the books that time forgot

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talk about great books that no-one remembers; i guess that until a couple of years ago bs johnson's "the unfortunates" would have been a good example.

(this thread inspired by the nipper's mentioning david thomson's "suspects" on another thread).

― toby (tsg20), Friday, 22 November 2002 14:11 (twenty-three years ago)

I honestly couldn't really add to this thread cos either a) I don't know if a book *is* forgotten, and b) I read so little proper literature that I doubt I have anything to talk about anyway :/

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 22 November 2002 18:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Has "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom" been forgotten ? Or is it just unfashionable ? It's magnificent and *completely* mad. And has surely the finest description of achieving a spontaneous erection while having the soles of ones feet caned by the Turkish secret police.

― s (SERO), Saturday, 23 November 2002 12:37 (twenty-three years ago)

what do you mean by "spontaneous", srolph? (or what did lawrence mean?) (my gran had a copy of this book which wz like a foot tall and six inches thick)

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 23 November 2002 12:40 (twenty-three years ago)

The Complete Works of Ronald Firbank?

― erik, Saturday, 23 November 2002 13:01 (twenty-three years ago)

The Newgate Calendar, a fat compendium of 'true crime' stories about cutthroats, footpads and highwaymen. It was long believed suitable for children because each story ended with the bad guy's neck stretched at the end of a rope, courtesy of the King's executioner, making them morality tales instead of mere gruesome sensationalism. The villains are frequently dashing and romantic fellows, kinda like gansta rappers with fast horses instead of fast cars. Lovely stuff.

― Aimless, Saturday, 23 November 2002 18:05 (twenty-three years ago)

i have a book called The Melancholy of Resistance - but I don't know if it is any good- I haven't read it: It is one chapter long: 300 pages long.

― david h (david h), Saturday, 23 November 2002 18:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Does Alasdair Gray's Lanark get enuf respect over in England?

― Mary (Mary), Sunday, 24 November 2002 10:00 (twenty-three years ago)

N0RMAN PHAZ3R! loves it. It's hardly a book that time forgot, since it is the (popular) birth of Modern Scottish Fiction.

― david h (david h), Sunday, 24 November 2002 10:05 (twenty-three years ago)

look!, haha, excerpt: "In the list of memorable first sentences, the first sentence of Laszlo Krasznahorkai's The Melancholy of Resistance deserves at least an honorable mention. It is 174 words long. And rarely does a shorter sentence make an appearance in the book."

― david h (david h), Sunday, 24 November 2002 10:08 (twenty-three years ago)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0704380099.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― david h (david h), Sunday, 24 November 2002 10:12 (twenty-three years ago)

blimey david that book wd make my eyes water - why don't you get a less blurry edition?

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 24 November 2002 11:09 (twenty-three years ago)

La Rochefoucauld's Maxims.

― chris sallis, Sunday, 24 November 2002 13:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Charles Portis's 'The Dog of the South' has a good claim for being on this thread, perhaps even owning it, but there has been a revival of interest.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Sunday, 24 November 2002 16:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh Jerry the Nipper I just read Dog of the South this fall! But Rob Rosenbaum grates!

― Mary (Mary), Sunday, 24 November 2002 16:31 (twenty-three years ago)

Mary, I think you meant to say "Ron Rosenbaum is GREBT!" - 'grate' is so last season!

RR is my second favourite columnist in the world (behind David Thomson in the IoS and Salon)!

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Sunday, 24 November 2002 17:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Haha you know I meant grate in the non-ILx sense of the word... Oh dear when I read him on Robert Stone I felt most amiss! His lead: "Robert Stone is coming to town and I'm feeling a little apprehensive already." No! Stop! No!

― Mary (Mary), Sunday, 24 November 2002 20:25 (twenty-three years ago)

Mary, I think you meant to say "I felt most Amis!"

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 24 November 2002 20:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Haha nice one Martin!

― Mary (Mary), Sunday, 24 November 2002 21:09 (twenty-three years ago)

The Road by Jack London. Not a novel, but romanticized reminiscences of tramping, with social commentary interwoven. Also, Autobiography of a Super-Tramp by W.H. Davies.

― Aimless, Monday, 25 November 2002 18:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Peter Wright's Spycatcher?

The complete works of Ernest Raymond: The Chalice and the Sword, The Witness of Canon Wellcome, We the Accused (based on the life of Crippen) etc.

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 12:05 (twenty-three years ago)

eight months pass...

I just read Lorna Doone it was cool

― m.s (m .s), Sunday, 10 August 2003 06:35 (twenty-two years ago)

'flowers in the mirror' li ju-chen
1800s chinese gullivers travels including lots of alice in wonderland type weirdness....if you've wanted to find a book to followup wu cheng-ens 'monkey', then this is it.

