A Short Quiz About Long Books

Answer: War and Peace

Russian writer Leo Tolstoy has delighted critics and depressed high school students the world over since the 1869 publication of the epic historical drama "War and Peace". The novel is part philosophical treatise, part poetry, and part historical fiction. The story follows Count Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a Russian aristocrat, during the French invasion of Russia by Napoleon in 1812. After his wife dies of a botched abortion, Pierre ultimately is reunited with the great love of his life, Natasha Rostov.

"War and Peace" is not for the faint of heart or the weak of arm. The book has over 650,000 words, and standard hardback copies will have about 1300 pages. At a weight of over four pounds, grab two copies and use the book as a substitute for barbells during your arm workout.

Answer: Atlas Shrugged

1957 best-seller "Atlas Shrugged" is the deliberate expression of author Ayn Rand's political and social philosophy wrapped in an allegorical fantasy setting. The story depicts an over-regulated US economy on the verge of collapsing from a drain of entrepreneurial innovation. The government is corrupt and inept, concerned with self-aggrandizement and personal wealth retention. Rand's warning on the danger of discouraging individualism and business development made "Atlas Shrugged" a rallying cry for economic conservative and libertarian politicians across the globe.

Ayn Rand's writing espouses a philosophy called Objectivism, that focuses on rational decision-making and promotion of self-interest. Objectivism focused on results rather than morals or ethics. Despite her best efforts, Rand failed to practice her philosophy within her life. For example, when her younger married lover (Nathan Branden) began an affair with another younger woman, Rand reacted emotionally, humiliating Branden and expelling him (as well as Branden's wife) from her group of followers.

Answer: Les Misérables

If ever a novel seemed unlikely to be made into a Tony and Oscar-winning musical it was Victor Hugo's 1862 "Les Misérables" ("The Miserable Ones" in English, although the original French title is most commonly used). "Les Misérables" follows Jean Valjean as he is released from a nearly 20-year prison sentence that stemmed from the attempted theft of bread to feed his starving sister and her family. Valjean commits another crime but repents and becomes a wealthy business owner using a new identity. However, Valjean is recognized by Inspector Javert, who then pursues the former convict with unrelenting zeal. The novel intersects with the 1832 disastrous Paris student uprising, and ends with both Javert and Valjean dying and French life moving forward in a new generation.

As a novel "Les Misérables" was an immediate popular success, but was poorly received by literary critics. The book runs over 1200 pages and contains numerous passages of Hugo's political and philosophical ideology. Interest in the book skyrocketed in 1980 when Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil adapted the book into a Broadway-style musical. The musical won eight Tony awards in 1987, and worldwide productions have performed in over 40 countries for tens of millions of patrons.

Answer: Infinite Jest

Apparently the "dystopian fantasy set in a future United States" genre lends itself to particularly long books. David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" postulates a future where Canada, Mexico, and the US are a combined superstate. Corporate advertising extends to the naming rights to official years such that one year might be "Year of the Whopper" (sponsored by Burger King) and the next "Year of the Whisper-Quiet Maytag Dishmaster". The novel is both high and low satire and centers on the search for a film so funny that it causes viewers to lose interest in anything other than watching the movie before they eventually die from dehydration.

"Infinite Jest" is written in a nonlinear format that uses end notes to fill in much of the narrative. The book runs to over 577,000 words and the hardcover edition will have over 1060 pages. Should you get that far, be prepared - the book does not have an ending in the traditional sense.

Answer: Remembrance of Things Past

While known in English by the title "Remembrance of Things Past", the original French language title of Marcel Proust's massive seven-part novel is "A la recherche du temps perdu" which translates directly to "In Search of Lost Time". The novel is a series of random involuntary memories of an unnamed narrator as he recounts key events in his life. The unnamed narrator is generally accepted to be a thinly veiled substitute for Proust and the book a reflection and commentary on the author's life and experiences.

Proust's epic work took over a decade to write, and publication of the entire novel was not complete until 1927, some five years after the author's death. In English, the novel has over 1.26 million words. A recent CD audio version of the work required 120 discs. I will confess, my three-volume hardcover edition of "Remembrance" remains in pristine, untouched condition except for its use as an occasional paperweight.

