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V. Illych L. posted:i read agamemnon's daughter by ismail kadare and i found it... OK? it's not clear to me why this is Man Booker prize, in-the-conversation-for-nobel quality stuff, it's just a liberal intellectual who's sad that hoxhaism made his hot gf dump him I haven't read kadare yet but iirc a lot of the older english translations are quite stilted because they're translated from the french translations rather than direct from the albanian. also that specific political perspective sounds perfectly normal for a man booker prize winning book.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:21
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Like a lot of later work from prolific authors that's also really not the best one to start with tbh. The Palace of Dreams or The General of the Dead Army would give you a much better idea of why people consider him a great writer
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Jan 12, 2023 01:52
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A human heart posted:I haven't read kadare yet but iirc a lot of the older english translations are quite stilted because they're translated from the french translations rather than direct from the albanian. also that specific political perspective sounds perfectly normal for a man booker prize winning book. Kadare has said that he doesn't give a poo poo whether his work is translated from French or Albanian and that he's "better in French" which is pretty funny
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Jan 12, 2023 08:19
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What is Steinbeck's deal. I'm out here reading East of Eden, his self professed Magnum Opus, and it's all over the drat place. He swings the camera all over the place, first of the Valley, then Cyrus, then Adam, then the Hamiltons with seemingly no rhyme or reason. I completely forgot there was a narrator in the world until half way through the Olive chapter when suddenly he starts making comments about his mother Olive. But, the text flows extremely well. You can just paper over how ramshackle it all feels by just letting the text carry you. The characters are interesting in an odd mid century American way, people will do duplicitous and deplorable things with complete sincerity, Cyrus for example will fabricate an entire life for himself as a career military man even though he only fought in the war for minutes. Yet he does it not out of a cynical desire to be put in that position, but is dragged along by his own lack of actual experience into borrowed experience which he then convinces himself that is his own. Then there's Cathy who is the total opposite of all that. A sociopath whose only desire is to avoid pain herself and to inflict it upon others to maintain control of her life. Her existence is so incongruous to the settings and people of the area and time that people are immediately upset and off put by her. The descriptions of people recoiling from her on sight, and then admonishing themselves mentally for their own lack of propriety is fascinating. At any rate I saw the description for Cannery Row while looking at info about the man, and that novel seems lit. No pretending it's some grand adventure, just some lads looking to throw a party for their boy, whatever happened to that type of novel.
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Jan 12, 2023 19:14
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Steinbeck had all the talent in the world and didn't really care for authorial conventions. If you're good enough at prose you can write about anything in any order you want (see: Knausgaard) and people will eat it up.
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Jan 12, 2023 19:16
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"ramshackle" is not the word i would use for east of eden, or steinbeck in general. i think maybe it is meandering because it is about a place and a people instead of a person in a particular moment in time, if that makes sense. it also helps to have the relevant old testament stuff in mind so the allegories and sequences of stories pop a little more.
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Jan 12, 2023 19:53
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Tree Goat posted:"ramshackle" is not the word i would use for east of eden, or steinbeck in general. i think maybe it is meandering because it is about a place and a people instead of a person in a particular moment in time, if that makes sense. it also helps to have the relevant old testament stuff in mind so the allegories and sequences of stories pop a little more. I'd say you have to keep Cain and Abel in mind because the story revolves around interpreting that story.
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Jan 12, 2023 19:57
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Cathy seemed more of a mechanism for conflict than a character to me. Really dug the rest of the book though.
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Jan 12, 2023 20:04
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Ras Het posted:Kadare has said that he doesn't give a poo poo whether his work is translated from French or Albanian and that he's "better in French" which is pretty funny i think a lot of that comes from him not getting any royalties from the stuff published in socialist albania because it's not under copyright, but yeah
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Jan 12, 2023 23:09
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ThePopeOfFun posted:Cathy seemed more of a mechanism for conflict than a character to me. Really dug the rest of the book though. Inverted nipples aren't enough characterization for you?
