Voluminous Novels Sitting on your Shelves, Unread, List them here...

A couple of more contemporary selections come immediately to mind that have been standing there on the shelves, their spines mocking my best intentions for quite some time:

Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra
Darkmans by Nicola Barker
2666 by Roberto Bolano mentioned him in the other tread but this really belongs here.
The Sot Weed Factor by John Barth

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, all 2340 pages of it. I got an overdose of those Chinese classic behemoths two summers back that I still haven't recovered from.

Some long novels on my shelves, unread:

The Count of Monte Cristo
Don Quixote
Some novels by Charles Dickens (I'll list them later)
Lord of the Rings
Gone with the Wind
The Man without Qualities
Ulysses
The Bonfire of the Vanities

Too many on my shelves, lonely, abandoned. Summer comes and they perk up hopefully... fall passes without a glance from me... the long, dark, cold winter... spring brings signs of promise... summer arrives again, hope springs eternal... Will this summer be the one? (Probably not, guys, as I'll be finishing Proust. Patience, dear tomes.)

Giles Goat Boy by John Barth
The Goldbug Variations by Richard Powers
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
The Cornish Trilogy by Robertson Davies
Book of the Thousand and One Nights (partially read, and I'm hoping to make a proper tour of it in the next year or two)

Oh, and thanks to this group, Darconville's Cat is wending its way to my apartment.

#2...sounds fascinating! Does anyone else know of any 2,000-plus page works out there besides Proust? I thought he was the only one but am pleased to see I was incorrect.

#3...I started the Count, got distracted, no fault of Dumas, and the film version w/ Guy Pierce & James Caviezel is superb.

#4...and yet another member joins the COAT (Cult of A. Theroux!) Yeah!

Let me add Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany.

#2 lol I hear you! #5 how about the Mahabarata?

#3 I recommend all of those, except Tom Woolf, which I thought was a waste of my time.

I am also a member of COAT ( a secret CAT member); and am dying to read the Bolano and Infinite Jest as soon as I get out of my exile.

On my shelves I have JR, and (not a novel I know, but it does contain fictional sketches and stories as well as polemic, ranting and journalism) volume 1 of Dostoevsky's A Writer's Diary (750 pages). Other than that I have of course tons I want to reread.

#5
I'm not sure if The Forsyte Saga is regarded as one novel (3x3 trilogies), but without regard to that matter the whole saga consists of 2,000 plus pages (and I am currently reading the first trilogy (~900 pages)).

#6
Maybe I started on The Bonfire of Vanities some years ago and could't like it (remembering .... hmmm..). Well, thanks for your warnings, I will not waste my time reading it, I've got too much other recommended long novels (and shorter ones) on my TBR pile, so ....

Kjell, I am a lover of 19c British lit, but i have never read the Forsyte Saga. Can you recommend it?

One of mine is A Suitable Boy. I admire Seth a lot, but I'm being to realize that I may never live long enough to reach this one.

oh that is really a good book. I read it the year it came out, and it still haunts me.

I'm with you, Bob, on Seth. I believe I read somewhere that at the time ASB came out, it was the longest 20th century novel ever to be published (I think it's, what? just over 1,400 pages in hardcover) and everyone who reads it raves about it. Someday....

1474 pages in my paperback copy. Surprisingly, although it is long, it doesn't take that long to read, as it flows beautifully and is not difficult.

>8 QuentinTom:, tomcatMurr

If you like straigth forward realistic novels, you'll probably like 'TFS'. And Galsworthy's descriptions of his characters are excellent. A real family chronicle.

PS. I'm reading the saga with the LT group 'Group Reads - Literature':
http://www.librarything.com/topic/58799.

(I assume Urquhart knows very much about The Forsyte Saga)

#5> Enrique, I must disagree on your opinion of the movie version of The Count of Monte Cristo. I have read the book at least four times (yes, I like it that much), and to see how they changed the plot in the movie made me very very angry. The screenwriter (whoever he was) managed to literally butcher a magnificent book. Mercedes' and Mondego's son was actually Dantes' son?????? Are you kidding me? (This is only one among the ghastly examples).
Please give it another try, and you will see what I am talking about.

