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Tulalip Tulips posted:There's Louise Erdrich. She's also good for anyone looking for contemporary Native American writers other than Alexie, Momaday, and Silko. The Round House was excellent and I really, really liked The Plague of Doves. Just a note about her writing: if Cormac McCarthy's writing style doesn't work for you, you'll probably dislike Erdrich's writing style as well. Seconding The Round House. I think tj's the best point of entry to her work. Also someone upthread mentioned Art of Fielding which is also an excellent book. It probably has the most satisfying ending of the recent books I've read. It is essentially a male coming of age novel and makes me wish there was an equivalently good female coming of age in college novel (bonus if it doesn't involve rape). Other contemporary books by female authors I've been reading: Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall series Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Americanah Jennifer Eagan - A Visit From the Goon Squad* Jess Walter - Beautiful Ruins * I am pretty on the fence about this book / PowerPoint presentation. I totally get why it got so many awards and acclaim, but I personally did not relate to the themes presented in the book. I'm probably way too young to really appreciate Goon Squad (although I like Proust so???) Has anyone else read it?
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Jul 7, 2014 16:55
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Bigup DJ posted:If you want a cool, fantastic bunch of books read Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. Was that supposed to impress me, that quote was dogshit. Unless it was supposed to be ironically purple or something, which would just make it silly. Speaking of purple prose, Jeanette Winterson's The Passion is a historical/magic realism novel taking place in Napoleonic France and Venice that bravely straddles the line between profundity and farce. I've tried her other stuff and found it tilts way too far into the latter direction, but The Passion's imagery (particularly where it concerns abnormal space, I'm a big fan of that kind of thing and I loved her descriptions of Venice) meshes with events well enough to keep it from being distracting.
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Jul 7, 2014 17:19
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taco show posted:Also someone upthread mentioned Art of Fielding which is also an excellent book. Depending on how far up-thread you're talking, I mentioned that book in the sense that I couldn't get through 60 pages of it, for what it's worth. The dialogue and the setting/interaction dynamics were too silly for me. And going by this review (if it can be forgiven for scare-quoting "literary" in the first sentence; I really like this reviewer in general, particularly his 2001 essay/book of criticism, but I've never seen him win anyone over who didn't already agree with his conclusions), it gets even sillier. But I admit that I didn't give it very long to prove itself, so I'd be happy to see someone make a more detailed case in its favor. ^ Yeah, I felt the same way about the Gormenghast quote. I didn't get that far into the first book, but I was really expecting much better after what I'd heard of the book. It had an interesting moment in what I read of it, and I like the application of a fantastical view to things that are maybe a little more mundane but less exhausted than elves and dwarves (e.g. Watership Down isn't as good as I thought it was when I was 16, but it's a really cool idea for a book, especially in the context of epic journey literature), but it didn't really carry itself well. All Nines fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 17:30
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Two words if you loving HATE bullshit like Catcher in the Rie but are looking for some serious lit: Chunk Motherfucking Paulunick.
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Jul 7, 2014 18:17
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Davelord Cheeto posted:Two words if you loving HATE bullshit like Catcher in the Rie but are looking for some serious lit: Chunk Motherfucking Paulunick. Joke post?
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Jul 7, 2014 22:22
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I love Chunk.
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Jul 7, 2014 23:14
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Davelord Cheeto posted:Two words if you loving HATE bullshit like Catcher in the Rie but are looking for some serious lit: Chunk Motherfucking Paulunick. Fight Club is entry level bullshit. What are the deep cuts?
