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I think the connection that really bugs me is the Mercer-Sam connection. Like, I can buy they are connected because she is the mistress of the husband of the sister of Mercer's lover. That is kind of Kevin Bacon but I buy it. Its the fact that they are not only connected that way, but also by the fact she is a fan of his lover's secret punk rock alter ego AND he is the one who finds her. Like that is three different extreme degrees of separation at once.
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Jan 26, 2016 13:19
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someone sent me a copy of Albert of Adelaide so
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Jan 26, 2016 15:50
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I'm with abstract avatar bro. There are so many random events in life, multiplied by people, that you could make up almost any kind of story and it could happen (at least in modal realism way you know?), coincidences are what make stories worth telling over other stories.
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Jan 26, 2016 16:04
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but there are good coincidences and bad coincidences. good: Nikolay Rostov's squad are retreating through Bogucharovo where Marya Bolkonsky is still holed up. bad: a writer is running down the street with his manuscript when he suddenly crashes into a woman who happens to be a publisher and they also fall in love
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Jan 26, 2016 16:25
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Yeah what ulvir said. There are plausible coincidences and then there are coincidences that are just like "this is a story and the event is a narrative contrivance"
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Jan 26, 2016 16:35
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ulvir posted:but there are good coincidences and bad coincidences. good: Nikolay Rostov's squad are retreating through Bogucharovo where Marya Bolkonsky is still holed up. bad: a writer is running down the street with his manuscript when he suddenly crashes into a woman who happens to be a publisher and they also fall in love The difference between those is that the latter involves conflict that is solved through random coincidence rather than directed action. That's just bad storytelling.
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Jan 26, 2016 16:35
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when you say "ugh these coincidences are just too unrealistic" you sound like neil degrasse tyson complaining how the vapor trails on the x wing aren't accurate to space flight or whatever. the pg wodehouse corpus has settled the matter of whether blatantly stupid coincidences are good, and they are.
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Jan 26, 2016 21:15
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ulvir posted:bad: a writer is running down the street with his manuscript when he suddenly crashes into a woman who happens to be a publisher and they also fall in love that's not so much a coincidence as it is entirely implausible. anyone who works in publishing is trained to turn and run at the sight of a stranger with a manuscript
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Jan 26, 2016 21:57
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Coincidences are fine if they multiply complications or are funny, or both.
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Jan 26, 2016 22:38
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I finished Herta Müller's The Appointment finally. I'm not sure of the right word to describe it. Draining maybe? I found it really difficult to read, partially because the book goes off on all these tangents (which while not the right word, I can't think of a better word right now), but it just felt emotionally draining. It's not like I disliked it by any means, but I had to push myself to read, and it still took me a while to read. I need to read something lighter.
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Jan 26, 2016 23:30
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blue squares posted:The difference between those is that the latter involves conflict that is solved through random coincidence rather than directed action. That's just bad storytelling. gently caress you, Shakespeare.
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Jan 26, 2016 23:39
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Caustic Chimera posted:I finished Herta Müller's The Appointment finally. It's like Heart of Darkness in that I thought it was a 'nice short book to bring me back into modern literature' and found it a struggle. Like I knew it wasn't going to be a barrel of laughs but I still found it weird. I really liked it though, it was really vivid and disturbing and strangely down-to-earth.
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Jan 27, 2016 00:16
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Re: coincidence, the best book to handle strange coincidences has to be Lolita.
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Jan 27, 2016 00:17
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There is no coincidence or plot device, there is only emotion
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Jan 27, 2016 00:18
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You read Heart of Darkness to bring you back to modern literature? The Conrad?
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Jan 27, 2016 00:22
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Mr. Squishy posted:You read Heart of Darkness to bring you back to modern literature? The Conrad? Nah, I just meant it was a short book that I approached like a short book, if you catch my drift. e: I'd read it ages ago anyway, this was prelapsarian fiction reading.
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Jan 27, 2016 00:25
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It's certainly a dense little thing.
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Jan 27, 2016 00:26
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blue squares posted:I'm very pleased that you're enjoying it. About the preposterous connections, though, I disagree. When it comes to fiction, I don't just tolerate the preposterous; I seek it out. I love stories in which everything is connected. Magnolia is my favorite film, Infinite Jest one of my favorite books. One of the things I love about fiction is that it can present a world to us that could almost be real, if only reality were just a little more magical. In life, things don't fit together. Things happen with no reason at all and leave us grasping for an explanation we'll never find. But in fiction, the world makes sense. It communicates meaning and beauty in a way that reality can't. So I don't want my stories to be true to life. I want them to be larger than life.