I'm sure you're right aluvalibri. Forgive my ignorance. I said I started the Count in #5 but as I look up there I see that I failed to complete my thought by saying I hadn't finished the Count. Got around 300 pages in and for whatever reason (can't recall, certainly not because it wasn't a pageturner, it was) put the book down and didn't get back to it. So when I saw the movie I was truly unaware of the radical, ridiculous plot alterations you mention. That is appalling. I'm sure I'd of been as angry and irked as you by the movie had I known how much of an axe the screenwriter(s) took to the book, insulting the reader's intelligence like that. I hate that too.

Memo to Freeque: Stop recommending film versions of classic novels you haven't completely read, pronto!

Mea culpa :-)

I have a couple slightly-less-famous voluminous novels on the shelf - The Maias by Eca de Queiros and Omega Minor by Paul Verhaeghen. Has anyone read either of these?

>14 aluvalibri:

You are so completely right about that. I hated that film because it deviated so much from the book (which I love and have read a number of times). The Count having swordfights? Umm, no. His revenge was so brilliantly targeted to take advantage of the greed and weaknesses of his enemies--why just throw all that out the window to make some lame action film? And then there was that ridiculous party in Paris where he made his entrance by balloon. Silly.

Oh, and my "waiting tomes" include Don Quixote. One of these days.

#17 I feel the same way about Bleak House... One of these days...

I have often wondered why on earth screenwriters feel they MUST alter books otherwise perfect by inserting idiotic innovations in the plot!
I can understand (well, almost) having to crop some parts of a story because the movie would be incredibly long, but only when it is a section not really relevant.
Every time I go see a movie and I have read the book it is based on, I cringe!
Very rarely have I not been disappointed.
The only version of The Count of Monte Cristo that might be considered half decent is, in my opinion, the one with Richard Chamberlain. Even that one, though, is not totally faithful to the book.
Enrique, I hope my comment was not too vehement! It was not directed at you, but at the stupidity of the movie industry.
:-))

I completely agree with you, Paola, about the stupidity of the movie industry, especially when it comes to adapting books.

#19...oh of course not. "No harm, no foul," as the late great Chick Hearn used to say.

You know the only movie I can think of off the top of my head which nicely compliments its source material (though it's not a voluminous novel) is Deliverance. And that's undoubtedly due to James Dickey being the sole author of both novel & screenplay.

One more to add: A Dance To The Music of Time.

I've seen quite a few movies based on books that I thought did a decent job. Gone with the Wind springs to mind; sure, they left out two of her children, but considering that it's a four-hour movie, I think they did a great job and it is pretty faithful to the book. Also think it was well cast. Anna Karenina was good, as was Madame Bovary. And there are some great versions of Austen's books (and some dreadful ones).

One that has always disappointed me is The Scarlet Pimpernel; for some reason that story gets tinkered with a lot.

Another one I forgot about: Terra Nostra by Carlos Fuentes. Has anyone read this and could comment on?

I have a mantle full of Penguin Classics (black editions) lined up alphabetically, all waiting to be read, calling me...

#24: Oooh pretty! I saw in Wired mag that you can buy an entire Penguin library. Its expensive but if I won the lottery I'd do it. Quit my job. and start reading full time

#25 - You can! On Amazon, I think it is US$7,500 plus shipping.

A bargain, I say! I think there are 1,000ish titles...

Um, I just checked Amazon, and it's $13,413.30. Still a deal, I'm sure!

I'm actually wondering how many of the books I already own. I looked at the English collection, 119 books for about $700. I have most of the Dickens but none of the Trollope; all of the Austen but none of the Scott; some but not all of the Hardy, Gaskell, or Eliot.

I'm not so much of a completist that I need to read every book by a writer. But it would be beautiful just to have all those books lined up on shelves to look at.

>25 slickdpdx: That's the best plan of what to do with lottery winnings I've ever heard.

27> I agree! The Dalkey Archive awhile back was having a 100 titles for $500 sale that I was soooo tempted to purchase, but didn't.

Among the Volumes gathering dust on my shelf are:-

War and Peace by Tolstoi
Passions of the Mind by Irving Stone
Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein
The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

NYRB has a similar deal: you can buy the first 200 NYRB titles for under $1500. Think how pretty all those colored spines will look in your library. Problem with those is, they're not all classics, really, and you would have to have a very broad taste to want to read them all.

