This is late but I love that fact that you love authors and still have critiques of their work. Many people fear saying bad things about their favorite authors but I respect the fact that you realize it’s a craft and every writer still has the ability to learn and get better. Even the greatest.

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

Really appreciate it.

This was so entertaining and went so fast. I wish you had seven favourites to include Madame Bovary. Thanks as usual.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

From France, it is always a toss up between Proust and Falubert. I will do a video in the future to talk about 6 more authors whose work I love.

Hi Fiction Beast. I found your channel after deciding to read The Brother's Karamazov. I chose that book after spending 5 years reading (almost) exclusively non-fiction, and wanted to become more well read in literature and fiction. Now I'm just about done with my third Dostoyevsky book (The Idiot, and also read Crime and Punishment). Thanks for helping me get the most out of my reading and for giving me new ideas about which authors to branch out to next.

I wish the very best for you, for you are illuminating us with introducing different authors and sparking a thirst for knowledge in our rusty mind.❤

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

Thank you!

how genuinely well crafted ur videos are. your hard work and honest opinion is reveaved everytime.. i applaud it sir..

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

So nice of you

Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-up bird chronicle are also my fav Murakami novels. Recently I finished Tanizaki Junichiro's "A Cat, A man and Two Women" and his other short stories...I can definitely say I became a bigger fan of his writing.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

I read one of Tanizaki's novels, Some prefer Nettles i believe was the title. I also read parts of Makioka Sisters. He was a great writer and well-repected in Japan.

I am so late to this video, but I couldn't help wanting to add my own. My 6 (in no order): Herman Hesse, Roberto Bolano, Isaac Babel, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cormac McCarthy and Tove Ditlevsen! Amazing channel, by the way! :)

@nl3064

4 күн бұрын

Love Cormac as well, and great call on Bolano (Savage Detectives, great book) - as for Hesse, I have read four of his books - all of them four of them some of the most boring books I have ever read. Siddhartha was the most tolerable, but I hate Hesse so much.

You really have a good taste in literature :) Though my favourites authors (6 if I were asked) are Rabindranath Tagore ( and I'm really partial to him), Leo Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Cervantes, Krishna Dwaipayan Vyasa (he did composed the greatest epic but not wrote it himself) and Shakespeare.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

I really enjoy Tagore's work recently. I'm getting into Tolstoy more and more. I will have to check out these names.

Your channel is amazing! My favorites authors are: José Saramago, Natsume Soseki, Jorge Luis Borges, William Shakespeare, Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Awesome, thank you! I should read something by Alejo Carpentier. Any suggestions?

@Salad507

2 жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast you should start with "The Kingdom of this world." Even though it is a short novel, it has so many events and conflicts going on that it could've easily filled an entire Russian epic with them. But it's all perfectly condensed in just a few pages, and packed with heavy doses of magical realism.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Awesome will check it out.

Wow. Just discovered you on Drew Binsky. You're my cup of tea, seeking out World Literature. My "To Read" lists are in volumes.. (Actually, my first words were "Mommy to read?") I read HUNGER a few years ago! My fave authors: Anita Brookner, Alice Munro, Ruth Rendell (read TIGER LILY'S ORCHIDS eight times), Aravind Adiga, Rohinton Mistry, IB Singer, Philip Roth. Just finished Perumal Murugan's ONE PART WOMAN, am now into PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION (D.M. Thomas).

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks so much for joining the journey. Also thanks for sharing your favourites. I read the White Tiger by Adiga and loved it.

I am now 72 years old. Some of my favorites have changed over the years. At 17, I loved The sun also rises. I reread it recently and laughed at the author’s posturing. Over the years, Proust, Virginia Woolf, Marquez, Calvino, Isherwood, Marguerite Yourencar, have held their own. I love the Leopard by Lampedusa, many, many Mark Twain Titles and I won’t start on the playwrights.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

I agree some authors are too deep and they remain. For me it’s Proust and to some extent Dostoevsky and Calvino. I love huckleberry Finn. Perhaps the best American novel.

@robinbergfeld5140

2 жыл бұрын

Yourcenar is a titan.

I discovered you very late. Well it’s not so late I suppose. I’m on a spiritual quest after midage crisis. It seems I can walk quite a distance holding your hand. Thank you for brightening up my life and giving me a reason to live.. to read and know, to understand and explore.

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

I really appreciate your comment. I’m so happy that it was helpful. It really mean a lot.

