Recommend me an insanely long book

[Queen Michael]

Stop fucking about with this little stuff. Remembrance of Things Past AKA In Search of Lost Time. Marcel Proust. Get back to us when you finish that. One Novel. Seven Volumes. You can read the English translation if you like.

I mentioned it in the OP, mate. Finished it a couple of weeks ago.

Another great (though somewhat unorthodox) read is Sandman from Neil Gaiman. Although it may have started as a series, it kinda grew from there. The last parts don't make much sense without all before them.

Read it all several times. A masterpiece.

"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman. It's like a modern mythos, very entertaining and devilishly long.

Almost done with my rereading; though considering that I read the original version in 2008 and am reading the Author's Preferred Text version right now I'm not sure if you can say "rereading" when it's not the same text.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

A thousand times, yes. I don't think I've ever laughed as hard.

As for my personal recommendations, I've got a couple for you. These are actually my two favorite books, and while they're not necessarily super-long in terms of pages, if you invest the necessary time, they're plenty "insanely long."

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri- [snipped for length]
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski-

Considering how many are recommending Infinite Jest, I guess I'll go ahead and check it out.

I've already read and loved The Divine Comedy in Ingvar Björkesson's excellent translation, and I started House of Leaves a while ago but after reading about 40% I had to return it to the library, so now I'm in the unfortunate situation of having to either read on without understanding everything, or rereading a lot of the book.

Really, why so against series if you like long reads?

I don't mind series; I'm in the process of reading the latest Discworld book since I've already read all the other over forty books in the series. The reason I don't want any series now, though, is because I want one long story, not several long story that start where the last one finished. Even if you count The Lord of the Rings as a series of three novels, instead of one novel in three volumes, you have to admit that it reads liike one novel and when it's published in one book you can't tell where one volume ends and another one begins. But if you were to publish, say, A Series of Unfortunate Events or the Narnia series (both of which I love) in one big volume, then even if they removed all the chapter numbers and so on you'd be able to tell exactly where one novel ended and the next one began. I don't want several connected stories right now, I want one long story.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Try reading 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar', I mean, that's just unbelievable how much he ends up eating, you think he'd be satisfied after three whole meals but NO the greedy little shit just keeps on going.

Haha, I completely forgot about that book. I loved it when I was a kid. He does get pretty long so I guess that counts.

 

[trooper6]

My favorite Dickens is Bleak House...which is quite long...one of his longest I think. And it is awesome.

 

[smearyllama]

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson is hella long. Around 1100 pages, I think, and it's pretty great. It's set both during World War II and the early 21st century (as seen from the mid-nineties). It's all about code-breaking and the emerging internet, but the depictions of technology (which were highly accurate when it was written) are a little outdated now.

Overall, it's pretty darn good.

 

[Dfskelleton]

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri- It's commonly regarded as one of, if not the, greatest poem ever written, and that's not without good reason. By turns a theological and metaphysical discourse, traditional epic, political commentary, love story, and slasher film, it's nothing if not diverse, but never schizophrenic. If you can stomach an unrelentingly graphic torture scene (read: the entirety of Inferno), you'll be rewarded with the best and arguably most influential journey story ever written. Its beauty ranges from perverse to serene, but it never loses the central contrapasso elements that make the story a cohesive and arresting whole.

Thank God; I was a little wary about reccomending the Divine Comedy, but now that I see someone else has done the same, I'll throw in my vote, too.
A truly unforgettable work, probably one of my favorites. The language is fluid and clever, the imagery is astonishing, and it's just damn good.

 

[dystopiaINC]

Under the Dome. Stephen King epic, long, and I never put it down for a week. over 1000 pg long and could stop a damn bullet

 

[kmccarron739]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is one of the longest english-language books around and promotes her insane philosophical ideas. If you're ever in prison for a long enough time, you can spend your sentence reading it I suppose.

Approval from me.

I was actually surprised as I didn't see a mention of Atlas Shrugged (a novel which is ~40% longer then the Lord of the Rings trilogy in terms of word count and is also crazy dense due to the philosophical ideas behind it) until quite late (at time of writing) in the thread.

I finished it about a month ago, after going through it on and off for about a year, and I really enjoyed it. Sure, it's unlikely you'll agree with everything in it but worth the read, methinks. I mean, the concept must be at least half compelling and well written if Rapture was essentially based on Ayn Rand's idealisms.

 

[Baneat]

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It's one of the funniest books ever written, it's widely considered to be one of the great masterpieces of 20th century literature and if you're looking for something huge it's one of those novels you could club people to death with.

As many thumbs as I have up for Infinite Jest, it's legitimately incredible. Rand's bloody awful give her doorstoppers a pass.

