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I have problems with Murakami, not least of which is that whoever translates his books makes them incredibly bland and frustrating to read. Wind Up Bird has always been a favorite of mine though, because his repetitive and descriptive language actually ends up paying dividends in that book.
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Jul 9, 2015 20:16
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CestMoi posted:At Swim-Two-Birds ends really well. It really really does.
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Jul 9, 2015 20:18
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Max posted:I have problems with Murakami, not least of which is that whoever translates his books makes them incredibly bland and frustrating to read. I like Murakami, but I've read everything in Dutch. I like his (or the translator's I guess) style, but it is def a bit bland compared to the baroque extravagance that's so popular among basically all American writers from the last 30 or so years that I'm aware of
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Jul 9, 2015 20:22
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It's better in Japanese
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Jul 9, 2015 20:26
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Mr. Squishy posted:It really really does. I loved the whole book, but last section after his uncle gives him the watch is so sick.
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Jul 9, 2015 20:26
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Whoever translates Knausgaard is amazing.
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Jul 9, 2015 20:26
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Antwan3K posted:I like Murakami, but I've read everything in Dutch. I like his (or the translator's I guess) style, but it is def a bit bland compared to the baroque extravagance that's so popular among basically all American writers from the last 30 or so years that I'm aware of Eh, I always enjoy sparse and simple language, along with baroque extravagance. My issue came up in 1Q84 when the phrase "As if" was used no less than 5 times in one paragraph, and realizing that it was the norm for the rest of the book.
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Jul 9, 2015 20:59
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Smoking Crow posted:It's better in Japanese I have heard from multiple people that the opposite is true and that the translators are better writers than him.
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Jul 9, 2015 22:06
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Max posted:Eh, I always enjoy sparse and simple language, along with baroque extravagance. My issue came up in 1Q84 when the phrase "As if" was used no less than 5 times in one paragraph, and realizing that it was the norm for the rest of the book. 1Q84's translation was a rush job and that really shows with a lot of what must be Japanese interference shining through. The book itself was unpolished to begin with, too, so a rushed translation on top of that didn't really help. All the Murakami I've read has been Jay Rubin's translations, though (1Q84, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Norwegian Wood), so I can't really say how much of the blandness is him emulating Murakami and how much is just him writing that way. I do feel like the style has usually ended up working for the book's benefit regardless, especially in Wind-Up Bird (though not really in 1Q84).
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Jul 10, 2015 04:46
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I just finished Woodcutters. It was good and funny. I think I like it more than The Loser, which is the only other Bernhard I've read. Plus, this one has kind of a happy ending. Apparently there's some kind of joke or word play with the title in German though? I'm also reading The Third Policeman and The Enchanted Wanderer by Nikolai Leskov, which are also both good and funny. But I accidentally "spoiled" myself for The Third Policeman when I first opened the book and my eyes immediately went to the part in the introduction that talks about the ending. Although, I guess it doesn't really matter much for this kind of book. But it seems like introductions do this a lot and are mainly written for people who have already read the book, which is kind of annoying sometimes. Why don't they make it an afterword instead in those cases? edit: What are people's opinions on Peter Handke? He seems like someone I'd like but I'm not really sure where to start. wizardofloneliness fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Jul 10, 2015 |
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Jul 10, 2015 06:44
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I think of Murakami as YA author for people with standards
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Jul 10, 2015 08:35
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is garcia marqez worth reading beyond hundred years of solitude and love in the time of cholera if so, what's good
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Jul 10, 2015 13:09
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Memories of My Melancholy Whores is a pretty good novella.
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Jul 10, 2015 13:38
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V. Illych L. posted:is garcia marqez worth reading beyond hundred years of solitude and love in the time of cholera I enjoyed Of Love and Other Demons.
