04-09-2012, 12:45 PM | #16 | |
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I'm not sure if this is obscure enough, but with only a few hundred downloads on Project Gutenberg I'll throw it out there. Hunger by Knut Hamsun. Hamsun won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1920 for The Growth of the Soil. Hunger is an early work, written in 1890. The public domain version was translated from Norwegian by Mary Chavelita Dunne using the alias George Egerton, but you can find later translations by Robert Bly and Sverre Lyngstad.
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04-09-2012, 12:58 PM | #17 |
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I'll use my last option to nominate Memoirs of a Midget by Walter De La Mare. The author is known primarily for his strange stories, poetry, and writings for both adults and children. His masterpiece, however, may well be this extraordinary novel which not many even know about--let alone bother to read. Here is a selection from a review of it from The Observer:
". . . the reader will be charmed and amazed by this odd, creepy tale, which is a gripping account of a young woman enduring a confined life of quiet desperation. Miss M is intelligent and observant, with a profound sensitivity to nature, but she is also tortured by an unrequited, obsessive love for Fanny, the horrible daughter of one of her guardians - "With a silly, animal-like affection I brushed purposely against Fanny's skirts" - which drags her into despair and near-madness. "De la Mare's preoccupation with the Brontës is unsubtle . . . . But Memoirs of a Midget is a triumphant work of fiction: a portrait of a complex heroine who the reader will ultimately find quite as compelling as Jane or Cathy." Memoirs of a Midget is available as a free ebook from Project Gutenberg. Last edited by fantasyfan; 04-09-2012 at 01:03 PM. |
04-09-2012, 01:43 PM | #18 |
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I'll second Hunger and Memoirs of a Midget. I read Memoirs a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it.
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04-09-2012, 02:11 PM | #19 |
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Me too. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been adding nominated items to their TBR list. I have bought or also read a few of the books that haven't won. I am getting lots of great reading recommendations from this book club!
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04-09-2012, 02:55 PM | #20 |
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I'll third Hunger.
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04-09-2012, 04:10 PM | #21 | ||
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"That Awful mess of via Merulana", by Carlo Emilio Gaddda - I've found a write up here The original title in Italian is "Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana", in Roman slang, and I can imagine it must be very hard in translation (from what I read on Amazon, some people really suffered through it). The action takes place in the fascist pre-war years (published just after the war on a literary magazine, then a few years later again as a stand alone book), is a sad satire of Italian society in those years. The literary virtuosism is in his use of language, and I guess that may be lost in translation. Another one is "The path of the nests of spiders" (original title "Il sentiero dei nidi di Ragno"), by Italo Calvino. Calvino, who famoulsy (for us Italians) did not win the Nobel, is probably not obscure as an author, but this is an early novel of his and quite differend in style from the rest of his production. It is really beautiful grappling with the inner contradiction of the Italian "Resistenza " (the partisans opposing the fascists during WWII) through the eyes of a young adolescent who joins a group of partisans. Then there is "The cutting of the wood" by Carlo Cassola: it is a collection of short stories, but for me the title story stands out, it is powerful and heart wrenching, it looks like there is not much happening until the very end, jsut a couple of wodcutters in the wood, but at the end his portrayal of what love, loss and sorrow mean is haunting. I'll stop here as otherwise I could go on forever, I just love 20th century Italian literature, but if you have questions I'd be happy to help (as far as my limited knowledge goes, though)! Coming to us, I will fourth Hunger. As my actual nomination, I was tempted to go for The butcher boy, by Patrick McCabe, but then thought that perhaps it is not obscure at all (it won the Man Booker prize here in the UK): do you know it? If not, I will tell you more about it and nominate it properly. Last edited by paola; 04-09-2012 at 04:12 PM. |
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04-09-2012, 06:01 PM | #22 |
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Yes, I have read it, and enjoyed this quirky novel. I'm not sure I'd call it obscure, though outside the UK it may well be considered such.
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04-09-2012, 07:13 PM | #23 |
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I third Memoirs of a Midget.
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04-09-2012, 07:18 PM | #24 | |
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We now have four fully nominated selections and looking for one more.
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Now that you've reminded me of it, I would love to read it, so if the consensus seems to be that it's obscure enough, I'll second it. |
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04-09-2012, 07:28 PM | #25 |
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Actually, I'll just go ahead and nominate The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe to get the ball rolling on it. It's not exactly obscure to me but I'd think it would be to most people, though I don't know. It's hard for me to tell how "obscure" it is to everyone else, so if there is a consensus against it being obscure I'll withdraw it.
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(paola, if you'd like to give a different description of it to use, post it and I'll use it instead) |
04-10-2012, 12:55 AM | #26 |
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OK - I'll fourth Hunger.
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04-10-2012, 03:18 AM | #27 |
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Second The Butcher Boy while thinking of something which will be more obscure then - though I suspect we'll get to the five nominated books before then
you saved me the effort |
04-10-2012, 06:37 AM | #28 |
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Oh - I realised that Hunger was already fourth'd. So I'll fourth Memoirs of a Midget instead.
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04-10-2012, 12:40 PM | #29 |
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We now have five fully nominated selections and nominations are complete.
The voting poll will be up shortly. |
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