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Epic, cultural, character-driven fiction?

I'm after new reads. I've learned that I'm a sucker for epic, melodramatic fiction that's largely character centered and which explores foreign/unusual cultures and struggles.

I'm just finishing World Without End, which I was surprised to really enjoy. I had read Pillars of the Earth and was also surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

For similar reasons, I loved Carter Beats the Devil and Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

I also recently enjoyed Citizen Vince and Prince of Thieves, similar books about criminals. Both play with expectations of sympathetic/unsympathetic protagonist/antagonists. Maybe less epic, in that both just cover a year or two, but a lot happens.

Other faves: Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space / Redemption Ark / Absolution Gap, which, despite being in space and spanning planets, are really pretty similar to Pillars / World. Heck, I loved Name of the Wind, a fairly cheesy fantasy book, again because it did a good job with interesting characters in an unfamiliar world.

I'm most certainly *not* into Michener, despite his cultural focus. It's just too dry and lecturey for me. I need my melodrama.

What should I read next?

Also asked in Book Recommendations about 1 year ago | Report

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5 Answers

  • Jacket_small
    mishalibrarian

    "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry is epic in a way and character-driven. It's set in India in the 1970s. Beautiful and heartbreaking.
    http://seattle.bibliocommons.com/item/show/2354896030_a_fine_balance

    I second the Middlesex suggestion--it's epic in its depiction of one family and is so much more than a coming-of-age, although it's brilliant at that, too.

    Okay, quite different from "Citizen Vince," which my book group just discussed--on November 2nd no less--is a little-known reprint that is not really a crime novel but deals with crime and is set in the Northwest. But as for epic--it blew me away. It's "Hard Rain Falling" by Don Carpenter, which I reviewed here:
    http://bookgroupbuzz.booklistonline.com/2010/09/12/hard-rain-falling/

    Then again on the "epic" front, a book that got mentioned on Questionland earlier that would work well is Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao":
    http://seattle.bibliocommons.com/item/show/2431794030_the_brief_wondrous_life_of_oscar_wao
    It's about a geeky writer of sci-fi, but it also covers some history of the Dominican Republic, with footnotes!

    mishalibrarian answered in Book Recommendations about 1 year ago | Report
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  • Paul_c_small
    Paul Constant

    I love those kinds of books. They're really satisfying in a really great way.

    Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra is the first book that comes to mind. It's an epic cops and robbers story. And Naguib Mahfooz's Cairo Trilogy brings you to Egypt in the 20s for a huge, sweeping family saga. And if the back jacket copy of Shantaram entices you at all, you'll probably get sucked right in to that one.

    More along the lines of Carter Beats the Devil, Matt Ruff's Set This House in Order is a look into a multiple personality. The research he did really pays off. (It's kind of like Middlesex in some ways, which is a book you should've read by now and if you haven't you should put at the top of your list.) Similarly, Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn, about a detective with Tourette's syndrome, is a great book that gets you into a brain you would otherwise not have access to.

    Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake is a great look into a son of Indian immigrants with an unusual name. It's not super-melodramatic, but the writing is gorgeous and it pulls you along the way a compelling plot normally would.

    Maybe you'd like early John Irving. Cider House Rules takes you to a different time and place, and it gives you a romantic dilemma to salivate over, too. And it's not exotic, but Richard Russo's Empire Falls gives you a depressed mill town in Maine packed with fascinating characters. I know he got it exactly right because I grew up near a very depressed mill town in Maine.

    And I haven't read all of them, but have you considered the Clavell series? (Shogun, King Rat, etc.) He's less lecturey and more melodramatic than Michener, although he does have that white-guy-writes-about-the-exotic-Far-East thing going on sometimes.

    I bet Steve Winter might have some suggestions for you, sci-fi-wise, but you might like David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, which is a book that spans a millennium, telling a series of stories that are linked in mysterious ways.

    Paul Constant answered in Book Recommendations about 1 year ago | Report
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    I loved Middlesex, too. And Kavalier and Clay. One of my favorite books ever is A Soldier of the Great War, by Mark Helprin. He is more famous for his book, Winter's Tale, but I like Soldier better.

    Patti answered in Book Recommendations about 1 year ago | Report
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    swinter

    Sorry that this is going to be a relatively brief answer (at least for me), but I've got to get back to our biannual used book sale--bookselling duty calls!

    For great narrators and interesting characters, I second Paul's recommendation of  Set This House in Order and Motherless Brooklyn. And for good historical thrills, I concur with David on The Alienist and Perfume and I have enjoyed Robert Harris' historicals as well.