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Jan 12, 2023 23:48
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ThePopeOfFun posted:Cathy seemed more of a mechanism for conflict than a character to me. Really dug the rest of the book though. I think that the fact that the novel is composed in universe by someone without all the facts gives us enough latitude to reveal depths that may or may not be intended or true. Granted I'm only half way through, but still consider what the actual actions that happen involving her without the color commentary. She is molested at 10, is involved with some incident with the preacher where her father refuses to talk to him despite him coming at night very concerned and it's followed by him killing himself, she tries to run away at sixteen and is apprehended and whipped, then makes sure it takes next time by killing her parents and leaving with money, goes to a pimp to become a prostitute but ends up his mistress, has her money stolen by him and then is savagely beaten, is nursed back to health and forced into a marriage she doesn't want, sleeps with the brother, moves to Cali against her will, is forced to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want, tells Adam she wishes to leave and is nearly imprisoned until she shoots him intentionally non lethally. Consider that when Sam, Adam, and Lee are talking about the Cain Abel story they mention that the church says that the reason that God is displeased with Cain is that he lacked faith despite that not actually being in the text. Perhaps if we take the same tact with the novel as they suppose in that scene and dismiss all the criticism of her from people not actually involved. If one takes this path you're left with a woman who had a troubled and abusive childhood desperately seeking protection and safety whom does not want or need other familial attachments, and lashes out only when her own safety and independence is in peril. I think this view is perfectly congruent with her character as presented and her actions therein. The only one that stands out against it is her sleeping with Charles, but that might just be her actually being attracted to him despite herself or a self defense mechanism to estrange him from his brother. Perhaps I shall have different views by the end
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Jan 13, 2023 06:33
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derp posted:maybe you should give it 1 star on goodreads and write a review about it which attempts to imitate the authors style in an ironic way it wouldn't be a 1 star review, it would be a 3 or 4 star review. the book is quite readable and it has some interesting observations about how political and social control is exerted over the middle and upper classes in an ideologically committed regime like hoxhaist albania, it just doesn't strike me as great literature the book reads a bit like bulgakov, if bulgakov wasn't funny and instead went in for earnest preaching in large segments. there's a moment where the main character meets his doctrinaire true-believer uncle in particular which just made me roll my eyes with how very much it resembled the "goon owns evangelical relative circa 2007" style of post
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Jan 13, 2023 10:32
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I need help understanding Pale Fire. I loved the poem itself but I’m up to line 100’s commentary and I have no idea what the point of this is. It’s incredibly dull
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Jan 17, 2023 05:43
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blue squares posted:I need help understanding Pale Fire. I loved the poem itself but I’m up to line 100’s commentary and I have no idea what the point of this is. It’s incredibly dull the point is to diagnosis to what degree kinbote is insane and to solve the mysteries underlying the poem, the deaths, and identities of the people involved. i know this is a stupid, unanswerable question, but what parts about it are dull so far?
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Jan 17, 2023 06:10
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blue squares posted:I need help understanding Pale Fire. I loved the poem itself but I’m up to line 100’s commentary and I have no idea what the point of this is. It’s incredibly dull sounds like you're understanding it perfectly
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Jan 17, 2023 13:28
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Tree Goat posted:the point is to diagnosis to what degree kinbote is insane and to solve the mysteries underlying the poem, the deaths, and identities of the people involved. i know this is a stupid, unanswerable question, but what parts about it are dull so far? The entries themselves. The tangents about Zembla, Kinbote’s life, etc. the writing itself is good but not at the level of Lolita, so I just can’t find a reason to keep reading
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Jan 17, 2023 14:00
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blue squares posted:The entries themselves. The tangents about Zembla, Kinbote’s life, etc. the writing itself is good but not at the level of Lolita, so I just can’t find a reason to keep reading PF is a very unique book in the method it uses to tell its story and I feel like just outright explaining it kind of ruins the magic. But basically the "story" as such is highly metatextual. Kinbote is a person interacting with a work, and you are a person interacting with his interaction of a work. If his interaction with Pale Fire is boring, confusing and self-indulgent, what does that mean? Nabokov, especially in his later period, is not a boring writer. He's pulling one of his textual tricks on you.