― joni, Sunday, 10 August 2003 08:11 (twenty-two years ago)

How could people have forgotten The Melancholy of Resistance? It just came out a few years ago!

I'll nominate The Professor's House--not one of the best-loved Cather novels, but a beautiful one. ("Better than My Antonia!" --Amateurist)

― amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 10 August 2003 08:16 (twenty-two years ago)

oh, and 'the wonder-dog' by richard hughes.
the author used to tell his kids and their friends stories to amuse them, he'd make the stories up on the spot. years later he decided to write down some of the stories but couldnt remember much, so he asked the kids (now grown up) what they could remember, and whatever they told him was used as the basis for the stories in this book. its like reading a childs half-remembered dreams.

― joni, Sunday, 10 August 2003 08:28 (twenty-two years ago)

"Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austen - it's so playful and fun and sardonic and light and beautiful! Why did no-one tell me this before?

― Mark C (Mark C), Sunday, 10 August 2003 10:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Amst.: because it is forgettable.

― David. (Cozen), Sunday, 10 August 2003 11:23 (twenty-two years ago)

"the old wives' tale" by
arnold bennett is on point;
ace melodrama

mingus' auto-biog
"beneath the underdog"
also deserves mention

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Sunday, 10 August 2003 14:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Amst.: because it is forgettable.

-- David. (coze...) (webmail), August 10th, 2003 2:23 AM. (Cozen) (later) (link)

Oh, I didn't love it, it's just that someone had mentioned it above!

Actually, I would think for a book to qualify for this list, it would actually have to be out of print!

― amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 10 August 2003 16:31 (twenty-two years ago)

It would appear that, in my neighborhood at least, time has forgotten Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm. I never see a copy around about here any more in the bookstores I frequent.

― Aimless, Sunday, 10 August 2003 23:16 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm always telling people they oughta read "no longer human" by osamu dazai, nobody ever knows what i'm talking about

― duane (24 hour troubleshooter), Sunday, 10 August 2003 23:26 (twenty-two years ago)

you shd also read "panic in needle park" by i forget who & "the scene" by...i forgot that guy too

― duane (24 hour troubleshooter), Sunday, 10 August 2003 23:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Friedrich Schlegel, Lucinde
Kobo Abe, The Woman in the Dunes

― Prude (Prude), Sunday, 10 August 2003 23:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Radio Free Albemuth by Phillip K. Dick (often ignored in favor of the VALIS trilogy)
The White Album by Joan Didion
Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
Cronica de una muerte anunciada by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 11 August 2003 02:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Jude the Obscure is, um, obscure? That's a shame... That's like one of the seminal books of my life. I like Trout Fishing a lot too.

― Prude (Prude), Monday, 11 August 2003 03:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't quite see how Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen are in a thread of books that time forgot. The novels by these two are hardly obscure either.

Brautigan on the other hand is less well remembered. So the Wind Won't Blow it Away being my favourite.

Journey to the Alcarria by Jose Cela is a forgotten beauty.

― G Man, Monday, 11 August 2003 09:38 (twenty-two years ago)

So the Wind... is wonderful!

― Prude (Prude), Monday, 11 August 2003 13:38 (twenty-two years ago)

zuleika dobson
made the list of the best com-
ic novels ever

that's how I found it.
recently reissued and
oh my GOD funny

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Monday, 11 August 2003 13:43 (twenty-two years ago)

'The Creep' by Jeffrey Frank, I bought it for 25 cents in Vancouver and never saw it again, it's not even listed on Amazon. I really relate to it. It's about this guy who moves to an unnamed large city and due to having no social skills whatever spends most of the book doing nothing whatever. Like, NOTHING happens. First he goes into a bar and tries to chat up someone and everyone else in the place laughs at him (cf the Alamo sequence in 'Pee Wee's Big Adventure') Then he goes into an employment office and the receptionist gives him attitude so he walks out. After weeks of talking to nobody he's so bored he's phoning up airlines to make and break reservations just to hear a voice, but then stops because he thinks the neighbours are listening in and laughing at his ploy. He talks to this chick he sees in the park and thinks he's getting somewhere but then the chick starts talking to a sidewalk artist and he doesn't see her again until he reads about their wedding in the paper a week later. The guy gets so frustrated that one day he cracks up and starts following this woman down the street, then somewhat embarrassingly finds that she actually lives in his building, so he's too paranoid to go out the door for weeks. When he finally leaves the landlord says "it's about time, everyone in the building thinks you're a weirdo", and he decides to move to Montana. For some reason this book really spoke to me, anybody else ever heard of it?

― dave q, Monday, 11 August 2003 23:14 (twenty-two years ago)

No, but it sounds really cool... I'll keep an eye out for it when I'm in a used book shop.

― Prude (Prude), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 01:15 (twenty-two years ago)

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