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savinhill posted:I just finished The Plot Against America by Phil Roth and it was great, thanks to whoever it was that was talking about it itt. Oh my god I still have 30 pages left. I am a failure  .I used to read fast, but then I got a job and alcohol happened.
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Aug 8, 2014 19:12
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Mr. Squishy posted:Hogg's Confessions of a Justified Sinner is good (if you get bored, just skip half of it to the actual confession, where the devil shows up), BTW I just want to say the discussion of this book recently is the first time in a long while I've seen someone on this forum mention a 19th-century author I hadn't even heard of before, much less read. 
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Aug 8, 2014 19:30
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CestMoi posted:The outisder and the plague by Albert Camus are basically the first absurdist novels and they are good. Generally you and everyone else should read MOscow to the end of the line (also called Moscow-Petushki) by Venedikt Erofeev because it is a prose poem about a man getting drunk on the train and it is really good. Id say skip the plague and just read the stranger and the trial by kafka.
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Aug 8, 2014 19:56
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Can't talk about absurdist theater without mentioning Edward Albee and Eugene Ionesco. I'd recommend Zoo Story and The Bald Soprano.
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Aug 8, 2014 20:21
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Cloks posted:Can't talk about absurdist theater without mentioning Edward Albee and Eugene Ionesco. I'd recommend Zoo Story and The Bald Soprano. Seconding Ionesco. Bald soprano is really good
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Aug 8, 2014 21:07
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Seconding Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead by Stoppard and lots of good poo poo by Harold Pinter. Also seconding Will Self though he's a bit hit and miss, I liked Umbrella a lot and his more psychogeographic writings. Bruno schulz wrote some nice short stories too, bit more surreal, stuff about getting depressed over his father turning into a vulture or whatever.
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Aug 8, 2014 21:36
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I've been slowly carving through some gigantic books lately (e.g: Tom Jones, The Bible, Gibbon's History of the Roman Empire) and had forgotten how good it feels to fly through a short story, so I've been hunting for classic novellas to get under my belt and ended up halfway through The Time Machine by H.G Wells. I really love this, it's amazing how that wonderment at the future still comes through despite how far we have come technologically since this was written. Also I am pretty sure I am getting references from Futurama I had never given thought to before. That bit about Fry's accumulated interest from his bank account - a Wells reference? The Doctor fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Aug 10, 2014 |
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Aug 10, 2014 03:52
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For readers of obscure Eastern European literature, Modernist writing and avant-garde literature (with a handful of classic reprints) check out Dalkey Archive, publisher of literature and literary criticism, most of it in translation. I guarantee that no one here (including me) has even heard of 20% of these authors, let alone read them. There is some pretty amazing stuff here and a lot of unreadably pretentious stuff. Check it out here: http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/browse-by-author/ If you want some guidance as to what you might like, check out this website which has a load of reviews (not just Dalkey titles): http://quarterlyconversation.com/category/reviews Josef K. Sourdust fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Aug 10, 2014 |
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Aug 10, 2014 08:12
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I also recommend reading one or two interviews with Dalkey Archive's founder/manager John O'Brien. See here, for instance: http://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-and-blogs/blogs/booktrust/511 He's very outspoken and tends to be righteous and critical. On the other hand, he might also be one of the most approachable people in publishing I've seen. "“John O’Brien has balls the size of a Henry James sentence,” Mr. Cohen told The Observer. “American literature has no better foundation.”" Also, to pimp myself a bit: I've created a world literature thread at http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3656630
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Aug 10, 2014 08:45
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I finished Mason & Dixon a couple days ago and started in on the Name of the Rose, but after 142 pages, I'm a little bored. I'm having a very hard time deciding whether I should read that, The Recognitions, or Libra. Or all three?
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Aug 12, 2014 16:28
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blue squares posted:I finished Mason & Dixon a couple days ago and started in on the Name of the Rose, but after 142 pages, I'm a little bored. I'm having a very hard time deciding whether I should read that, The Recognitions, or Libra. Or all three? Is Mason and Dixon Pynchon? I read Gravity's Rainbow cover to cover and truly hated it, and this is coming from someone who loves Joyce.
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Aug 12, 2014 17:15
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Ya, it's Pynchon. Also I'd say read The Recognitions.
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Aug 12, 2014 17:27
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Pynchon is my #2, David Foster Wallace being a close #1 favorite. Third is DeLillo.
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Aug 12, 2014 17:34
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The Recognitions is extremely dense and erudite, but it's also pretty funny. If you made it through Mason & Dixon, however, you shouldn't have many problems with it. Libra was also excellent, I thought, so throw that in your queu as well.
