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Haystack posted:I'm in the mood for some real literature after a long, long time away from it. Any recommendations? I'm not really in the mood for anything intense, so anything depressing, or manic, or confusing is right out. Russian lit need not apply. Something sublime or somber would be great. Mentally, I'm picturing something with the feeling of The Name of the Rose, but I'm open to suggestions. Matrix by Lauren Groff
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Oct 10, 2023 06:22
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thehoodie posted:Matrix by Lauren Groff This is a great book but yeah if you haven’t read Moby Dick then 100% that. It’s a blast and not confusing
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Oct 10, 2023 12:18
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Haystack posted:I'm in the mood for some real literature after a long, long time away from it. Any recommendations? I'm not really in the mood for anything intense, so anything depressing, or manic, or confusing is right out. Russian lit need not apply. Something sublime or somber would be great. Mentally, I'm picturing something with the feeling of The Name of the Rose, but I'm open to suggestions. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
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Oct 10, 2023 16:54
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Haystack posted:I'm in the mood for some real literature after a long, long time away from it. Any recommendations? I'm not really in the mood for anything intense, so anything depressing, or manic, or confusing is right out. Russian lit need not apply. Something sublime or somber would be great. Mentally, I'm picturing something with the feeling of The Name of the Rose, but I'm open to suggestions. Yeah try out World War Z
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Oct 10, 2023 18:11
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QuarkJets posted:Yeah try out World War Z His section set in Israel must read even worse nowadays. Even when I was a kid reading it the Otaku who embraces the soul of a samurai to defeat the zombies in Japan was comically stupid. Zombie Survial Guide is a more interesting book just for spending less time on Brooks moronic ideas of what the world is like and spending more time on weird zombie headcanon
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Oct 10, 2023 19:37
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World War Z was a fun book that I enjoyed reading.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:44
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Gaius Marius posted:His section set in Israel must read even worse nowadays. Even when I was a kid reading it the Otaku who embraces the soul of a samurai to defeat the zombies in Japan was comically stupid. Zombie Survial Guide is a more interesting book just for spending less time on Brooks moronic ideas of what the world is like and spending more time on weird zombie headcanon Wait what, there’s a literal I studied the blade moment? That’s extremely dumb. And no, I don’t want to know about Israel.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:45
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Wait what, there’s a literal I studied the blade moment? That’s extremely dumb. And no, I don’t want to know about Israel. From what I remember the dude is holed up in his goon cave when the poo poo hits the fan, has to jump off some patios and beat back the zombies with a stick. Then flash forwards to when the character in the novel is interviewing him and he's shaved his head and explains that because Japan has a taboo against gun ownership they had to relearn to fight with the katana. Max, character in the novel, then goes on to explain how in many ways this is superior to using guns to kill zombies.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:54
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Oct 10, 2023 20:17
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i was about to say, mcspankwich may not have italicized their post, but that was the title of a book, thread, not directions for you to head in. pull up.
Lex Neville fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Oct 10, 2023 |
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Oct 10, 2023 20:31
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We want to get back on track I finished James Salter's Dusk collection of short stories. Sparse writing that captures the spirit of the characters without wasting a second. American Express is the best story in the collection and the one I'd tell you to check out if you're interested. It's a tour of the lives of two lawyer friends who exchange their youths and energy for a hollow bourgeoisie existence, and then faced with the ruin of their lives attempt to recapture their youthful pasts in a revolting way. It's a disgusting story, but not one that revels in their corruption. I've also been reading Great Expectations by Dickens. It's fine I guess, I'm really at the point of reading it to finish it rather than out of a great sense of enjoyment. The characters are very well sketched, caricature like honestly; Havisham, Magwitch, Estella you can picture them all in your mind with the utmost clarity from the first moment you meet them, but the actual work their in just seems like a tepid morality play strung all up around a operatic level of unknown personal connections and coincidence. It feels like a modern TV show where every chapter has some boring filler and then a "mic drop" moment at the end only to pick up again with the next chapter. I think the work as a movie would hold up better, perhaps I'll watch the Lean adaption later on.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:52
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Gaius Marius posted:It feels like a modern TV show where every chapter has some boring filler and then a "mic drop" moment at the end only to pick up again with the next chapter. That's because that's exactly what it was. e: I mean not literally a TV show, but the equivalent of one. By reading it as a book you were binging it so of course you got fed up.
