Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1937

Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass by Bruno Schulz

Bish bash bosh, here it is. I actually only just finished reading this, after loving the film for years. A remarkable work.

Not going with The Hobbit would be lying.

The Hobbit practically made me a reader, so...

I got enormous pleasure from reading The Hobbit at age 13. It greatly accelerated my book-reading habit as I sought to replicate that pleasure elsewhere. I refuse to consider that experience to be of lesser import for my having been so young. And it helps that there aren't numerous other titles on this list that I feel deeply moved by.

i haven't read any of these books. we had a copy of the citadel in my parents' bookshelves at home when i was young but it was the most dilapidated book they owned, totally falling apart, so that put me off.

If I vote for the book I love most here, it's got to be We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea.

I feel like I should vote for Their Eyes Were Watching God, but I read it so long ago I don't really remember it.

The Burning Court is one of Carr's best.
Death on the Nile is one of my least favorite Christies. Too long and almost entirely red herrings.

No Of Mice and Men?

I feel a bit weird about being torn between Zora Neale Hurston and Tolkien lol

It's wild that there will be another 21 of these polls before we get to the one Jorge Amado I've read

Got the Bruno but haven't read it (it's way off in my Collier Brothers stacks). I'll go w Hurston's Art Folk Pop anime tapestry of the Vagabond Beauty's quests, with powers ov crowds surging through. Florida as hell.

An Answer From The Silence by Max Frisch -- his first? novel, surprisingly sexy failed mountaineering quest; very good

Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson -- top-tier noir grimness

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien -- nobody needs this described

Swastika Night by Murray Constantine -- phenomenally prescient novel set in a Nazi-conquered future world of homosexual ubermensch who worship the god Hitler "who was not Born, but Exploded" -- brilliant and dark (author's real name Katherine Burdekin)

Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham -- fun

Uncommon Danger by Eric Ambler -- one of his best books, great espionage on a train novel

Mouchette by Georges Bernanos -- a very good and deeply depressing book about a girl who is raped and things just get worse from there

Wolf Amongst Wolves by Hans Fallada -- Weimar-falling-apart brilliance; love this book

Ali And Nino by Kurban Said -- real oddity, Islamophilic adventures story by Traven-like mystery person, very good

The Bachelor Of Arts by R.K. Narayan -- I love Narayan, this is one of his better books

The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat -- mad and great

Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz -- brilliant; children are terrifying and teaching is hell

Journey By Moonlight by Antal Szerb -- also brilliant, fucking love this book

Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass by Bruno Schulz - ditto

This is a hard one! I'd argue that Swastika Night, The Hobbit, The Blind Owl, Ferdydurke, Sanatorium, Journey by Moonlight and Wolf Among Wolves are ALL masterpieces in their different ways. Fucking hell, 1937 was full of good shit.

I continue to be staggered by the breadth of your reading, James.

I love Journey By Moonlight, I’m pathetically ignorant of most of the list but it gets my vote.

Swastika Night sounds wild.

jed__, I have achieved nothing else in life.

Swastika Night really is brilliant.

Yeah, Hobbit is the first book I ever read by myself and it's kind of my happy place, can't be very objective about it. Those damn movies were a travesty.

Apart from that I've only read the Heyadat and while I can certainly agree with James that it's mad, I'm not really wired to enjoy decadentist dirges about how the protagonist is such a perv and a drug fiend. Points for not being at all what I was expecting from an Iranian (or anywhere, really) novel of 1937.

must get around to making a list of the titles in this series and then never get around to reading through it.
But would at least have a starting point, I have a list of Ford Maddox Ford's essential books over time from teh back of his book trying to establish a canon. Not got through that either. BUt did finally read through his text after a couple of different goes with a loing interval in between.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I have to say, ilx loving Tolkien without shame has been shocking me this week, what with the ~problematic~ aspects, the fact that he's a bona fide English Culture Hero, and the overwhelming odour of nerd-dom, I expected someone to take a serious crack. (tbc I like the books, and my mother reading us The Hobbit from the fronts seat during road trip vacations is a cherished childhood memory)

loving Tolkien without shame has been shocking me

so, your point is that we should all be ashamed of ourselves?

Ilxor are nerds.

I'm considering giving the hobbit and lotr a go this year, once I'm finished with proust (so no time too soon)

i went to reread the Hobbit last year and decided against it within 5 pages.

I intensely dislike Tolkien and all he inspired to the point of complete indifference, and I get a lot of people feel different about it. Having said that TEN votes is still more than I expected. Onwards and upwards imo.

I dislike high fantasy that has different "races" of human-like beings inspired by racial or cultural stereotypes. I don't think designing the world before designing the story is a particularly good idea either. But I have never finished one of Tolkien's books so take that with a grain of salt.

You could probably come up with problematic aspects for all sorts of books that have won this! Also note UK ilxor allergy to National Culture has a cut-off date - not like there's any screeds on here against Ealing studios or Enid Blyton.

I was indoctrinated into fantasy nerdom at an impressionable age and so love Tolkien unreservedly, though I can totally understand why others wouldn't. But The Hobbit is just a nice warm children's book, mostly unconnected to any high fantasy world building. The movies tried to make it fit that mold and that's part of why they're an absolutely rotten experience.

People surprised by this result should steel themselves for the moment the Moomins start showing up here imo.

UK ilxor allergy to National Culture has a cut-off date

Ah that's a good point, which hadn't occurred to me.

wd have voted for journey by moonlight. love that book.

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1938

not like there's any screeds on here against Ealing studios or Enid Blyton.

Enid Blyton was a fucking racist iirc

Look away if worried about spoilers:
Happy Ending of T's saga (incl. The Hobbit as seemingly lighter-weight genesis seed etc.) is actually so tragironic---Anti-Quest and sacrifice of magic is nec. to deliver from evil, but Middle Earth will become Western Europe, and the King is White Male Saviour, dominant species at last, and we all know how that's gone, and author, between the World War he barely survived, like some of his patched-up characters, and another WW just ahead, provides the one of this clearly enough that tragirony extends to and through order of race, species etc.. not to say it nec. absolves him from all other judgments/readings)(but that was my take on it when reading several years ago)

*Savior*, sorry.

Provides the "tone* of this clearly enough

The Blind Owl is really something out of time, as is Journey by Moonlight. We should leave the Tolkien to ILE lol.