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Jul 7, 2014 23:35
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Ogmius815 posted:Is this the thread where goons pretend to be able to stand Jonathan Franzen for imaginary literacy points? Hey, gently caress y'all, Freedom is a great book. Also, I just finished Bleeding Edge by Pynchon. Amazing book. Further also, now reading The Plot Against America. I love Roth. I don't care how much of a terrible rear end in a top hat he is in real life. The man has a fantastic connection to the written word. Just look at this line, where he's describing a character applying a bandage to his stump leg: Philip Roth posted:"It's either too loving loose or too loving tight. It makes you nuts-the whole goddamn thing." He removed the safety pin that fastened the second bandage and then undid both bandages in order to start again. "You can see," he told me, struggling now to suppress disgust with the futility of everything, "how good at doing this you get," and resumed the rewrapping, which, like the healing, appeared destined to go on in our bedroom forever. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. That whole scene just reeks of Waiting for Godot. Like Estragon, trying to put on his boot. "Nothing to be done" Is anyone else a big Roth fan? I've got some 11 of his books in my library. American Pastoral and Sabbath's Theater are staggering aesthetic achievements.
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Jul 7, 2014 23:37
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Hello Bitches. Might I suggest some mothershitting Tao Lin if you want some seriously twisteed Litchacha? When you're done with that, follow it up by injecting some Denis Johnson straight into your dickhole! Christ on a gently caress! Thqt's some Good poo poo from a local library. But what's a stupid jerkoff to do when he wants some Classic poo poo by a Dead White Male? Rip your brain a new rear end in a top hat with some Adolf Hitler. Hell yeahs! That some good word reading.
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Jul 8, 2014 00:14
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taco show posted:Jennifer Eagan - A Visit From the Goon Squad* Yeah, and I thought it was awesome. What's your block - the themes are too middle-agey? I read a lot of the individual chapters as short stories before the book came out and I think that might be a better way to read it than to try and see it as a cohesive whole.
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Jul 8, 2014 02:29
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quote:I know that you asked for a good female writer who is associated with Sci-fi but would you consider reading Helen Dewitt's The Last Samurai? I read it a while ago and found it to be pretty clever for a debut novel; it's not without flaws, the prose and the un-edited sentences leave a lot to be desired but there are a lot of good stories that make you think. I second this recommendation. I really loved this book, it's among my favorites but I've never known of a single other person who has read it. Other relatively recent favorite books by female authors are: The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri Possession - AS Byatt Art & Lies - Jeanette Winterson The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood The Tiger's Wife - Tea Obreht St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves - Karen Russell (short stories) Joyce Carol Oates - any of her story collections The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova White Teeth and On Beauty - Zadie Smith Books on my "to read" list, but haven't read yet: Americanah: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The Luminaries: Eleanor Catton Wake: Elizabeth Knox The Book of Unknown Americans: Cristina Henríquez The Vacationers: Emma Straub A recent favorite that is written by a man but has a female lead that I really liked was The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. It's set in NY in the '30s-'50s and he really captures the same tone that you get in old movies. I love films from the '30s and '40s and the point of view and dialogue has so much of the same feel, with that same breezy wit and banter. PS Jess Walter is a man. But his books are really good so read them anyway in addition to all the cool female authors.
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Jul 8, 2014 07:37
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^ goddamnit I should have known that.dogcrash truther posted:Yeah, and I thought it was awesome. What's your block - the themes are too middle-agey? I read a lot of the individual chapters as short stories before the book came out and I think that might be a better way to read it than to try and see it as a cohesive whole.  ). More middle age perspective crept in when Scotty's concert was made to be the defining moment of Lulu's generation, even though it seemed like the only people involved in making that happen were characters in Bennie's generation. That whole last chapter just lost me completely. That being said, it was fun to piece the book together with the way she bounced between stories and time periods. I also wish we would have spent time with Rolph as an adult. Everyone should at least check out some of the individual stories here: Ask Me If I Care Safari - One of my favorites Found Objects Great Rock and Roll Pauses - This one's in powerpoint! All Nines posted:Depending on how far up-thread you're talking, I mentioned that book in the sense that I couldn't get through 60 pages of it, for what it's worth. The dialogue and the setting/interaction dynamics were too silly for me. And going by this review (if it can be forgiven for scare-quoting "literary" in the first sentence; I really like this reviewer in general, particularly his 2001 essay/book of criticism, but I've never seen him win anyone over who didn't already agree with his conclusions), it gets even sillier. But I admit that I didn't give it very long to prove itself, so I'd be happy to see someone make a more detailed case