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Welcome earthlings to the Awful Book of the Month! In this thread, we choose one work of Resources: Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org - A database of over 17000 books available online. If you can suggest books from here, that'd be the best. SparkNotes - http://www.sparknotes.com/ - A very helpful Cliffnotes-esque site, but much better, in my opinion. If you happen to come in late and need to catch-up, you can get great character/chapter/plot summaries here.  For recommendations on future material, suggestions on how to improve the club, or just a general rant, feel free to PM me. Past Books of the Month 2011: January: John Keats, Endymion Febuary/March: Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote April: Laurell K. Hamilton, Obsidian Butterfly May: Richard A. Knaak - Diablo #1: Legacy of Blood June: Pamela Britton - On The Move July: Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep August: Louis L'Amour - Bendigo Shafter September: Ian Fleming - Moonraker October: Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked This Way Comes November: John Ringo - Ghost December: James Branch Cabell - Jurgen 2012: January: G.K. Chesterton - The Man Who Was Thursday Febuary: M. Somerset Maugham - Of Human Bondage March: Joseph Heller - Catch-22 April: Zack Parsons - Liminal States May: Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood June: James Joyce - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man July: William S. Burroughs - Naked Lunch August: William Faulkner - The Sound & The Fury September/October: Leo Tolstoy - War & Peace November: David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas December: Kurt Vonnegut - Mother Night 2013 January: Walter M. Miller - A Canticle for Liebowitz Febuary: Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination March: Kazuo Ishiguro - Remains Of The Day April: Don Delillo - White Noise May: Anton LeVey - The Satanic Bible June/July: Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell August: Michael Swanwick - Stations of the Tide September: John Wyndham - Day of the Triffids October: Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House November: Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory December: Roderick Thorp - Nothing Lasts Forever 2014: January: Ursula K. LeGuin - The Left Hand of Darkness February: Mikhail Bulgalov - Master & Margarita March: Richard P. Feynman -- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! April: James Joyce -- Dubliners May: Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- 100 Years of Solitude June: Howard Zinn -- A People's History of the United States July: Mary Renault -- The Last of the Wine August: Barbara Tuchtman -- The Guns of August September: Jane Austen -- Pride and Prejudice October: Roger Zelazny -- A Night in the Lonesome October November: John Gardner -- Grendel December: Christopher Moore -- The Stupidest Angel 2015: January: Italo Calvino -- Invisible Cities February: Karl Ove Knausgaard -- My Struggle: Book 1. Current: Knut Hamsen: Hunger quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_%28Hamsun_novel%29 About the Author quote:
But wait, there's more! quote:When World War II started, he was over 80 years old, almost deaf and his main source of information was the conservative newspaper Aftenposten, which had been sympathetic to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany from the beginning. He suffered two intracranial hemorrhages during the war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knut_Hamsun#Political_sympathies Discussion, Questions & Themes: quote:Hunger encompasses two of Hamsun's literary and ideological leitmotifs: Which Edition? Hedningen posted:The Lyngstad translation is the best. Bly's translation is all right, but mixes up a few key points in the novel - while the geography is kept slightly vague, there's a definite topography to Hunger that gets harder to follow in the older translation. And avoid the translation by Egerton - it censors and omits a lot of stuff that's kinda crucial to the text. Overall, I've taught to both the Bly and Lyngstad translations, but Lyndgstad is better for when people are reading in a mixed Norwegian/English reading group. Pacing No pacing or spoiler rules this month. Just read! Final Note: If you have any suggestions to change, improve or assess the book club generally, please PM or email me -- i.e., keep it out of this thread -- at least until into the last five days of the month, just so we don't derail discussion of the current book with meta-discussion. I do want to hear new ideas though, seriously, so please do actually PM or email me or whatever, or if you can't do either of those things, just hold that thought till the last five days of the month before posting it in this thread. Thanks, and I hope everyone enjoys the book! Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Mar 2, 2015 |
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Mar 2, 2015 05:46
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Miracle of miracles, it's about 5 bucks cheaper on kobo than amazon.
