Okay, I admit I was caught by the headline to this article:
‘Masterpiece’ period drama based on ‘best book ever written’ is free to stream on Netflix
Ignoring for a moment the inherent inability of Netflix to make a “masterpiece” anything, I was nevertheless curious to see what constituted the “best book ever written”.
Alas, no. While One Hundred Years of Solitude isn’t a bad book, it’s nowhere close to being the best book ever written — hell, even in the “magical reality” genre (to which it belongs) John Fowles’s The Magus has it beaten all ends up — but while One Hundred may entertain, it’s not going to change your world in the same way, perhaps, that Les Misérables might.
Feel free to discuss in Comments, or to nominate your own submission for the greatest. (Oh gawd, here come the Heinlein / Pratchett groupies…)
Regardless of how you feel about OHYOS (I devoured it in my late teens), the Netflix treatment is spectacular. Even if you only watch it for the costumes and the feel of the period, and never mind the magic, you should really check it out.
I watched the English-dubbed version, and the dubbing was so well done I didn’t even catch on until the third episode or so. My Spanish is so rusty that I can no longer call myself fluent to any degree, but I’m going to watch it again – in Spanish with English subtitles. And I’m keen for the second part.
It takes a bit to get going, but the battle scenes in the later episodes are really quite stunning.
(If you really want a flavor for this genre, though, Neruda – yeah, he was a commie, as was Marquéz – and Borges are must-reads. Per the latter: Funes the Memorious and The Library of Babel stand out. The man wrote like Escher drew.)
Does the Netflix version contain the proper amount of diversity? I haven’t read the book but may watch the show, but am concerned about the proper representation of marginalized groups.
You understand what kind of service it is to mankind to make Anna Karenina a black lesbian.
“Oh gawd, here come the Heinlein / Pratchett groupies…”
Pale fish in an ocean of time, they turn, shimmer, turn again, and are gone forever.
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There are tens of thousands of outstanding books out there, possibly millions, but the odd one or two stand out.
I nominate Jack London’s “Call of the Wild” and George Orwell’s “1984” as two of the greats that spring to mind.
YMMV.
Worse than the “Heinlein / Pratchett groupies” are the Niven/Pournelle fans. Yup, I’m one of them.
I’ll go ahead and nominate “The Mote in God’s Eye” as one of the best books of all time, not to mention probably the best-ever SF novel written. It starts with a bang, dropping you into the aftermath of a battle, and then wends its way forward to a First Contact. The aliens are truly alien, not just differently-shaped creatures with human motivations. While some of the characters are rote and sketchy, the character that steals the show is Sailing Master Renner. The whole thing is set in a “future history” first created by Pournelle starting back in the 1960’s, and moves through 1st and 2nd human empires. But despite this complex setting the book is entirely self-contained.
My second choice would be “The Mysterious Island” by Verne. Infinitely superior to “20,000 Leagues…”, it is an homage to the pioneer spirit of Americans, even if expressed by a Frenchman. The depictions of the characters are great and the plot moves forward briskly towards its catastrophic conclusion. I’ve read that book a zillion times since my mom first bought me a paperback copy of it when I was 5 or 6 years old. She later found an original Scribner & Sons hardcover with the color plates and line drawings by N.C. Wyeth that she found at a yard sale for a dollar. It was the only book of actual value that I lost in a fire that took almost everything I owned, and I STILL feel regret to posterity for having owned it and letting it be destroyed.
You didn’t like “Off on a Comet? I recall having part of the Classics Illustrated comics for “Off on a Comet” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” when I was five or six years old.
As I have said elsewhere in the past, I knew who Huckleberry Finn was before I knew who Huckleberry Hound was, which definitely explains a lot about me today.
I always thought Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair” was one of the best books of the Victorian Era ever. Better than anything Dickens wrote (with the exception of A Tale Of Two Cities”). I haven’t yet read Barry Lyndon, but some of Thackeray’s other work was simply dreadful, whilst most of Dickens novels were consistently B+ material.
I tore through anything & everything I could get from H. Rider Haggard, and came away from everyone of them happier for the experience.
Have not read any you mentioned, but most of the sci-fi type authors (Heinlein, Bradbury, Asimov) left me cold.
“Portrait of a Lady” by Henry James, left me feeling like I had just spent several hours of my life, I could never get back.
My favorite book in my childhood was “Penrod, His Complete Story” by Booth Tarkington. Just asking for it at the library will get you cancelled, nowadays. It has disappeared along with “Little Black Sambo”.
Norman Maclean wrote two books I enjoyed as a adult. “Young Men and Fire” was a forensic examination of the Mann Creek Fire in 1949. I’ve read it twice and understood it differently each time.
“A River Runs Through It and Other Stories” is autobiographical and speaks of family, great love, and loss. I could read it again many times and watch the movie every chance I get.
Pournelle’s “King David’s Spaceship” would, in the right hands, make a very excellent standalone film.
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, as well as the related Baroque Cycle are probably my favorite books. I don’t know if they’re the best ever written, but I really like them.
And speaking of Heinlein groupies (Pratchett? I don’t know who that is).
The best science fiction book of all time is Joe Haldeman’s “The Forever War.” I will die on this hill.