in its favor. Actually, I agree with most of the things he mentioned in the review. This book isn't Tolstoy. I'm not sure it's going to stand the test of centuries or even decades. Hype trains can be super annoying and/or even misrepresent a body of work (See: Girls, Wuthering Heights). There's certainly other structural flaws: the ending was a little too tidy, the characters had strange arcs (most of them kind of end up right where they started), and the book took place in this alternate universe where everyone is so much nicer/more accepting/introspective than here. However, I immensely enjoyed reading The Art of Fielding. I think the characters are compelling and the story, while standard, is earnest and timeless and everything that The Sandlot kids idealize about baseball. The prose, to me, is smart and has a gentle humour, which makes sense considering Owen is supposed to be the symbolic narrator. That same passage about swivel chairs? I can actually see my actual Melville professor saying to himself and chuckling. And finally, I think it's somewhat rare to see a book stick the landing this well. It was satisfying and left me with a sense of buoyancy that I haven't felt in a long time. The Art of Fielding was a great way to start this summer. Also, have you read this discussion from 2012's Tournament of Books? It's a less aggressive review that also agrees that it's not The Great American Novel. Even the comments are pretty good. Sorry for all the  ! I just rarely get to talk contemporary literature with anyone so I'm excited about this thread.
taco show fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Jul 8, 2014 |
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Jul 8, 2014 07:59
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Philip Roth is loving good. If you disagree with the above statement, I'd take a few minutes to reexamine your opinions re: art, film, politics, religion &c&c&c because you now, at this moment, know what it feels like to be objectively incorrect. e: watch a man examine his own navel so hard that, over the course of 4 novels, he accidentally writes the greatest work of autobiographical fiction in the English language. Then, grumbling and hemming and hawing, he caps off the series, years later, with The Counterlife, which is one of those books where everyone who has ever read it becomes a fervent Counterlife evangelist, one of those inexplicable, lovely chunks of literature that you hesitate to label as "postmodern" for fear of cheapening the experience of reading it. Also, while young, coked-up and still flying on the high of his critically-acclaimed first book, Roth wrote a gruesome, explicit adolescent sex-comedy that, coincidentally, is one of the funniest things ever written. CARL MARK FORCE IV fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Jul 8, 2014 |
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Jul 8, 2014 08:06
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taco show posted:Actually, I agree with most of the things he mentioned in the review. This book isn't Tolstoy. I'm not sure it's going to stand the test of centuries or even decades. Hype trains can be super annoying and/or even misrepresent a body of work (See: Girls, Wuthering Heights). There's certainly other structural flaws: the ending was a little too tidy, the characters had strange arcs (most of them kind of end up right where they started), and the book took place in this alternate universe where everyone is so much nicer/more accepting/introspective than here. First off, I'm really glad you mentioned Wuthering Heights in this context. I just don't get how anyone can read that book and come away from it thinking that Heathcliff is anything but the biggest rear end in a top hat; the only character I've been more repulsed by in a book is Humbert Humbert. WH is a great book, but the common perceptions of it are just really weird. Anyway, I like your comment about the book taking place in an alternate universe; I wasn't quite able to phrase it, but that's really how it felt, that it wasn't taking place in the real world. The review you linked is interesting in that it says something similar about the book not necessarily feeling the most realistic after analyzing the book's subject matter, except saying that it wanted to be a part of a different time rather than a different place. I don't know if or when I'll go back to the book again, but I think I agree with you about the book's prose (though without applying it to the dialogue) and don't necessarily disagree with you about anything I'm qualified to comment on without having finished the book; even the swivelization line is questionable more for its context in a serious book (if not pervasively, cloyingly serious) than just for being a silly pun, I think. I think this is the sort of book that I could have easily enjoyed with some minor changes, or if I didn't hate the current idiom so much. And it's been nice to have a more detailed conversation about a book like this; usually when I talk to friends about books I don't like it quickly devolves into me ragging on the author for bad style and my friends getting defensive. So thanks! I also have to say I'm very impressed with the comments section of the review you posted. All Nines fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Jul 8, 2014 |
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Jul 8, 2014 13:15
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Effectronica posted:So where should I go in Native American literature after Momaday, Silko, and Alexie? Dr. Thomas King. Both his fiction and non-fiction are absolutely worth a look. For fiction, Medicine River is one of his earlier novels and one that people often point to in terms of being one of his more significant ones. Truth And Bright Water is also good. If you're okay with non-fiction, read his Massey Lecture, The Truth About Stories, or his recent An Inconvenient Indian. I've got some other recommendations if you're interested in reading survivor accounts of Residential Schools and/or First Nation YA lit.
