I love The Prophet. It's one of the books I like to open up in rough times. I've only read Go Tell It On the Mountain by Baldwin. I don't remember anything about it. I just remember thinking it was weird, lol.
Right now I'm reading Les Misérables by Victor Hugo before the new film version comes out. It's the longest novel I've read at over 1,460 pages, but it's a very fast 1,460 pages. The last time I'd read it was in high school and it made a huge impact on me. Retreading it now though I realize a lot of it went over my head. Hugo's writing is dense, didactic, and devastating (alliteration!). It's a very modern novel for being exactly a century and a half old. Most of the didactic sections are still topical today. I was reading the chapters on Fantine on the Metro a few weeks ago. In many ways, she's the typical "abandoned woman" archetype that was so popular in the 19th century. But Hugo turns her into something completely different by the end. It's full of lines that hit you like a freight train out of nowhere. This was one of my favorite novels ten years ago. Reading it again has only made me appreciate it much more. If you want something dense that will stick with you, give it a shot. (Be sure to get the Signet Classics edition translated by McAfee and Fahnesrock. The newer translation by Julie Rose for Modern Library just doesn't have the same impact.)
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Originally Posted by Animal