I' m very late at this video , but appreciated it so much. Dostoevskij has been my favourite writer all my life long, and thanks to Dostoevskij novels' reviews I stumbled on "Fiction Beast" online: for me a true discovery I'm so grateful for! May be I missed it, but have you ever read Michajl Bulgakov " Master and Margaret "?When I was 16 years old by chance I found it in my little town's library, read it and was completely overwhelmed by its beauty , humour, dreaming realism( if such an oxymoron is possible) and complexity in structure.It' only a hint..in any case,thank you for your precious work.

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for sharing your reading experience. Yes, I mentioned M and M in my top ten Russian novels.

1:56 this is such a difficulty for me - I am getting better with it, having also read many Russian novels- but man oh man the name’s and repeated names.

Great choices. I am into all of these authors except for Ishiguro. I was wondering, what do you think of Joseph Roth and Cormac McCarthy? Thanks

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

I read the road a while back, which I included in my 20 American novels. I have not read Roth.

ty for posting

Very good selection. My favorite writers are Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf (for the latter, esp. Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, The Waves...).

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Mrs Dalloway is great.

Interesting list. I agree about Dostoyevsky and Proust and maybe Ishiguro. Carver is certainly a master of the short story, I don’t know about a novel by him though. Sometimes the two gifts don’t occur together. I would add Conrad, Henry James, and maybe Thomas Mann to my list. Most notable however, you have explained to me why I dislike Murakami so much, especially Kafka on the Shore! Lol! So thank you for clarifying it for me. I enjoy your vide

@cliffordbaker4930

Жыл бұрын

videos a great deal.

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

Awesome!

We share a love of Bukowski and Mirakami! And to a lesser extent Dostoyevsky. My favorite novel ever written is “For whom the bell tolls.” And I think “the old man and the sea” is a perfect novella. I have never seen a video from you about Hemingway. Are you not a fan? Or have just not had the opportunity to read his work?

It looks our tastes & understanding of literature is quite similar. I haven’t read the Japanese authors - but will take a look at them. I recommend having a dive into the modern Russian novel - this is where I’m beached at the moment. I’d probably add Austen & Hardy in here as well - simply for the re-readability factor. I like to think of Hank as an everyman’s Proust. He’s kinda doing exactly the same thing as MP if you think about it - only he’s taking out of the subtleties & sticking to the base appetites as you point out.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

That's awesome. I love Japanese authors for writing short novels (except Murakami). I loved Thomas Hardy's Tess. Who is Hank?

@stevescott1454

2 жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast charles bukowski’s alter ego

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

@@stevescott1454 Now everyman's proust makes sense. I think your assessment is spot on. Hank is the super masculine version of Marcel, less refined but still reveals the truth about human existence.

@stevescott1454

2 жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast totes agree. I think Jack Kerouac tried to pull it off as well - but his attempt is not as cohesive as Charlie B.

I know you're always looking for comments but I think it's interesting that Raymond Chandler led me to to Dostoyevsky and Henry Miller led me to Proust. I'm old so I read Bukowski when those novels were fresh and maybe I will pick them up again because their endlessly entertaining. I love Murakami , but my all time favorite writer is Salman Rushdie who always makes me laugh out loud, but has amazing depth.

1. Tolstoy 2. Trollope 3. Edith Wharton 4. Shakespeare 5. Mann 6. Bill Bryson

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Wow, those are giants

Would you say that Proust is similar to Ishiguro? From the tiny snippets that I read from Proust I find that he is like Ishiguro but just more detailed

For me personally, I read both contemporary novels and the classical ones 1:Lu Xun's novels. Lu is one of my most favorite writer and the one who influences my own style of writing the most. 2:《Three body problem》trilogy, my most loved Sci-fi 3:《Cold bonded wonderland and the end of the world》,《Kafka on the shore》by Murakami 4:《Let miserable》by Victor Hugo 5: by Orwell 6:Many of Kafka's work. 7:by Marquez 8: by Virginia Woolf

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

I have spoken about Lu Xun here. for me 1984 is deep and has a great premise, but lacks in storytelling.

Balzac, Wharton, and Cather never disappoint.

My favorite writers are James Joyce(Dublines) , Flaubert(Madame Bovary), Conrad, Henry James and Faulkner(Absalom, Absalom!). They created novels as art: stylistics, points of view, ambiguous usage(doublets), free indirect speech,(which could be success because of the Indo-European language's features), Helenic and Hebraic mythological allusions.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

I love Flaubert's Bovary and Sentimental Education. I will cover those in a future video. I'm intrigued by the connection you make between a particular language and style. Literature is a fluid world where ideas and inspirations flow between cultures. I like your analysis.

@harryjones84

Жыл бұрын

where would you recommend going with James if you've only read Turn of the Screw and want to try his more usual themes?

My favorite Carver story is "Errand".