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Oct 10, 2023 21:05
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Gaius Marius posted:W. That's fair and the comparison with a modern television show is probably apt considering he was publishing periodically. My favorite Dickens is David Copperfield, especially the early autobiographical sections: the emotion just pours off the page. Bleak House is also an excellent read but make sure to also read Nabokov's lecture on it.
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Oct 10, 2023 21:06
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it was the lamest of prose, it was the purplest of prose
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Oct 10, 2023 21:33
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I'd say it feels more cliffhangery than any other serialized novel I've read. Count of Monte Cristo also has a bunch of episodic subplots but doesn't try so hard to hook you at the end of every chapter. I probably should've went with Bleak house. The fact Edmund Wilson manages to fully flip Nabokov's opinion on Dickens with that recommendation says to me that there must be something special about that book because even when I fully disagree with Nabokov on his literature opinions I know he's got a fully thought out reason for why he likes and dislikes a work.
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Oct 10, 2023 21:36
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I don't believe I've ever heard a positive critique from Nabokov about anyone. Or at least he didn't throw his back into those, and they're less memorable..?
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Oct 10, 2023 21:43
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mdemone posted:I don't believe I've ever heard a positive critique from Nabokov about anyone. Or at least he didn't throw his back into those, and they're less memorable..? Look up his Lectures on Literature. He rhapsodizes at length about several authors. quote:We are now ready to tackle Dickens. We are now ready to embrace Dickens. We are now ready to bask in Dickens. In our dealings with Jane Austen we had to make a certain effort to join the ladies in the drawing room. In the case of Dickens we remain at table with our tawny port. With Dickens we expand. It seems to me that Jane Austen's fiction had been a charming re-arrangement of old-fashioned values. In the case of Dickens, the values are new. Modern authors still get drunk on his vintage. Here, there is no problem of approach as with Austen, no courtship, no dallying. We just surrender ourselves to Dickens' voice--that is all. If it were possible I would like to devote fifty minutes of every class meeting to mute meditation, concentration, and admiration of Dickens. However my job is to direct and rationalize those meditations, that admiration. All we have to do when reading Bleak House is to relax and let our spines take over. Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder-blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle. Let us be proud of being vertebrates, for we are vertebrates tipped at the head with a divine flame. The brain only continues the spine, the wick really runs through the whole length of the candle. If we are not capable of enjoying that shiver, if we cannot enjoy literature, then let us give up the whole thing and concentrate on our comics, our videos, our books-of-the-week. But I think Dickens will prove stronger.
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Oct 10, 2023 21:48
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He was effusive in his praise for many works. Eugene Onegin, Tolstoy, Ulysses. And he was willing to disabuse himself of belief of the lack of skill of authors if proven wrong like with Austen and Mansfield Park. Negativity just gets more attention. It's more easy to poo poo post about one great Russian novelist making GBS threads on Dostoyevsky than it is to acknowledge that he held The Double in high esteem, and had his reasons for doing so even if he thought it too borrowed from Gogol. Likewise he also acknowledged how comedic Dostoyevsky could be when much of that is lost in translation.
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Oct 10, 2023 21:50
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Look up his Lectures on Literature. He rhapsodizes at length about several authors. Well I will be damned. ....Dickens is where he goes? loving Dickens?!? Edit: I don't even really mind Dickens, I'm just floored about it
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Oct 10, 2023 21:52
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i guess i ought to read bleak house. i only read great expectations and it didnt make me want to read anything else
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Oct 10, 2023 22:05
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mdemone posted:Well I will be damned. even Nabokov stooped to post, it seems
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Oct 10, 2023 22:09
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If only Nabokov had lived during the era of content creation. Definite YouTube channel energy
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Oct 10, 2023 22:20
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mdemone posted:If only Nabokov had lived during the era of content creation. Definite YouTube channel energy CHARLES DICKENS SUCKED ME OFF??!
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Oct 11, 2023 00:48
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Nabokov, Stirner, and Kierkegaard are the ones who would adapt to modern poo poo posting culture the best I feel.
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Oct 11, 2023 00:59
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i think the historical author who would find the most success and resonance w/r/t modern internet posting culture would be notorious austrian-born dictator adolf hitler. his rant-based style of oratory would do well in a podcast or twitch stream environment. likewise, his artistic background and connection with both technologists like speer and von braun as well as with the japanese cultural elite would also make him well positioned to commission a custom anime girl rig should be instead opt to be a v-tuber.
