i am completely ENAMORED by fitzgeralds prose in the great gatsby, and ever since ive read that book ive been on the hunt for similar “literary-hi-inducing-prose” through various classics. this is a completed list:
Hamlet – Shakespeare
Brave New World – Huxley
1984 – Orwell
Animal Farm – Orwell
Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Fitzgerald
Importance of Being Earnest – Wilde
The Great Gatsby – Fitzgerald
Dracula – Stoker
Pride and Prejudice – Austen
Grapes of Wrath – Steinbeck
Antigone – Sophocles
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper E. Lee
Scarlet Letter – Hawthorne
The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Hound of the Baskervilles – Arthur Conan Doyle
The Screwtape Letters – C.S. Lewis
Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Caroll
The Odyssey – Homer
The Joy Luck Club — Amy Tan
This Side of Paradise – Fitzgerald
The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka
Dubliners — Joyce
The Hobbit — Tolkien
The Story of an Hour – Kate Chopin
A Good Man is Hard to Find – Flannery O’Connor
A Rose for Emily – Faulkner
House of Mirth – Wharton
The Picture of Dorian Gray — Oscar Wilde
The Stranger — Albert Camus
now, ive heard that the prose of lolita as well is beautiful and poetic etc but idk if im ready to read a book on child sex abuse…
as of now, im just rereading the great gatsby to scratch that prose ‘itch’ (ikywim) but i rlly wanna read other books with similar prose, preferably a classic
any recs?
by Shfndjdos
4 Comments
Hemingway, start with The Sun Also Rises
The Magus by John Fowles
Stoner – John Williams
Remains of the Day – Ishiguro (modern classic)
Frankenstein – Shelley
Middlemarch
Lolita is not Nabokov’s only novel, and imo he cannot be beat for prose. Try Pale Fire, or Pnin for a somewhat warmer introduction to his work.