 

[loc978]

Here is what I've read already:

The Lord of the Rings


A couple of rules:

2. No fantasy.
3. No series.

I don't even...
Nevermind.

I'm not 100% sure you'd consider it not fantasy, not a series, or long enough... but The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy it a hilarious, relatively thought-provoking read at just shy of a thousand pages. It's also quite light-hearted. Not trying to judge too harshly, but... maybe you could use that.

 

[Zombie Sodomy]

I'd suggest Pillars of The Earth, World Without End, and Shogun. They're all historical fiction. The first two are a series, but are not actually connected to each other. They include events like the 100 years war, and the plague. Shogun is also part of a series, but it isn't really connected to the other books. Each is around 1000 pages.

 

[TKretts3]

Atlas Shrugged has near to 1090 pages, and there's even ~70 pages wherein one character makes a long (3 hour, apparently) speech). Les Miserables was mentioned, it's quite thick - ~1500 pages.

 

[Evan Halfmann]

I've been reading "Something Happened" by Joseph Heller. It's certainly not INSANELY long but it isn't short either. It's quite dark and often existential.

 

[Dalisclock]

Les Miserables. A really good novel, very epic and occasionally goes off into tangents. I will say that it has perhaps the most interesting description of the 19th century Paris Sewer system ever written.

Againest the Day by Thomas Pychon. Spans 30 years, loads of characters, has about 4 major plotlines and a ton of minor ones, mostly comprehensible(which is more then you can say about Gravity's Rainbow). I enjoyed it a lot, despite being really unable to actually sum it up.

 

[Queen Michael]

Under the Dome. Stephen King epic, long, and I never put it down for a week. over 1000 pg long and could stop a damn bullet

Tried it. He's written better, but he's written worse, too.

I'm not 100% sure you'd consider it not fantasy, not a series, or long enough... but The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy it a hilarious, relatively thought-provoking read at just shy of a thousand pages. It's also quite light-hearted. Not trying to judge too harshly, but... maybe you could use that.

Not sure if you count omnibuses (omnibi?) as a series, but the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy omnibus is amazing, required reading for nerds and fairly long when all four books are squished together.

Heh. You know, there was this old forum I was a member of in my pre-Escapist days. It's gone now. Anyway, now and then someone would ask for book recommendations there, and at least one person always recommended The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I've read it, but thanks.

Thank God; I was a little wary about reccomending the Divine Comedy, but now that I see someone else has done the same, I'll throw in my vote, too.
A truly unforgettable work, probably one of my favorites. The language is fluid and clever, the imagery is astonishing, and it's just damn good.

Been there, read that.

 

[MopBox]

The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. By Harvey Darger.

It's both insane, long, and insanely long.

Has this actually been published? I've wanted to read it for a while now, but I've only ever been able to find academics analyzing Darger's madness or something.

On further googling, there is a documentary about him narrated by Dakota Fanning as the voice of the Vivian girls. That is amazing.

OT: Uncle Tom's Cabin? It's only maybe 450-500 pages, but it's interesting in its nuanced and mildly backwards view on abolition

http://www.valorebooks.com/textbooks/henry-darger-in-the-realms-of-the-unreal/9780929445151?utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Froogle&utm_source=Froogle

You can own a copy but it's pretty expensive. Expect to pay around four to eight hundred dollars.

 

[MopBox]

Atlas Shrugged has near to 1090 pages, and there's even ~70 pages wherein one character makes a long (3 hour, apparently) speech). Les Miserables was mentioned, it's quite thick - ~1500 pages.

Atlas Shrugged? The poster expressly said no fantasy novels.

 

[Angie7F]

"Tale of Genji". Arguably the first novel ever written in history. Not the most exciting thing out there, but very rich in history and language.

I would suggest reading in various versions because the interpretation is quite different.
Also it is fun to read all the analysis that goes on too.

 

[TKretts3]

Atlas Shrugged has near to 1090 pages, and there's even ~70 pages wherein one character makes a long (3 hour, apparently) speech). Les Miserables was mentioned, it's quite thick - ~1500 pages.

Atlas Shrugged? The poster expressly said no fantasy novels.

While Atlas Shrugged does have science fiction elements they're light enough for it to not qualify as a Sci-fi/Fantasy novel. It's more of a speculative fiction, romance, and mystery novel - with philosophical elements.

 

[Benny Blanco]

Grapes of Wrath isn't exactly the longest book going, but it's pretty darn lengthy. Great book too.

East of Eden is Steinbeck's longest I think. A lot of his stuff is practically novella-length though.

 

[mokes310]

Read the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith. When you're finished, there's no way you wont be thinking, "man, white guys sure have it hard these days..."