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Mar 2, 2015 06:32
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Another tidbit about Hamsun: Just about everyone in Norway agrees that he is one of our greatest authors, but his nazi sympathies has made any sort of official and public recognition practically impossible. When the event which marked his 150th anniversary (The Hamsun year) in 2009 was being held, the media coverage was practically dominated by controversy (it recieved only 1/10th of Henrik Ibsen got in sponsorship a few years earlier). He got his first and only statue in 2009 (not without protests), and he is the only renowned author not to have a street or public square named after him. His deplorable/questionable choices in his personal life has completely overshadowed the fact that he is one of only three laureates of the Nobels prize in literature from around here.
ulvir fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Mar 3, 2015 |
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Mar 3, 2015 07:04
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Okay, to really understand why Hunger is such a beloved novel in the Scandinavian canon, we're gonna need to have a bit of a lesson in literary history. There's a lot of Scandinavian words coming up, so feel free to say them out loud in your best imitation of the Swedish Chef, despite most of them hailing from Norway and Denmark in these examples. History time! The year is 1871. Denmark is in the dumps – they're still reeling from the failure of Nationalistic fervor that ended with them losing Schleswig-Holstein (that bit at the top of Germany with really difficult accents that are kinda Danish) to what is now Germany in 1864, as well as losing Norway to Sweden in 1814 thanks to some spectacularly bad decisions in the Napoleonic Wars. Enter a man named Georg Brandes – a cool, revolutionary critic who took one look at Danish literature versus that of the rest of the world and decided that it was schmaltzy, Romantic crap that would lead to them getting ignored on the international stage. So, he decides to do something about it – on a frosty November day, he delivers the first in a series of lectures entitled Hovedstrømninger i det 19de Aarhundredes Litteratur or, in normal-person speech, Main Currents in 19th Century Literature. This is the period known as the Modern Breakthrough – the one time that Scandinavia got to stand on top of the world, revolutionizing literature and writing cool poo poo that other people wanted to read. People take notice of Brandes' declaration: he wants literature to engage with the world. He wants realistic fiction – fiction that depicts the lives, struggles, and the real debates that people were having. Without that, he argued, their literature would dry up and die. And believe me, he inspired a lot of people. Now, let's head to the North – to Norway. At the time, Norway was still a part of Sweden, even though they'd written their own constitution in 1814, during the brief period of time where it seemed like Denmark and Sweden couldn't figure out what to do with them. Their constitution was neutered by the Swedish kings, who refused to let Norway's parliament meet until 1863, and they were kept as pretty much vassals of Sweden despite some clever legislation on their part to prevent them from being forced into wars they didn't want to fight. In the years leading up to Brandes' lectures/books, they were mostly concentrating on developing a national identity for themselves – Romanticism was big, and some of the heavyweights of Norwegian culture emerged at this point – Edvard Grieg (Best known for his work with a dude we'll be talking about in a second), Jørgen Moe and Peter Christian Ashbjørnson (Like the Grimm Brothers of Norway), Henrik Wergelund and Johan Welhaven (The original Norwegian rap feud), and Andreas Munch. They mostly concentrated on building up the sense of ”Norwegianness” and contributing to the Romantic mood. Well, in 1871, a few folks in Norway took notice of Brandes' lectures. They were getting tired of Romanticism – real tired. They wanted to say something about the state of the world, and the written word was the best way they could think of. These four men – known as De Fire Store, or The Four Greats, are basically the Beatles of Norwegian Modern Breakthrough literature. You see the dudes in my avatar, with fabulous facial hair and angry looks? That's the facial hair of the Four Greats. Three of them aren't really that well-known outside of Scandinavia these days – Jonas Lie, Alexander Kielland, and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. The fourth, however, is pretty familiar to a lot of people – Henrik Ibsen, the man behind such plays as The Four Greats were dutifully praised, elevated to the status of literary giants, and generally appreciated fairly well, apart from the whole ”leaving Norway due to how contraversial some of their works were” bit. But, like all great literary institutions, new people had to come, and that brings us to the reason why I'm writing up this long-rear end post about Scandinavian literary history. Now, Knut Hamsun didn't believe that all these socially-conscious pieces of literature were really doing anything for the literary world of Norway. He delivered a series of lectures, in fact, attempting to ”topple” the Four Greats, attacking their obsession with social issues to the point of ignoring the internal psychology of the main character. Having been put through the wringer – even briefly living in America (and hating it due to how big of a jackass some of the people there were) before a tuberculosis scare brought him back to his beloved-ish Norway – he managed to get a story serialized in 1888 in a Danish newspaper, and later expanded into a full novel in 1890. That story became Hunger. It was bold – a rejection of the Realism that Brandes had prized so much, dedicated to exploring the struggle of a starving writer in Christiania – known today as Oslo, one of two cities Americans know exist in Norway. The whole thing is quite remarkable – one of the earliest examples of stream-of-consciousness writing, a blending of hallucination, symbolism, and subtly-altered autobiography that drew on the author's own time as a starving writer. It was translated, and quickly brought him some degree of fame – a landmark text in this period that was so focused on realistic portrayals of the world. There's one more point to consider, and bring out in the open – know how we were all really, really uncomfortable with last month's BOTM title? Well, I hate to break it to you, but Knut Hamsun was kind of a Nazi. As in, ”sent his Nobel prize to Goebbels” kind of a Nazi. As in, ”The Norwegian government had him declared mentally unsound because he was so embarassing” level of Nazi. But at the same time, we can divorce the life of the author from our enjoyment of the work – Hamsun is really, really complicated as a person, and saying that he should be ignored because of his – frankly incredibly lovely – political beliefs is doing a disservice to literature and to yourself. Hunger is well before those days – I'm not going to defend him, but I am going to say that it's one of the most pivotal works in the Norwegian canon of literature. So, read Hunger, fellow book nerds – it's a drat great book.
