Literature of your country!

[Yanko Markovic]

I made this "intellectual" thread because I wanna talk about what good books are there in your country, and most importantly, because I wanna know what the styles and themes there are in your local literature.

In South-America, as some of you may know (hope FM backs me up here), we have many Nobel prizes and some VERY good books you may have read. I tell this because I just finished El Túnel by Sábato (a must-read in psychology, I think. Translated The Tunnel or The Outsider in English, I think), and I really enjoyed it, as it shows very creatively the mind of a OCD criminal, from it's own perspective. If someone here has read it, that would make me very glad, as I wanna discuss it.

So, what types of literature show up the most in your country? Let's discuss

[Elrohir]

I really like
"Das Lied der Nibelungen - The Nibelungenlied" - an epic story, close to compare with The Lord of the Rings. It is about Love, Treachery, Friendship, Wizardry, Creatures, Dwarves...
"Faust" - it is about sense of life. Is it worth to sell your soul to get the answer? and a lot more (citisism to society, church,....)
People wrote hundreds sites about these two books above - so I try to keep is in a nutshell. 
"Unterm Rad"-a story about a pupil in a boarderschool. Critisism of Church, Society, and the pressure of people around you and yourself are treated here.
"Silentium" - Murder at Boarderschool. This case seems to involve more and more people. Poor men, matchmakers, slavery, gouvernment, artsist, in our time, in the middle of Austria! Oh, and critisism to church again.
"Ristus/Sanctum" Fantasy Book about the hunt for Lycans which last about centuries. Literally not very much worth - but it is a good book though. A before-I-go-to-bed thriller  You could compare it with hm... The DaVinci-Code.
"Die Physiker"- This is about scientist, who found out something, that would be too dangerous in any one's hand. So they keep acting as insanes.

Only southamerican I have read is Jorge Luis borges in spanish - so I have to say, it was hard for me to read. Maybe I try the german version again.

[Yanko Markovic]

Well, many of them are all-time classics, of course I've heard about Nibelunglied and Faust.

[macheteman]

RAY BRADBURY

[turin08]

Well from England there is a rather good trilogy of books you may or may not have heard of called Lord of the Rings.
Also worth a mention- Harry Potter series, anything Dickens, Keats and Wordsworth, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, The Picture of Dorian Gray and so on.

[macheteman]

and Dr. Seuss is amazing

[Yanko Markovic]

Wuthering Heights is truly awesome. Maybe it's just the books I have read, or is it true that English literature is always about a poor boy or a young girl who goes to a place or house where strange or evil things happen? (Jamaica Inn, Rebecca, anything Dickens, etc...)

[Gerontius]

Wuthering Heights is truly awesome. Maybe it's just the books I have read, or is it true that English literature is always about a poor boy or a young girl who goes to a place or house where strange or evil things happen? (Jamaica Inn, Rebecca, anything Dickens, etc...)

Doesn't seem so to me. Recently I've been reading through Sherlock Holmes, Horatio Hornblower, etc..

[ket_the_jet]

There is no such thing as American literature.
-wtk

[Anautikus]

"Das Lied der Nibelungen - The Nibelungenlied" - an epic story, close to compare with The Lord of the Rings. It is about Love, Treachery, Friendship, Wizardry, Creatures, Dwarves...

The opera by Wagner? Unless I am mistaken?

I prefer all types of dystopian literature

[Elrohir]

I found this in the Internet: from this site
"Middle High German epic poem written &circa; 1200 by an unknown poet from the Danube region in what is now Austria. It is preserved in three main 13th-century manuscripts.

Elements of great antiquity are discernible in the poem, traceable to Old Norse literature, stories in the Poetic Edda, and Scandinavian sagas. The principal characters are Prince Siegfried, Queen Brunhild, Princess Kriemhild, her brother King Gunther, and his henchman Hagen; the story focuses on deceit, revenge, and slaughter. Many variations and adaptations of the poem appeared in later centuries, including Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (1853–74)."

Wagner did change a lot, I think...


What is dystopian literature?

[jdizzy001]

I am half way through a book called booke of days.  It is the journal of a french man named roger of lunel.  He was one of the knights who embarked on the first crusade to jerusalem.  Talk about a page turner!  I can't put the thing down.  The best part about it is the fact that it actually happened!

[macheteman]

"Das Lied der Nibelungen - The Nibelungenlied" - an epic story, close to compare with The Lord of the Rings. It is about Love, Treachery, Friendship, Wizardry, Creatures, Dwarves...

The opera by Wagner? Unless I am mistaken?

I prefer all types of dystopian literature

like Fahrenheit 451? best dystopia ever.
brave new world was interesting, but i didn't really like it very much, there weren't any good guys...

[FM]

I actually read El Túnel in my Spanish class, I have it a home. Very good indeed. We have Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Paulo Coelho, Pedro Bandeira, Machado de Assis, Isabella Allende, well, a very rich literature indeed we have "down here". I actually saw a bunch of Paulo Coelho books in english, if anyone is interested in trying them out. Think I saw Brida and Veronica Decides to Die yesterday.

[SomeRandomDude]

Well, America does have its own literature, but its uniquely American and generally not very interesting to the rest of the world.

Edgar Allen Poe is genius. Warped and twisted, but genius. Jack London is also amazing. I think that The Pit And The Pendulum and The Call Of The Wild are the two most monumental works of American literature....ever. Then of course, there's Mark Twain too. Henry David Thoreau, um...ya.

In general, I like Poe. The Telltale Heart, The Raven, etc, etc.

Then there's folk literature. But most of that stuff you all wouldn't be interested. Its not very eloquent. At all. Like Casey At Bat, the Br'er Rabbit stories.