All about Dickens! (part II)

[birdienl]

As most of you will probably know, last Tuesday was the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens birth. I wanted to make a post to celebrate this fact, but real life got in the way. Also, I haven't had the time to write a book or adaptation review, but luckily there is the Charles Dickens Birthday Week at Old-Fashioned Charm and Miss Laurie has

Comments

[caffeinatedlife]

I voted for Our Mutual Friend and Little Dorrit--loved both novels! My favourite Dickens <3 Not to mention I loved both BBC adaptations for the books xD

As for a recommendation for a novel from another classic author...how do you feel about reading something out of Russian literature? ;) Or are you sticking to English classical lit for suggestions?

[birdienl]

Thanks for your recommendations!

No, I'm not definitively sticking to English classical lit. I've thought about Russian ofcourse. Do you have a short(ish) and not too complicated novel to recommend to start me of?

[litlover12]

Do you like reading plays? Chekhov's plays are some of my favorite Russian literature. And they're shortish. :-) Shorter than most novels, anyway.

[birdienl]

Oke, thanks! I don't have much experience with reading plays, but I'll see if I can find one

[caffeinatedlife]

I've never read any of his plays (only his short stories)--did he write a lot? Been hearing how wonderful his plays were though =)

[litlover12]

I don't know, actually. I have a book that has five or six of them, but I don't know how many others he wrote.

[caffeinatedlife]

Well, I recently read Ivan Tugenev's First Love and Anton Chekhov's A Russian Affair, both of which are part of the Penguins Great Loves series. I think that's a great place to start because the stories are really short but quintessentially Russian on the outset =P

I would also recommend anything by Anton Chekhov really; he wrote a lot of short stories that are very accessible but tackles the same sort of existential/social/larger issues like any of the other big Russian authors. I greatly enjoyed Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons which is relatively short (maybe as long as Forster's Howard's End? Definitely not Tolstoy long =P) and shows a lot of the issues that were prevalent in 19c Russia. Not to mention I was also rooting for the characters in the novel, which was pretty cool (for a novel I had to read for my 19c Russia class, haha).

As you can tell, I'm a big fan of Chekhov and Tolstoy xD

[birdienl]

I think most of what I know about Russian literature is actually thanks to your LJ posts, Li!