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Mar 3, 2015 08:37
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I'm about a third of the way through this. With all the preambles and disclaimers, I'm really surprised at how accessible the book is.
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Mar 5, 2015 03:01
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Mira posted:I'm about a third of the way through this. With all the preambles and disclaimers, I'm really surprised at how accessible the book is. Yeah the first chapter or so at least has been really accessible. I dove right into the text and while the dude is clearly at least half-cracked he's cracking up in a way that's easy for the reader to understand, at least so far. It's a really great depiction of, yes, exactly what it says on the tin -- just how hosed up your head gets when you don't eat for long periods of time.
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Mar 5, 2015 04:27
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You want to notice how he interacts with other people and himself - the main character doesn't seem to see other people as people, they're more manifestations of some notion - Authority, Desire, whatnot. His own mental processes are also deeply symbolic at the same time as being "realistic" in a sense. Hunger is one of my very favourite books, and Hamsun is indisputably the best novelist Norway has ever seen. Read Hunger, then wait a year and read it again; if you're anything like me, you'll find a completely different perspective on the whole text. It is multi-layered, complicated and enthralling in a way that only Hamsun can make it. His prose is fantastically beautiful, and is enough to hold up relatively mediocre works on its own. If there is a reason to learn to read Norwegian, Hamsun is absolutely it.
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Mar 5, 2015 20:57
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This book is great but I still have about a third to go. I'm thinking something relatively light for next month, maybe Hemingway's A Moveable Feast based on this blurb here: quote:"Finally when we were eating the cherry tart and had a last carafe of wine he said, 'You know I never slept with anyone except Zelda.' http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/2009/03/hemingway-reassures-fitzgerald-about-his-penis.html Other option I've thought of would be Steinbeck's Cannery Row: quote:Doc is the owner and operator of the Western Biological Laboratory. Doc is rather small, deceptively small, for he is wiry and very strong and when passionate anger comes on him he can be very fierce. He wears a beard and his face is half Christ and half satyr and his face tells the truth. It is said that he has helped many a girl out of one trouble and into another. Doc has the hands of a brain surgeon, and a cool warm mind. Doc tips his hat to dogs as he drives by and the dogs look up and smile at him. He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure. He has one great fear—that of getting his head wet, so that summer or winter he ordinarily wears a rain hat. He will wade in a tide pool up to the chest without feeling damp, but a drop of rain water on his head makes him panicky…Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and change it for you to a kind of wisdom. His mind had no horizon—and his sympathy had no warp. He could talk to children, telling them very profound things so that they understood. He lived in a world of wonders, of excitement. He was concupiscent as a rabbit and gentle as hell. Everyone who knew him was indebted to him. And everyone who thought of him thought next, ‘I really must do something nice for Doc.’ quote:“He’s been building that boat for seven years that I know of… Every time he gets it nearly finished he changes it and starts over again. I think he’s nuts. Seven years on a boat.” quote:While he ate his sandwich and sipped his beer, a bit of conversation came back to him. Blaisedell, the poet, had said to him, ‘You love beer so much. I’ll bet some day you’ll go in and order a beer milk shake.’ It was a simple piece of foolery but it had bothered Doc ever since. He wondered what a beer milk shake would taste like. The idea gagged him but he couldn’t let it alone. It cropped up every time he had a glass of beer. Would it curdle the milk? Would you add sugar? It was like a shrimp ice cream. If a man ordered a beer milk shake, he thought, he’d better do it in a town where he wasn’t known. But then, a man with a beard, ordering a beer milk shake in a town where he wasn’t known - they might call the police. A man with a beard was always a little suspect anyway. You couldn’t say you wore a beard because you liked a beard. People didn’t like you for telling the truth. You had to say you had a scar so you couldn’t shave. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Mar 19, 2015 |
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Mar 19, 2015 16:28
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This book is great but I still have about a third to go. There hasn't been a single female author yet this year. Maybe we could keep it Norwegian and read some Sigrid Undset. Gunnar's Daughter is a pretty quick and easy read.
