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Popular Human posted:Ferrante chat: I liked when the entire Cerullo family won the reading competition because Lila stole all their library cards that will be the last adorable and charming thing to happen in the entire novel
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Jan 28, 2016 19:42
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CestMoi posted:It's dull and I'm glad Gabriel Garcia Marquez died.
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Jan 28, 2016 22:42
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I had a hard time getting into Solitude first because it had the opaqueness of myth, with types instead of characters. But somehow the story did worm its way into my heart. The characters and Maconda weren't distant, but humanity pared down to its core. So I learned to appreciate both the book and mythology.
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Jan 28, 2016 22:50
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I recently finished Another Country by James Baldwin and I would say it is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Striking language, and a very honest and direct look at interracial relationships and bisexuality and people attempting to make a living through art in NYC in the 1950's which, for a novel published in 1962, is very rare. It's a very real feeling book and yet the city and its values has changed so much since that time that trying to superimpose it over the now is a very strange experience. This is the first novel I've read by Baldwin though I've read some short stories by him. I'm eager for more and would love some recommendations if anyone here is a fan of his. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Jan 29, 2016 |
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Jan 29, 2016 00:41
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As I progress through The Goldfinch, which I'll finish either tonight or tomorrow morning, I have noticed that the pacing is almost perfect. I say almost because there have been a few times where I have just begun to get bored, but then within a few pages something happens that pulls me right back in. The supporting characters are all very good, too. My biggest complaint is the dialogue. It's very realistic, with people speaking in broken off sentences, ending abruptly. But realism is not always a good thing. I wrote this post to bring up a debate about dialogue for the thread. Do you prefer realistic dialogue or something more obviously invented? Myself, I prefer my characters to speak with more eloquence, insight, and humor than anyone actually does, like in an Aaron Sorkin screenplay. Pynchon, for example, has characters and dialogue that could never be mistaken for genuine, yet there is still real humanity there, when you look at it all together.
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Jan 29, 2016 00:52
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Earwicker posted:I recently finished Another Country by James Baldwin and I would say it is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Striking language, and a very honest and direct look at interracial relationships and bisexuality and people attempting to make a living through art in NYC in the 1950's which, for a novel published in 1962, is very rare. It's a very real feeling book and yet the city and its values has changed so much since that time that trying to superimpose it over the now is a very strange experience. Go Tell It On the Mountain is fantastic, and is also one of the best audiobooks ever recorded..
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Jan 29, 2016 01:12
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blue squares posted:As I progress through The Goldfinch, which I'll finish either tonight or tomorrow morning, I have noticed that the pacing is almost perfect. I say almost because there have been a few times where I have just begun to get bored, but then within a few pages something happens that pulls me right back in. The supporting characters are all very good, too. Yes, I much prefer the Pynchonian style (not that this surprises anyone). Along those lines I think it's why the dialogue in Infinite Jest and The Instructions, just to name two examples, has always been so compelling to me. The kids in those books speak like highly-educated adults, and are somehow more real for it, not in the sense of modernist realism but in the sense that they much more truly express their natures, and therefore ours as well. Just started Knausgaard. The very first section is one of those passages that makes other writers applaud jealously; it knocked me on my rear end. If that's the bar he's setting for himself in the first three pages of 3,600...no wonder it's getting legitimate comparisons to Proust.
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Jan 29, 2016 03:32
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High Warlord Zog posted:Go Tell It On the Mountain is fantastic, and is also one of the best audiobooks ever recorded.. I'm really not into audiobooks but I'll definitely get the regular book version. Thanks
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Jan 29, 2016 06:40
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Nakar posted:It's a real shame, he looked at the reflection of a stopped clock in a mirror and immediately died of symbolic toxicity. It's worse than the time Borges found a book that was an almost perfect (bar a single typo) retelling of his entire life and realized that he, too, was a man born of fire. I tried telling someone once why The CIrcular Ruins by Borges is so good and they looked at me like I was crazy. I think they thought the "twist" was the main point of the entire story like some kind of idiot.
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Jan 29, 2016 11:53
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Ras Het posted:One of the worst opinions ever in this thread in which Med Mudkiper posts repeatedly Actually any opinion, much like any reading, is good and correct.
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Jan 29, 2016 11:57
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While being happy about death isn't cool bro, 100yrs of solitudes is what middle-aged women read for their bookclubs when they are leveling up from coelho. Unless you are middle-aged woman in a bookclub you shouldn't be surprised it wasn't good. Magical realists who are good:
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Jan 29, 2016 12:31
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i love to frot and be frotted on. i love the frottage
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Jan 29, 2016 12:34
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High Warlord Zog posted:Go Tell It On the Mountain is fantastic, and is also one of the best audiobooks ever recorded.. As a counterpoint, I didn't like the book. But I don't have any other Baldwin to recommend because I stopped there.
