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this thread convinced me to pick up 2666 and, wow. I cannot imagine how the first few chapters leads to the plot as I know it, but it's become a real page turner for me. it's incredible how he manages to make all his narrative dead-ends about internecine academic squabbling and dysfunctional relationships so interesting and funny. so far my favorite little flourish was the Gaucho embedded narrative told by the German widow told by the Swabian. the way Bolano just neatly tucks in the layers and travels between them is beautiful.
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Jul 16, 2020 19:13
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Sophocles is is good, yeah. Also reminds me of when I spent like ten minutes figuring out whether Nick Smith should go under S or U and figured on the former so Sophocles ended up in good company: S U my dick, terrible book liker I read Doctor Faustus. It was good rest his guts fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Jul 18, 2020 |
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Jul 18, 2020 15:57
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rest his guts posted:I read Doctor Faustus. It was good Thomas Mann, or that renaissance play?
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Jul 19, 2020 19:00
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ulvir posted:Thomas Mann, or that renaissance play? Mann. I’m reading The Magic Mountain next
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Jul 20, 2020 00:46
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Trying to read Midnights Children and this isnt grabbing me at all. The conversational jokey tone of the narrator is really grating and feels very high school creative writing class esque
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Jul 20, 2020 09:55
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A couple months ago someone in this thread suggested Ann Petry’s “The Street” as an example of underrated African-African literature and I want to thank them because I bought it and read it in like a day and a half and it was one of my most enjoyable reads in some time. Just effortlessly wonderful writing. Devastating. Can’t recommend it enough for those who haven’t read it. Think I’m gonna do 2666 next lol
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Jul 22, 2020 21:58
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im reading a collection of mori ogai's historical short stories. i like when the samurais get pissed off over the appropriate asking price of a piece of fragrant wood and start hewing at eachother
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Jul 22, 2020 22:32
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Read 2018 booker winner Milkman by Anna Burns, which was real neat, I thought. About an 18-year-old Belfast woman being sexually harassed by an IRA guy, featuring long digressions about the effects of living in an atmosphere of fear. Also just some really great characters, like the young man who kills himself because he's terrified of nuclear war between the US and USSR, or the woman who goes around constantly poisoning people, but everyone kind of shrugs it off as her little eccentricity. Good book!
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Jul 30, 2020 02:04
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Just finished the first part of 2666. I was certainly fascinated at first, mainly because Bolaño’s text was a pleasure to read, but I certainly didn’t expect it to become an existential horror story. I loved that it did, though.
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Jul 30, 2020 07:10
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Conrad_Birdie posted:Just finished the first part of 2666. I was certainly fascinated at first, mainly because Bolaño’s text was a pleasure to read, but I certainly didn’t expect it to become an existential horror story. I loved that it did, though. it's become my little treat to myself to read 20 pages or so a night so I can savor the prose. I'm just now getting to the horror, and it's a pretty nice twist after the academic's love triangle.
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Jul 30, 2020 14:31
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Famethrowa posted:it's become my little treat to myself to read 20 pages or so a night so I can savor the prose. I'm just now getting to the horror, and it's a pretty nice twist after the academic's love triangle. It really is such a creeping dread too, deployed perfectly. There’s a banality and silliness to the critic’s lives and interminglings - that they’re taking all of this SO seriously - and then all of a sudden I realize I’m fairly freaked out by what I’m reading. Something is just incredibly “off” but I can’t quite explain why. After I finished the section I had to sort of just lay down and decompress. Hit me good.
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Jul 30, 2020 17:43
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Bolaño's The Skating Rink also has the same feeling of creeping dread and when you finish it you feel that you've missed something important and that feeling lingers for a while, it's so good
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Jul 30, 2020 19:03
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Conrad_Birdie posted:Just finished the first part of 2666. I was certainly fascinated at first, mainly because Bolaño’s text was a pleasure to read, but I certainly didn’t expect it to become an existential horror story. I loved that it did, though. If you think that's horrifying, just wait.
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Jul 30, 2020 19:15
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Every Bolano book has the same sense of dread I think, that's like his thing
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Jul 30, 2020 20:12
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Awesome, that vibe is definitely my poo poo. I can already tell I’m going to want to read more of his stuff after this. I’ve always been fascinated by him, and “Godzilla in Mexico” has been one of my favorite poems since I first came across it in school.
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Jul 30, 2020 21:04
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speaking of latin american authors and a creeping sense of dread and tension reminded me of "Just Lather, That's All" by Hernando Tellez about a Colombian rebel debating whether to cut the enemy general's throat when he comes into the rebel's barbershop for a shave. if you somehow missed reading it in High School, it's a good one.
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Jul 30, 2020 22:40
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Curious to hear a (Colombian) native speaker's thoughts on that translation. Anyone able and willing to compare?
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Jul 30, 2020 22:59
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God dang Moby Dick is a delight in the first 6 chapters
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Jul 30, 2020 23:28
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so is the rest of it!!Famethrowa posted:speaking of latin american authors and a creeping sense of dread and tension reminded me of "Just Lather, That's All" by Hernando Tellez about a Colombian rebel debating whether to cut the enemy general's throat when he comes into the rebel's barbershop for a shave. Nabokov has a story with almost this exact same premise called "Razor" Tim Burns Effect fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jul 30, 2020 |
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Jul 30, 2020 23:42
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Genuinely very funny in the 3rd part of 2666 when the old man is giving the lecture at the church and he keeps going off script and detailing recipes for healthy dinners.
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Jul 31, 2020 05:13
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I'm reading Savage Detectives and I have no idea where he's going with all these people but I love it.