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Oct 11, 2023 01:14
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failing that, i would pass the mantle of potential poster supreme to america's favorite hikikomori poet, emily dickinson
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Oct 11, 2023 01:15
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Tree Goat posted:failing that, i would pass the mantle of potential poster supreme to america's favorite hikikomori poet, emily dickinson She def had the goods. Death metal before the idea could possibly have existed
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Oct 11, 2023 02:23
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Haystack posted:I'm in the mood for some real literature after a long, long time away from it. Any recommendations? I'm not really in the mood for anything intense, so anything depressing, or manic, or confusing is right out. Russian lit need not apply. Something sublime or somber would be great. Mentally, I'm picturing something with the feeling of The Name of the Rose, but I'm open to suggestions. The obvious suggestion would be another Eco, if you haven't read them all. Baudolino maybe?
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Oct 11, 2023 11:22
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Gaius Marius posted:Nabokov, Stirner, and Kierkegaard are the ones who would adapt to modern poo poo posting culture the best I feel. Kierkegaard would have so many sock puppets lol
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Oct 11, 2023 13:46
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What’s the worst experience you’ve had with an award-winner? (Or just a general feeling that the book in no way deserved that prize) The Sellout won a Booker, started out strong, then stopped having anything funny or worthwhile to say a third of the way through. Managed to make a black guy keeping a slave boring.
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Oct 12, 2023 02:19
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The Sellout didn't particularly do it for me either but Oscar and Lucinda is my least favourite Booker winner by a mile. Just a giant pointless waste of time
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Oct 12, 2023 08:02
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FPyat posted:What’s the worst experience you’ve had with an award-winner? (Or just a general feeling that the book in no way deserved that prize) The Sellout won a Booker, started out strong, then stopped having anything funny or worthwhile to say a third of the way through. Managed to make a black guy keeping a slave boring. Sienkiewicz. Qvo vadis is just garbage. But it's a classic so 
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Oct 12, 2023 08:07
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As a rule the booker prize caters to the addled brains of the british press so i would safely say any book that wins it is one to be wary of
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Oct 12, 2023 09:13
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Oh Jesus The Goldfinch was just trash. Felt like someone doing dimestore Dickens.
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Oct 13, 2023 01:31
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Having just finished Great Expectations I cannot imagine what a poor read a worse version of it would be. I will admit the ending, the two shadows entwined one, is actually beautiful and makes the whole work more frustrating for not bringing that level of heat to the party the whole time. The city of London felt like a paperboard cutout filled with the same six people who kept showing up again and again, the plot in an effort to braid the cord became so contrived I could barely keep my eyes on the lines instead of rolling in my head. The way Dickens emphasizes turns of phrase and terms is bizarre and distracting, the way he uses EXPECTATIONS and PORTABLE PROPERTY for example. The last few chapters after Magwitches failed flight felt like a Animal House style "where are they now?" for everyone unfortunate enough to be named in the narrative. It's a work that has occasional flashes of brilliance marred by a wibble wobble morality play and pining rather than romantic plot. Between this and Middlemarch It's gonna be a loving minute before I touch another work by an English FPyat posted:What’s the worst experience you’ve had with an award-winner? (Or just a general feeling that the book in no way deserved that prize) The Sellout won a Booker, started out strong, then stopped having anything funny or worthwhile to say a third of the way through. Managed to make a black guy keeping a slave boring. I figure anything that is enough of a consensus pick to get an award is probably not worth reading except in exceptional circumstances. Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Oct 13, 2023 |
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Oct 13, 2023 01:37
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i never read it but assumed the goldfinch was trash because there are ten billion copies of it on every shelf of every store even tangentially related to books
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Oct 13, 2023 01:48
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I know it doesn’t fit the general vibe of this thread but I just now finished Nathan Hill’s second novel, Wellness, and boy did I love it. At times it’s satire was too outlandish and silly, but the heart of it was just fantastic. Great characters whose psychologies were very deeply investigated, and really funny at times too
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Oct 13, 2023 02:00
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Gaius Marius posted:Having just finished Great Expectations I cannot imagine what a poor read a worse version of it would be. Told you to read Bleak House or Copperfield But yeah Dickens is brilliance mixed with dross and the question is just how much of his A Game he brings
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Oct 13, 2023 02:13
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I love love love Dickens. The writer that got me into Books. A Tale of Two Cities is one of my favorite books of all time still, which as a confession I think straddles a funny line between sounding childish and overly serious
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Oct 13, 2023 02:15
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A lot of people love Dicks s. It's fine Edit: I'm not one of them
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Oct 13, 2023 02:41
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