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Jul 8, 2014 16:09
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I honestly think the bolding of the names of books is worse than the fact no one reads.
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Jul 8, 2014 16:36
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CestMoi posted:I honestly think the bolding of the names of books is worse than the fact no one reads. It's good for scanning threads to find mention of books you've read/want to discuss.
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Jul 8, 2014 16:59
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blue squares posted:It's good for scanning threads to find mention of books you've read/want to discuss. It's bad.
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Jul 8, 2014 17:14
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I think the likelihood of a person who needs to scan a paragraph having anything of interest to say is minimal.RBC posted:Hello Bitches. Might I suggest some mothershitting Tao Lin if you want some seriously twisteed Litchacha? When you're done with that, follow it up by injecting some Denis Johnson straight into your dickhole! Christ on a gently caress! Thqt's some Good poo poo from a local library.
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Jul 8, 2014 17:23
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Eh, I've started bolding book names because it seemed to be the convention around here (aside from just not doing anything with the title of a work, which doesn't feel right to me), and because it's easier to spot than italics. I figure if you want to see whether or not specific books you're interested in have already been discussed it should be helpful, but then if you want to talk with that person or respond to the book's being mentioned at all you should read the whole post that mentions said book (and whatever conversation might have led to the book's being mentioned in the first place).
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Jul 8, 2014 17:43
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k-uno posted:The Goldfinch is worth it; I didn't love it as much as The Secret History-- though it would have been hard for me to, as I went to a weird liberal arts college where all the students took a year of greco-roman humanities, and "Hippocleides doesn't care" was and may still be an actual saying on campus... Speaking of, read Anne Carson. Read Anne Carson. Read Anne Carson! And Christopher Logue's War Music.
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Jul 9, 2014 01:26
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This thread is great and I don't ever want it to die and this post rules a lot:Bigup DJ posted:There's no problem with science fiction and fantasy, the problem is with formulaic poo poo which doesn't innovate. I also want to yell at the person that said Gormenghast sounds bad like a lot. A couple of my favorite genre/not genre books are Christopher Priest's The Islanders and Ian McDonald's Desolation Road. The Islanders is a sort of travel guide to a set of islands that don't exist. There's some LeGuin type fantastical world building and some beautiful Calvino-like descriptions of place. Desolation Road draws heavily on 100 Years of Solitude but in a very Jack Vance science fiction as fable sort of way. Plus it has sentient trains, angels that may be robots or the other way around, and ghost Martians. Read it!
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Jul 9, 2014 07:44
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ShutteredIn posted:I also want to yell at the person that said Gormenghast sounds bad like a lot. I like Gormenghast but it really is the kind of thing where if it doesn't work for you, it's really annoying. I can see how someone would find it overly purple.
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Jul 9, 2014 08:53
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Even if you like it, you've got to admit Peake was trying so hard to write the purplest prose he could.
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Jul 9, 2014 13:40
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A Rambling Vagrant posted:Philip Roth is loving good. I've only read his more modern works, from Sabbath's Theater on, I think. Some incredible, some just good, but I wouldn't dare call any of them bad. Though The Dying Animal was largely unimpressive when compared to something like J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace or even Roth's own Sabbath's Theater. ...also I like bolding books 
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Jul 9, 2014 22:26
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CestMoi posted:It's bad.
