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blue squares posted:I'd participate. I finished GR recently and it was one the most amazing books I've ever read. Plus, I don't understand enough of it to spoiler anyone! I'd keep up with a thread and post my own stuff while closely monitoring everything to avoid giving anything away. I did start a Postmodern Lit thread, but it has pretty much died. Probably because I suck at OPs. Anyway, maybe you're better at it, so post away and I'll see you there! http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3653169
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Jul 25, 2014 07:06
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Soo....what just happened?  quote:I DON'T REMEMBER THE VICTORY FEAST VERY CLEARLY. Gyllis of Thebes, who was in Athens for the festival, said she never saw a man drink so much and keep so sober. I am no great drinking man, but I daresay I drank whatever was put into my hand. My happiness must have burned it out.
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Jul 25, 2014 17:34
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Does anyone have recs for what, if anything, is good by Joeseph McElroy, Richard Powers, Cynthia Ozick and Maureen Howard.
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Jul 25, 2014 17:36
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Mr. Squishy posted:Does anyone have recs for what, if anything, is good by Joeseph McElroy, Richard Powers, Cynthia Ozick and Maureen Howard. McElroy: Plus, Women and Men. Good luck finding cheap copies though.
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Jul 25, 2014 18:56
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Yeah I was checking Abebooks earlier today and copies of W&M start at £40, which must be pretty dog-eared because average price seems somewhere between £70 and £150, and you better believe my local library doesn't have a copy.
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Jul 25, 2014 19:34
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Open Library has an ebook version of Women and Men that one may borrow for a couple of weeks.
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Jul 25, 2014 20:05
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Why is it so expensive?
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Jul 25, 2014 20:09
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Limited print, maybe? I hate expensive books. I've been wanting to get my hands on a copy of John Stewart of Baldynneis's Roland Furious (the Scottish version of the Orlando Furioso story) for some time, but any copy I find is prohibitavely expensive.
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Jul 25, 2014 20:35
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blue squares posted:Why is it so expensive? It's 1170 pages or so, and so niche that even Dalky Archive can't be bothered to keep it in print.
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Jul 25, 2014 20:46
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I have both of the McElroy books from my library on an indefinite checkout. One day I might actually read them.
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Jul 25, 2014 20:55
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Cloks posted:I have both of the McElroy books from my library on an indefinite checkout. One day I might actually read them. Indefinite checkout? What?
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Jul 25, 2014 21:34
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blue squares posted:Indefinite checkout? What? At my university library, you can tell the librarian that you're studying the book for a class and you can borrow the book theoretically forever.
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Jul 25, 2014 23:15
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In my experience that only remains true if someone else doesn't request that specific book.
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Jul 26, 2014 01:17
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Blind Sally posted:In my experience that only remains true if someone else doesn't request that specific book. This is true in my case. Fortunately, McElroy isn't really a hot commodity and they have two copies of the books. When I was in college, I had JR checked out for two years.
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Jul 26, 2014 05:50
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Smoking Crow posted:At my university library, you can tell the librarian that you're studying the book for a class and you can borrow the book theoretically forever. You still have librarians at your university? That is so last century. Everything is done by and through computers at mine.
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Jul 26, 2014 09:05
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I already read grown-up's books but this thread has given me some great ideas. Just started Gravity's Rainbow over the weekend and loving it so far, so thanks OP.
chippy fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 09:11
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Chamberk posted:There's David Mitchell the British comedian (of Peep Show fame) and there's David Mitchell the British author, who's written Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green. I'm really excited for his new one, and its nomination just whets my appetite. Of the few of his things I read I actually liked Cloud Atlas the least, though I still like it quite a bit. He's also got a genre bent to him so he's probably good for goons trying to crossover. (Not that anyone will be given the OP)
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Jul 28, 2014 11:54
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I feel bad for all the people that grow to hate the idea of reading literature because of their high school English classes. My school was just weirdly tolerant I guess; at least my teachers had the kindness to not fail me when I turned in my hare-brained theories about how X and Y were totally secret lovers or whatever. English was a lot more fun when I approached each book with the goal of finding horrible subtext  I should really apologize to my teachers some day.