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Jul 10, 2015 13:51
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ulvir posted:Memories of My Melancholy Whores is a pretty good novella. I thought this was blatantly his weakest work honestly. A Chronicle of a Death Foretold is the third in his required reading trilogy more or less. Past that, its a toss up between what themes you find interesting. There's no real "bad" Garcia Marquez. His best collection of short fiction is The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira. The title story is great and it also has his best short story A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 14:02 on Jul 10, 2015 |
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Jul 10, 2015 14:00
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I thought this was blatantly his weakest work honestly. Gotta admit, that and 100 years+Cholera are the only books I've read of him, but I enjoyed them all so that's why I recommended it. Gonna take a not of your tips, though.
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Jul 10, 2015 16:19
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blue squares posted:Whoever translates Knausgaard is amazing. Yeah, he manages to keep the mundane yet totally engrossing aspect of Knausgaard's work continuing in English. I suppose I have you to blame for getting me hooked on his works though I'm trying to slow my progress (currently in book 3) so I can pace myself for the release of the final two volumes.
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Jul 10, 2015 18:14
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V. Illych L. posted:is garcia marqez worth reading beyond hundred years of solitude and love in the time of cholera Autumn of the Patriarch is really good and is criminally underrated, mostly because it was the first thing he wrote after Solitude and it wasn't just more of the same. The General in His Labyrinth is kind of in the same vein, and I also liked that one a lot, though it's fairly dense in terms of Latin American history. But yeah, otherwise his short stories are really good. His early stuff is pretty rough and often bland, but it's interesting to see him messing around with some of the themes / concepts that get refined in his later work.
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Jul 10, 2015 21:23
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Also just read more Latin American writers. I would argue Latin America was the most consistently excellent region for fiction in the second half of the 20th century.
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Jul 11, 2015 00:00
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Also just read more Latin American writers. I would argue Latin America was the most consistently excellent region for fiction in the second half of the 20th century. Are you reading it in Spanish? I think that has to do with the fact that only good poo poo gets translated
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Jul 11, 2015 01:28
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Smoking Crow posted:Are you reading it in Spanish? I think that has to do with the fact that only good poo poo gets translated It's a fair argument but I would argue even the stuff only translated from the boom period still stands above the rest of the era. Edit: if you want to argue only the good stuff was translated look at the absurd volume of authors who were translated. That's a ton of material for being picky. Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Jul 11, 2015 |
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Jul 11, 2015 01:45
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Smoking Crow posted:Are you reading it in Spanish? I think that has to do with the fact that only good poo poo gets translated Books are translated if the publisher buying the rights thinks they can sell it well in their country. In some cases that means its a good book, in some cases it really doesn't.
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Jul 11, 2015 15:43
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Earwicker posted:Books are translated if the publisher buying the rights thinks they can sell it well in their country. In some cases that means its a good book, in some cases it really doesn't. A funny example of this happened with Patrick Modiano last year. His translations and publication rights were all owned by a small University Publisher that specialized in limited run printings for academic uses. When he won the Nobel Prize, the publisher was suddenly swamped with orders they didn't have and had to go on a printing spree. I remember ordering two of his books about an hour after he won and in the week it took them to arrive they already had new covers with "NOBEL WINNER 2015" on the cover.
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Jul 11, 2015 15:47
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I've got a day off for the first time in a very long time so I'm going to read The Blind OWl. Chapter 1 is good.
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Jul 12, 2015 12:31
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Can we sit down as a thread and agree this new Harper Lee book is some serious bullshit
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Jul 12, 2015 22:54
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Can we sit down as a thread and agree this new Harper Lee book is some serious bullshit Yes, except if that means I have to read it, which I'm not gonna do
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Jul 12, 2015 22:58
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You mean that discarded first draft winkled out of a demented old lady by a money-grubbing con-artist of a carer
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Jul 12, 2015 22:58
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Mr. Squishy posted:You mean that discarded first draft winkled out of a demented old lady by a money-grubbing con-artist of a carer Pretty much
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Jul 12, 2015 23:06
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I'm almost through Illuminatus! and it's great. Other peoples' thought on it/ is it considered Real Literature? If there's one criticism I have is that switching perspective right before a big reveal gets old after a while. The Belgian fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Jul 12, 2015 |
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Jul 12, 2015 23:09
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I'd be interested in seeing some of the changes between that first draft and To Kill A Mockingbird, but more out of curiosity. But even then I'm not curious enough to actually spend the time and money on it.
