NationStates Jolt Archive

I was wondering if some of you amazingly intelligent people on NSG could either recommend some 17th/18th century French Literature or some late 19th century Russian Literature to me.
I should add: I've read Voltaire (Candide and On Policy) as well as some Rousseau. For Russian I've read War and Peace and a lot of Fyodor Dostoevsky I want to go in a bit deeper now...

Ummm...I'm going to have to go with "no".

I was wondering if some of you amazingly intelligent people on NSG could either recommend some 17th/18th century French Literature or some late 19th century Russian Literature to me.

Tolstoy's War and Peace is the first Russian text that springs to mind. As for French, you can't go wrong with Voltaire: Candide is one of the funniest books I've ever read.

Tolstoy's War and Peace is the first Russian text that springs to mind. As for French, you can't go wrong with Voltaire: Candide is one of the funniest books I've ever read.

Yeah, War and Peace is a real easy introduction - it's the Harry Potter of Russian literature.

While you're all at it, can anyone recommend some 15th century Icelandic text, some 3rd century B.C. Egyptian literature and some Etruscan comics if possible?

Tolstoy's War and Peace is the first Russian text that springs to mind. As for French, you can't go wrong with Voltaire: Candide is one of the funniest books I've ever read.

I should add: I've read Voltaire (Candide and On Policy) as well as Rousseau. For Russian I've read War and Peace and a lot of Fyodor Dostoevsky I'm wanting to go in a bit deeper now...

Just go for the obvious. Classics can do no wrong. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

Or if you really want to know good ones: Google...

moliere is good for plays. my flatmate did her dissertation on him.

I was wondering if some of you amazingly intelligent people on NSG could either recommend some 17th/18th century French Literature or some late 19th century Russian Literature to me.

This is a little early for you, perhaps, but the poets of the Pleiade--du Bellay, Ronsard, for instance, and the Songs of the Troubadours are very good.

Just go for the obvious. Classics can do no wrong. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

Or if you really want to know good ones: Google...

19th Century though.


Ummm...I'm going to have to go with "no".
Yep, sounds like a good answer.

Yeah, War and Peace is a real easy introduction - it's the Harry Potter of Russian literature.

Anyone asking for specific centuries of literature isn't likely to need an easy introduction...

While you're all at it, can anyone recommend some 15th century Icelandic text, some 3rd century B.C. Egyptian literature and some Etruscan comics if possible?

Yeah, but not on a PG-13 forum.

No one? :(

No one? :(

This is NSG, unless knowledge is easily usable for showing off it's neglected.

The Death of Ivan Ilych.

This is NSG, unless knowledge is easily usable for showing off it's neglected.

Does this not qualify as showing off?

Does this not qualify as showing off?

If you were a popular poster people would give a shit and it'd be an internet circle jerk.

Notes From the Underground, Dostoyevsky

I read about 50 pages of Tolstoy and decided it would make good use as a door stop. I have since completed it and it's one of my favorite novels, so the lesson is, stick with it.

Notes From the Underground, Dostoyevsky

I should add: I've read Voltaire (Candide and On Policy) as well as Rousseau. For Russian I've read War and Peace and a lot of Fyodor Dostoevsky I'm wanting to go in a bit deeper now...

Sorry I'll add that to the OP.

I was wondering if some of you amazingly intelligent people on NSG could either recommend some 17th/18th century French Literature or some late 19th century Russian Literature to me.
I should add: I've read Voltaire (Candide and On Policy) as well as some Rousseau. For Russian I've read War and Peace and a lot of Fyodor Dostoevsky I want to go in a bit deeper now...

Close enough? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_with_the_Newts

meh, enlightenment literature are basically rewrites of concepts the Greek philosophers thought up over a thousand years before.

Does this not qualify as showing off?

Too obscure to be easy. Easier to beat people round the head with Marx etc.

Close enough? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_with_the_Newts


Sounds like an interesting begining. Thank you.

For Russian, there's the other well-known Tolstoy work (Anna Karenina). If you're willing to expand the time frame a bit, Dr. Zhivago and We could also be good choices.

French? Moliere would do nicely, as would the obvious suspects (Les Miserables, Madame Bovary).

Thank you.

No one? :(

Pretty much any and all Turgenev and Gogol is worth a look. Avoid their juvenalia and their descriptive prose poems/sketches though as they aren't that rewarding.

The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code

I assume this is a joke, yes?

I was wondering if some of you amazingly intelligent people on NSG could either recommend some 17th/18th century French Literature or some late 19th century Russian Literature to me.


Argg.. and I was thinking about..no..:(

Forget Russian and French, especially since it seems you've read the best of them anyway - head to Germany, specifically this man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mann)and this book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddenbrooks)

You should also read this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotte_in_Weimar:_The_Beloved_Returns)and this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Mountain).

Not sure where you're from but if you're reading in English then try find the John E. Woods translations

Forget Russian and French, especially since it seems you've read the best of them anyway - head to Germany, specifically this man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mann)and this book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddenbrooks)

Thomas Mann was no Herman Hesse.

Thomas Mann was no Herman Hesse.

...ahhh, but they were good friends - may they be viewed equally :)

I was wondering if some of you amazingly intelligent people on NSG could either recommend some 17th/18th century French Literature or some late 19th century Russian Literature to me.
I should add: I've read Voltaire (Candide and On Policy) as well as some Rousseau. For Russian I've read War and Peace and a lot of Fyodor Dostoevsky I want to go in a bit deeper now...

"The hunt for red october". Good book, and it has Russians in it which is what you wanted.

Can't help with the Russian, but I think these all fall in the time period you want for the French literature:

-Le cid, by Corneille.
-La princesse de Clèves, published anonymously (but held to be by Madame de la Fayette).
-Andromaque, by Racine.
-Almost anything by Molière (I'm fond of Les femmes savantes, myself).
-Lettres persanes, by Montesquieu.
-La Folle journée ou le Mariage de Figaro, by Beaumarchais.
-Manon Lescaut, by Prévost.

I was wondering if some of you ... could either recommend some 17th/18th century French Literature or some late 19th century Russian Literature to me.

On the Russian side of things, I'd say Fathers & Sons by Turgenev, A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov, Dead Souls by Gogol, or maybe The Death of Ivan Illyich, among others.

How about The Hunchback of Notre Dame or The Three Musketeers?

thank you for giving me a good list encompassing literature that I was actually asking for, Rameria and Saxnot.

I don't recommend Crime and Punishment. Writing it was the crime, and reading it is the punishment.