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Jan 27, 2016 00:52
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Cloks posted:The connections make more sense as the book goes on - some of them are a little too good to be true but the book switches to back stories that explain some of them and others are elucidated through the present story. If you mean the Jenny/Mercer/Pulaski scene, I agree. That whole section was kind of wack. It felt like Hallberg was getting bored with his own story. I'm not quite finished with the book yet, but in general I don't have a problem with the coincidences. I mean, if there's one thing that isn't a coincidence, it's the fact that the narrative is focusing on these specific characters. Why would we be reading about them all if they didn't have an extraordinary, story-worthy connection? Maybe the sheer amount of cross-POVs is overreaching, but that's just part of the sprawling, chaotic, infinitely connected style that helps evoke NYC.
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Jan 27, 2016 01:31
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That's a good way of putting it. That's exactly the section I mean, Charlie was there as well. I think that Hallberg just wanted to be at his big showcase at that point. I have Opinions on the book that I'll codify when I'm done.
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Jan 27, 2016 01:39
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I made a City on Fire thread since there are several people reading it and I love that book a lot. Please contribute at least a little, though I don't expect it to go beyond a few pages at most. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3761833
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Jan 27, 2016 02:06
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Also it is so hard to read one book at a time, or even two or three. I want to be reading all of my unread books at the same time
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Jan 27, 2016 03:07
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pale fire owns
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Jan 27, 2016 03:32
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blue squares posted:Also it is so hard to read one book at a time, or even two or three. I want to be reading all of my unread books at the same time I feel the same way and at the same time also want to buy more books.
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Jan 27, 2016 23:34
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blue squares posted:Also it is so hard to read one book at a time, or even two or three. I want to be reading all of my unread books at the same time I'm pretty good at reading one book at a time but since this thread, I have at least five I want to read out from the library at all times.
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Jan 28, 2016 00:00
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Just finished reading Kobo Abe's The Woman in the Dunes, from a recommendation somewhere deep in this thread, and I'm kinda in awe. He did a magnificent job at portraying desperation. There are some lines in this book that I probably should've soaked in a bit more, because he drops these profound thoughts in the middle, or the end, of what might be a more economical paragraph. I loved it, so thanks to whoever brought it up. I think next up is Ryu Murakami's In the Miso Soup.
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Jan 28, 2016 00:16
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the first line of Dissident Gardens is "Quit loving black cops or get booted from the Communist Party." New thread title?
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Jan 28, 2016 02:06
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blue squares posted:the first line of Dissident Gardens is "Quit loving black cops or get booted from the Communist Party." The new thread title should be the last line of Ferdydurke: It's the end, what a gas, and who's read it is an rear end
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Jan 28, 2016 16:23
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I've been away for a month and I feel confident this thread is still as bad as ever and no one posted anything of interest in the bizarre amount of posts there have been. I read some books for eg. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLIUTUDE - Really boring and I didn't like it. The ending was the only remotely good bit even though I totally guessed that #spoiler the last one gets born with a pig tail # spoiler Our Ancestors = Italo Calvino writes good books the Baron in the Trees was the best one in this but the others were also v good. Solid byut not his best work (Invisible CIties + THe Cosmicomics) [ABC OF READING][/ABC OF READING] -- Ezra OPund wasn't just right about the Jews, he was also right about poetry, mostly. A must read if you want to be a top tier TBB good books thread poster. Ferdydurke - Stravinsky said this was good and he was right. Really funny and great in every way, top book itpo. The translators didn't translate pupa for some reason and I don't think their note adequately explains why. Not called Ferdyduke as I originally thought.
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Jan 28, 2016 16:33
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CestMoi posted:ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLIUTUDE - Really boring and I didn't like it. The ending was the only remotely good bit even though I totally guessed that #spoiler the last one gets born with a pig tail # spoiler you fucker
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Jan 28, 2016 16:53
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i'm striking you off the list of good posters, cest also, i just finished bi feiyu's 'three sisters', and learned that a girl will fall out of love with you - even if you're a poet - if she sees you pissing out in the open. it's a good book, even if for this life lesson only. Burning Rain fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 17:11
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It's dull and I'm glad Gabriel Garcia Marquez died.
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Jan 28, 2016 18:04
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ban
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Jan 28, 2016 18:08
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Those posts so edgy that i might cut myself reading them!
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Jan 28, 2016 18:47
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I'm not happy when anyone dies but then I'm not a MONSTER
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Jan 28, 2016 18:50
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I can't believe a man would come in here and say he didn't like a well liked book. WHat sort of a monstrous troll could do such a thing.
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Jan 28, 2016 18:50
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cestmoi is bad at books he should not read books if he is going to be this bad at it
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Jan 28, 2016 18:53
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Ferrante chat: I liked when the entire Cerullo family won the reading competition because Lila stole all their library cards 
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Jan 28, 2016 19:19
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itt people dismiss marcovaldo as insufficiently experimental
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Jan 28, 2016 19:23
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CestMoi posted:ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLIUTUDE - Really boring and I didn't like it. The ending was the only remotely good bit even though I totally guessed that #spoiler the last one gets born with a pig tail # spoiler One of the worst opinions ever in this thread in which Med Mudkiper posts repeatedly
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Jan 28, 2016 19:39
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