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Mel Mudkiper posted:Dark secret: I've never played Pokémon Pokemon will have more impact on culture than any book written in last 20 years, except Harry Potter maybe So enjoy the YA wavez and create that tumblr account
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Jun 5, 2016 07:11
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Tenth of December by George Saunders - Incredible collection of short fiction. The term "inventive" is tossed around too casually for any book that does anything not about a sad white english major in New York. This collection is truly inventive. Exceptionally crisp and interesting stories. does 'incredible' mean 'average' in American? when you scratch off that veneer of formal inventiveness, he doesn't say anything that hasn't already been expounded to death by better authors (and also himself). i mean, the stories were enjoyable and well-crafted, and all that, but saunders seems to write with a clear target audience in mind and not do anything that wouldn't have them nodding in approval, which rubbed me the wrong way.
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Jun 5, 2016 07:32
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Saerdna posted:I was going to read the caeiro poems at the time but forgot all about it. Are they similar to O. H. Hauge? maybe a bit of Stein Mehren and Olav H. Hauge? they're hard to compare, but it's well worth it
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Jun 5, 2016 09:00
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Ras Het posted:White men are the future UNATCO?
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Jun 5, 2016 09:50
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Aquarium is indeed pretty good. Nice pictures of fish. If with noteworthy you mean "which books will people probably still talk about in 2026?" I actually think Between the World and Me is noteworthy. Well written, short, a bestseller and a book that is just very easy to recommend to others.
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Jun 5, 2016 11:06
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Why is it that the dudes in this thread who are all about contemporary fiction only read the most boring middle brow anglo american stuff?
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Jun 5, 2016 11:52
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A human heart posted:Why is it that the dudes in this thread who are all about contemporary fiction only read the most boring middle brow anglo american stuff? Good point. I'm still open to suggestions, so if you want to recommend anything that's not that I'm all ears.
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Jun 5, 2016 12:49
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Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series is really good.
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Jun 5, 2016 13:33
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Solitair posted:Good point. I'm still open to suggestions, so if you want to recommend anything that's not that I'm all ears. what kind of stuff do you like? if you want to lose yourself in sentences that would make henry james red from envy, pick up the whatever has been published last by Marias or Krasznahorkai. want a short, powerful book balancing on the edge between reality and metaphysical space? Kadare's 'The Fall of the Stone City', Yuri Herrera's 'Signs Preceding the End of the World' and the current TBB BotM 'The Vegetarian' by Han Kang will trip you up. short stories? try Yoko Ogawa's 'Revenge' or Hassan Blassim's 'The Iraqi Christ'
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Jun 5, 2016 15:28
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A human heart posted:Why is it that the dudes in this thread who are all about contemporary fiction only read the most boring middle brow anglo american stuff? Because the really good stuff written in other countries between 2012 -2016 hasn't been translated yet. Also, are you seriously calling Louise Erdrich Anglo fiction?
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Jun 5, 2016 15:51
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Also middle brow is a pissants criticism given by those who lack the critical ability to effectively analyze a text but want to make sure you know they think the stuff they read is smarter than what you read.
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Jun 5, 2016 15:55
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Burning Rain posted:what kind of stuff do you like? if you want to lose yourself in sentences that would make henry james red from envy, pick up the whatever has been published last by Marias or Krasznahorkai. want a short, powerful book balancing on the edge between reality and metaphysical space? Kadare's 'The Fall of the Stone City', Yuri Herrera's 'Signs Preceding the End of the World' and the current TBB BotM 'The Vegetarian' by Han Kang will trip you up. short stories? try Yoko Ogawa's 'Revenge' or Hassan Blassim's 'The Iraqi Christ' making a note of these recs
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Jun 5, 2016 17:24
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Burning Rain posted:what kind of stuff do you like? if you want to lose yourself in sentences that would make henry james red from envy, pick up the whatever has been published last by Marias or Krasznahorkai. want a short, powerful book balancing on the edge between reality and metaphysical space? Kadare's 'The Fall of the Stone City', Yuri Herrera's 'Signs Preceding the End of the World' and the current TBB BotM 'The Vegetarian' by Han Kang will trip you up. short stories? try Yoko Ogawa's 'Revenge' or Hassan Blassim's 'The Iraqi Christ' My favorite literary works that I can think of at the moment are Pale Fire, Gormenghast and Catch-22. I also really liked the Eschaton scene from Infinite Jest and parts of Gravity's Rainbow. You've actually managed to guess pretty well what I want right now: surreal tone and examples of high-tier prose. Out of all the aspects of writing you can consider about a book, prose quality is the one I have the loosest grasp of, and I feel the need to educate myself on how to distinguish it.
