Markovich wrote on 01/19/12 at 01:11:05:

It just didnt appeal to me, mainly due to the writing style (the sentences never end) and the constant references.
Still if people still enjoy the book some 150 years later it can't be all that bad

I still need to read Slaughterhouse five and Stranger in a strangeland. Perhaps after I read those 4 works I would feel more inclined to comment on what might be the "greatest."

But in some ways, I think it is the timing at which these books are read that can determine alot. I read the Great Gatsby in 11th grade. I was the only person in my grade that actually enjoyed reading the work. I would be hard pressed to include in the top 100 best novels let alone the "greatest" but it was enjoyable read then.

Markovich wrote on 01/17/12 at 23:51:53:

I wont give my opinion on Moby Dick for the same reason

Having read only a (German) translation of Frankenstein I had the same impression of a well written novel. I've heard of cases with a better translation than the original. Maybe this is an example?

'Heaven is for Real' by Todd Burpo

I'm taking a course at Ohio State whose subject is exclusively Moby Dick. It's taught by Elizabeth Renker, a noted Melville scholar.  For the course, I'm about halfway through my second reading of the book since October. I read it whike on vacation in Hawaii (since Melville during his voyages had come to Lahaina, our local town), and quickly realized that I would have to read it again. Then this course most serendipitously came up.

What a deep, deep book Moby Dick is. I don't know what compares to it. It's so full of incident, ambiguity and mystery. If I had to say what its subject was, I would say that it was the nature of reality. Melville was too good a writer, or perhaps too full of uncertainty himself, to close any of the questions he raises. And so one is left with a work of Biblical scope and indirectness, open to manifold interpetations.

Frankenstein. For me the themes are so important and it is so well written. It also doesn't take a long time to read like some classics... it's about time now for me to re-read it.    
   
My favourite modern novel is probably True Evil. The themes, the pace, language and it presses all my right buttons. I'm not a big novel reader though. For example I have Crime and Punishment, but have never got more than a few pages. Make of that what you will.  
 

I'm going to chime in with Crime and Punishment, one of the few novels I've read multiple times.  I've read it as a Christian and as an atheist and found it incredibly profound and moving from both points of view.  In my opinion, Dostoevsky understands and describes human behavior and motives better than any other writer.  Not only that, but the novel is incredibly suspenseful and exciting, it's actually quite a page-turner!

If you could count them as novels, I'd nominate The Iliad and The Aeneid, and possibly The Odyssey.  Didn't Milton say that The Aeneid was "the greatest poem by the greatest poet?"  Someone did...

Also, regarding The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien himself didn't consider it a novel, so I think it should be read from the perspective that Tolkien had in mind.  Tolkien wrote a lot about his own works, and his basic idea was to provide a new mythology for a post-WWI society.  LOTR should be viewed in conjunction with his other works, like The Silmarillion, etc.  Personally, I think he did an incredible job of creating an entirely new mythology on his own!  Every other culture had hundreds of people over hundreds of years adding their creative energy to the pot, but Tolkien pretty much did it single-handedly.  It's unfortunate that as a novel, the LOTR doesn't exactly stand up, but his creative achievement can't be denied.

This thread reminds me that I was planning on reading Anna Karenina once I finish The Aeneid.  But I have a hard time imaging any book that could outdo Crime and Punishment.