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Jul 10, 2014 14:47
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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.
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Jul 10, 2014 19:28
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Sure, but we're talking about this world.
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Jul 10, 2014 19:50
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I'm an English major, studied Joyce and Dante. It's hard for people here to even talk about that. I thought the Airport Fiction and formulaic sci-fi threads were mocking bad books, but they're serious. I like fantasy - Lord Dunsany, Moorcock - when it's weird and surreal and strange. Most 'fantasy' post-Tolkien is masturbatory material for spreadsheet math nerds. People in those threads ironically praise 'consistent magic systems' like it's important. Anything fantastic like Flann O'Brian would break their brains. Same with sci-fi. It's discussions of boring space opera and not New Wave weirdness.
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Jul 11, 2014 09:50
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Mike Gallego posted:What's everyone's thoughts on Beowulf? I personally enjoyed it in the various classes that had me read it, and think a lot of goons would too. No matter how well written it is it's still a poem about slaying monsters and getting loot I prefer stuff that sounds cool, whether it 'makes sense' on a linear logical level. So Joyce and Beat poetry
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Jul 11, 2014 10:05
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Count Chocula posted:I'm an English major, studied Joyce and Dante. It's hard for people here to even talk about that. I thought the Airport Fiction and formulaic sci-fi threads were mocking bad books, but they're serious. Feel free to recommend some! I've read all the fantasy you mentioned but I'd love to hear some sci-fi that I'm not familiar with.
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Jul 11, 2014 10:05
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Chamberk posted:Hey, I brought up Ursula K. LeGuin. Margaret Atwood is pretty great too. And if we're talking 19th century literature, I think the best book of that century is Middlemarch. Which was written by a woman under a man's name: Mary Ann Evans, as George Eliot. So now anything that isn't poo poo stops being genre? Ursula K LeGuin's stories of alien worlds and boy wizards should be the bare minimum of quality you read. Sci-fi? Nothing worse than Samuel Dalaney.
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Jul 11, 2014 10:08
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Count Chocula posted:I'm an English major, studied Joyce and Dante. It's hard for people here to even talk about that. I thought the Airport Fiction and formulaic sci-fi threads were mocking bad books, but they're serious. mallamp fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Jul 11, 2014 |
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Jul 11, 2014 10:19
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Count Chocula posted:I'm an English major, studied Joyce and Dante. It's hard for people here to even talk about that. I thought the Airport Fiction and formulaic sci-fi threads were mocking bad books, but they're serious. Fine literature is great and enjoyable, but sometimes you just want a hotdog instead of a steak.
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Jul 11, 2014 10:29
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More people should read literary fiction but leading off with 'I did a literal university degree in this and I can't believe how low your power levels are???' is a bit daft.
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Jul 11, 2014 10:41
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I like genre fiction but it'd be nice to have one or two threads that aren't about it at all times.
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Jul 11, 2014 13:38
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I like genre fiction but it'd be nice to have one or two threads that aren't about it at all times. We already had this thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3608062 which is like this one but without the trolls and assholes. So now we have two "literature" megathreads: a good one and this one. content: I recently read The Curfew by Jesse Ball. He's a poet, and his prose is heavily influenced by that. It's also (gasp!) about a dystopia, so it might be a good intro for someone who wants to move out of genre and try something more literary.
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Jul 11, 2014 14:06
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Actually this thread is funny + good and people going "we had a real book thread that made it all the way to page six! What more do you want" is reason enough to justify its existence.
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Jul 11, 2014 14:23
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Seldom Posts posted:content: I recently read The Curfew by Jesse Ball. He's a poet, and his prose is heavily influenced by that. It's also (gasp!) about a dystopia, so it might be a good intro for someone who wants to move out of genre and try something more literary. I really like this guy. Check out Samedi the Deafness. Plays around with form in interesting ways.
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Jul 11, 2014 14:48
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Seldom Posts posted:We already had this thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3608062 Except this one's good too
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Jul 11, 2014 15:02
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