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Jun 5, 2016 18:07
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Solitair posted:My favorite literary works that I can think of at the moment are Pale Fire, Gormenghast and Catch-22. I also really liked the Eschaton scene from Infinite Jest and parts of Gravity's Rainbow. You've actually managed to guess pretty well what I want right now: surreal tone and examples of high-tier prose. Out of all the aspects of writing you can consider about a book, prose quality is the one I have the loosest grasp of, and I feel the need to educate myself on how to distinguish it. In my experience, good prose is like porn: you know it when you see it.
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Jun 5, 2016 18:51
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what is the threads consensus on catch 22 because it is my favourite book of all time although i read it at a very impressionable age and ive only revisited it once and not recently????????
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Jun 5, 2016 19:33
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at the date posted:In my experience, good prose is like porn: you know it when you see it. It's remembering how it goes after I'm done reading the book that's the trick.
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Jun 5, 2016 19:39
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actually, i guess i was too harsh on poor saunders, but I thought he would right up my alley, and then his book betrayed me. gonna read up on some more anglo fiction over the next months tho, maybe that vann guy too, cuz i trust you, mel 
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Jun 5, 2016 21:48
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Burning Rain posted:actually, i guess i was too harsh on poor saunders, but I thought he would right up my alley, and then his book betrayed me. gonna read up on some more anglo fiction over the next months tho, maybe that vann guy too, cuz i trust you, mel A lot of Saunders's most well-known works do deal with the same lost middle-aged dad anxieties we've been seeing for a long time, typified by the film American Beauty, but I think he does a great job in updating them. Also, his characters are often a lot less well-off than the typical dad in other examples. His characters aren't in the midst of ennui from excess; often they're struggling just to maintain their status. There is less fiction about white men on the margins of solvency than about those further to the extremes.
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Jun 5, 2016 22:23
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corn in the fridge posted:what is the threads consensus on catch 22 because it is my favourite book of all time although i read it at a very impressionable age and ive only revisited it once and not recently???????? In my opinion it's fine and often the favorite book of people who don't read much since it's often assigned in school, like books by Vonnegut and Catcher in the Rye.
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Jun 5, 2016 22:24
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ulvir posted:maybe a bit of Stein Mehren and Olav H. Hauge? they're hard to compare, but it's well worth it Unrelated, but I skimmed parts of this thread, and if you're still interested in Knausgård, I think his best book by far is En tid for alt / A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven. I loved that book when I read it and was disappointed by My Struggle at first because it was clearly written in a hurry. It grew on me though. It's funny that one of the world's best writers of fantastic literature is now famous for his autobiographical books.
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Jun 5, 2016 22:29
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Saerdna posted:In my opinion it's fine and often the favorite book of people who don't read much since it's often assigned in school, like books by Vonnegut and Catcher in the Rye. Too long to be assigned in school.
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Jun 5, 2016 23:35
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Mr. Squishy posted:Too long to be assigned in school. I have been exposed as a fraud
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Jun 5, 2016 23:48
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I really like Catch but I think I last read it literally a decade ago.
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Jun 5, 2016 23:57
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Burning Rain posted:actually, i guess i was too harsh on poor saunders, but I thought he would right up my alley, and then his book betrayed me. gonna read up on some more anglo fiction over the next months tho, maybe that vann guy too, cuz i trust you, mel Its cool. This thread is meant for being pissy and drop truth bombs on authors. I am sure Cest is hiding with a knife waiting to gut me for the poo poo I said about Calvino by now. blue squares posted:A lot of Saunders's most well-known works do deal with the same lost middle-aged dad anxieties we've been seeing for a long time, typified by the film American Beauty, but I think he does a great job in updating them. Also, his characters are often a lot less well-off than the typical dad in other examples. His characters aren't in the midst of ennui from excess; often they're struggling just to maintain their status. There is less fiction about white men on the margins of solvency than about those further to the extremes. I mean, this applies to Semplica Girl Diaries sure, but even then I do not think its so much about middle aged ennui as its about American consumerism and its inseperable connection to third world labor. Al Roosten was like that too but it was fun enough to be tolerable. It's not like he is going full Richard Ford here. Besides, his strongest stories in the collection for me are Escape from Spiderhead and Exhortation.
