Something with lavish descriptions and masterful use of language. Something that’d make me go: “Wow, the author really has a way with words” and won’t make me look in the dictionary every few pages.
But also, these kinds of books are often sad and kind of hopeless. I don’t mind a little melancholy, but I find even books like Last Unicorn or Little Prince quite sad. Full of feelings of fleeting childhood.
Closest examples of what I’m looking for are books by O.Henry and Gerald Durrell.
EDIT: I wasn’t clear enough, by “metaphor” I mean books like Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Where the story is there solely and singularly to convey a point. The world of the book doesn’t make internal sense, and characters are not real characters. It’s the kind of books where you read about magical creatures and worlds, and a third of the way though realize: “it’s all just a blatant metaphor for Holocaust, innit?”. Don’t know how I can explain it better, lol.
Of course books with have conflict, and problems, and societal challenges. But they should be *in* the world of the book, and not be *the whole book*
by Nurpus
4 Comments
We just started reading My Antonia over in r/classicbookclub and I’d say it fits the description you’re giving!
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I haven’t read Durrell but O Henry is definitely commenting on social issues, and so are basically all good writers ever. It’s kind of an impossible ask even by your own examples? I guess what you’re looking for is for the social commentary to be slightly less obvious, though, right?
The problem is that a book that a) requires no dictionary b) is beautifully written c) has 0 social commentary and d) is fully uplifting and confronts nothing sad is basically just not going to be a thing very often at all. Good writers aren’t trying to bury their head in the sand usually. I’m really struggling to think of titles here lol.
I guess the closest I can think of is *The Hobbit* if you completely ignore LOTR after. *Pride and Prejudice* is mostly uplifting but the social commentary is there – you might be able to ignore it though if you’re not looking for it? Since you like children’s lit there’s also *Anne of Green Gables* that has ignoreable social commentary maybe, though I think you shouldn’t read past the first book to avoid depressing stuff.
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo – it’s a novel in verse and the language is just beautiful and powerful. When I first discovered it, I read it quickly because I wanted to know what happened, and then immediately read it again so I could soak up the language. There are sad moments in it, but it’s not a depressing book overall. The author is a slam poet and narrated the audiobook, if you’re into that – personally I preferred reading it myself, but I’m not an audiobook person. I also recommend reading the physical book rather than an ebook, because it’s laid out differently.