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i read waterland by graham swift and sense of an ending by julian barnes back to back and it's pretty remarkable how much better waterland is, even when dealing with largely similar (though more complex) notions of history, trauma, memory, storytelling etc. sense of an ending is just aggressively mediocre and timid, and wears it as a mark of pride.
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Dec 30, 2016 17:52
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Did it talk about how all love has to be obsessive love or else it doesn't count, because that showed up in the 2 Barnes I read.
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Dec 30, 2016 18:10
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there's definitely an obsessive love in the novel but it dangles limply along with everything else. the book definitely turned me off reading barnes in the future.
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Dec 30, 2016 21:02
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The only thing I remember about the Sense of an Ending was that there was enough ambiguity in it and it was high profile enough when it was released that I thought "I bet there are a few elaborate nonsensical theories knocking about online". Turns out I was correct. Waterland loving owns though. I'm going to re-read that very soon.
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Dec 30, 2016 21:56
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i just finished barnes' the history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters and although it ran out of steam by the last third, it was still a very good book overall, and it don't remember any obsessive love fixation even tho there was a whole essay about love
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Dec 30, 2016 22:01
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whatevz fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Apr 25, 2022 |
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Dec 30, 2016 23:44
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Lurk some more.
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Dec 30, 2016 23:53
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pleasecallmechrist posted:Jesus gently caress. Lurk for years. Get banned for a year and this thread has devolved. Where the gently caress is Mallamp in the past 50 pages? He didn't an hero did he? Who are you
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Dec 30, 2016 23:55
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Please Call him Christ
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Dec 30, 2016 23:59
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pleasecallmechrist posted:Jesus gently caress. Lurk for years. Get banned for a year and this thread has devolved. Where the gently caress is Mallamp in the past 50 pages? He didn't an hero did he? What's your fav book?
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Dec 31, 2016 00:34
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whatevz fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Apr 25, 2022 |
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Dec 31, 2016 00:51
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Foul Fowl posted:definitely turned me off reading barnes in the future. Probably wise, but Flaubert's Parrot has good bits in, even if you've never read Flaubert, even though what annoys you in Sense of an Ending will annoy you in that
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Dec 31, 2016 01:46
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The best book I read this year was Baudolino by Umberto Eco cos I was sad when he died, and I enjoyed it. The bit where they ram a stick up the arse of a dead Magi was especially good
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Dec 31, 2016 01:47
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my favorite book i read this year has to be Blood Meridian, with an honorable mention going to Gravity's Rainbow, which i bet will be my favorite book of whatever year i end up rereading it.
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Dec 31, 2016 03:07
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pleasecallmechrist posted:As of right now, Twilight by William Gay. I am admittedly in love with the Southern Gothic. He has the sensibility of O'Connor without the moral concerns also Gay comes from a blue collar background so the sensibilities are refreshing. Have any of yall read him? the only gay i've read was little sister death, earlier this year. i wanted to love it, as i also love southern gothic, but it comes off as a web of unconnected events climaxing in not much at all i frankly didn't understand what was happening and wasn't moved to care enough to figure it out. i read it in january and the only clear memory I have of it now is when they see a half-dog spectre(?) in the garden(?) i've been meaning to give him another shot, though chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Dec 31, 2016 |
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Dec 31, 2016 17:05
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Le Morte D'Arthur is awesome:quote:CHAPTER XIV. How Balin met with that knight named Garlon at a feast, and there he slew him, to have his blood to heal therewith the son of his host.
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Dec 31, 2016 17:53
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Le Morte D'Urban's good too, it's about a salesman catholic priest trying to square God and Mammon.
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Dec 31, 2016 18:04
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Last night I dreamt that I was reading vann and it turned out to be the Beverly Hills TV series inspired story that my brother wrote at fifteen
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Dec 31, 2016 20:16
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I'm partway through audiobook of 100 Years of Solitude. I find it tough to keep track listening but I like it a lot and would probably look to read it a couple months after I finish the audiobook.
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Jan 1, 2017 07:37
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The best novels I read last year were Katawa Shoujou, Fate: Stay/Night, and Major/Minor.
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Jan 1, 2017 18:24
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pleasecallmechrist posted:
Check out his short story "The Paperhanger" if you get a chance, it's real good.
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Jan 1, 2017 18:34
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Nanomashoes posted:The best novels I read last year were Katawa Shoujou, Fate: Stay/Night, and Major/Minor. One day they will invent the ability to physically harm people through the internet. I will remember this post
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Jan 1, 2017 19:04
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Started reading The Melancholy of Resistance and its a bit exhausting. Everytime I try to put the book down I end up reading another 10 pages looking for a good place to stop only to just quit reading mid-sentence because what else can you do?