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Mar 19, 2015 18:57
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I still want ultra contemporary  A Reunion of Ghosts comes out next week and it looks good. I am v. excited.
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Mar 19, 2015 19:39
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cloudchamber posted:There hasn't been a single female author yet this year. Maybe we could keep it Norwegian and read some Sigrid Undset. Gunnar's Daughter is a pretty quick and easy read. Or maybe the first novel in the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy. Edit: On second thought, that might be a dull choice. ulvir fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Mar 19, 2015 |
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Mar 19, 2015 20:31
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If you want contemporary, Norwegian and female, you could do worse than The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am by Kjersti A. Skomsvold Here's the first couple of paragraphs. quote:I LIKE IT WHEN I can be done with something. Like a knitted earwarmer, like winter, spring, summer, fall. Even like Epsilon’s career. I like to get things over with. But impatience has consequences. That time when Epsilon gave me an orchid for my birthday. I didn't really want an orchid. I never got the point of flowers, they’re just going to wither and die. What I actually wanted was for Epsilon to retire. “But I need a refuge, away from all the . . .”— for a second I thought he was going to say “togetherness,” but instead he said “nakedness.” “Does that mean me?” I asked. “I'm not naming any names,” he said.
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Mar 20, 2015 15:36
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Might be time for a good old-fashioned poll?
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Mar 21, 2015 03:18
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Mira posted:Might be time for a good old-fashioned poll?
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Mar 21, 2015 09:46
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Mira posted:Might be time for a good old-fashioned poll? Yeah, I think you're right. Tosss me some more suggestions though.
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Mar 21, 2015 14:05
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To keep a Scandinavian trend going, I'll add Doctor Glas by the swedish author Hjalmar Söderberg to the list of suggestions edit: I'm an idiot and it took me an hour and half to realise I got the surname wrong ulvir fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Mar 21, 2015 |
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Mar 21, 2015 14:11
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ulvir posted:To keep a Scandinavian trend going, I'll add Doctor Glas by the swedish author Hjalmar Söderberg to the list of suggestions drat, that's the book I teach right before having my students read Hunger. Good stuff there. But, seeing as people want some more modern texts by Nordic authors - as well as women - I'm going to recommend Gerd Brantenberg's Egalia's Daughters. It's a fantastic feminist text that plays a lot with language, and the translation into English is incredible; it's one of those books I teach to help my male students learn about feminism; the entire premise of the novel is a world of reversed gender norms, with the language modified to match, and it plays with this by rewriting the first chapter in more familiar language, without the reversed gender elements. It can be a bit heavy-handed, but it's a fantastic novel. Otherwise, Karin Boye's Kallocain is a fantastic dystopian novel from 1940 that deals with questions of identity and the subsumption of individuality by the collective, plus there's an acceptable translation available for free online. It's a hell of a novel.
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Mar 22, 2015 05:39
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Hedningen posted:drat, that's the book I teach right before having my students read Hunger. Good stuff there. What level do you teach? Upper secondary school or university?
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Mar 22, 2015 09:59
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ulvir posted:What level do you teach? Upper secondary school or university? University: general Nordic literature in translation course for non-majors that gives a broad survey of 20th century texts to provide a nice overview of some of the major authors of the period, as well as some personal preferences that I feel give a good idea of currents in Nordic lit. Might be adding some Tranströmer this semester now that I've had time to work with his poetry a bit more.
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Mar 23, 2015 02:06
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Hedningen posted:drat, that's the book I teach right before having my students read Hunger. Good stuff there. Egalia's Daughters is amazing imo, haven't read Kallocain but Hedningen is a person with literally certified Good Taste in books, so I guess we should trust him/her.
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Mar 23, 2015 12:19
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Book for April is Three Body Problem. I'll get a thread up as soon as I can.
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Apr 2, 2015 16:11
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