuff".

Maybe we should schedule Huck Finn as a read one of these years. Maybe I'll see what I'm missing. Having read it, and been underwhelmed by it, I really don't see the need to read it again, unless as a part of an organized read.

I like the picaresque genre and thought HF was a better exponent of it than OT.

But more to the point, I don't remember a single scene in OT that was as poignant to me as the scene where Huck almost writes the letter about Jim but decides not to. That scene alone makes the novel for me.

I can't say that HF turned my world upside-down. It's a boys story as far as I can make out. At 61 I prefer reading things like HARD TIMES. I am attracted to that 'circle of stage fire' that Ruskin spoke of. I'm in the habit, mostly, of reading late novels from an authors oeuvre. I'm constantly looking for novels, etc., written by authors roughly my own age. I make it a point of reading the LAST novel of any author I feel is important. This doesn't mean I won't read PICKWICK another 4 or 5 times before the Gods see fit to remove me from this vale of tears. As for today's novelists, they have to get me in the first chapter or so or it's out the window. Howard Jacobson is one of those who doesn't go flying out the window - there are not many, though.

I would like to personally thank slick and RickyButler (wherever he is), speaking for "today's novelists," as Por-Man asserts, the ones that will get you in the first chapter, for turning me on to Paul Murray. I'm reading Skippy Dies and it's killing me it's so damn good.

Quick tangent, don't mean to get the thread off track (for discussion later, but just throwing it out there now to think about as I have to leave and I'll forget otherwise if I don't say it now), in ten years, the debate may be:

Skippy Dies v. Infinite Jest

Bee-leave it!

How about Huck vs. Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, to keep the TransAtlantic Trials of Puberty going?

Hee Haw v. Hamlet?

Portrait, but I have some misgivings about it. Hee Haw if Buck Owens is on.

Not without Minnie Pearl

Only you.

What about Hee Haw vs. Lawrence Welk?

Tough call, but I think I'd go with Welk.

A wahnnapfall a wahnnapfall.

so this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3ecDYxOkg

or this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ5ob9B9yD4

so hard to decide

Oh I love that toking w/Welk! Note at the very end before the clip cuts off, Welk calling "One Toke Over the Line" a "modern day spiritual"! The lyrics do include "Sweet Jesus" after all.

Welk wins!

How about Pickin' vs. Grinin'? This show was inspired by this. You bet your bippy.

Portrait hands down.

25, 26

Aw, you know I was pulling your leg. What I really meant was THIS was better than the Odyssey:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxGMWCnyNzg

But that IS the Odyssey. One of the few cases where the movie is better than the book.

How about the Russians?

Brothers K. v. War & Peace?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny-hYMO6Ssk&p=195B6830BA9A81EB&playnext=1...

Can we reserve judgement on BK v. W&P until we've re-read BK? I have not read it since I was about 14. I really don't have a good enough memory of it to judge.

If I had to pick one or the other, it'd be War and Peace

However, I would pick The Brothers Karamazov over The Brothers K, I'm pretty sure, despite not having read the latter and in spite of its exceptionally high LT rating.

Considering Gone with the Wind in the other thread,

How about Gone with the Wind vs. The Far Pavillions?

Wow. Brothers Karamazov or War and Peace? That's like choosing Apollo or Dionysus. I don't know.

I am more Apollonian but I'd like to choose Dionysus, if forced to choose. Far Pavillions looks quite interesting. I've no great desire to read Tolstoy. Does that make me a bad person?

I've no great desire to read Tolstoy. Does that make me a bad person?

Yes.

Shoot. I knew it!

It saves a few weeks of your eyesight S. !000+ pages is c commitment, isn't it. Nothing worse than slogging through all those pages for the wrong reasons.

Far Pavilions over GWTW. Anything over GWTW. That one is easy. Now someone tell me about Far Pavillions.

I'd go Karamazov over Tolstoy. War and Peace is large, grand, intricate, involving, and consuming, BUT, it's all pretty predictable by the end.

Brother's K has those deep dives into Philosophy and thought, those wonderful, memorable and profound clashes between evil and more evil and good and sort of good. It's almost Melvillian in its brilliance.

Still, not an easy call.

Slick, saying you don't want to read Tolstoy in this group is going to be like saying you're not sure at a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall. Prepare the conversion rituals - now, Slick, are you going to come peacefully, or do we have to do this the hard way?

You're going to have to find me copies that don't have the Oprah book club mark. Its as bad as reading a book with a cover from the movie!

I used to be an Oprah snob too, and then I read a formerly Oprah-stickered copy of The Road. Just use your fingernails to remove the sticker. I find rubbing alcohol works well too in getting rid of the bothersome sticker residue that, if you shelve your books like I do, tightly packed, can cause them to stick together and, should you attempt parting them like Siamese Twins, one of the book covers won't survive the separation.

A true snob wouldn't care about the Oprah sticker. The sticker is meaningful only to those shallow twits on either side who care about such things. Who are you trying to satisfy by removing it? Yourself. Better to face the world, Oprah sticker foremost, like a big middle finger in the eye of those who care.

Great, gene wants me to read the Oprah stickered Karenina. What's next, Vanity Fair with Reese Witherspoon on the cover?

War & Peace with Henry Fonda.

Slick, get a kindle and get Karenina for free (like I did) and you won't need no stinkin' covers. ;p

I figure if I read Bovary (check) & Charterhouse of Parma (tbr), I don't need Tolstoy. Right?

Ah, c'mon Slick! At least try W&P! Now, that won't have an O sticker on it. ;-)

>65 slickdpdx: except that he rules! Bovary and Anna are like James Bond as played by Sean Connery and Roger Moore.Er, Daniel Craig. Okay, there's only one good Bond. Read Tolstoy!

I'm this close to bringing an indictment against you slick. I may file a brief. The War and Peace brief. A long brief, in other words, indicting you for your anti-Tolstoyaanism.

I'm an opportunist for blog pimpage:
Adrift on the Nile vs. Less Than Zero?

Hello? No contest. LTZ is the worst book ever. And Mahfouz is a terrific author. In Arabic the book is called "Gossip on the Nile" and there was a wonderful, wonderful movie made of it.

I like anna's comment.

I have decided (see the other thread on LTZ) that it may not be the worst book ever. Just the book I hate the most that I have read.

.. and you have my permission to skip BOTH epilogues!

.. but not mine! Both epilogues are essential.

Slick if you haven't read W&P yet, you are really missing something great. trust me on that.

The Greatest American Novel in the 20th Century?

Ellison's Invisble Man or your favorite Faulkner (Sound and the Fury? Absalom, Absalom? Light in August?)? Or Something else?

Sometimes a Great Notion.

Women in Love. Unquestionably.

I know this is going to seem very parochial but not having read Absalom, Absalom or Light in August or Sometimes a Great Notion (If I can't use the last serial comma than dammit I won't use any frackin commas. Take that all you 21st century dipshits) I'm going to say The Grapes of Wrath.

Sirs, Infinite Jest.

Oh yes, Martini, I do agree. Infinite Jest v. Invisible Man; now that would be a THUNDERDOME match for the ages.