Madame Bovary

A solid contender for the title "best book of the 19th century". Together with Madame Bovary. Which wins, IMHO. But still: great book.

>it's so long that I can't really recommend it. Tell that to the teacher who made us read it at the age of 14. A masterpiece nonetheless.

I first read it when quite young, so probably it provided an emotional education, but also a lesson that literature can be more than just a clever plot - it's full of wonderful observations of human character, even characters that Tolstoy was not particularly sympathetic to (e.g. Stiva, who chooses his opinions as he chooses his hat, from the selection available, or Anna, the tragic focal point of the novel) - there are no villains and no heroes, only bumbling humans dealing with problems entirely of their own creation. I also liked Madame Bovary from the same period, another riff on doomed attempts to escape unhappy circumstances - perhaps all happy novels are alike, whereas every unhappy novel is unhappy in its own interesting way?