top tens: enough teasing

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004, David Gentle wrote:
> > --- Ghetta Life <ghetta_outta at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Small clarification:  #32 is part of # 46.  They
> > > shouldn't be separate entries.
> > >
> > > >32 Molloy by Samuel Beckett 10
> > >
> > > >46 Molloy/Malone/Unnamable by Samuel Beckett 8
> In fact, you did select the trilogy (as have several others). Heikki Raudaskoski selected Molloy as
> his top novel. Given that it could be argued to be a seperate work (I don't want to waste too much
> time arguing about what is and isn't a novel so I'm using a "follow your nose" approach at the
> moment) I'll let Heikki decided whether the nomination stays as it is or not.
>
> Thanks
> David Gentle

Sorry, just got this far.

Well Molloy does occupy a special place in my heart - I first
read it in my midteens. Around mid-70s I also read The Castle
(and the rest by Kafka), One Hundred Years of Solitude and
Invisible Cities that all still made it to my Top Ten too.
(Naturally, Vonnegut was the Hero of Our Time.)

It was only in mid-80s that I did the latter two parts of the
Trilogy - around the time I first read TCoL49.

But David, you can change my top choice to cover the whole
Trilogy, sure.

BTW, the first portions of TRP I took a couple of years earlier,
while working "in Helsinki port" (sic):

waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9505&msg=1280&sort=thread

I managed to read the first three chapters when life outside
libraries got the better of me. Had just quit the university,
and it wasn't until five years later that having read all of
TRP prompted me to return and switch to American Lit. (Perhaps
luckily for me, Vineland came out only a year after my return.)


Heikki