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Jan 17, 2023 14:29
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blue squares posted:The entries themselves. The tangents about Zembla, Kinbote’s life, etc. the writing itself is good but not at the level of Lolita, so I just can’t find a reason to keep reading gotcha. if it was “I’m not sure the poem is very good” or “I don’t think this Kinbote guy is doing a good job of analysis and he’s kind of tedious” then I would have urged you to keep at it, but I assumed you were already wise to at least those particular goings on. if the mystery doesn’t engage you and the prose doesn’t move you then that’s that. it’s one of my favorite nabokovs (maybe one of my favorite novels in general) because i enjoy how it is constructed, but if you don’t similarly enjoy that sort of puzzle box intricacy then i don’t anticipate that it’s going to suddenly engage you later on, although the mysteries do deepen/occasionally pay off as the commentary continues
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Jan 17, 2023 15:39
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I found Kinbote really unsettling. The compulsion to read came from trying to figure out if this guy was as disturbed/depraved as I assumed. A seemingly-deranged fan writing analysis and getting into legal discrepencies with the family of his obsession was enough to keep me interested, and that's really just the surface. It's been a few years since I read it. I'm due for a reread. I'm still reading Wise Blood. It's a short novel, and goes by very quickly, but I'm taking it slow. I feel like I'm too close to the world of these characters though. I grew up surrounded by angry confused young men obsessed with religious persecution, the purity of their souls, dreading the "sinfulness" of a city, but maintained a holier-than-thou attitude while ignoring their own moral hypocrisy. I feel maybe other readers would find this more disturbing or alien--and O'Conner's detatchment and matter-of-fact prose make the characters feel unknowable and their motivations strange--but to me it's like observing people that attended a local Christian college. I came across this quote from O'Connor: "Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic." I also like her phrase, "Christ-haunted South", which is a succinct description of Wise Blood in general. All the recent McCarthy put me in the mood for one of his novels, and Wise Blood is scratching that itch instead.
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Jan 17, 2023 16:13
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V. Illych L. posted:it wouldn't be a 1 star review, it would be a 3 or 4 star review. the book is quite readable and it has some interesting observations about how political and social control is exerted over the middle and upper classes in an ideologically committed regime like hoxhaist albania, it just doesn't strike me as great literature I haven't read agamemnon's daughter, but all the other kadare I've read has been great (the palace of dreams and the successor are my favourites), so it might just be the case of later works being awarded the big prizes to make up for the lack of recognition (in the English-speaking world) up to then - what lost in postation said, essentially
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Jan 17, 2023 16:40
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Gaius Marius posted:Gonna try and read more short stories this year, any recommendations for collections to read? I've already read Ficciones, all of Poe, Salinger, and a smattering of Tolstoy. I've just picked up Hawthorne, Gogol, and Maupassant to start. Dubliners is essential!
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Jan 17, 2023 18:34
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Gaius Marius posted:What is Steinbeck's deal. I'm out here reading East of Eden, his self professed Magnum Opus, and it's all over the drat place. I remember thinking this book read like a writer who is trying too hard to write a "magnum opus". I thought it was bloated, heavy handed, nowhere near as graceful as grapes of wrath. Since you just finished against the day, I'm curious, what is your favorite Pynchon? I have a real love/hate relationship with him. I have read ATD and GR, having probably preferred GR. The plot of ATD to me seemed to just really lose momentum in the back third of the book, I really lost interest. This read was years ago however. Of his remaining oeuvre I'd most consider V. or mason/dixon next. hobbez fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jan 17, 2023 |
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Jan 17, 2023 18:48
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blue squares posted:I need help understanding Pale Fire. I loved the poem itself but I’m up to line 100’s commentary and I have no idea what the point of this is. It’s incredibly dull Having a hard time believing this is a real post
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Jan 17, 2023 18:55
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blue squares posted:I need help understanding Pale Fire. I loved the poem itself but I’m up to line 100’s commentary and I have no idea what the point of this is. It’s incredibly dull The book has hardly started, all will become clear in time. From what I recall Pale Fire just escalates and escalates. My memory fails me but this book has some phenomenal reveals towards the end. I need to re-read it. Superior to Lolita IMO. One of those books I'm sure just reads completely differently on the second go
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Jan 17, 2023 19:19
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Pale fire is exciting and satisfying. Just finish it It's like 200 pages. I love it.
