Literary Open Nominations & Vote • July 2017

[sun surfer]

Welcome to our new year and help us select what the MR Literary Club will read in July 2017!


The category for this month is:

Open


-Nominations will run for three days.-

You may offer up to two nominations. All nominees (so long as they are within the category) will move forward to the vote with no need for support from others.

Once nominations are complete, voting will begin and also occur in this thread.


-Voting will then run for four days.-

I will make a post in this thread to open voting. The vote will close exactly four days from that post; even if the final tally doesn't occur immediately after voting closes, no votes made after that time will count.

Votes will be made by post. You will have a number of votes to cast equal to the number of nominees minus one, which will be specified when the vote begins. You may give each nominee one or two (or no) votes. You may vote all at once in one post or vote in separate posts at different times, so long as you have more votes remaining to cast. You may use any number of your possible votes up to the maximum. Any extraneous votes per person (past their maximum or more than two for one nominee) won't count. Votes cannot be changed once they are cast.

Once voting is complete, the count will be tallied and a winner declared. In the event of a tie, there will be a one-day run-off vote, also in this thread. If the run-off also ends in a tie, then the tie will be resolved in favour of the selection that received all of its votes first.


We hope that you will read the selection with the club and join in the discussion.


What is literature for the purposes of this club? A superior work of lasting merit that enriches the mind. Often it is important, challenging, critically acclaimed. It may be from ancient times to today; it may be from anywhere in the world; it may be obscure or famous, short or long; it may be a story, a novel, a play, a poem, an essay or another written form. If you are unsure if a work would be considered literature, just ask!


The floor is now open!

*

Nominations are complete. Voting is complete. Final results-

• Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos
  Post / Goodreads / 440 Pages / Votes- 3
  
  
• Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse
  Post / Goodreads / 308 Pages / Votes- 3
  
  
• Proud Beggars by Albert Chossery
  Post / Goodreads / 205 Pages / Votes- 2
  
  
• Loving by Henry Green
  Post / Goodreads / 227 Pages / Votes- 4
  
  
• The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
  Post / Goodreads / 232 Pages / Votes- 2
  
  
• Home of the Gentry by Ivan Turgenev
  Post / Goodreads / 298 Pages / Votes- 1

[Spinnenmonat]

Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos

The complex moral ambiguities of seduction and revenge make Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782) one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. The subject of major film and stage adaptations, the novel's prime movers, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, form an unholy alliance and turn seduction into a game - a game which they must win. This new translation gives Laclos a modern voice, and readers will be able a judge whether the novel is as "diabolical" and "infamous" as its critics have claimed, or whether it has much to tell us about the kind of world we ourselves live in. David Coward's introduction explodes myths about Laclos's own life and puts the book in its literary and cultural context.

[Spinnenmonat]

Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse

Narcissus and Goldmund tells the story of two medieval men whose characters are diametrically opposite: Narcissus, an ascetic monk firm in his religious commitment, and Goldmund, a romantic youth hungry for knowledge and worldly experience. First published in 1930, the novel remains a moving and pointed exploration of the conflict between the life of the spirit and the life of the flesh. It is a theme that transcends all time.

[sun surfer]

I nominate

Proud Beggars by Albert Cossery
Goodreads / 205 pages

Early in "Proud Beggars," a brutal and motiveless murder is committed in a Cairo brothel. But the real mystery at the heart of Albert Cossery's wry black comedy is not the cause of this death but the paradoxical richness to be found in even the most materially impoverished life.

Chief among Cossery's proud beggars is Gohar, a former professor turned whorehouse accountant, hashish aficionado, and street philosopher. Such is his native charm that he has accumulated a small coterie that includes Yeghen, a rhapsodic poet and drug dealer, and El Kordi, an ineffectual clerk and would-be revolutionary who dreams of rescuing a consumptive prostitute. The police investigator Nour El Dine, harboring a dark secret of his own, suspects all three of the murder but finds himself captivated by their warm good humor. How is it that they live amid degrading poverty, yet possess a joie de vivre that even the most assiduous forces of state cannot suppress? Do they, despite their rejection of social norms and all ambition, hold the secret of contentment? And so this short novel, considered one of Cossery's masterpieces, is at once biting social commentary, police procedural, and a mischievous delight in its own right.