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Aug 12, 2014 21:31
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Is Mason & Dixon supposed to be hard? It's written strangely (funnily, IMO), but it was really clear what was going on almost all the time.
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Aug 12, 2014 21:32
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It has a reputation for being a challenging read, not so much for the actual plot (which is pretty lucid and easy to follow) but the style of prose and mechanics/structure. Still, it's a breeze compared to Gravity's Rainbow. With those three authors you listed, I think you'll really enjoy Gaddis a great deal (Even the introduction of The Recognitions states that at one time people thought that William Gaddis might be a pseudonym that Pynchon was writing under). Have you started it yet?
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Aug 15, 2014 03:24
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I actually went and bought Inherent Vice and have been reading that, haha. Though I've been slowly dipping into Libra a bit at a time and will knock it out as soon as I finish IV. As for the Recognitions... well, school is about to start and that one may end up having to wait until next summer.
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Aug 15, 2014 04:03
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That's a good plan. Recognitions took me a very long time to finish so it's probably best saved for when you have more free time. Inherent Vice I liked a whole lot, really good and bizarre humor. It gets a lot of comparisons to Big Lebowski but there are more differences than there are similarities. It'll be interesting to see how the movie turns out.
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Aug 15, 2014 04:25
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Is The Corrections literature?
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Aug 15, 2014 11:42
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Yes. Is it good? No. Get owned Franzen.
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Aug 15, 2014 11:44
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Mr. Squishy posted:Yes. Is it good? No. Get owned Franzen. I liked it more than Underworld. *shrug*
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Aug 15, 2014 12:16
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The Dennis System posted:I liked it more than Underworld. *shrug* The hell is wrong with you. I just started The Flame Alphabet and its just sucked me in but I can't shake the feeling it's lacking a little something.
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Aug 15, 2014 15:38
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I see a lot of stuff about Pynchon, Roth, and DeLillo in this thread. Who are some good American authors who aren't dead or senior citizens?
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Aug 16, 2014 01:51
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Also, does anyone know of a decent literature forum that isn't clogged with genre fiction threads?
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Aug 16, 2014 02:01
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Kelfeftaf posted:Also, does anyone know of a decent literature forum that isn't clogged with genre fiction threads? /lit/ on 4chan is the same as this thread basically
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Aug 16, 2014 06:00
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Kelfeftaf posted:I see a lot of stuff about Pynchon, Roth, and DeLillo in this thread. Jennifer Egan, Lorrie Moore, Jesmyn Ward, Donna Tartt. I guess Amy Hempel, Lydia Davis, and Richard Russo are toeing the line of being "senior citizens" but you should read them anyway
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Aug 16, 2014 17:18
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Kelfeftaf posted:I see a lot of stuff about Pynchon, Roth, and DeLillo in this thread. I think Mark Brendle would be right up your alley.
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Aug 16, 2014 20:45
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Thanks, guys. I'll see what I can find by the authors you guys mentioned. "Literature forum on 4chan" sounds kind of hosed up, but maybe I'll check it out.
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Aug 16, 2014 23:10
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UnoriginalMind posted:Oh my god I still have 30 pages left. I am a failure American Pastoral I heard was good, and while it did have a lot of golden hilarity (I love the fiance-dad interview) and some beautifully written sentiment, I didn't really like the tedium or rambling old man nostalgia bias or sensationalistic Weathermen bullshit (felt like a Fox News piece on Bill Ayers or some poo poo). Despite that I did appreciate a good chunk of it and now I'm on a bit of a Philip Roth run. Punkin Spunkin fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Aug 17, 2014 |
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Aug 17, 2014 19:40
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I've been reading Julius Evola recently. He's a cool guy.
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Aug 18, 2014 02:48
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Question: for someone who couldn't really get into Lolita or Pale Fire, how do you think reading Speak, Memory would go?
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Aug 18, 2014 21:28
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I think after those two you can say that Nabokov's prose style is "not for you."
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Aug 18, 2014 21:30
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Yeah, I'd say so, Lolita was the "most accessible" Nabokov novel at least in my reading experiences. Also my first read and most favorite of his. You could just give it a shot and see if it sticks though, different strokes, stranger things have happened, etc.
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Aug 18, 2014 21:35
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I heard some mixed things on Prometheus Rising. Is it worth reading?
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Aug 18, 2014 22:59
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Nabokov's short stories are pretty approachable compared to Pale Fire, if you want another alternative. Let me see if I can find the exact collection I'm thinking of. edit: It was Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Aug 18, 2014 |
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Aug 18, 2014 23:37
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Bundt Cake posted:Id say skip the plague and just read the stranger and the trial by kafka. I really enjoyed The Plague personally, a lot more than The Stranger.
