Big Novels That Are Worth Your Time
What we love about big novels is that you have to get really comfortable with them. A big page count usually equals a big chunk of time, meaning you need to be a serious reader without a fear of commitment, but with books like Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries, Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, and Sergio de la Pava’s A Naked Singularity receiving heaps of praise and major literary awards in 2013, there is a very great chance that this year will probably see its share of great novels that tip the scales at over 500 pages. With that, we offer you this list of epic page turners that you may have missed, skipped, or just couldn’t finish the first time, because we believe that bigger can certainly be better, and these books are proof of that.
The Making of Americans, Gertrude Stein (926 pages)
It’s Gertrude Stein, sure, but this modernist classic belongs in the same class as its contemporaries by writers like Hemingway and Joyce. Stein’s generation-spanning book is one of the finest family sagas ever put to paper. Don’t let it intimidate you, and you will be rewarded handsomely.
Some people will tell you that Quixote is the novel, and they might not be wrong. Debuting in the 1600s, this Spanish masterpiece is still one of those books you absolutely must read before you can say that you’ve read all of the greatest novels. It’s big, sure, but it would also be one of the top two or three we’d pick off this list if we were stranded on a desert island
J R, William Gaddis (752 pages)
In his 1975 National Book Award Winner for Fiction, Gaddis did a brilliant job of turning the American dream inside out. This is the best place to start if you’re ever going to do yourself the favor of getting more into this great writer’s work. Sure, most would tell you The Recognitionsis the first stop, but you can tackle those 956 pages after this.
If you’re looking for a third party to recommend this one, Susan Sontag called the Hungarian author’s book “[t]he greatest novel written in our time, and one of the great books of the century.” So there’s that.
In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust (4215 pages)
In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust (4215 pages)
There are big novels, and then there is In Search of Lost Time. Proust’s massive work is a literary undertaking that feels more like a quest, but those who have made it say there is nothing quite like closing the final volume after the very last page.
Look at Me, Jennifer Egan (544 pages)
Jennifer Egan has never been afraid of getting creative. The big awards she won for A Visit From the Goon Squad prove that. In her second novel, which is just shy of 550 pages, Egan’s surreal tale explores our culture’s obsession with image in the way that only she can.
Conversation in the Cathedral, Mario Vargas Llosa (608 pages)
This is one of the most important books to come out of South America in the 1960s. Llosa would go on to win a Nobel later in his career, but most will tell you this is the Peruvian author’s finest moment.
If there was ever a time to read Eliot’s classic, 2014 would be the year, thanks in big part to Rebecca Mead’s forthcoming My Life in Middlemarch. But one of the books constantly called one of the greatest of all English novels truly never goes out of style, and is a worthy read anytime.
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