Classics in Their Own Country: Ideas for the Year-Long 2012 Theme Read

In addition to our quarterly theme reads for 2012, we decided to have a year-long theme read of books considered classics in their own country. Deborah/arubabookwoman has generously volunteered to lead this theme, but we will need suggestions from all of you about what books are considered classics in their own countries. I will start this off in the next post with suggestions from books I've read over the past several years, but we need the combined reading experience of all of us to come up with books from around the world. Please contribute ideas early and often!

What makes a book a classic? As a starting point, I would say it has to be at least 50 years old (to pick a somewhat arbitrary number that may in certain cases not be appropriate) and something that many if not most readers in its country would be familiar with. Of course, some of them may be such classics that they are considered classics in translation too (War and Peace and Madame Bovary come to mind as examples), but I hope we will be able to come up with some books that are less familiar outside their own countries. Alas, most of examples will probably be familiar ones. I am hoping to learn from this thread of other classics to explore.

These suggestions are taken from books I've read in the past several years. I am embarrassed to see that nearly all the translated classics I've read are by European authors, and I hope to read classics from around the world this year, so I look forward to all your suggestions.

Medieval Europe
Parzival and Titurel by Wolfram von Eschenbach
Arthurian Romances by Chrétien de Troyes

Germany and Austria
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig

Russia
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman

Hungary
They Were Counted/They Were Found Wanting/They Were Divided by Miklós Bánffy
Sunflower by Gyula Krúdy

Bosnia
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić
Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andrić

Portugal
The Maias by José Maria Eça de Queirós

Scandinavia
The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Söderberg

Brazil
Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis

I would question the fact that Le bal du Comte d’Orgel is a classic in France. Many readers would not even know the existence of this book.
Raymond Radiguet has only written two books in his short life, and the other one, Le Diable au Corps, would better qualify as a classic, although it might be less of a classic in the younger generations… The story is set in the First World War, which is not anymore an attractive background, and one of the reasons this book was famous is because i twas adapted for cinema, with the fantastic actor Gérard Philippe.
Sorry for this long digression. I’ll try to make more positive suggestion, for France and some other countries latter…
This year-long theme is a really great idea, thanks to arubabbokwoman to facilitate this discussion!

Thanks, raton-liseur! I've taken it off the list and look forward to your suggestions for France and anywhere else!

I was trying to come up with a list of classics for France, but this is proving difficult…
What is a Classic? My own empirical definition would be “books that the majority in a given country knows about (although have not necessarily read)” or maybe “the books everybody knows because they were taught in school and therefore think they are boring”… rebeccanyc was mentioning Madame Bovary, and it fits these definitions…
We might need to agree on limiting the recommendations (eg. only fiction/novel, neither poetry nor plays?) and maybe even limiting the number of recommendations per country per person (10?)?
I am going back to investigate my school books to come up with concrete recommendations! :-)

This is a great theme read!

The first books that came to my mind were:
1. The House with the Green Shutters, Scotland, by George Douglas Brown, first published in 1901
2. Maria Chapdelaine, Canada, by Louis Hemon, first published in 1921 in French
3. Petersburg, Russia, by Andrei Bely, first published in 1916. Although I have only just started it, the style of this novel shows where Russian writing might have gone had it not been for the upheavals of the twentieth century.

All three of these books are currently in print.

For Germany/Austria - what about Kleist's novellas (The Marquise of O, etc.), to get away from the 20th century a bit? Or Effi Briest, which fits the "everyone hates it at school" thing...

For the Netherlands, how about Couperus? Old people and the things that pass was one of my top reads of 2011, and it's a bit less familiar than Eline Vere.

>7 thorold: - isn't the problem one of access to pre-20th century literature.

Bearing that in mind re Germany/Austria there are the usual suspects - Goethe, Hoffman & Novalis.
For the 20th century I would also add Klaus Mann - Mephisto.

#7. Is the Couperus you mention less well known in English translation but still a classic in the Netherlands?

>9 rebeccanyc:
I think it's fairly safe to say so. It's been adapted for TV, which is probably a good sign of classic status, but about 290 of the 300 copies on LT are in Dutch (as near as you can judge from the "Editions" page).

#9: Not the original poster, but I think that Eline Vere is a better choice, because that is the Louis Couperus classic here in the Netherlands. Old people and things that pass is not so well known here.

Apart from Eline Vere by Louis Couperus, I would recommend for The Netherlands:

Turkish Delight by Jan Wolkers (almost 40 years old and definitely one of the most well-known classics here, it's almost always used in Dutch Literature studies at high school)

The Good Hope by Herman Heijermans (I loved this one! And it's definitely a classic, published in 1901)

Max Havelaar by Multatuli (pseudonym of Ed. Douwes Dekkers, published in 1860)

Lof der zeevaert by Joost van Vondel (published in English under the title In Praise of Navigation, translated by Peter Skrine, but I can't find it here on LT) (Another great classic, published in 1623)

And if plays are 'in' for this theme, a classic not to be missed is Karel ende Elegast by Anonymous (Published in English as Charles and Elegast, translated by E. Colledge) (This classic play is a mandatory read in many Dutch high schools, and was published in 1486)

Been away from LT so sorry to be chiming in so late.
Jargoneer--regarding the point that earlier classics are not as available--I think that's the reason I proposed this topic. I think that more and more of these "classics" are now being translated, but are still unfamiliar to many of us native-English speakers.

