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Moacher posted:This is a novel that appears on every "Top 100 novels of All Time" list you'll ever see, often in the top 20 or even top 10, and is many peoples' favorite book ever, and I only thought it was good. For these reasons, I face that dilemma of wondering if I'm the problem here, which I'm open to accepting as entirely possible. Is this really a dilemma? It's a popular and good book, that doesn't mean there's something wrong with you if you, personally, wouldn't rank it quite as highly in some list as other people would.
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 00:28 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 08:00 |
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Earwicker posted:Is this really a dilemma? It's a popular and good book, that doesn't mean there's something wrong with you if you, personally, wouldn't rank it quite as highly in some list as other people would. The problem is less that I want my opinions to conform to everyone else's, and moreso that I just want to make sure I didn't miss whatever it is that makes this book such a big deal. Maybe I'm overthinking this.
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 00:37 |
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Moacher posted:The problem is less that I want my opinions to conform to everyone else's, and moreso that I just want to make sure I didn't miss whatever it is that makes this book such a big deal. Maybe I'm overthinking this. Well keep in mind it was very influential, like the common concept of a "catch 22" came from this book, it describes the madness of a large organization like the military in a unique and powerful way while also being funny. Obviously there are other books that do this, also, but this particular one resonates with a lot of people, especially because it is not just poignant but very entertaining. Also there's the fact that book emphasizes this madness particularly in the context of the military and war, and it first became popular in the 1960's when the draft was a huge issue. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Nov 26, 2014 |
# ? Nov 26, 2014 00:41 |
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Please only conform to the established literary hierarchy in this thread.
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 01:02 |
Moacher posted:I just finished Catch 22 yesterday. While I enjoyed it alright, thought it was quite clever in parts, and I feel like I "got" the various commentaries and absurdities that Heller was trying to present, I didn't love it the way everyone else seems to. This is a novel that appears on every "Top 100 novels of All Time" list you'll ever see, often in the top 20 or even top 10, and is many peoples' favorite book ever, and I only thought it was good. For these reasons, I face that dilemma of wondering if I'm the problem here, which I'm open to accepting as entirely possible. Like a lot of other books, it's one that will speak a lot more to some people than others. For me it was life changing, but mostly because it was my first exposure to that degree of cyncism, to absurdism, and to modernist writing generally. If you're younger it might make less of an impact just because that kind of tone is so much more a part of the zeitgeist now: this is the era of irony, and catch-22 situations are normal, and milo minderbinder seems like he stepped out of Haliburton's corporate files. Sortof like the problem with cyberpunk. When the writers for deus ex human revolution started doing market research, it turned out kids these days didn't know what the term 'cyberpunk' was, and all the parts of the genre -- evil corporations, cybernetics, etc. -- just seemed like everyday reality, not sf. I think catch-22's literary value is that in a way it crystallized the new normal, gave us a new way of looking at the world. If you've already been exposed to that viewpoint via other media, it won't strike you as being so new a viewpoint, just remember those other things you saw were in turn drawing on catch-22's influence..
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 01:36 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Like a lot of other books, it's one that will speak a lot more to some people than others. For me it was life changing, but mostly because it was my first exposure to that degree of cyncism, to absurdism, and to modernist writing generally. If you're younger it might make less of an impact just because that kind of tone is so much more a part of the zeitgeist now: this is the era of irony, and catch-22 situations are normal, and milo minderbinder seems like he stepped out of Haliburton's corporate files. This makes a lot of sense, thanks! Yeah, it was kind of like watching a classic movie for the first time after having already become familiar, through references and homages in modern TV and movies, with all the conventions it pioneered. "Oh, so that's where this came from!" I could appreciate Catch 22, but it didn't really break any new ground for me since I'm already so exposed to the tone and situations it presented. It's all good.
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 02:22 |
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Moacher posted:This is a novel that appears on every "Top 100 novels of All Time" list you'll ever see, often in the top 20 or even top 10, and is many peoples' favorite book ever, http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/ 100 Best Novels The Board List ULYSSES by James Joyce THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck The Reader's List ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee 1984 by George Orwell ANTHEM by Ayn Rand WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 08:38 |
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That reader's list.