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

It is a great short story.

You sir have not only style. But also substance.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Appreciate it.

"In this novel you can smell your memory." (About Proust.) Wow, great line.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Cheers. That's Proust for you. everything smells in france. cheese, wine and chanel

In blind willow, sleeping woman Haruki Murakami mentioned in his introduction about Raymond Carver, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Anton Chekhov. .for Haruki Murakami these guys are the best in terms of short story. .

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Murakami was influenced by those authors.

@jaydorota3625

2 жыл бұрын

No, but he loves them.

@rubyparchment5523

2 жыл бұрын

Jay, don't you thrill when beloved authors intersect? Or lead us to new delights? Recently for me, Philip Roth> Nicole Krauss' THE HISTORY OF LOVE. About a Holocaust survivor who's a Locksmith. I had my Locksmith over, he said he wished he could find a good book, I said, "Have I got the book for you, and you can have it!"

@jaydorota3625

2 жыл бұрын

@@rubyparchment5523 I agree. .

Great to know we have a very similar taste.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

That's awesome.

Favorite: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Charles Dickens, Carl Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jordan Peterson, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, John Milton, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Dante Alighieri.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Very diverse, you got literature and psychology covered.

@harryjones84

Жыл бұрын

judging by your favourites and if you don't mind a pretty misanthropic lense, if you haven'tread already, you would like JOURNEY to the end of the night by celine

Is there a reason why there is a picture of my country in the thumbnail but only authors from other places? Proust is one of my favorites, too.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Are you from Chile? Easter Island? That's cool.These authors are like my maois or my literary heroes or ancestors. Yes, Proust!!

@ginomorales8989

2 жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast I'm from Concepción, a city from Chile. Very good explanation, thank you.

1. Borges. His creativity is just nuts and he pioneered the entire metafiction way of writing. And then for the rest in no particular orders, but so far they are: Can Xue, Calvino, Kafka. Can Xue is probably not comparable to Calvino or Kafka, but I do think that she is better than say other Chinese writers like Lu Xun or Mo Yan, or typically acclaimed writers like Camus or Nabokov. To understand her one really need to read some of the lit crit she wrote, or at least a bit of her interviews, where she talks extensively about her views on literature. She basically analyze topics like what does it mean to create art, what does it mean to love, and how these all comes down to the battling between the fictitious and the unreal, the flesh and the spirit, all narrated in a "new language". By "new language" I mean she deconstructs the links between words and the meanings they signify, and associate new meanings to them. This makes reading her work extremely difficult, but at the same time, it creates this strange effect, that us the readers are actively deciphering the meanings behind every word, and paying a lot of attentions to the actions of the characters and analyze extensively what their actions could mean. And this thrilling guessing game itself basically mirrors the constant struggles of the battling between the fictitious and the real that is the constant theme of her writings - a sort of implicit metafiction kind of deal. Just read a few pages of her and one will realize how radically different she is from basically any other writer ever lived. And how she had been writing in this style since the 80s is just insane.

My favorite so far are: on the top of the list :Dostoïvesky (especially the brothers caramazov and crime and punishment). Edgar Allan poe; his short stories, especially the tell tale heart. Wuthering heights by Emily brönte ( even if the story was so sad and there is no specific hero or heroine and the characters were all not good "somehow" but I loved it so much because it taught you that every person can turn to be bad, even the good ones can be very evil, if the circumstances push them that way).I almost summarized the book 😅. This is what happens to you, if you watch fiction beast channel 😁. You become too analytical.

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

I love Wuthering Heights

@hayatkaidi7889

Жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast I hope one day you would analyse it for us ❤️

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

I’ll think about it. 😊

@hayatkaidi7889

Жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast thank you 🙂

My favorites are Oscar Wilde, Murakami, bukowski, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

I loved Wilde's Dorian Grey and Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude. Let me know if I should read more of their works.

My favorite writers are Haruki Murakami, Kazuo Ishiguro, J.R.R. Tolkien, Anne Rice, Neil Gaiman, And my list are endless. . I'm not much of a classic, but of contemporary novels. .

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

I am the opposite, I am more a classics reader

@jaydorota3625

2 жыл бұрын

But, let's face it, to.make a harmonious take of literature we must balance the classics and the contemporaries, in terms of reading the authors' books. . .

@rubyparchment5523

2 жыл бұрын

Contempo for me, too! Philip Roth is at his most sublime when recalling/revisiting his beloved (yet altered) Newark. He describes pulling up to his early childhood home in a limo. The current owner emerges with a German Shepherd, asks "Who you supposed to be?" That's our world today -- Who you supposed to be?