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Jan 18, 2023 03:38
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hobbez posted:I remember thinking this book read like a writer who is trying too hard to write a "magnum opus". I thought it was bloated, heavy handed, nowhere near as graceful as grapes of wrath. You know I thought the same of the first part, but once they get settled in the Valley and the POV stops shifting all over the drat continent the whole thing really came together for me. Heavy handed isn't wrong, but that doesn't reduce the power the novel carries and some of the writing is top shelf in it's distillation quote:“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?” It's heavy handed to high hell, but also absolutely true. I also don't mind in the least the idea of someone setting out to make a magnum opus, I'd rather an artist go all in and either make a beautiful mess or a work of sublime beauty rather than hedging, and I think that of all mediums. Magnolia, MBDTF, The Three Colors Trilogy, Ada, Faust they might not end up being the best works, yet there is a level of base respect I have to give to anyone who tries. It's also the only Steinbeck I've read so I've nothing to compare it against. hobbez posted:Since you just finished against the day, I'm curious, what is your favorite Pynchon? I have a real love/hate relationship with him. I have read ATD and GR, having probably preferred GR. The plot of ATD to me seemed to just really lose momentum in the back third of the book, I really lost interest. This read was years ago however. Of his remaining oeuvre I'd most consider V. or mason/dixon next. I don't disagree with what you say of ATD, the shadow of the great war looms so large in it. The entire second half of the book it feels like you're hurtling towards it at increasing speed to the point of exhaustion, and then it's dealt with out of hand completely. But, I do think it's consistent with the theme of the novel and it still manages to have some transcendent moments and passages. Kit bilocating between becoming a fascist futurist flyer and regaining the love of Dally and the speech that Scarsdale gives which is just perfect. It also manages to do what every Pynchon novel I've read does and have an absolutely perfect ending.
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Jan 18, 2023 04:54
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derp posted:Having a hard time believing this is a real post I've heard a person say with no sarcasm that they loved the Shade poem and considered it the best poetry they've ever read but disliked the exegesis and didn't understand it's existence. hobbez posted:I need to re-read it. Superior to Lolita IMO. One of those books I'm sure just reads completely differently on the second go
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Jan 18, 2023 05:01
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It's the absolute funniest book I've ever read, i still chuckle just thinking about it. Due for a reread probably
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Jan 18, 2023 05:32
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derp posted:Having a hard time believing this is a real post its blue squares
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Jan 18, 2023 05:46
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Bilirubin posted:its blue squares i mean my tbb_lit_posters.xlsx is not particularly comprehensive but from my vague recollection blue squares doesn't/didn't like some of my favorite authors that many people in this thread like (bolaño, cărtărescu) but also likes/liked some of my favorite authors that many people in this thread do not care for (delilo, saunders) for reasons that seem consistent or at least legible and would lead me to also suspect why they would, in turn, not necessarily have fun with pale fire.
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Jan 18, 2023 06:01
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or am i misremembering and for delilo they liked white noise but hated the rest, and it was saunders where we were allied? eh, whatever
Tree Goat fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Jan 18, 2023 |
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Jan 18, 2023 06:06
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Yeah it's good. 
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Jan 18, 2023 07:09
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Yeah it's good. Wait, what? Altan did actual comic books? I know him only as a political cartoonist. I’ll have to check that out
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Jan 18, 2023 08:07
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This got weird. Time to change my username
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Jan 18, 2023 13:40
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Pale Fire owns so hard
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Jan 18, 2023 17:29
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Anyway I just finished Gravitys Rainbow myself and its going to take a while to unpack/digest but my initial reaction is that I liked Mason & Dixon more.
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Jan 18, 2023 17:33
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fridge corn posted:Anyway I just finished Gravitys Rainbow myself and its going to take a while to unpack/digest but my initial reaction is that I liked Mason & Dixon more. M&D is a much more likable book, and I say that as someone who has GR in their top three novels. The latter is a similar experience to smashing your brains out with a brick, but in a good way.
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Jan 18, 2023 18:27
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How is it that everyone feels of Infinite Jest, I'm thinking that as my next novel after I finish Steppenwolf
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Jan 18, 2023 18:30
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Gaius Marius posted:How is it that everyone feels of Infinite Jest, I'm thinking that as my next novel after I finish Steppenwolf They're going to make fun of you but I won't.
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Jan 18, 2023 18:44
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Gaius Marius posted:How is it that everyone feels of Infinite Jest, I'm thinking that as my next novel after I finish Steppenwolf Highs and lows, OP. I like it a lot for the depictions of boyhood and athletic camaraderie. There’s Pynchon-ish wackyness and puns. Some heart rending stuff about family trauma, death and addiction. Obvious David Lynch style characters are fun. The puzzle of the book is interesting. HOWEVER, it’s all buried in a overly huge text. Editor needed a chainsaw. A lot of the footnotes stuff is just plain wrong. Edit: Just remembered the chapter DFW tried to write in AAVE. Lol so bad ThePopeOfFun fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Jan 18, 2023 |
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Jan 18, 2023 18:51
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