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Jul 12, 2015 23:37
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The Belgian posted:I'm almost through Illuminatus! and it's great. Other peoples' thought on it/ is it considered Real Literature? I just got done with the council of If Stuff is Literature and they said no. Sorry. Srice posted:I'd be interested in seeing some of the changes between that first draft and To Kill A Mockingbird, but more out of curiosity. But even then I'm not curious enough to actually spend the time and money on it. From what the early reviews are saying its not so much "changes" between drafts as being entirely different books with the same character names.
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Jul 12, 2015 23:42
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The Belgian posted:I'm almost through Illuminatus! and it's great. Other peoples' thought on it/ is it considered Real Literature? here is what i said about it: Tree Goat posted:i thought the illuminatus trilogy was really fun and cool when i was a) a teen and b) the internet was nascent enough that it hadn't run absolutely everything about that book into the ground c) the twin towers still stood, god bless america
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Jul 13, 2015 00:39
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The Belgian posted:I'm almost through Illuminatus! and it's great. Other peoples' thought on it/ is it considered Real Literature? no its not, nor is it trying to be, - it is a fun book and great artifact of the 70's though i think it would be much better with some editing that resulted in cutting it in half. RAW's other books are a good time as well
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Jul 13, 2015 02:14
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CestMoi posted:I've got a day off for the first time in a very long time so I'm going to read The Blind OWl. Chapter 1 is good. The Blind Owl was really good, but I don't think as good as I was expectinhg. I really loved the recurrence of every thing, and the general feeling of the entire thing and the writing was really gorgeous at times , but I feel a little like it was a bit too on the nose by the end. There were a few lines that seemed to sort of be offering a key to the entire thing and I always find that a bit jarring in dreamy surrealy books. I'm going to read it again at some point probably and maybe try out a different translation, but for now I'm going to read the book of Judges.
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Jul 13, 2015 13:03
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The only book I've read by Marquez that really isn't worthwile is his autobiography, Living to Tell the Tale. It's a sprawling mess that really needed an editor to cut it down to half the length.
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Jul 13, 2015 13:58
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CestMoi posted:The Blind Owl was really good, but I don't think as good as I was expectinhg. I really loved the recurrence of every thing, and the general feeling of the entire thing and the writing was really gorgeous at times , but I feel a little like it was a bit too on the nose by the end. There were a few lines that seemed to sort of be offering a key to the entire thing and I always find that a bit jarring in dreamy surrealy books. I'm going to read it again at some point probably and maybe try out a different translation, but for now I'm going to read the book of Judges. I liked that part where it talks about the butcher looking at some sheep carcasses with a buyer's eye, and then later the same thing happens but there's an extra bit about how he looks at his wife the same way at night.
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Jul 13, 2015 14:06
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That was good, as were most of the other bits like his uncle sleeping with his dad's wife because they looked so alike and then the wife is like "well you should both go in a cobra pit and then one of you will die" and they do and one comes out but no ones really sure who it is. But there were bits (mostly at the end) where its like "oh yeah and i was lying down and it felt like there was a coffin on my chest, like I'd killed someone or something, because I probably killed someone in case you didn't pick up on that" and I wish it hadn't had that line because that sort of pushes me towards one interpretation of the entire thing (he killed his wife and is dwelling on it in death fever) when actually I much prefer another interpretation which it sort of hints at a few times (he killed himself and is sort of regretting it while dying of killing himself). I prefer the ambiguity that most of the book does really well and then a few lines sort of take that away IMO. Blind owl spoilers I guess
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Jul 13, 2015 14:37
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The Erland posted:The only book I've read by Marquez that really isn't worthwile is his autobiography, Living to Tell the Tale. It's a sprawling mess that really needed an editor to cut it down to half the length. You are wrong and gently caress you
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Jul 13, 2015 15:20
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I would argue Latin America was the most consistently excellent region for fiction in the second half of the 20th century.  (I'm reading some Vargas Llosa right now)
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Jul 13, 2015 15:34
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The life and opinions of tomcat murr
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Jul 13, 2015 15:37
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