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Jul 30, 2014 16:00
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EgoEgress posted:I feel bad for all the people that grow to hate the idea of reading literature because of their high school English classes. My school was just weirdly tolerant I guess; at least my teachers had the kindness to not fail me when I turned in my hare-brained theories about how X and Y were totally secret lovers or whatever. English was a lot more fun when I approached each book with the goal of finding horrible subtext Those were some of my favorite papers to read. After 99 essays on color symbolism in Gatsby, it was more than refreshing to read about Nick's bisexual encounter at the end of chapter 4 and how it applies to the rest of the story where he's secretly lusting after every dude.
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Jul 31, 2014 09:32
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artichoke posted:Those were some of my favorite papers to read. After 99 essays on color symbolism in Gatsby, it was more than refreshing to read about Nick's bisexual encounter at the end of chapter 4 and how it applies to the rest of the story where he's secretly lusting after every dude. My class was legitimately confused about what happened there and kept asking our teacher if he had sex with that guy, and she always evaded the question
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Jul 31, 2014 15:27
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I'm just happy people are reading, whatever it is. You don't just start out appreciating Dickens and Austen. Like any other delicacy, your palate has to be trained to enjoy more complex tastes. People start simple (Twilight) and if they keep reading, eventually tire of the same dreck and move on to more complicated books. Besides, I would argue some genre novels are literature. David Mamet's obituary for Patrick O'Brian is a decent defense of that: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/17/books/the-humble-genre-novel-sometimes-full-of-genius.html There is a spoiler in the above for those who haven't read the entire Aubrey/Maturin series.
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Jul 31, 2014 16:49
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I also like it when people read... the thread, rather than just leap past 20 pages to give their hot take about a deliberately inflammatory OP.
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Jul 31, 2014 16:51
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Mr. Squishy posted:I also like it when people read... the thread, rather than just leap past 20 pages to give their hot take about a deliberately inflammatory OP. The fact that anyone posted in a literature thread in TBB is proof that my crusade is working
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Jul 31, 2014 16:54
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The idea that you have to read bad stuff before you can read good stuff is so dumb.
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Jul 31, 2014 16:58
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Mr. Squishy posted:I also like it when people read... the thread, rather than just leap past 20 pages to give their hot take about a deliberately inflammatory OP. I said I like when people read, and I recommended Patrick O'Brian as good literature, including an article explaining how though it's genre fiction, it's incredibly good, literary genre fiction. How is that not contributing in the spirit of the thread? CestMoi posted:The idea that you have to read bad stuff before you can read good stuff is so dumb. Good writing wouldn't exist without the contrast of bad writing. It's a lot easier to appreciate good writing if you've experienced bad.
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Jul 31, 2014 16:58
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I think it would be possible to read The Trial and experience a lot of thoughts and emotions even if you hadn't read The Da Vinci Code
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Jul 31, 2014 17:28
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CestMoi posted:I think it would be possible to read The Trial and experience a lot of thoughts and emotions even if you hadn't read The Da Vinci Code I found The Trial to be very frustrating, I now realise that was the point, but I'm still not sure if I actually enjoyed it. Maybe there's a masochistic element to it, similar to Infinite Jest, but with lack of resolution as the reader's torture, rather than abject tedium.
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Jul 31, 2014 18:00
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The reason I am reading this cookie cutter fantasy series for the third time in two years is because I am training myself up to fully appreciate Charles Dickens, you see.