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Jul 31, 2020 05:57
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Tim Burns Effect posted:so is the rest of it!! I'm beginning to think short stories are my sweet spot lately, so I'll have to check it out, thank you 
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Jul 31, 2020 07:52
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blue squares posted:God dang Moby Dick is a delight in the first 6 chapters I love the last chapter before the big chase. Just excellent prose thinking about good times.
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Jul 31, 2020 10:12
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Crossposting from the general thread for anyone who reads this thread and not that one:Sham bam bamina! posted:The excellent Northwestern University Press has been having a 40% sale this month on all of their books (including their brilliant European Classics series). I forgot to post about it here and not just in the TBB Discord server, but that's all right because they just extended it through August 9. Pretty good!
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Jul 31, 2020 14:51
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Crossposting from the general thread for anyone who reads this thread and not that one: Hot drat. That Melville series looks fantastic. Anyone have recommendations? All I've read of his is Moby Dick and Bartleby.
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Aug 1, 2020 18:47
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Opulent Ceremony posted:A recommendation for the thread: George Mills by Stanley Elkin. puttermesser papers is very good, op
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Aug 2, 2020 06:43
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hot tip for non-scandis: sara stridsberg is a very good author
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Aug 2, 2020 13:46
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Rereading Simplicius Simplicissimus since I just finished Peter Wilson’s The Thirty Years War (nonfiction) and was in the mood for some personal-level details of the period. Boy, this Simplicius guy sure is a real dumbass. Being serious, this was one of the novels in a German lit class I had and it’s fun to go back to it over a decade later and get way more references. So far it’s been a quick read, but I think it slows down after he becomes a gigolo, IIRC.
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Aug 3, 2020 09:27
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Like 100 pages into Savage Detectives and feel like I’m still waiting for it. My complete ignorance of poetry isn’t helping much, I assume. Though it is very horny, which is why Im guessing it comes so highly recommended here 
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Aug 3, 2020 13:12
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The North Tower posted:Peter Wilson’s The Thirty Years War (nonfiction) I've been feeling like reading something horrifyingly bleak and pointless. Would you recommend? Yes I'm still reading 2666, yes I can multitask promise.
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Aug 3, 2020 17:14
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Famethrowa posted:I've been feeling like reading something horrifyingly bleak and pointless. Would you recommend? Have you heard of our lord and savior Thomas Bernhard? e: A medical internship consists of more than spectating at complicated bowel operations, cutting open stomach linings, bracketing off lungs, and sawing off feet; and it doesn't just consist of thumbing closed the eyes of the dead, and hauling babies out into the world either. An internship is not just tossing limbs and parts of limbs over your shoulder into an enamel bucket. Nor does it just consist of trotting along behind the registrar and the assistant and the assistant's assistant, a sort of tail-end Charlie. Nor can an internship be only the putting out of false information; it isn't just saying: "The pus will dissolve in your bloodstream, and you'll soon be restored to perfect health." Or a hundred other such lies. Not just: "It'll get better"—when nothing will. An internship isn't just an academy of scissors and thread, of tying off and pulling through. An internship extends to circumstances and possibilities that have nothing to do with the flesh. My mission to observe the painter Strauch compels me to think about precisely such non-flesh-related circumstances and issues.
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Aug 3, 2020 18:57
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Have you heard of our lord and savior Thomas Bernhard? you've got my attention!
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Aug 3, 2020 19:02
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It’s the opening of Frost, his debut. But pretty much anything he wrote is bleak and weird and wonderful
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Aug 3, 2020 19:04
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he has the talent of making misanthropy and general misery v funny
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Aug 3, 2020 20:45
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Famethrowa posted:I've been feeling like reading something horrifyingly bleak and pointless. Would you recommend? It’s a lot of ‘Battle of x’ at a general level (like 1 page of x did y, but there were trees there, so z did q, etc) but mostly about the history of the ruling classes. There’s a little in it about the horror and awfulness of being an average person, but it’s definitely not the focus, and a few instances of some super horrific stuff. Maybe 100 of 850 pages about that, if I had to guess? That said, it was a very good history, just more top-level than you’re thinking of. The North Tower fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Aug 3, 2020 |
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Aug 3, 2020 21:49
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another extremely bleak suggestion: Osamu Dazai’s No longer human
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Aug 3, 2020 22:14
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Antkind is bleak and humorous.
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Aug 3, 2020 23:00
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Does anyone here prefer reading classic literature over contemporary? If so, why? (Define classic however you like). I've almost exclusively read contemporary literature as an adult. Probably 1 classic to every 20 contemporary novels. I've always felt like I want to hear what people alive today have to say about what it is to be alive today. And contemporary books do a great job of sharing experiences of marginalized people, people in other cultures, etc., which I think is very rewarding and important to growth. However, lately I have been interested in reading classical lit. Things that have stood the test of time (for a reason, I hope). I've started with Moby Dick.
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Aug 3, 2020 23:03
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Famethrowa posted:I've been feeling like reading something horrifyingly bleak and pointless. Would you recommend? I second the Thomas Bernhard suggestion. I think Concrete is one of his best in terms of bleakness and pointlessness, but honestly you could pick one at random. It's about this guy who has been writing a book for ten years but he hasn't actually written anything yet. It's pretty short too.
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Aug 3, 2020 23:12
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N posted:Antkind is bleak and humorous. I agree, I thought it was a bit self-indulgent at times, but I wasn't mad about that. Really enjoyed it overall.
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Aug 3, 2020 23:18
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