I join in the opinion that The Lord of the Rings isn't a novel; for one thing there is no character development. But this work does seem to have a strong hold on many people's imaginations.

Yet I don't understand why. I started reading it snd became increasingly bored on the one hand, and on the other irritated by the continual modifications Tolkien kept making to the magical rules supposedly governing his imaginary world. The precise point at which I put it down, never to pick it up again, was where the pilgrims visit Giladriel (spelling?) and benefit from her heretofore untold powers. Frankly I was disgusted.

More critically, the evil that it conjures is a cartoon of evil; unlike in great works that consider evil, the evil here has no complexity and no association with ourselves. It is utterly unsympathetic. It's a stand-in for something that Tolkien believes to be evil; well big deal.

I do think that The Hobbit is a novel, and a pretty good one, though one not deserving of mention here. Bilbo's character develops during the story, for one thing.

As far as fantasies go, I think that Dune rates very highly, more than anything Tolkien ever wrote, in my opinion.
I'd call it a novel, as well.

I was thinking of Crime and Punishment. Ulysses is usually mentioned pretty early on in these discussions too. 

But I'm going to have to think about it some more.

GMTonyKosten wrote on 11/07/11 at 15:34:31:


What translation did you read (or did you read it in Russian?  It's a sufficient reason to learn...).  Anyone other than Mirra Ginsburg does a horrible job.  If Michael Glenny, I can see why you hate it.  Ginsburg may not have been working from the canonical text, but she translates it as sheer poetry.

Willempie wrote on 11/07/11 at 22:11:24:

Now that one was a disappointer, just like the Fouceauld thing.

I hesitated between Karakter and Bint.

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meneer_Visser's_hellevaart

I am totally in love with the monologue interieur on the toilet scene.

Number 2:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Avonden

Number 3:

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakter_(boek)

The Master and Margarita.

Nominate here the greatest novel ever written. 

I say, Moby Dick.