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 10:23 |
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Wait, that can't be serious. 3 L. Ron Hubbard and 4 Ayn Rand books in the reader's Top 10? It must have been an online vote bombed by conservative scientologists. Or at least, conservatives with really piss poor taste in sci-fi novels. That's loving incredible.
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 10:46 |
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Damo posted:Wait, that can't be serious. 3 L. Ron Hubbard and 4 Ayn Rand books in the reader's Top 10? It must have been an online vote bombed by conservative scientologists. Or at least, conservatives with really piss poor taste in sci-fi novels. That's loving incredible. Your mind is being blown by an online poll being rigged.
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 11:39 |
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Not so much that, but just how awful the selections are. I'd expect them to be awful, but not that bad. Other lists aren't nearly so stacked with poo poo.
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 13:18 |
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Modernlibrary.com needs to reach out to the young, nobody's spamming votes for The Hunger Games or whatever.
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 13:31 |
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Mr. Squishy posted:Your mind is being blown by an online poll being rigged. I'm sad that it doesn't spell out anything
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 17:08 |
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Damo posted:Not so much that, but just how awful the selections are. I'd expect them to be awful, but not that bad. Other lists aren't nearly so stacked with poo poo. eh I've seen "Readers polls" where 7 out of the top 10 best books ever were the harry potter books and the other 3 were twilight books. they are often stacked with poo poo just in different directions
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 17:28 |
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That modern library list has been an embarrassment for years. I don't know why they haven't taken it down
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 17:41 |
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Earwicker posted:eh I've seen "Readers polls" where 7 out of the top 10 best books ever were the harry potter books and the other 3 were twilight books. they are often stacked with poo poo just in different directions At the risk of derailing this thread too much further with list chat I will just say that the Harry Potter books being on that list would honestly be a bit of an improvement over the Hubbard or Rand poo poo and leave it at that. It's obviously a bullshit list anyway that was vote bombed so it doesn't even bear discussion I guess. Damo fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Nov 26, 2014 |
# ? Nov 26, 2014 18:05 |
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Damo posted:At the risk of derailing this thread too much further with list chat I will just say that the Harry Potter books being on that list would honestly be a bit of an improvement over the Hubbard or Rand poo poo and leave it at that. It's obviously a bullshit list anyway that was vote bombed so it doesn't even bear discussion I guess. well sure, I agree the Harry Potter books are better than L Ron Hubbard's books, but that's kind of besides the point. I just mean when you see all 7 harry potter books on a list like that it was obviously either votespammed by a bunch of harry potter fans or a poll of so narrow a demographic that the list is meaningless, as most such lists are.
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# ? Nov 26, 2014 18:11 |
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Mr. Squishy posted:Your mind is being blown by an online poll being rigged. Earwicker posted:eh I've seen "Readers polls" where 7 out of the top 10 best books ever were the harry potter books and the other 3 were twilight books. they are often stacked with poo poo just in different directions
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# ? Nov 27, 2014 03:37 |
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I've been itchin' to read The Iliad and The Odyssey lately, can anyone recommend the preferred translations? I think we've got a Fitzgerald translation of The Odyssey lying around the house somewhere but my experience with The Count of Monte Cristo this summer has drilled the mantra "always ask about translations first" into my head.
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# ? Nov 27, 2014 04:46 |
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The common wisdom is Fitzgerald for the Odyssey and Lattimore for the Iliad. I also like Anthony Verity's recent Iliad.
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# ? Nov 27, 2014 04:50 |
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The Modern Library Reader's List actually gets some interesting choices around 30 onwards. Authors like Toni Morrison, Flann O'Brien, Robertson Davies, Cormac McCarthy and William S Burroughs start showing up on that list and are absent from the Board's List. They're unusual choices for the most part but much more interesting than the non-reader list.
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# ? Nov 30, 2014 03:43 |
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blue squares posted:That modern library list has been an embarrassment for years. I don't know why they haven't taken it down Yeah, darkness at noon is a pretty uninspiring choice. What were they thinking?
