Lit Nerd Recommends: Modernism

Do your knees go weak at the mere mention of Woolf, Pound or Eliot? Does 'stream of consciousness' have you breaking into a cold sweat? Would meeting H.D be your worst nightmare? In short, does modernism have you running for the hills? Well, it's time for you to fear no longer! I'm here with a special edition of Lit Nerd Recommends for the Classics Club Twelve Months of Classics June topic (yes, that would be modernism) to gently ease any of the modernist-phobic among us into the loving arms of the modernist family. 

Now, I'm not suggesting any of you go and read Stein's Tender Buttons (trust me, it's odd), unless of course you're feeling spectacularly brave, but hopefully one or two of these books may pique your interest enough to take the plunge into modernism (or even just dip you toes in).

The Fiction

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

See also: A Writer's Diary

The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield

See also: Katherine Mansfield's Journal published by Persephone Books

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

See also: Parade's End

Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

See also: A Moveable Feast

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

See also: The Trial

The Non-Fiction

Constellation of Genius by Kevin Jackson

The One I'd Like to Read

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

Personally I think there is a big difference between enjoying and respecting a modernist book. I can say I enjoyed (loved) To the Lighthouse but, whilst I respected what Joyce was doing, I hated A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I think that's the tricky thing with modernism - so many of the writers are so ridiculously skilled that you feel you should love the book. I'm saying that you can hate it but still be impressed by it. 

Anyway, let me know if you've read any of these or if you have any to add.

What's your stance on modernism? Love it? Hate it? Indifferent?

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