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Jun 5, 2016 23:58
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I mean, this applies to Semplica Girl Diaries sure, but even then I do not think its so much about middle aged ennui as its about American consumerism and its inseperable connection to third world labor. Al Roosten was like that too but it was fun enough to be tolerable. It's not like he is going full Richard Ford here. That's what I was saying. The characters aren't bored with having their needs met. Instead, they're struggling to keep up with the demands of a consumer society. I have not read all of his work, but I'm specifically remembering CivilWarLand (the story) and Semplica Girl Diaries as really addressing this. But a lot of the stories in CivilWarLand (the book) have the same theme. They have lovely jobs and a lot of debt, so they have to compromise their morals. That's the central conflict of so many Saunders stories blue squares fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Jun 6, 2016 |
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Jun 6, 2016 01:00
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Catch is great for being hilarious and then incredibly harrowing. The violent lurch of tone it takes with Snowden is so bold. I really admire that
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Jun 6, 2016 01:47
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corn in the fridge posted:what is the threads consensus on catch 22 because it is my favourite book of all time although i read it at a very impressionable age and ive only revisited it once and not recently???????? Mr. Squishy posted:I really like Catch but I think I last read it literally a decade ago. I like Catch-22 enough that I once bought a signed, slipcased limited edition of it for $200 while drunk in a used bookstore. In retrospect that was probably a mistake, but not a mistake I regret. It was a life-changing book for me when I first read it, but I was very young and it was basically my first exposure to absurdist literature. I think it's a good introduction.
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Jun 6, 2016 07:18
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Same here (not the drunkenly buying a gorgeous edition bit)! Kinda weird a few of us read it at quite a young age it seems.
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Jun 6, 2016 10:32
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Its cool. This thread is meant for being pissy and drop truth bombs on authors. I am sure Cest is hiding with a knife waiting to gut me for the poo poo I said about Calvino by now. Having your opinions is punishment enough
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Jun 6, 2016 11:19
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Saerdna posted:I was going to read the caeiro poems at the time but forgot all about it. Are they similar to O. H. Hauge? idk who this Norwegian guy is but Caeiro is really good and a cool look at a guy who was full of poetry trying to write as though he had never read poetry before. Whether it succeeds at that is debatable, but they're really great anyway and very errrrrr sensual I guess??
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Jun 6, 2016 11:24
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Walh Hara posted:Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series is really good. Agreeing with this and I believe they will still be talked about decades from now. I liked Catch 22 but read it in college rather than high school. It's my mother-in-laws favorite book and I enjoyed it. I think that the next book I read was Gravity's Rainbow, though, so it is a bit overshadowed in my memory.
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Jun 6, 2016 12:16
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CestMoi posted:Having your opinions is punishment enough Now that's a bazinga.
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Jun 6, 2016 12:21
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Mr. Squishy posted:Now that's a bazinga. Truly, Cest is as clever as a joke on Big Bang Theory
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Jun 6, 2016 13:12
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I like Catch-22 enough that I once bought a signed, slipcased limited edition of it for $200 while drunk in a used bookstore. That's not anything like a mistake. I would've done it sober as a judge. Echoing this book's status as beloved favorite. The end of the Dunbar chapter is right up there with Beckett in terms of the very best absurdist/nihilist dialogue in the language. quote:Do you know how long a year takes when it's going away?' Dunbar repeated to Clevinger. 'This long.' He snapped his fingers. 'A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you're an old man.' mdemone fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Jun 6, 2016 |
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Jun 6, 2016 14:27
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Truly, Cest is as clever as a joke on Big Bang Theory The Big Bang... oh, you mean my buddy Steve Morolo's show. But what's that got to do with Bazinga, something I've been saying for twenty years now whenever I see a good joke?
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Jun 6, 2016 14:32
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That guy said Beckett dialogue and it reminded me I read Endgame recently and the exchange between Hamm and Nagg where Hamm's like "why did you engender me?" and Nagg says "sorry I didn't know it would be you" is soooo goooooood is tehre a good recorded production of Endgame I want to see if they make everything bad like people usually do when they act good words CestMoi fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Jun 6, 2016 |
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Jun 6, 2016 15:01
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I saw a production of Endgame and I'm not sure the bit with the stepladder works 100% in text.
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Jun 6, 2016 15:07
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Oh yeah the physical comedy stuff would obviously work way better on stage, but Clov and Hamm are great characters and I'm almost certain whoever played them would gently caress it up by not doing it right. When I read plays I always imagine hwo I'd do it and when I see acting if it doesn't 100% coincide with my ideas then the actors have hosed it up and the production sucks
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Jun 6, 2016 15:13
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best part of endgame is the line where he says "the enemy's gate is down"
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Jun 6, 2016 17:45
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I just finished Tree of Smoke as recommended by Some Homo for my book challenge wildcard thing and am trying to wrap my head around it. Stayed up all night to finish it after struggling to get into it for a couple of weeks. Good book, kind of Mallampy about women but that's intentional. wondering what others got from it
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Jun 6, 2016 20:22
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