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# ? Dec 1, 2014 16:03 |
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Atlas Shrugged being the best novel of all time probably isn't any more ridiculous than the assertion that the Great Gatsby is the second best novel of all time, or that, somehow, 8 out of 10 of the best novels in human history were all written in the same 20 year period by people with remarkably homogenous social backgrounds
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# ? Dec 1, 2014 17:33 |
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tatankatonk posted:or that, somehow, 8 out of 10 of the best novels in human history were all written in the same 20 year period by people with remarkably homogenous social backgrounds
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# ? Dec 1, 2014 18:08 |
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Tulpa posted:The Modern Library Reader's List actually gets some interesting choices around 30 onwards. Authors like Toni Morrison, Flann O'Brien, Robertson Davies, Cormac McCarthy and William S Burroughs start showing up on that list and are absent from the Board's List. They're unusual choices for the most part but much more interesting than the non-reader list. I LOVE FLANN O'BRIEN. At Swim-Two-Birds is ridiculously charming and one of my top 5 favorite books. E: You may need to be familiar with Irish Catholicism and Irish myths (as they appear in, say, The Celtic Miscellany or other traditional source) to fully get the references and allusions, but it's worth the read even if you don't. It's a story within a story within a story [e2: within a story], and it's really clever and fun. E2: From its wiki page -- quote:Jorge Luis Borges described Flann O'Brien's masterpiece as follows, I mean, if that doesn't sell you on it.... Rabbit Hill fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Dec 1, 2014 |
# ? Dec 1, 2014 18:20 |
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Sir John Feelgood posted:It's a list of the best English-language novels of the twentieth century. That's what I get for not paying attention.
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# ? Dec 1, 2014 19:01 |
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Rabbit Hill posted:I LOVE FLANN O'BRIEN. At Swim-Two-Birds is ridiculously charming and one of my top 5 favorite books. I haven't yet had an opportunity to read At Swim-Two-Birds but I am very excited to. I read and loved The Third Policeman.
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# ? Dec 1, 2014 22:09 |
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Rabbit Hill posted:I LOVE FLANN O'BRIEN. At Swim-Two-Birds is ridiculously charming and one of my top 5 favorite books. I mean, if that doesn't sell you on it.... [/quote] I'm immediately sold.
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# ? Dec 1, 2014 22:39 |
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I'm knee-deep in The Sound and the Fury , and I'm waaaaaaaaay more into it now than when it was assigned reading in high school. There's something almost hypnotic about the way Benjy's narration is absolutely devoid of subjectivity-- he just describes the events that he perceives without any interpretation or commentary, which is totally jarring and counter to what we expect from a narrator. Also, I'm finding myself disturbed by how much I relate to Quentin's thought process (other than, y'know, the incest stuff). It's pretty clear that he's got super severe OCD, right? And anyone who says that Faulkner's prose is overly prolix or elaborate is missing the point. He's trying to capture the perspectives of various disordered minds. To write in a clean, straight-ahead style a la Hemingway would spoil the effect. Also, does anybody have any thoughts on the book's racial politics? I keep oscillating between "this book is hella racist" and "this book is hella subversively anti-racist."
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# ? Dec 2, 2014 03:29 |
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Travic posted:And it's not rude at all. No offense taken. There are lots of ways to experience reading. I just wanted to make sure there was something for me and my extremely literal brain. I know you said you struggled with analyzing texts for deeper meaning, but about paying more attention to the style of the writing? Good literary fiction isn't just about what's written (text) or what isn't written (subtext). It's also about how it's written. For example there's Faulkner's use of different styles to inhabit the headspace of his characters, Hemingway's sparse directness, or Nabokov's meticulously constructed prose. Obviously that's a pretty narrow set of examples, but there's something to said of reading as an aesthetic experience.
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# ? Dec 2, 2014 04:04 |
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Sebadoh Gigante posted:[T]here's something to said of reading as an aesthetic experience. Agreed 100%. This, to me, is the primary pleasure of "real literature." I enjoy things like ASOIAF for plot, but the tastiness of Nabokov's or John Fowles' or even Michael Chabon's prose scratches a different itch entirely.
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# ? Dec 3, 2014 18:43 |
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Has anyone read Monsieur Pain by Bolano?
