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Originally Posted by acousticrock87
A Portrait.
Read what you want, but for the love of God don't read Dracula. That piece of shit was the biggest waste of time. The first 50 pages (Harker's Journal) are ace--essential reading, maybe. Then it's like getting slapped in the face by a frilly diary every single page.
Cthulu might be worth reading first, though, cause it's incredibly short. Unless you're setting aside the whole Penguin "And Other Weird Stories" thing or something, but I wouldn't read more than a few at a time.
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I read 1/4 of A Portrait about 2 years ago as I was trying to read Ulysses the first time, then stopped reading it when I stopped reading Ulysses.
Call of Cthulhu was read in about an hour last week. It was great. I found a 3mb text file of Lovecraft on Project Gutenberg that I will make my way through in due time.
I read 90 pages of Dracula today. As you said, the first bit from Harker's diary is good, but the rest has been meh at best. Lucy and Mina's diaries and letters are boring me to tears.
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Originally Posted by acousticrock87
Yeah, but I read it in translation--prosaic and poetic translations, with copious notes--and all I ever see are Italian references that I have to have translated/explained anyway. Its kind of a useless read if you don't know Italian, I think, and more tedious in English than is worth the effort.
You'd be better off learning Italian first if you're going to read Cantos. If you're planning on attacking something that intense, you're probably inclined enough to take the time. 'Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.'
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The verse translation of
Inferno (even with flipping to the explanation pages at least twice per page) is among my top 10 favorite things I've ever read.