I do know that Old People and the Things That Pass is available for free on Kindle, and that Elin Vere is a recent Archipelago reprint.

In my preparations, I have so far come up with suggestions of classics from more than 60 countries, but I need suggestions on how best to organize this. I think it would be too burdensome and disconnected to set up a different thread for each of the Reading Globally Regions, but I also think that one thread for the whole world may be too disorganized.

I was thinking of setting up four "Classics" threads, one for European Classics, one for African Classics, one for Latin American and Caribbean Classics, and one for Asian, Middle Eastern and Oceanian Classics. (Or perhaps have a separate one for Middle Easter?)
Doe anyone have any other suggestions on how to do this?

I think we should all continue to make suggestions on this thread. I will assemble and arrange all suggestions, as well as my own research, when I set up the actual discussion thread/s in late December.

Again, I'm really looking for suggestions on how best to organize the discussion threads, so that they are manageable, but not entirely random.

Thanks for all the suggestions made so far, and thanks in advance for any organizational suggestions.

Deborah

OH--I forgot to mention--my suggestion would be that in setting up these threads, we will assume that it is not necessary to name foreign language classics that everyone knows and are already part of the Western canon (i.e. Doestoevsky, Balzac, Goethe, etc). My thought is that we focus on those authors/works that are well-known in their country of origin, but not necessarily well-known elsewhere.

I also think we're looking primarily for books written before 1950 or 1960, although for some countries/regions we may go with more recent books. In general, the practice has been to include primarily novels, and I would suggest we continue with this limitation.

I personally have a rather broad and nebulous view of what is a "classic", so if you are in doubt of whether something is a classic--go ahead and suggest it! :)

I was thinking of setting up four "Classics" threads, one for European Classics, one for African Classics, one for Latin American and Caribbean Classics, and one for Asian, Middle Eastern and Oceanian Classics. (Or perhaps have a separate one for Middle Easter?)

I like the thought of the four suggested threads, but depending on how much Asian/Middle Estern/Oceanian classics you have to list, it might be better to split that one up.

Another suggestion I would like to make is that it might be a good idea to somehow highlight the countries/regions in the classic threads that will be read as quarterly theme reads. That would be The Balkans + Turkey, The Middle East, and China + Neighboring Countries. People from those threads might pick up a classic more easily that way, and people who are reading classics could then easily pick a classic that will allow them to join the quarterly theme discussion also.

Regarding organizing the list of classics, I've seen other groups put this type of information on a Wiki page, or pages, so that multiple people can edit it and have a single place to reference. I've never done this, so I don't know how one goes about starting such a page, but it might be worth pursuing.

Thanks so much, arubabookwoman, for thinking of how to organize this. And wow! A list of books from 60 countries already -- you've really been hard at work! And I like the idea of trying to read books that are outside our zone of familiarity.

I've seen wikis too, but I also have no idea how to use them and wonder if it would be a help or a hindrance if others are in the same boat as Steven and me on this.

The best way to see how useful a Wiki would be is to try it out. With no prior experience at this, I created this one in a little more than an hour: http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Reading_Globally:_Asia_II

It is something wandering_star and I might use for the 4th quarter "China and Neighboring Countries" theme, so I already had the content in mind even though the idea of a Wiki is new. I gave it a title that would fit in should we decide to do Wikis for each of our geographic regions.

This is just experimental and incomplete, so please don't focus on the content, just the idea.

Compared to message posts, the advantages I can see to a Wiki, based on admittedly just this one attempt are:

- Anyone can edit it - easier to share ownership
- Easy to structure and format longer documents
- Automatically generates table of contents
- Wiki pages can be moved, combined, and split as they grow and change

The disadvantages:

- Anyone can edit it - including non-members of dubious motivation
- No touchstones, so links to works and authors can't be automatically generated

17: Touchstones can be used in the wiki, the 75 books challenge group uses touchstones on the wiki pages for the TIOLI challenge. I will admit to not knowing how to do it, I usually add my books to the wiki and someone else eventually changes them to include the touchstone. But I'm sure someone over there can tell you how to do it.

I admit to being a technophobe, and I personally don't want to take on the task of (learning), setting up, and maintaining a wiki page. So, if we decide to do a wiki page, someone will have volunteer to handle the wiki aspects for this topic.

How about South African literature? With some research, the following authors were listed as South African award winners writing in or translated into English (and thus perhaps translated into other languages as well), several of whom I can recommend:

Nadine Gordimer
Alan Paton
J. M. Coetzee
Hennie Aucamp
Mandia Langa
Zakes Mda
Peter Horn
Marguerite Poland
Elizabeth Eybers
Stephen Bantu Biko
M. V. Mabuza
Makobe M. T. Bishop
Kevin Bloom (non-fiction award)
Abraham de Vries
J. J. Ngcongwane
Diale Tlholwe
Ahmed Essop
Athol Fugard
Felix Thuketana
Gladys Thomas
Mafika Gwala
Stephen Gray
Dalene Matthee
Phaswane Mpe
Adam Small
D. M. Modise
Elsa Joubert
Miriam M. Makeba
Nomsa Mwamuka

For Egypt, I would suggest The Palace Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz, which was written in 1956-57, and consists of Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street. This will almost certainly be one of the primary collections that I'll focus on during the 3rd quarter Middle Eastern authors theme.