My favourite authors fydor Dodstovsk y, George Orwell, Leo Tolstoy, Hemingway, Shakespeare, chekhov

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

A very wide-ranging authors. Thanks for sharing.

@rubyparchment5523

2 жыл бұрын

KZread has a 7-hour audio of Orwell's ON WIGAN PIER. Not sure who narrates, but is sublime.

Raymond Carver - great choice.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you! I wish he had a novel and now he would've been much more well-known.

Karel Capek, Tom Robbins, Jozef Hasek and i'd be remiss to leave out Kafka's 'on the tram'

Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner, Orwell, Hemingway, ishiguro.

Something tells me you haven't read "A Confederacy of Dunces" yet. I wonder if there's a video on authors who really only wrote one book? Do you like Murakami's short stories? If you do have you read any of Victor Pelevin's short stories? Some of them are amazing, but his novels are nowhere near as good.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

You’re right. I have neither read the novel you mentioned nor Murakami’s short stories. I tend to go for novels so very rarely read short stories. The same goes for snacks. I always like a hearty pizza

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Authors who only wrote one book is an excellent video idea. You always inspire me Andrew! On top of my head I know Salinger, Lermontov, Proust, Kafka finished only one novel but he wrote several unfinished ones. Anyone else?

@andrewdunbar828

2 жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast Well it was John Kennedy Toole that made me think of it of course. Technically he did actually write another book, but I suppose that will be the case with several on such a list. He would also belong on a list of authors who died by suicide and a list of authors who only became successful after their death.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

@@andrewdunbar828 Yes, i think all of them wrote other books in the form of poetry or short stories or non-fiction, but known for their only novel.

Don't you just love those Penguin books? They are my favorite.

Dostoevsky and Crime and Punishment are my No 1 too!

The remains of the days is not very interesting, however Never Let Me Go is amazing. Murakami is just pure magic like a dream that you aren't sure you had.

Fyodor Dostoevsky. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. John Steinbeck. Kazuo Ishiguro. Ernest Hemingway. Leo Tolstoy.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

There are many Tolstoy fans, i should cover him more on this channel. Appreciate you sharing.

@furqan188

2 жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast Yes and also please more Hemingway and Steinbeck. I have recently discovered your channel and i absolutely love your content!

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Appreciate it.

@harryjones84

Жыл бұрын

what's your 3 favourite steinbeck's?

Melville-Dostoevsky-Beckett-Fante-Miller-Bolaño-Conrad-Kafka...

Murakami is simply meditative reading

I also now and then read Haruki. He's not exactly my favorite, but he's alright to pass the time. Dislike Bukowski, though. He's a total mediocrity. Anyhow, my favorite writers are J.G. Ballard, H.P. Lovecraft, Vladimir Nabokov, Cormac McCarthy, Hunter Thompson, Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, Bret Easton Ellis. Maybe Richard Brautigan. And a light mention to Chuck Palahniuk, Donna Tartt, Elmore Leonard, and Flannery O'Connor. And Salinger. Yukio Mishima is another one - I don't love Mishima per say, but I do read him a lot.

Every one like fydor Dostoevsky

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

I’m not surprised. How about you?

If you read, you write. That's organic. . .

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Agree!

I expected your list to be more classical. I've read Murakami's 1Q84. Consumer fiction, definitely not great. My list (for admiring at least 2 novels by a single author): Vladimir Nabokov Tolstoy Dostoevsky James Joyce Henry James Joseph Conrad William Faulkner John Steinbeck John Fowles Milan Kundera Thomas Pynchon Mario Vargas Llosa Gabriel Garcia Marquez Likely additions based on admiring one novel: Willa Cather Edith Wharton Thomas Hardy H. D. Lawrence E. M. Forster Herman Melville Ford Madox Ford Gunter Grass Thomas Mann Ivan Turgenev Cormac McCarthy David Foster Wallace Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar Carlos Fuentes Cervantes Flaubert Zola Hugo Balzac Dumas Stendhal (Proust, TBR)

@harryjones84

Жыл бұрын

judging by your favourites and if you don't mind a pretty misanthropic lense, if you haven'tread already, you would like JOURNEY to the end of the night by celine

@graybow2255

Жыл бұрын

@@harryjones84 I want to read it someday.

@harryjones84

Жыл бұрын

@@graybow2255 it's great...i think especially so if you prepare yourself for the dark humour before reading- i knew nothing about it so was bit of headspn art first

let me guess you south african?

bro i do love your contents. Do you use instagram or Facebook ? i wanna follow it.

@ivatorres4515

Жыл бұрын

In my opinion, every review about choices in every form of art should begin the way you did.