A Novel or Story for (Almost) Every Place [under construction]
Submitted by bertie on Tue, 02/07/2006 - 05:15
Tags:
- ON EARTH
- Australia: The Ice is Coming (1978) by Patricia Wrightson. I have read this book. Classified as for 'older children', but well worth adult attention, this is the world seen from the point of view of Australian Aboriginal mythology, written by an Australian European with deep knowledge of and affinity with that mythology. It has won several literary awards. I found it very charming.
- Canada: Green Grass, Running Water (1993) by Thomas King - Suggested by buddy.
- England: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-67) by Laurence Sterne. I have read this book. Not an easy read (you will need an annotated edition), but wonderfully, sustainedly, gut-bustingly funny. If you thought self-referential, anarchic, surreal literary style began in the 20th century, read this and be amazed and amused.
- France
- Germany
- Malta: The Kappillan of Malta (1973) by Nicholas Monsarrat. I have read this book. It is historical 'faction' - fiction with a respectable historical base. A very good read. Malta has had an amazing history; invaded or laid seige to by just about everyone for millennia. For a long time after WW2, the island was referred to as 'Malta, G.C.' which meant 'Malta, George Cross'. Britain awarded the whole island the George Cross (a military medal that is second in honor only to the Victoria Cross) for its courageous resistance of Axis attack during the war.
- New Zealand
- Portugal
- Scotland: The Heart of Midlothian (1818) by Sir Walter Scott
- Spain
- The United States of America
- Wales: How Green Was My Valley (1939) by Richard Llewellyn. I have seen the movie, but, by all accounts, the book is better.
- Antarctica: Dark Winter (2001) by William Dietrich. I have read this book. It is a murder mystery set in the U.S. scientific base located at the South Pole (a base that exists just as described in the novel). A good mystery and a good way to get an impression of what it's like to live in a place where winter is six months of frigid darkness.
- The Pacific Ocean: The Deep Range (1959) by Arthur C. Clarke. I have read this book. It is set in a future in which the oceans are farmed for food. Nature, in the form of various 'monsters' of the deep, is far from being tamed however.
- The Atlantic Ocean: Vingt milles lieues sous les mers [Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas] (1869-71) by Jules Verne. I have read this book. Verne didn't invent the idea of the submarine - primitive subs were used in the Civil War several years before the novel was published - but Verne develops the idea to an amazing level. This is bona fide prescient science fiction. The story begins in the Pacific but goes to the Atlantic (via The Mediterranean) where the conclusive action takes place.
- The Indian Ocean
- ELSEWHERE:
- Mercury: "Hot Planet" (1963) by Hal Clement. I have read this story. It tells of the adventures of a mining crew. Available in Spectrum 4 , edited by Kingsley Amis and Robrt Conquest (1965).
- Venus: "Becalmed in Hell" (1965) by Larry Niven. I have read this story. According to my reading notes, it is a "comic interlude in 'the hottest place in the solar system'". Available in Tales of Known Space - The Universe of Larry Niven (1975).
- The Moon: A Fall of Moondust (1961) by Arthur C. Clarke. I have read this novel. It is set on a realistic Moon except that the real place, as first visited in 1969, is not so dusty. Story of how a bus-load of tourists are rescued from the bottom of a crater full of dust.
- Mars: Red Mars (1992) by Kim Stanley Robinson. I have read this book (and cited it in an academic thesis on environmental ethics). Realistic story of the human colonization of the Red Planet and, in two subsequent volumes, how it is transformed into Green Mars then Blue Mars.
- The asteroids: "Mother in the Sky with Diamonds" (1971) by James Tiptree Jr. I have read this story. Mineral miners inhabit the asteroids on a franchise basis, the solar system being owned by mega-corporations. Available in Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home (1973) by James Tiptree Jr.
- Jupiter: "A Meeting with Medusa" (1971) by Arthur C. Clarke. Available in Nebula Award Stories 8 (1973) edited by Isaac Asimov. I have read this story. A manned expedition into the atmosphere of Jupiter encounters a huge alien life-form.
- Ganymede: Against Infinity (1983) by Gregory Benford. I have read this novel. Ganymede is Jupiter's largest moon; it is larger than the planet Mercury. This tale has been dubbed 'Moby Dick in Space'. Members of a pioneering colony become obsessed with finding and destroying a mysterious, indefinite entity called The Aleph which appears occasionally and suddenly, killing and maiming.
- Titan: Titan (1979) by John Varley. I have read this novel. An expedition to Saturn becomes the last living humans after an asteroid is accidentally steered into a collision with Earth. They attempt to colonise Titan (Saturn's largest moon).
- Halley's Comet: Heart of the Comet (1986) by Gregory Benford and David Brin. I have read this novel. How an expedition to the famous comet make their home in its interior, changing it and being changed by it. Hard (scientifically plausible) science fiction.
Author Comments:
This list was inspired by the list One Country/One Book by Slothrop33
Please note that my list is not a list of novels by an author from each country. Instead, it is a list of novels about, or set in, or by a classic author from, etc, each country. Also, some of the places are obviously not countries.
Puzzled, and yet intrigued. (And my copy of Dark Winter has still not arrived from inter-library loan, which is keeeeling me. It would be a perfect read in this weather.)
Are we supposed to point you to novels set in the country? Is this novels you have read set in each country? Are you looking to add more countries?
So intrigued.
You - or anyone - can if you wish suggest novels. And it follows from that that it will be highly unlikely that I will have have read all the novels to be put on the list. And I am going to add more countries (and I should put them in better order than thus far).
Thanks for your interest, and I trust you'll find DW by WD worth the wait.
For Germany, I'd highly recommend you Goethe's Faust. It might easily be the pivotal work of German literature (and that is very much to say), and it is at the same time the nation's greatest pride.
Ah! Many moons ago I made an immature attempt to read Faust - in translation, of course - but failed to finish it. Maybe it's time I had another go. If I only had time. When you get to my age - which isn't ancient, I assure you - you realise that, in personal terms, time is pretty near the most valuable thing there is.
Ok, I don't know how the translation might be. I guess it could probably lose a lot of its excellence through the translation...
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yocineo, ¿y tú?
I'm certainly not ruling it out. I'll keep it under consideration.
Might I suggest one for Canada? Thomas King wrote Green Grass, Running Water , which is set in rural Alberta on a First Nations reserve. There are lots more set in Canada, but I'll only suggest the one.
And for South America (not sure which country, exactly), there's One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
And I don't recall which oceans were specified, if any, but 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea could possibly be the Atlantic.
Of course! Verne for the Atlantic. Thanks. And also for your other suggestions. It's getting late where I am, so I won't be able to take advantage of these until tomorrow. Muchas gracias!
I've read some Mordechai Richler, but I can't recall having read a novel set in Canada. I recall a quote about Canada, that "Canada needs hewers of water and haulers of wood", the joke being that the expression was originally "hewers of wood and haulers of water".
So I'll take your suggestion. I want to consider further about South America however.