For Australia, The Term of His Natural Life is a classic from the 19th Century, and the excellent if long-winded Capricornia is an early 20th Century novel.

For the Philippines, I recommend Noli Me Tangere (originally in Spanish) by José Rizal, The Woman Who Had Two Navels by Nick Joaquín, A Season of Grace by N.V.M. Gonzalez, America Is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan, and You Lovely People (stories) by Bienvenido Santos.

Here's a few of note from New Zealand.
All the texts are available to read and/or download at the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre (NZETC).

Erewhon by Samuel Butler (1872) - utopian
Anno Domini 2000: A Woman's Destiny by Sir Julius Vogel (1889) - NZ's first scifi
Katherine Mansfield's selected short stories published from 1911
The Godwits Fly by Robyn Hyde (1934)
Man Alone by John Mulgan (1939)

#21, did you notice that today (12/11) is the author's birthday?

>25 whymaggiemay: Ha! No, I didn't. And, it's his 100th birthday, at that (12/11/1911)!

Over the next few weeks I'm going to be setting up the threads for this theme. I'm going to ask people not to comment on these threads until they''re completely constructed, since I want to keep all the preliminary stuff and information at the top.

I've decided to go with these threads: Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, Europe, Asia and Oceania. I haven't decided whether to put the Mideast with Asia or Africa, but will probably put it with Africa, since there are so many Muslim countries in Africa. So far, I haven't found enought "classic" literature for the Mideast to warrant its own thread.

I'm including all the former Soviet states with Russia in Europe, even though technically some are in Asia. Turkey also goes under Europe. Mexico is included with Latin America.

I'm not an expert on geography or world literature, so some of you may disagree with the way it's all being organized. Please feel free to comment here. I may have put some authors under what may be the wrong country. This is particularly true of Africa, where multiple countries have emerged from the former colonies--authors are sometimes claimed by more than one country.

And while I've tried to include mostly older works, in some countries this wasn't possible, so I've included more recent authors that are recognized and esteemed in the own countries or world-wide.

Thanks! Deborah

Sounds very exciting! I'm looking forward to finding out about unfamiliar classics. Thanks for all the hard work, Deborah.

I think this is a good chance for me to read (finally!) The Tale Of Genji. Anybody else interested?

Hello to all--and I hope a better and more peaceful New Year for all.

I'm not going to quite finish setting up the threads today, but should have all of them done this upcoming week. So, please continue to refrain from posting--but feel free to look through the recommendations I've included on the threads. You might even find some interesting choices for the Turkey and Balkans read this first quarter!

I've tried to ensure that translations are available for all of the suggested authors/books, but a few of the lesser known works may have slipped through the cracks. I was surprised by how many of these little known (to me at least) have been translated and are available on Amazon, for example.

Here's to a great year of reading!

Am I too late to post some "recommendations"? Let me just try...

So here are my self-inflicted rules for recommending classics from France, my country of origin.
Ten, not more. Only one per author and only fiction / novel. Classics, ie "books that the majority in a given country knows about (although have not necessarily read)". And furthermore classics that I enjoyed reading and would recommend…
A Cornelian dilemma…

In no particular order:
- La Peste by Albert Camus
- Les Nourritures terrestres by André Gide (not exactly a novel, but almost)
- Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- Salammbô by Gustave Flaubert (not the most famous from this author, but famous enough, and a great novel.)
- La Peau de Chagrin by Honoré de Balzac (same caveat as above. An unusual novel in Balzac’s work)
- Jacques le Fataliste by Diderot
- L’homme qui rit by Victor Hugo (not the most famous from this author, hence not exactly a classic, Les Misérables might better qualify)
- Au Bonheur des Dames by Emile Zola
- Nouvelles / Short stories by Maupassant (Le Horla is probably, the most famous, but I tend to prefer Boule de Suif)
- Nouvelles / Short stories by Voltaire (Candide being the most famous)

This list could go for longer. I enjoyed remembering what we studied as teenagers and what we were taught to read. Lots of other great reads (and less great ones) came back in mind…

The reading year sounds exiting. Happy new year to all of you!

Arubabookwoman, I hope you don't mind...
I did a bit of advertising for this theme read in the Geeks who love the Classics Group (see here).

raton-liseur--Of course I don't mind the suggestions! And I love the publicity for this theme.

I have now opened the threads for this theme:

Africa and Middle East: www.librarything.com/topic/129003

Asia and Oceania:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/130503

Latin America and the Caribbean: http://www.librarything.com/topic/129502

Europe and Turkey: http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=129208

Please feel free to add additional reading suggestions. I hope we all read a lot of great books this year!