Famous for the wrong book

inspired by this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/19/famous-wrong-book-vonnegut-waugh-ishiguro?commentpage=13#start-of-comments

1.Nostormo>>Heart Of Darkness (Conrad)

Couldn't think of a better recommendation for The Unconsoled than Tony Parsons wanting to consign it to the flames.

My suggestion perhaps doesn't count, as a) he's not actually very famous outside some circles, and b) he used to be famous for the right book, but I nominate B.S. Johnson. Nowadays, if you ever mention him, the ONLY book people will have heard of or read is Christie Malry's Own Double Entry. Which, you know, is fine. It's witty, acerbic, shows off some of his metafictional strengths. But it's ultimately inconsequential. His true masterpiece always has and always will be The Unfortunates. It's both emotionally compelling and formally radical.

(And I'm definitely with the author of the article on Slaughterhouse Five not being Vonnegut's best work... I'm just not sure I could pick my own favourite.)

Oh, and duh, Pale Fire is way way way better than Lolita.

A scan of my bookshelf suggests popular consensus is largely otm. In my estimation "Local Anaesthetic" > "The Tin Drum" and "The Old Devils" > "Lucky Jim".

Mishima is frustrating b/c people know "Confessions of a mask", "The temple of the Golden Pavilion" and "The Sea of Fertility" but for me it's all about the lightest of the light ("Sound of waves", "After the banquet") and the darkest of the dark ("Forbidden Colours").

A lot of people got turned on to/off of Houellebecq b/c of their opinions on "Particles" or "Platform" but "The possibility of an island" is probably one of my favourite SF novels ever full-stop.

I couldn't say "Shakespeare's comedies" > "Shakespeare's tragedies" but I'd go see "Twelfth Night" or "As you like it" before "Hamlet" or "Othello" any day of the week.

+1 on "Pale fire" being awesome and dominated by "Lolita"'s notoriety but I couldn't say which book is better.

the Calvino = If, on a Winter's Night... equation has always bothered me. It's not nearly his best IMO. Luckily Invisible Cities is prob the 2nd most feted, which is much more apt.

Always thought Invisible Cities was his most famous work.

Is Vonnegut's best maybe Cat's Cradle? My favourite, anyway.

The Book of Mormon was a big hit for Joseph Smith but I really rate his picture book, Night Night, Lamanites.

Feel like Dan Clowes may be best known for many books, most likely Ghost World, and I really wish more people knew & loved David Boring.

comic books arent books

solid burn, well-argued

noted author of hipster puppies upholds literary values

really hoping nostormo's display name isn't based on a misreading of Nostromo

i mean, there was a sf film about it and everything

altho i guess there was that Vietnam flick about Heart of Drakness

Don't forget The Ginger of the Narcissus.

The Secret Gent is pretty good

Quite keen on Thy Poon myself

meta: I admired the original post when it showed up on the guardian - like there's this quite narrow, dismal round of comment-magnet gambits in posts about books (Best opening/final lines, 'great american novel, best/worst covers, overrated classics etc) and this figured out a new one that took off.

Not sure I have much to add on the topic, just because I struggle a bit to come up with most-famous-for-one-book authors (fr'instance in my head Cornad is famous for Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent and Nostromo, not just HoD), and when I do, even if I prefer a diff book, it's not like i feel like the consensus is wrong.

xp

Nuder Western Eyes for me

yeah, i've always thought Nostromo was Conrad's magnum ope which probly dates back to uni literature course plus of course it's his baggiest idea-est novel which is my fave kind of novel, don't think you can argue with Drakness in a Leavisite sense and Leavis's shadow hangs looooong over mainstream canon-making

and Secret Agent had Hitch going for it which, y'know, god bless Poocalypse Meow but Hitch>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Coppola

i guess i can see Drakness the most likely to be done in school, which is close to defining 'famous for one book' - Golding, Salinger, Orwell (2 books in his case).

Didn't Leavis himself prefer Nostormo to HoD? Too many woolly adjectives iirc.

Leavis might well've gone with Nostormo but he was such a contrary cuss, it's clearly less...defined...than his rulebook ought to allow. but then thinking about this now the fucker worshiped Lawrence and ruled out Dickens for what appear to be mutually conflicting reasons

i mean i grudgingly love Leavis for his Cambridge class warrior kill dem belle lettrists thing but he is the murderer of secondary school literature teaching in the post-war era

I don't have much love for him myself - I disagree with him a lot (said before on here that I think he's a weak critic of poetry), and there's that moral streak I find a bit sus - kind of seriousness that is great for *getting things done*, but I find really unsympathetic. Prefer Richards (and Empson, but he's something different) from that era; and yes, otm about school teaching of English - I'd be interested to properly trace the spread of the cult of leavis through university departments and into secondary schools.

Leavis used HOD to illustrate everything he DIDN'T like about Conrad so it's pretty safe to say it wouldn't have been the canonical Conrad novel(ette) for him.

Damn novel(ette) = novel(la)

any dude who fucks with Dickens gets a throat-punch from me

carson mccullers is (rightly) known for 'heart is a lonely hunter' but i wish 'member of the wedding' got more love.

i tend to prefer tennessee williams' weird lesser-known plays ('suddenly last summer,' 'small craft warnings') to the famous ones, except for 'streetcar' of course.

Camus is best known for The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus, but his later books are better than those.

Lydia Davis. Everyone raves about her short stories but her one novel, The End of The Story, is her best work IMO.

carson mccullers is (rightly) known for 'heart is a lonely hunter' but i wish 'member of the wedding' got more love.

Ooo, good one. Member is a beautiful, beautiful book.

i think vonnegut should be known for cat's cradle.

pale fire is v.n.'s masterpiece, but i've always wished pnin were better loved. pnin is also the first book i recommend to someone who has never read nabokov.

isherwood is best known i think for the world in the evening. i'm so blinded by my affection for prater violet i can't tell whether it's really a better book or if i just have a goofy crush on it, but p.v. is certainly the book i think of when i think of isherwood.

carson mccullers is (rightly) known for 'heart is a lonely hunter' but i wish 'member of the wedding' got more love.

Ooo, good one. Member is a beautiful, beautiful book.

― computers are the new "cool tool" (James Morrison), Monday, July 16, 2012 8:41 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Member of the Wedding is the best McCullers novel imo. But The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is legitimately great too; everybody should read both!

Also, Sometimes a Great Notion >>> One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

I suspect I'm the only person on the planet who loves Kesey's 'Sailor Song'

Whenever I mention Georges Perec to (most) people, the only flicker of recognition I get is when I say "he's the fellow who write a book without the lesser E".

"Life A User's Manual" >>>>>>>>>>>>"A Void", obv. (Actually all his other novels >> "AV" also but LAUM particularly so.)

I would say Life A Users Manual is his most celebrated book

xxp I've had Sailor Song on my shelf for a few years now but haven't given it a chance yet. The inner flap wasn't very promising, though I should know better by now than to put too much stock in that.

xp
agreed. Also, tho it doesn't affect decline & fall's suggestion, I'd say Isherwood's most famous are A Single Man and the Berlin books.

Ha, Tim, I think the exact opposite. Not only am I with Number None in believing that L:AUM is more acclaimed, but I think that it is wrong. A Void is a beautiful piece of work.

Heh. I think among literary types LAUM gets more acclaim; the no e book gets way more recognition among others I talk to. I like "A Void" well enough; LAUM is pretty much my favourite book ever, though, so my judgement may be right off.

(I should say that I think was wrong that all his other novels >> AV, actually, I think AV is probably of a similar quality to "A Man Asleep", for me.)