The world classics of literature is as vast as the sea. And the farther the time comes with his firm step, the more classics appear in the memory of mankind. In the era of the Internet and lists of books that are distributed according to a variety of criteria, it is naive and presumptuous to write about works that are well known to everyone. Therefore, we will focus on outstanding writers, but not too well-known of their works. The company will be strange: one German and two Americans - world classics of literature - got into it. The list is as follows:
- Hermann Hesse;
- Henry Miller
- Kurt Vonnegut.
Hermann Hesse is the author of not only Bead Games, Steppe Wolf, Siddhartha
When a person hears Hesse, the three above-mentioned works come to mind, the first two for sure. True, there are some readers who have not heard anything about the Nobel laureate in literature of 1946, and this is regrettable, but fixable. Since Internet browsing of essays about the wolf and the game is already tired of everything, the article proposes a work no less worthy, but not in great demand among the general reader. "Gerdtrud" is also exactly the world classics of literature, but for some reason it does not receive enough public attention.
"Gertrude"
A novel about composer Kun, who found himself outboard of ordinary life overnight: during one of the out-of-town winter walks with his fellow students at the conservatory, he sat in a sled with the budding singer Liddy and pulled down a very steep slope with her, but lost control and crashed . Liddy got off with a slight fright and a cut hand (it was just a scratch), and Kun broke his leg so unsuccessfully that he remained lame forever.
Everything is interesting in the novel, but first of all, the process of Kun’s transformation: his inner personal transitions from hatred to others, to humility, self-acceptance and dissolution in creativity. Amorous ordeals of the protagonist and the women next to him. Of course, the prose of G. Hesse is unthinkable without musical and philosophical intentions.
Kurt Vonnegut and his “Breakfast for the Champions”
With "Papa Kurt" (S. King) the same story as with Hesse. We say “Vonnegut” we mean “Cradle for a cat”, “Slaughter number 5” and maybe “Mechanical piano” (a classic of world literature, the list of works is quite worthy). Meanwhile, Vonnegut wrote many more wonderful books, which few people pay attention to.
“Breakfast for the Champions”, even despite the film adaptation with the great and mighty Bruce Wiliss, did not become a cult work in the eyes of a respectable, reading public.
Two heroes, as the plot develops, move towards each other. And in the process of this movement, a variety of adventures happen to them. To tell the truth, the plot of the book by Vonnegut does not play a decisive role, the main thing that frames this plot is the unique Vonnegut's humor: sometimes cynical, tough, but almost always containing a secret, hidden love for a person. K. Vonnegut himself put “Breakfast ...” 3 on a 5-point scale, that is, this was not his favorite composition of his own production, and yet it is a world classic of literature, and it should not pass by the reader. If anyone is interested, K. Vonnegut set a solid five for “Sirens ...”, “Mother Darkness”, “Slaughter ...”, “Cradle ...” and two or three more works, but “Breakfast ...” ended up in disgrace to its creator. So it goes.
Information about the ratings was taken from K. Vonnegut’s recent book, Palm Sunday, in Russian.
The "indecent" literary classic Henry Miller
The world classic of literature can also be represented by such a writer, who in Soviet times would probably be simply indecent to read. Most of his works, as they say now, have a tolerance level of +18, or even +21. This, of course, is about Henry Miller. He has two main trilogies: “The Crucifix Rose” (it consists of “Sexus”, “Plexus”, “Nexus”) and “Autobiographical trilogy” (“Black Spring”, “Tropic of Cancer” and “Tropic of Capricorn”).
"Tropic of Cancer"
In principle, one could take any work by G. Miller, and it would be about the same as in the Tropic of Cancer: a minimum of plot, a maximum of artistic and philosophical content. Many books by G. Miller are autobiographical. Without hesitation, he talks in detail about his sex life. When you read it, it seems that the whole world is really saturated and smelled of sex, but all the same in G. Miller’s novels sensual pleasures are not alpha and omega narratives. His works are a bottomless reservoir of images and thoughts. Specifically, the Tropic of Cancer is good for its sublimely low reasoning about a woman. If someone is interested in the world classics of literature (the best), then, without doubting even one second, Henry Miller's prose can be called. It is not only fascinating, piquant and boring, but also beautifully written, and as you know, such books cannot harm a person. This applies to almost all writers from the "World Classics of Literature" category; their list is extremely extensive.
True, G. Miller is better to read after 18 or 20 years, but not because of intense eroticism, but because many of his turns of thought and style may not be clear to a person under 18 years of age.
Thus, the classics of world literature (the list of works recommended for reading after reading this article) looks like this:
- "Gertrude" (G. Hesse).
- “Breakfast for the Champions” (V. Vonnegut).
- "Tropic of Cancer" (G. Miller).