Answer: Gone with the Wind

Margaret Mitchell's 1936 "Gone with the Wind" is a sweeping romantic "histodrama" about the daughter of a wealthy Georgia plantation owner during the tumultuous years before, during and after the US Civil War. The novel was so successful and pervasive that it erroneously shaped the perception among many of the American South and the last days of legalized slavery in the US. The novel portrays the South as an internally fair and humane society, and makes it clear that the greed and over grasping "Yankees" used the Civil War to destroy the economic power of the southern states.

Politics aside, "Gone with the Wind" is a massive book with over 423,000 words. Mitchell (apparently tired from her initial effort) never published another book. Mitchell's estate commissioned author Alexandra Ripley to write a sequel to "Gone with the Wind" resulting in the 1991 novel "Scarlett". There is an interesting take on the "Gone" legacy in 2001's "The Wind Done Gone". The book, written by Alice Randall, retells the events in "Gone with the Wind" (in only 200 pages) from the perspective of the slaves on the Tara plantation.

Answer: A Suitable Boy

In 1993's "A Suitable Boy", author Vikram Seth uses generational variances in the "marriage game" to tell a broader story of the sweeping changes that affected India in the decade after its independence from the UK. The book touches on both the deep religious and cultural divide between Hindus and Muslims and the clash of socio-economic interests facing the "new" India.

Like India itself, "A Suitable Boy" contains numerous subplots involving a myriad of characters and encompasses a lot of divergent storylines within the multigenerational plot. The novel will run about 1350 pages in hardback. Seth is a rather eclectic author known mostly for poetry before penning "A Suitable Boy". For example, Seth's first "novel" was 1989's "The Golden Gate", which was written in a rhyming style similar to Alexander Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin".

Answer: The Stand

Fair warning: "The Stand" is another post-apocalyptic dystopian future earth fantasy novel. It also happens to be my personal favorite Stephen King book, despite being almost 1200 pages in its unabridged version.

"The Stand" follows the survivors of a worldwide pandemic initiated by the accidental release of a weaponized influenza virus. In addition to destroying a significant population of the humans on earth, the virus causes mutations that bring magic and supernatural forces into play. Much of the novel deals with the gathering of people seeking a peaceful existence in Colorado, versus those drawn to Las Vegas to support a powerful, charismatic leader named Randall Flagg. The novel ends with the future of humanity very much in doubt.

The character of Randall Flagg, first introduced in "The Stand", recurs in many of King's later novels, including the multivolume "Dark Tower" series. King has stated that Flagg is his favorite villain and embodies the notion of evil incarnate.

Answer: The Executioner's Song

Norman Mailer won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for the real life story of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore and the battle over whether to carry out the death sentence imposed upon him. Gilmore was the first person executed (firing squad) in the US after the Supreme Court permitted the resumption of capital punishment in 1976. Mailer's book explores the impact of Gilmore's life, his crimes and his punishment from the perspective of the victim's families, Gilmore and the US society as a whole.

The title "The Executioner's Song" is an homage to "The Lord High Executioner's Song" from Gilbert & Sullivan's opera "The Mikado". Unlike the light-hearted nature of the Gilbert & Sullivan opera, the themes of alienation, anger, crime and punishment in the over 1000 pages of the "The Executioner's Song" leave no one in a singing mood.

Answer: Sentence

You must tip your cap to Hrabal for the audacity of attempting to write a novel as one single unpunctuated sentence. Hrabal not only succeeded but wrote a book that is considered a major work in modern Czech literature. "Dancing" is the reflective stream of consciousness thoughts of a drunken (possibly demented) old man entertaining some young women. The ramblings touch upon innocuous topics as beer and poetry as well as deeper issues such as the difference between perception and reality.

Hrabal's decision to write "Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age" as a 27,500 word, single run-on sentence can be seen as a gimmick, but the technique is not as rare as you might imagine. "The Gates of Paradise" is a 40,000 word novel by Polish writer Jerzy Andrzejewski that contains two sentences (the second sentence is only four words). French writer Mathias Ernad's 2005 book "Zone" is 150,000 words broken into chapters, but is essentially a single sentence.

The single sentence in "Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age" has more words than Hemingway's classic "The Old Man and the Sea" which has 27,315. For the record, "Old Man and the Sea" has 1912 sentences.