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Aug 19, 2014 01:17
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TheFallenEvincar posted:Yeah, I just finished The Plot Against America recently myself. Quite enjoyed it even if the resolution felt a bit rushed. It's kind of just a nice coming of age story and the historical information at the end was really revealing/terrifying, it had totally slipped my mind that Lindbergh and Henry Ford were practically Nazi sympathizers. It's definitely the only alternative history fiction (generally anything with a trace of that is corny bullshit) I'd remotely tolerate other than The Man in the High Castle. I feel as if you aren't supposed to like the "old man nostalgia bias," because that's sort of what the book deconstructs. The idea that life is about achieving the American Dream by getting a beautiful wife, inheriting your father's company, and starting a family is just not compatible with the reality of the 60s, where that sort of cultural narrative was being blown apart. The Weathermen stuff is a bit stressed, but I thought of it as a necessary condensation of 60s sentiment in order to focus more on the interactions of the characters and how they react to it. Alternatively, I've always looked at the book in a more abstract manner. Because of the frame narrative presented via Nathan Zuckerman, we are not viewing the life of "The Swede." Indeed, "The Swede" is an actual person, so what we are seeing is not a biography, so to speak. It is two layers deeper. We are not seeing Philip Roth, we are seeing Zuckerman. We are not seeing Swede Masin, the man the character was based off of, we are seeing Seymour Levov. Even then, it is Zuckerman's fictional account of a fictional person. So, to me, the presence of the alter-ego, coupled with the frame narrative of the alter-ego, creates a story that is themed around the death of the Mythical American Hero. In modern day, that hero happens to be a sports star. "The Swede" within Zuckerman's narrative is practically perfect, and in destroying his life, Roth's showing how the heroes our culture creates would not be capable of existing in our everyday lives. Even in the end, "The Swede" is shown to have cheated on his wife with his daughter's therapist which displays the complete impossibility of the American Hero as we have constructed him/her. Or something like that, I guess. I really, really, like American Pastoral.
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Aug 19, 2014 18:49
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UnoriginalMind posted:I feel as if you aren't supposed to like the "old man nostalgia bias," because that's sort of what the book deconstructs. The idea that life is about achieving the American Dream by getting a beautiful wife, inheriting your father's company, and starting a family is just not compatible with the reality of the 60s, where that sort of cultural narrative was being blown apart. The Weathermen stuff is a bit stressed, but I thought of it as a necessary condensation of 60s sentiment in order to focus more on the interactions of the characters and how they react to it.
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Aug 19, 2014 21:04
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TheFallenEvincar posted:Interesting thoughts for me to chew on, I appreciate the post. Like I said regardless of whatever elements may have bored or annoyed me, I really did ultimately end up quite liking American Pastoral. I'm on Portnoy's Complaint right now. Glad you did. I'm the biggest Philip Roth apologist on Earth, because I live in a college town where "old, white men" aren't in vogue any more. Didn't think I'd be defending it against people who like it but HEY WHY NOT! I did finish The Plot Against America. Great book. I thought the end was sudden, but good. I'd compare it to the end of another of his books, Everyman, or Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. It hits you square in the gut and you don't know what to do now that you're done. The fate of Seldon Wishnow is perfect, though tragic. It illustrates how hatred and racism can contort a simple part of American culture (not liking that darn kid who follows you home all the time) into something unrecognizable. Usually you just tell the kid to stop and then maybe he'll find other friends or end up lonely, or other things. Here, in a world dominated by hatred, it results in the boy being moved away and his mother being burned to death in a car. Hurr. Me like books. I'm onto Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee now, which is great. I can't tell if the structure of the book adds or takes away from its merit as a work. Is it a gimmick or is it brilliance? Not sure. Anyone else love Coetzee? Some people think he's overrated, but I think he's one of those authors that manages to be succint without leaving details out. It's the space between the words that does it, in his case.
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Aug 20, 2014 17:50
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^read Disgrace a few years back and thought it was real good, although, of course, depressing. Minimalist style can be so great when done well. Makes me want to dive back into some Carver. Speaking of which, I'm about 2/3 of the way through Moby-Dick and am looking forward to something different after. Specifically, a few shorter books, around 200 pages or fewer. Anyone have any recommendations? On my list right now are The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Tolstoy), Child of God (McCarthy), Huck Finn (Twain), and Cathedral (Carver). I'm open to more, as I'm not dead-set on any of these. Thanks for any suggestions.
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Aug 20, 2014 18:13
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