Greatest novel: The Recognitions

>Greatest novel: The Recognitions
>Greatest philosophical text: A Thousand Plateaus
>Greatest play: The Wild Duck
>Greatest short story: The Dead
>Greatest essay: ???
>Greatest novella: ???
>Greatest aphorisms: ???
>Greatest poem: ???

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I'm just going to throw together a list of favourites ad hoc
>novel
Gulliver's Travels
>philosophical text
Phaedo
>play
Macbeth
>short story
The Dead or A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain
>essay
The Disadvantages of Being Educated by Albert Jay Nock, an essay I will shill until I die
>novella
Snow Country? Idk
>aphorisms
Need to read more of these so I'd love some recs, does The Book Of Disquiet count?
>poem
'Hope is the thing with feathers'

I've never heard of The Wild Duck, give me a quick rundown
I'm tempted to agree on The Recognitions but it's a difficult category

Snow Country is a novel

>Greatest novella
The Devil in the Hills by Pavese
>Greatest aphorisms
Arcades Project by Benjamin

>>Greatest essay
An Appeal to the Youth by Kropotkin, if that counts
>>Greatest novella
Schachnovelle by Stefan Zweig
>>Greatest aphorisms
Essays in Idleness
>>Greatest poem:
n/a, all poetry is shit

>Schachnovelle by Stefan Zweig
Is Czentovic /ourguy/?

Arcades Project is more a curated collection of quotations than aphorisms, user.

Novel: The Recognitions
Philosophical Work: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks by Friedrich Nietzsche
Greatest Play: Hamlet
Greatest Short Story: The Great Wall of China by
Franz Kafka
Greatest Essay: Surrealism, or the last snapshot of the European Intelligentia by Walter Benjamin
Greatest Novella: Heart of Darkness
Greatest aphorisms: Minima Moralia
Greatest Poem: Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth

He's talented but uneducated
Yea Forums is untalented but at least somewhat educated

so no

>n/a, all poetry is shit
Pleb

>novella
>novelle
hmmm

>Greatest novel: Crime and Punishment
>Greatest philosophical text: The Brothers Karamazov
>Greatest play: The Idiot
>Greatest short story: White nights
>Greatest essay: Winter notes on summer impressions
>Greatest novella: Notes from the Underground
>Greatest aphorisms: I don't fucking know fuck off nigg
>Greatest poem: The grand inquisitor

>Greatest novel:
Les Miserables
>Greatest philosophical text:
The Republic
>Greatest play:
Julius Caesar
>Greatest short story:
The Hunger Artist
>Greatest essay:
On The Use and Abuse of History for Life
>Greatest novella:
???
>Greatest aphorisms:
Beyond Good and Evil
>Greatest poem:
Paradise Lost

I certainly don't want to be known as a pleb therefore I'd say the best poem ever written is the one by Lovecraft. You know the one I'm talking about

>Greatest Essay: on Women.

What is it that makes The Recognitions hard? Are there any books I should have read before it? (in the same way that you should read Joyce's earlier work, the Odyssey and Hamlet before Ulysses)

The difficulty is just that some chapters are incredibly dense and narrated in odd, indirect fashion. It doesn't heavily depend on knowing references and it was Gaddis' first published work anyway.
You could read Faust first, or at least be familiar with the Faust myth, then look up notes to each chapter to read after you finish each one. That's what I did and I really enjoyed it.

>The Disadvantages of Being Educated by Albert Jay Nock, an essay I will shill until I die
Thanks, do shill on.

Surprised not to see Heraclitus brought up more for greatest aphorisms. Daodejing is also a good one.

kek'd based schopy