    Hands down, if you want truly EPIC SciFi Space Opera, try Peter F Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy: Reality Dysfunction, Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God. At least a half dozen intertwined story lines with great characters (some border on being stock caricatures but hey, it's space opera), jumping from planet to planet in an interstellar struggle for survival against... well, something really bad. Oh, there are also some pretty damn cool space battles too. Be warned that the three tomes weigh in at around 3000 pages overall, but the plot(s) fly along. Go to your local bookstore, read the first chapter and if it grabs you as immediately as it did me, you are in for one heckuva fun ride.

    On the fantasy side of the coin, I highly recommend Joe Abercrombie's "First Law" trilogy: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, and The Last Argument of Kings. Abercrombie takes epic fantasy and twists it until it becomes a cynical upside down version of most fantasy doorstoppers. His characters may seem unheroic at times, but you can't help but liking them anyway. In fact, Abercrombie's version of the classic hulking barbarian warrior, Logen Nine-Fingers, has such a great narrative voice, he has become one of my favorite SF/F characters EVER. It's a richly drawn world that doesn't overshadow the characters and the fight scenes are terrifically bloody but some of the best I've read. It may not be the best tagline in the world, but I tell people that if Quentin Tarantino were to write epic fantasy, it might look like "The First Law".

    Whatever you choose, enjoy!

    Steve

    swinter answered in Book Recommendations about 1 year ago | Report
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  • David_library_small
    David Wright

    I think you might enjoy David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, set on a tiny island in Nagasaki harbor in the 18th century. More traditional in its structure than Cloud Atlas, which Paul recommends above, which is also great and brilliant once you get used to the structure - not a hard thing. Mitchell writes so many different kind of books, but he always manages to have that sense of adventure in them, and his characters have depth and interest as well.

    I’m reminded of some of the great, detailed historical crime novels that are so tremendously evocative of their periods, but don’t bog down at all in dry research, namely Caleb Carr’s The Alienist (proto-criminal profiling in flesh-crawlingly creepy turn of the century New York City), Ian Pears’ An Instance of the Fingerpost (murder amidst the daring free thinkers of Enlightenment England), and Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (an awe-inspiring trip through the Medieval scholastic mindset and the fantastic grotesqueries of the era, as heretical ideas are suppressed to the point of murder).

    Rose Tremain’s stuff might appeal – Restoration, or The Colour – the latter a sweeping yet swift novel about gold fever in 19th century New Zealand. E.L Doctorow’s historical novels are detailed but also typically center around compelling characters – I think especially of Billy Bathgate and The March, and also The Waterworks, which shares a lot of the same feel of The Alienist above.

    Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White is an absorbing, vivid picture of the seedy side of Victorian London, drenched in sights and smells but with a very captivating story. Which reminds me of Patrick Suskind’s Perfume, the reeking, stenchy smell-fest about a man who will stop at nothing to create the perfect perfume. The characters in that one are a bit far fetched, but it is good as a twisted gothic tale. Likewise I don’t think I’ll ever forget the garish, cutthroat turn-of-the-century Coney Island portrayed in Kevin Baker’s Dreamland.

    I’m kind of into the ancient world, but I don’t think you’d have to be to enjoy David Anthony Durham’s Pride of Carthage, a novel about the rise of Hannibal against Rome. And when in Rome, Robert Harris’ Pompeii is a fairly un-putdownable historical thriller - I'm straying from memorable characters, but it is the sort of thing you can read in a couple sittings, and want to read thus.

    Some other titles that hit on a lot of what you enjoy are:

    Voyage of the Narwhal, by Andrea Barrett ( a really moving story of cultural collision)
    Waterborne, by Bruce Murkoff (great dramatic clash of three desperate characters all involved in building Hoover dam, with gorgeous descriptive prose that reminds me a bit of Steinbeck)
    The People’s Act of Love, by James Meek. ( a stunning historical novel set in Siberia during he Russian Revolution – not for the faint of heart,)
    Riven Rock, by T.C. Boyle (you either like Boyle’s satiric, jaundiced view on history, or don’t – but I think everyone should try. This one reminds me of Upton Sinclair, updated)
    The Religion, by Tim Willocks. (plenty of bad guys in this vast swashbuckler set on 16th century Malta)
    Signals of Distress, by Jim Crace
    Morality Play, by Barry Unsworth
    Time and Again, by Jack Finney. Sweet, charming time travel back to 1880s New York, from an author who just adores his characters.

    Happy Travels!

    David Wright answered in Book Recommendations about 1 year ago | Report
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