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Jan 29, 2016 12:57
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mallamp posted:While being happy about death isn't cool bro, 100yrs of solitudes is what middle-aged women read for their bookclubs when they are leveling up from coelho. Unless you are middle-aged woman in a bookclub you shouldn't be surprised it wasn't good. go back to gbs
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Jan 29, 2016 13:03
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mallamp posted:While being happy about death isn't cool bro, 100yrs of solitudes is what middle-aged women read for their bookclubs when they are leveling up from coelho. Unless you are middle-aged woman in a bookclub you shouldn't be surprised it wasn't good. middle aged women are cool.
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Jan 29, 2016 14:39
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mallamp posted:While being happy about death isn't cool bro, 100yrs of solitudes is what middle-aged women read for their bookclubs when they are leveling up from coelho. Unless you are middle-aged woman in a bookclub you shouldn't be surprised it wasn't good.
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Jan 29, 2016 14:47
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mallamp posted:While being happy about death isn't cool bro, 100yrs of solitudes is what middle-aged women read for their bookclubs when they are leveling up from coelho. Unless you are middle-aged woman in a bookclub you shouldn't be surprised it wasn't good. Sometimes, if ppl who are bad think something is bad, well, then, what that actually means is: those things, they're good.
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Jan 29, 2016 14:53
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mallamp posted:I love Roth, but in a world where you have to (at least pretend to) be feminist to be part of 'intelligentsia', it's quite a push to call him "objectively great/canon" author. Same with Updike. mallamp posted:Calvino is pretty goony though.. Real hipsters would read something like Tao Lin before he was popular, Infinite Jest the year it came out (but so over it now), random quirky poetry by 19-year-old girls who got accpeted to lit magazines, Lydia Davis and stuff like that mallamp posted:You must be WHITE MALE without A VAGINA who just MALEGAZED it through and didn't get it. You probably vote for Donald Trump too and your grandfather is secretly Hitler. mallamp posted:It does break my heart that this internet discussion forum Something Awful is so patriarchal. That registration fee for staters. Should be 7,5-8$ for women. mallamp posted:Remember I'm 17yo frat boy irl, you can't blame me for what I am bros mallamp posted:While being happy about death isn't cool bro, 100yrs of solitudes is what middle-aged women read for their bookclubs when they are leveling up from coelho. Unless you are middle-aged woman in a bookclub you shouldn't be surprised it wasn't good. Don't mind me I am just updating the list of mallamp's idiotic comments about women
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Jan 29, 2016 15:44
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i really enjoyed 100 Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. So there
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Jan 29, 2016 15:50
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I really liked Leaf STorm by Marquez but 100 Years of Solitude bored me. Furthermore, I agree with Mallamp regarding women and their treacherous and fickle nature.
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Jan 29, 2016 15:59
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Middle aged women are keeping the book industry alive so thats nice
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Jan 29, 2016 16:02
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Remember that part in 100 years when the guy had a dick so big it dislocated a gypsys hip. That was a good part
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Jan 29, 2016 16:08
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Remember that part in 100 years when the guy had a dick so big it dislocated a gypsys hip.
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Jan 29, 2016 16:17
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blue squares posted:Don't mind me I am just updating the list of mallamp's idiotic comments about women I think he's just a unfunny version of the poster 'Retarded Clown', bcuz no one could be that stupid IRL
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Jan 29, 2016 16:25
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I'm just glad The General in His Labyrinth is labeled as a novel because it comprises 90% of what I know about Simón Bolívar and I can give people a disclaimer to the effect that I only know about the man on the basis of a magic realist biography instead of pretending like I know anything verifiable. (It's not actually all that magic realist but I wasn't aware of what genre it was until after I read it)
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Jan 29, 2016 16:29
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I have bought The Man Without Qualities and Buddenbrooks. I might emerge sometime in 2018 speaking German?
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Jan 29, 2016 17:25
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Nakar posted:I'm just glad The General in His Labyrinth is labeled as a novel because it comprises 90% of what I know about Simón Bolívar and I can give people a disclaimer to the effect that I only know about the man on the basis of a magic realist biography instead of pretending like I know anything verifiable. Same for me with Ambrose Bierce and The Old Gringo
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Jan 29, 2016 17:28
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J_RBG posted:I have bought The Man Without Qualities and Buddenbrooks. I might emerge sometime in 2018 speaking German? a rather stilted German if you're learning it from Buddenbrooks
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Jan 29, 2016 17:36
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J_RBG posted:I have bought The Man Without Qualities and Buddenbrooks. I might emerge sometime in 2018 speaking German? No, but congrats on buying books that are much better than what is regularly talked about in this thread.
