Completists' Club discussion

Another list from Moore, this one taken from his The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600; indicating the tradition of Rabelais. So I reproduced the list on my Rabelais review, which is asking for more Likes from your good selves: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

And I reproduce it again below for your pleasure. My completionist intent on this one is to read all the books explicitly listed or at least one novel from authors for which no specific book is rec'd. Give me a few moments to collect my current score.

“With the motto ‘Do What You Will,’ Rabelais gave himself permission to do anything he damn well pleased with the language and the form of the novel; as a result, every author of an innovative novel mixing literary forms and genres in an extravagant style is indebted to Rabelais, directly or indirectly. Out of his codpiece came
Aneau’s Alector
Nashe’s Unfortunate Traveller
López de Úbeda’s Justina
Cervantes’ Don Quixote
Béroalde de Verville’s Fantastic Tales
Sorel’s Francion
Burton’s Anatomy
Swift’s Tale of a Tub and Gulliver’s Travels
Fielding’s Tom Jones
Amory’s John Buncle
Sterne’s Tristram Shandy
the novels of Diderot
and maybe Voltaire (a late convert)
Smollet’s Adventures of an Atom
Hoffmann’s Tomcat Murr
Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Southey’s Doctor
Melville’s Moby-Dick
Flaubert’s Temptation of Saint Anthony and Bouvard and Becuchet
Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Frederick Rolfe’s ornate novels
Bely’s Petersburg
Joyce’s Ulysses
Witkiewicz’s Insatiability
Barnes’ Ryder and Ladies Almanack
Gombrowicz’s Polish jokes
Flann O’Brien’s Irish farces
Philip Wylie’s Finnley Wren
Patchen’s tender novels
Burroughs’s and Kerouac’s mad ones
Nabokov’s later works
Schmidt’s fiction
the novels of Durrell
Burgess (especially A Clockwork Orange and Earthly Powers)
Gaddis and
Pynchon
Barth
Coover
Sorrentino
Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo
Brossard’s later works
the masterpieces of Latin American magic realism ( Paradiso, The Autumn of the Patriarch, Three Trapped Tigers, I the Supreme, Avalovara, Terra Nostra, Palinuro of Mexico)
the fabulous creations of those gay Cubans Severo Sarduy and Reinaldo Arenas
Markson’s Springer’s Progress
Mano’s Take Five
Ríos’s Larva and otros libros
the novels of Paul West
Tom Robbins
Stanley Elkin
Alexander Theroux
W M. Spackman
Alasdair Gray
Gaétan Soucy and
Rikki Ducornet (‘Lady Rabelais,’ as one critic called her)
Mark Leyner’s hyperbolic novels
the writings of Magister Gass
Greer Gilman’s folkloric fictions and
Roger Boylan’s Celtic comedies
Vollmann’s voluminous volumes
Wallace’s brainy fictions
Siegel’s Love in a Dead Language
Danielewski’s novels
Jackson’s Half Life
Field’s Ululu
De La Pava’s Naked Singularity and
James McCourt’s ongoing Mawrdew Czgowchwz saga.”
--from Steven Moore, The Novel: An Alternate History volume 1: Beginnings to 1600, p330-331.


Any takers?

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Any takers? "

Yes.

Good grief. Have fun. When you're done, please let me know what had happened to the Unfortunate Traveller.

Traveller wrote: "Good grief. Have fun. When you're done, please let me know what had happened to the Unfortunate Traveller."

I've got a looong way to go to work through this one.

Gunter Grass?

Jonfaith wrote: "Gunter Grass?"

I pray daily that the above is not exhaustive. The prayers are unnecessary. There's lots more.

That is what I adore about the BBC; you and the group have brought so many into the light. Wonderful work.

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Rikki Cucornet (‘Lady Rabelais,’ as one critic called her)"

Who is this Cucornet? Ducornet, if you please.

I mean I can't foresee into the future and know all that will happen but this is okay this is a really fine and interesting list and I'll read a bunch of stuff off here a lot in fact thanks for the list it's interesting.

MJ wrote: "Who is this Cucornet? Ducornet, if you please."

I have placed an order for a new keyboard.

Geoff wrote: "I mean I can't foresee into the future and know all that will happen but this is okay this is a really fine and interesting list and I'll read a bunch of stuff off here a lot in fact thanks for the..."

Reallyreally looking forward to Moore's second volume this fall. THAT should be consisting of some serious UNEARTHING.

For record keeping purposes, Friend Aubrey has converted the above list into a Listopia List. https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/4...

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Reallyreally looking forward to Moore's second volume this fall. THAT should be consisting of some serious UNEARTHING. "

Yes. Volume II is quite bulk'd with books. Lots and lots and lots.

How are we all going with the completionising? I have read 51 of them, apparently, so am over half way (just)

Jonathan wrote: "How are we all going with the completionising? I have read 51 of them, apparently, so am over half way (just)"

I was on my way over there to take inventory. I think I'm tallying over at ::
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Jonathan wrote: "How are we all going with the completionising? I have read 51 of them, apparently, so am over half way (just)"

Haven't made much progress since I last checked in. But those porto=spanish and Latin=American things are my focus veryvery soon.

Yeah - nothing I have read on the list so far has not been worth the time, and many have been exceptional. Looking at your blank-spots, this bit caught my eye:

Bely’s Petersburg
Witkiewicz’s Insatiability
Barnes’ Ryder and Ladies Almanack
Gombrowicz’s Polish jokes
Flann O’Brien’s Irish farces
Philip Wylie’s Finnley Wren


- all of which are well worth investigating...

Bely’s Petersburg -- yesyes!!
Witkiewicz’s Insatiability -- oh yes I know!
Barnes’ Ryder and Ladies Almanack -- yep. And reread Nightwood.
Gombrowicz’s Polish jokes -- I just recently (finally!) got his Pornografia
Flann O’Brien’s Irish farces -- thought I'd get the novels-in-one-volume (too much $$ usually) so I should just start picking up those Dalkeys -- because they've been on my to=due for three+years.
Philip Wylie’s Finnley Wren -- really no excuses.