Oops, forgot the link:

http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?product_id=7271

Eclectic!

So true, ejj, eclectic and at least for me, obscure. I'll look into some of those, right now

Back to the big ones. It seems that no one ever reads The Tale of Genji even though it is supposed to be one of the best. It's resting peacefully at the base of my TBR pile.

I am glad to have found this group. I too have a pile of books not yet read that are extra super long.
Remembrance of Things Past
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Bleak House
The Moonstone
The Forsyte Saga
Complete 24 volume set of the works of Sir Walter Scott
4 volume history of Napoleon by Max Gallo
I am sure there are others, but here is a start.
I guess the Gibbon is not a novel. But I put it in anyway. I would say to the people who have not finished The Lord of the Rings yet, definitely hang in there, it is worth it.

Whoa, where oh where to begin:
Infinite Jest, Midnight's Children, which I made half way through before I just had to put it down, The American People in World War II,
Complete Tales and Poetry by Edgar Allen Poe, A Fine Balance, Le Morte D'Arthur, Winter Evening Tales, The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Corrections, The Forest, Robert Elsmere, The Smoke Jumper, The House of Mitford, Wrestling With The Angel, The Mitfords, The Caine Mutiny, Germinal, Kristin Lavransdatter, Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers, An Echo in the Bone, Varina Howell, Mary Chester's Civil War, Freedom From Fear, The Glorious Cause, The American Civil War by Winston Churchill, Shelby Foote's trio of the Civil War, Julia Involved, Arabian Nights, The Complete Sherlock Holmes and finally Snopes. I guess I need to dedicate a year of reading to the Tomes I have unread on my shelves at home!~! Ha!
belva

Pillars of the Earth and Laura Warholic have been wondering for some time if I'm ever going to take them off the shelf.

I was kinda stunned by Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate; so impressed that I bought his A Suitable Boy without hesitation.

And those 1400 pages have been mocking me for nearly 20 years now.

Gathering dust for me are:

Ulysses
Les Miserables
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Brothers Karamazov
Crime and Punishment
Trinity
East of Eden

I welcome encouragement/cheering/personal testimonials/pleading to get me to read any of the above.

I read Swann's Way, and that was enough of that.

But I will be reading soon:

The Last Chronicle of Barset by Trollope. Should hold me over on my flight to Italy, right?

I'm a sucker for VVs.....something about wanting to get value for my $. I'll add Mahfouz's The Cairo Trilogy sitting on my READ IT NOW table, and I do plan to read it over the course of the year.
I'll also add Richardson's Clarissa. Several of the 75ers are reading it now, but I don't have that kind of plan in mind.
>32 Sandydog1: *Genji* is the foundation of Mt. Bookpile here too.
(I didn't know that it was possible to buy the Penguin library. I've fantasized that buying every Penguin and every book from a few other presses would be my first move as the big lottery winner. I guess I should have bought a ticket.)

I have a two-volume hc ed. of The Demons by Heimito von Doderer that totals out at a whopping 1,334 pages.

Belle du Seigneur by Albert Cohen

I'd never heard of this enormous novel until recently. I hope to see it sitting on my shelves sometime soon.
Old review on the occasion of its English translation in 1996.

There was a movie of that name. Is it the same story? It starred Catherine Deneuve.

I don't know, varielle. I saw on imdb there was a very recent adaptation of Cohen's novel made, but I didn't see Deneuve listed as an actor.

The one I'm thinking of was probably 30 years ago. Aha! 1967. My mistake. The one I'm thinking of was Belle de Jour.

Somewhere along the line, the TBR train went mad and now there's 150 unread books on my shelf. Giants among them include:

Sarum
The First Man in Rome
Musashi
A Soldier of the Great War
IQ84
Martin Chuzzlewit
The Decameron
World Without End
East of Eden
The Stand: Complete and Uncut
Anathem
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Vanity Fair
A Fine Balance
Ulysses
Clarissa ... this one looks especially frightening
Tom Jones
Middlemarch

Maybe I shouldn't have scanned the shelves for these monsters after all, I was happily oblivious ...

I am always meaning to get to Middlemarch and never actually doing it. Ereaders are great for tomes, so much easier to tote about and hold up when you are lying in bed!

I've found out I read generally slower on my ereader though, so for a giant-sized book maybe not a good thing, lol