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# ? Dec 3, 2014 19:07 |
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Antwan3K posted:Has anyone read Monsieur Pain by Bolano? I have not, but I'm generally a huge Bolano fan. Is it worth checking out? By Night in Chile and the Savage Detectives are, I think, my favorites. I think the Oedipal love/hate he has for Gabriel Garcia Marquez is fascinating.
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# ? Dec 3, 2014 19:10 |
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I'll be sure to tell you. Just bought it, but haven't started it yet. I haven't read By Night in Chile, that's probably my next one. Love 2666, Nazi Literature and Savage Detectives though (probably in that order)
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# ? Dec 3, 2014 20:29 |
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Falstaff Infection posted:I'm knee-deep in The Sound and the Fury It took me like 3 separate attempts to actually get through the book, but finally finishing it was certainly one of the more rewarding book experiences I've had. It's 98% suck followed by 2% hopefulness that recasts everything that came before it. As for the racial implications, I didn't find either in this or in other Faulkner things I've read that he had anything in particular to say about race, but that his novels were grounded in the reality of the time. Perhaps, as you say, there is a subtle slant one way or another, but I always felt like he was more interested in Southern family dynamics than anything else. Of course, I'm white, so who knows.
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# ? Dec 4, 2014 07:48 |
BeefSupreme posted:
I think Faulkner's characters speak for themselves so well that he kindof inherently explodes racist concepts, just by showing how equally human all of his characters are, regardless of their race.I'd argue that "showing the reality of the time" is inherently an attack on racist attitudes; to depict racism accurately is to attack it. That said race is definitely a theme he was working in a lot of his stories. It's been too long since I read Sound and the Fury but look at something like Go Down, Moses, particularly the short story Delta Autumn.
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# ? Dec 4, 2014 14:34 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I think Faulkner's characters speak for themselves so well that he kindof inherently explodes racist concepts, just by showing how equally human all of his characters are, regardless of their race.I'd argue that "showing the reality of the time" is inherently an attack on racist attitudes; to depict racism accurately is to attack it. I was going to say this. Race is a huge theme in Go Down, Moses. Which also happens to be one of the few Faulkner books that I've actually read.
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# ? Dec 4, 2014 14:49 |
Seldom Posts posted:I was going to say this. Race is a huge theme in Go Down, Moses. Which also happens to be one of the few Faulkner books that I've actually read. I think it's the best place to start with Faulkner. It's probably his most accessible single-volume work that still has the Faulknerian writing style (Rose for Emily is practically hemingwayesque by comparison), you can break it up into short stories, you can fit all the shorts together into a whole. It's like he was deliberately writing something that could be assigned in Introduction to Southern Literature.
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# ? Dec 4, 2014 14:56 |
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I'm getting flashbacks to 12th grade English class, where we read Light in August, and our teacher (who was an old bitter nun and was terrible) kept calling Faulkner a misogynist without explaining why, and I realized it was because Joe Christmas and his foster father have problems with women and she must think, ergo, so does Faulkner. Even as a naive 17-year-old I knew that was crazy. Didn't one of those characters make a disparaging remark about the scent of untouched womanflesh? She must have taken that personally. (Actually, she was a very sad woman and would fit right in as a character in one of his books.) But HA! Light in August is so wonderful that even that terrible teacher couldn't ruin it, and it's still one of my favorites!
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# ? Dec 4, 2014 15:10 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 08:00 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I think Faulkner's characters speak for themselves so well that he kindof inherently explodes racist concepts, just by showing how equally human all of his characters are, regardless of their race.I'd argue that "showing the reality of the time" is inherently an attack on racist attitudes; to depict racism accurately is to attack it. That's a pretty fair point. The Reivers, which is a pretty lighthearted coming-of-age story, features prominently a black character and through this we see plenty of the racial reality. I wouldn't say that race is a primary theme, though, in either that or The Sound and The Fury; but perhaps, that is, as Seldom Posts said, a sort of subversive, incognito way to attack something which was widespread and ingrained in the culture in which he lived. I have not read Go Down, Moses, however, or many other Faulkner works (Light in August and Absalom, Absalom are both on my to-read shelf), and probably shouldn't be making general claims.
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# ? Dec 4, 2014 15:44 |