&

Loving by Henry Green
Goodreads / 227 pages

One of his most admired works, Loving describes life above and below stairs in an Irish country house during the Second World War. In the absence of their employers the Tennants, the servants enact their own battles and conflict amid rumours about the war in Europe, invading one another's provinces of authority to create an anarchic environment of self-seeking behaviour, pilfering, gossip and love.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Interesting nominations so far! Here are my selections.

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Armin, Published 1922, 232 pages:

A recipe for happiness: four women, one medieval Italian castle, plenty of wisteria, and solitude as needed.

The women at the center of The Enchanted April are alike only in their dissatisfaction with their everyday lives. They find each other—and the castle of their dreams—through a classified ad in a London newspaper one rainy February afternoon. The ladies expect a pleasant holiday, but they don’t anticipate that the month they spend in Portofino will reintroduce them to their true natures and reacquaint them with joy. Now, if the same transformation can be worked on their husbands and lovers, the enchantment will be complete.

The Enchanted April was a best-seller in both England and the United States, where it was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, and set off a craze for tourism to Portofino. More recently, the novel has been the inspiration for a major film and a Broadway play.

Home of the Gentry by Ivan Turgenev, Published 1859, 298 pages:

"Home of the Gentry" is a novel by Ivan Turgenev published in the January 1859 issue of "Sovremennik". It was enthusiastically received by the Russian society and remained his least controversial and most widely-read novel until the end of the 19th century. It was turned into a movie by Andrey Konchalovsky in 1969.

The novel's protagonist is Fyodor Ivanych Lavretsky, a nobleman who shares many traits with Turgenev. On one level the novel is about his homecoming, who, broken and disillusioned by a failed marriage, returns to his estate and finds love again - only to lose it. The sense of loss and of unfulfilled promise, beautifully captured by Turgenev, reflects his underlying theme that humanity is not destined to experience happiness except as something ephemeral and inevitably doomed. On another level Turgenev is presenting the homecoming of a whole generation of young Russians who have fallen under the spell of European ideas that have uprooted them from Russia, their 'home', but have proved ultimately superfluous. In tragic bewilderment, they attempt to find reconciliation with their land.

[sun surfer]

An interesting and diverse group so far, befitting an open month.

There's about four hours or so left for nominations if anyone else would like to add any more, although I might not be able to start the vote until later in which case nominations will remain open until I do.

[sun surfer]

Nominations are closed and voting is now open!

Voting will close exactly four days from this post.

Each person has FIVE votes to use.

Please refer to the first post for all other information.

[Bookworm_Girl]

The list is excellent! It was very difficult to choose even after reading samples.

I am going to start with these votes and save one for later.

1 vote for Narcissus and Goldmund
1 vote for Proud Beggars
1 vote for The Enchanted April
1 vote for Home of the Gentry

[Spinnenmonat]

Not many people nominate and vote. Maybe still in summer holiday.

[Bookworm_Girl]

This week is very popular for vacations in the US, especially since many companies gave both Monday and Tuesday this year as holidays with pay.

[Spinnenmonat]

2 votes for Laclos
2 votes for Hesse

[bfisher]

2 votes for Loving

[sun surfer]

1 Les Liaisons dangereuses
1 Proud Beggars
1 Loving
1 The Enchanted April

I've said this before about other books, but I really liked the film versions of Les Liaisons dangereuses and The Enchanted April so if either of those win I'll be interested to see how the book compares.

[Spinnenmonat]

Some good friends of us in the literary book club haven't voted yet. I hope the nominated books interest them.

[sun surfer]

I'll give my final vote to Loving. There's a few more hours to vote.