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Jan 29, 2016 17:45
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Taken out of context like that.. But what does thast second quote have to do with women? Are you in process of writing your quirky poetry collection?
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Jan 29, 2016 22:10
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Is tumblr post-postmodern literature?
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Jan 29, 2016 22:13
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It is literature in mental bondage.
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Jan 29, 2016 22:32
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Earwicker posted:I recently finished Another Country by James Baldwin and I would say it is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Striking language, and a very honest and direct look at interracial relationships and bisexuality and people attempting to make a living through art in NYC in the 1950's which, for a novel published in 1962, is very rare. It's a very real feeling book and yet the city and its values has changed so much since that time that trying to superimpose it over the now is a very strange experience. Another Country was the first Baldwin I read, and it's still my favorite. But like others have said, Go Tell it On the Mountain is really good, and I also liked Just Above My Head and Giovanni's Room (which was pretty drat risque at the time). I've had mixed results with the rest of his stuff, but he's definitely an incredibly talented writer. I also read a biography of him last year, Talking at the Gates by James Campbell, which had some pretty interesting insights into his life and times and his writing.
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Jan 29, 2016 23:49
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Just finished The Goldfinch. I thought it was a great book, but I'm not sure why it won the Pulitzer. I finished it not knowing what it was really trying to say as a work of art. There is the ending that is Theo reflecting on life and the human condition, and he twice talks about "people want what they want and that's it, even if its bad for them," but I don't know if the work as a whole really fits that statement. I did like it, though. Also I got Hanya Yanagihara's first book, and will get that and A Little Life signed in March, adding to my growing collection of signed novels. Anybody else like having signed books? blue squares fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jan 30, 2016 |
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Jan 30, 2016 05:06
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blue squares posted:Just finished The Goldfinch. I thought it was a great book, but I'm not sure why it won the Pulitzer. I finished it not knowing what it was really trying to say as a work of art. There is the ending that is Theo reflecting on life and the human condition, and he twice talks about "people want what they want and that's it, even if its bad for them," but I don't know if the work as a whole really fits that statement. I thought it would be really cool to get a signed copy of Purity because I really liked freedom and the corrections. Not the best signed book I own. I also have a signed Terry Pratchett novel which is really cool although not serious literature; I got a signed copy of Between the World and Me when I saw Coates speak at my former university. My mom has a signed, personalized copy of Never Let Me Go that pretty much trumps anything I have.
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Jan 30, 2016 06:47
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mallamp posted:While being happy about death isn't cool bro, 100yrs of solitudes is what middle-aged women read for their bookclubs when they are leveling up from coelho. Unless you are middle-aged woman in a bookclub you shouldn't be surprised it wasn't good. you are now dissing my man bulgakov and this will not stand
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Jan 30, 2016 14:16
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blue squares posted:Also I got Hanya Yanagihara's first book, and will get that and A Little Life signed in March, adding to my growing collection of signed novels. Anybody else like having signed books? I've got signed Mario Vargas Llosa and Colson Whitehead
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Jan 30, 2016 15:48
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I forged a signature in my copy of Recognitions that was printed after Gaddis' death.
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Jan 30, 2016 16:06
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I had a chance to get a signed first edition of Infinite Jest for just a cool thousand bucks at the local used store, this was a year or two after he died. Still regret not doing it, despite the fact I couldn't afford it then.
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Jan 30, 2016 16:13
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Mr. Squishy posted:I forged a signature in my copy of Recognitions that was printed after Gaddis' death. Mr. Squishy posted:I'm imagining someone pulling out 50 bad sentences from The Recognitions and the decades-long grudge that Gaddis would bear. Mr. Squishy posted:Thomas Pynchon being the pseudonym Gaddis adopted after The Recognitions bombed so badly. Mr. Squishy posted:Once goodreads recommended me the short stories of Ellen Gilchrist after I read Gaddis' novels and I thought she'd be proper Gaddissean before I clocked they just thought I was reading throuigh the winners of the American National Book Award Mr. Squishy posted:William Gaddis' final book Agapé Agape is HEAVILY inspired by Bernhard, and the rest of his books have that sort of rushing whirl of thoughts crowding in oppressively close. Mr. Squishy posted:William Gaddis also interrogates utilitarianism and he's a fun read. He might be a bit satirical for you but I'd say give JR a try. Mr. Squishy, do you perhaps like William Gaddis?
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Jan 30, 2016 16:14
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