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Jul 31, 2014 18:15
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pixelbaron posted:The reason I am reading this cookie cutter fantasy series for the third time in two years is because I am training myself up to fully appreciate Charles Dickens, you see. familiarising myself with magical creatures such as goblins and orcs and elves really helped me understand the nature of the spirits in a christmas carol
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Jul 31, 2014 19:34
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Please do not treat reading like gearing up for a raid in World of Warcraft, tia.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:36
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Would there be interest in a Nabokov thread? Like the guy a few pages back who loves Pnin, there's just so much he's written that tends to get overshadowed by, well, Lolita because it is essentially a good old fashioned American Road Trip and makes for a good movie because of that, and Pale Fire because it's the book House of Leaves thought it was being but failed to come close to being as awesome as. Cause I will totally do a Nabokov thread that focuses on some of his lesser-known stuff like my favorite Ada or Ardour, Bend Sinister, Pnin, etc if there's more than just me who loves his stuff. Also, on the subject - if I hated, hated hated Heart of Darkness in high school is it worth it to try anything else by Conrad? I'm not even a huge fan of Apocalypse Now, even though I saw the movie before reading Heart of Darkness so it wasn't the whole "I hated the book so much I hate thematically-linked media as well" thing, I just find the whole premise to be...boring and flat. Dr Jankenstein fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Jul 31, 2014 |
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Jul 31, 2014 19:36
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pixelbaron posted:The reason I am reading this cookie cutter fantasy series for the third time in two years is because I am training myself up to fully appreciate Charles Dickens, you see. Yeah but one of those was written with purple prose because the author was paid by the word and the other is generic fantasy.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:40
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You're right, children only read "Go Dog Go" and "Harry Potter" because they're too lazy to read good literature, not because their palate isn't ready for it yet. Clearly they should have been reading Umberto Eco the moment they shot from the womb, like you guys. Cloks posted:because the author was paid by the word Except you're wrong - http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-charles-dickens/2012/01/30/gIQAp0cUlQ_story.html Srice posted:Please do not treat reading like gearing up for a raid in World of Warcraft, tia. I wasn't aware there was a correct way to read, and that you had found it. What pedagogy department are you the Dean of? Or maybe you just boiled what I said down to a strawman. Someone who struggles to read a magazine article isn't going to get any value out of "Gravity's Rainbow". Heaven forbid they read something they enjoy and *gasp*, maybe even improve their reading skills so that someday down the road they can appreciate those books? Raskolnikov2089 fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jul 31, 2014 |
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Jul 31, 2014 19:41
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Raskolnikov2089 posted:Good writing wouldn't exist without the contrast of bad writing. It probably isn't worth acknowledging such a reductive stance toward books in the first place, but I'll bite: As far as experiencing both good and bad books, it's one thing to be misled toward bad writing after being told it was good--anyone who has sufficiently strong and informed opinions about what makes good and bad literature is going to have this happen to them sometimes even if they don't seek out writers like Franzen for the sake of keeping up with culture--but Literature comes at various difficulty levels depending on the subject matter and the cultural gap. Obviously we shouldn't be breaking high schoolers' teeth on James and Faulkner in light of how few high schoolers have read enough to appreciate those writers up to that point, but that really isn't a good excuse for the abundance of readers who won't ever move on from John Green or ASOIAF. I mean, whatever happened to Hemingway? Not that he's my favorite by any means, but The Old Man and the Sea was readable enough. AA is for Quitters posted:Would there be interest in a Nabokov thread? Like the guy a few pages back who loves Pnin, there's just so much he's written that tends to get overshadowed by, well, Lolita because it is essentially a good old fashioned American Road Trip and makes for a good movie because of that, and Pale Fire because it's the book House of Leaves thought it was being but failed to come close to being as awesome as. That sounds fantastic! It'd be interesting to talk about why Ada should or (in my opinion) shouldn't be considered Nabokov's masterpiece, among other things. All Nines fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Jul 31, 2014 |
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Jul 31, 2014 19:48
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When I was a baby I read Redwall but now I am a grown man I don't have to grind out levsls on The Dresden Files.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:52
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All Nines posted:Obviously we shouldn't be breaking high schoolers' teeth on James and Faulkner in light of how few high schoolers have read enough to appreciate those writers up to that point, but that really isn't a good excuse for the abundance of readers who won't ever move on from John Green or ASOIAF. Which is my entire point. You don't just start out reading Joyce. People read a lot of genre crap, and eventually some will move on to higher-grade crap. Those who don't? Well, criticizing them over their choice of reading material isn't going to change that. And at least they're reading something. CestMoi posted:When I was a baby I read Redwall but now I am a grown man I don't have to grind out levsls on The Dresden Files. Reductio ad absurdum is a valuable contribution to any discussion and is the mark of a well thought out position.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:53
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There are no good books that are easy to read.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:54
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Raskolnikov2089 posted:Which is my entire point. You don't just start out reading Joyce. People read a lot of genre crap, and eventually some will move on to higher-grade crap. Err werll that's just a Strawman, and errr Occam's Razor says that you just begged the question checkmate motherfucker.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:56
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CestMoi posted:There are no good books that are easy to read. You're right. Graham Greene and George Orwell didn't write any good books. Or Bradbury. Or Vonnegut.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:57
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CestMoi posted:There are no good books that are easy to read. Look at this joker never read Hemingway in highschool.
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