Great Great Books

[dungrollin]

> > Dung:
> > I only got into Atwood relatively recently, but have to say that 
> my favourite (so far – I'm trying not to rush through them all at 
> once) is The Edible Woman. Closely followed by Cat's Eye. Oryx and 
> Crake,Alias Grace, and The Blind Assassin were great, too.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Heee. See, we agree again. I have a feeling that if we were to 
talk about "things unrelated to Snape", we would agree on quite a 
few topics. :-)
> 

Dung:
No we wouldn't!!

(That was a joke.)


> Dung: 
> > A few more good'uns to add:
> > The Life of Pi – Yann Martel.
> > The Picture of Dorian Grey – Oscar Wilde.
> > The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency – Alexander McCall Smith
> > Sophie's World – Jostein Gaarder
> > One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
> > Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Patrick Suskind
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Ooooo, YES. Loved Dorian grey. Loved "ladies detective agency". Am 
> always flattered when I see people reading Soltzhenitsyn.
> 

Dung:
You're originally from the Ukraine, right? My grandfather was 
Polish, from Lviv (I was going to write it £wów - but I'm sure 
that's wrong - correct me!) - anyway, it's now part of Ukraine. He 
was deported to Siberia by the Russians at the beginning of WW2, and 
was told to dig his own grave at gun-point. We have two passport 
photographs of him, one from 1939, depicting a happy smiling young 
man, and one from 1941, in which his hair is completely white, and 
his face is lined like a man twenty years older. Unfortunately he 
died when I was 18 months old. I really wish I'd met him.

Have you read Kolyma Tales? (Can't remember who it's by, and left my 
copy in another country, sorry.) It's pretty harrowing, to be honest 
(much more so than Ivan Denisovitch), but I think it's even better 
written. - Don't expect it to cheer you up though.

Alla
> Perfume though found to be incredibly well written and incredibly 
> GROSS at the same time.

Dung: 
True enough - perhaps I should have appended a note "Not for the 
squeamish."

Anyway, ceasefire's over, I'm drawing my cutlass again now (see main 
list) - back to Snape...