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Jan 2, 2017 12:16
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The used book shop got in some nice copies of basically everything Dostoyevsky and I intended to pick them up, but then I remembered an article someone linked in this thread about a pair of translators who did a poor job with the books and sure enough they had translated every one of them. So thank you for helping me avoid a bad translation of Dostoyevsky
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Jan 2, 2017 21:47
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If you mean Pevear and Volokhonsky, they are supposed to be the good ones.
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Jan 2, 2017 22:48
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Heath posted:The used book shop got in some nice copies of basically everything Dostoyevsky and I intended to pick them up, but then I remembered an article someone linked in this thread about a pair of translators who did a poor job with the books and sure enough they had translated every one of them. So thank you for helping me avoid a bad translation of Dostoyevsky You're stupid, sorry
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Jan 2, 2017 23:46
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whatevz fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Apr 25, 2022 |
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Jan 3, 2017 00:50
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What's some good non-fiction/essay collections? I really liked Mythologies by Barthes & really hated/quit a third into A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
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Jan 3, 2017 01:23
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"really hated" is too strong, I just thought it was boring/bad.
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Jan 3, 2017 01:23
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This might not be the best place to ask, but has anyone any appreciation for The Shadow of the Wind by Zafon? I told myself I'd try to pick it up again when the series was completed, and it is now, but it exemplifies what I personally consider "bad writing". It just comes off as extremely artificial. Reads like a fairy tale and every character is a caricature. I always got the idea it was a book that bridged some vague literary ambition with more mainstream appreciation, but that cannot even be plausible. Was it popular because of a trend of magic realism? Or maybe it is considered garbage for the masses? The writing rings false to me, it's overflowing with sophomoric similes and nothing feels authentic. Take Bolaño, remove *everything* that makes it worthwhile, obtain Zafon.
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Jan 3, 2017 02:19
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Hat Thoughts posted:What's some good non-fiction/essay collections? I really liked Mythologies by Barthes & really hated/quit a third into A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace Any specific interests? Literary non-fiction is pretty broad.
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Jan 3, 2017 03:00
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Hat Thoughts posted:What's some good non-fiction/essay collections? I really liked Mythologies by Barthes & really hated/quit a third into A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace I've recently read and enjoyed Adorno's Minima Moralia, Borges's Selected Non-Fictions, and Berlioz's Mémoires. Although obviously very different, they're awfully fun to read for their sense of humor and strong voice. I'd recommend Berlioz in particular: he's a music composer, writer, and critic simultaneously who spends much of his career in letters warring on a dozen fronts against musicians, critics of music, concert arrangers, literary critics, authors, the French intellectual elite, the French public, the French government, the opponents of the French government... carrying it off with jaw-dropping style (some of the finest insults in any language) and all the while keeping his perch on the pinnacle of European art. Incredible person. If you want more bite-sized Berlioz, try Berlioz on Music, a compilation of his formal articles and editorials edited by Katherine Kobb. It's not too heavy on the footnotes but the ones that are there feel essential. e: If you didn't specify nonfiction, I'd have recommended Berlioz's Evenings with the Orchestra over anything else, though. I just read it and it put me in an evangelical mood. e2: oh poo poo, read The Unquiet Grave by Cyril Connolly. It's quick and great. Eugene V. Dubstep fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Jan 3, 2017 |
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Jan 3, 2017 03:47
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Hat Thoughts posted:What's some good non-fiction/essay collections? I really liked Mythologies by Barthes & really hated/quit a third into A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace Borges' Non fiction eg http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/language/johnWilkins.html0 He goes through a huge range of topics and the best essays will stay in your head for a long time, thinking about cool things like what the implications of Kafka's precursors are to you. Otherwise like Emerson and Montaigne? Are you more interested in philosophy or criticism or what
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Jan 3, 2017 05:08
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I'm reading Paradise Lost and it's the most beautiful and accomplished writing I've ever read and also Milton was horny as hell
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Jan 3, 2017 05:10
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CestMoi posted:I'm reading Paradise Lost and it's the most beautiful and accomplished writing I've ever read and also Milton was horny as hell
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Jan 3, 2017 05:23
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The imagery in that was legit disgusting
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Jan 3, 2017 05:59
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CestMoi posted:I'm reading Paradise Lost and it's the most beautiful and accomplished writing I've ever read and also Milton was horny as hell It's good although the Satan parts are a lot better than the Adam and Eve parts.
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Jan 3, 2017 06:20
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A human heart posted:It's good although the Satan parts are a lot better than the Adam and Eve parts. Remarkably normie opinion for you
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Jan 3, 2017 06:28
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He's been chastened since the sci fi thread owned him for being a hipster. His trolling days are over.
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Jan 3, 2017 06:47
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A human heart posted:It's good although the Satan parts are a lot better than the Adam and Eve parts. Absolutely, I love Milton as the narrator's really ambiguous attitude to Satan and God. God's completely arbitrary and aloof and weird and Satan's presented as this guy who fairly justifiably wants revenge, and in doing so is going to actually give people free will, which isn't even necessarily a bad thing. And then Milton calls him Fiend to make sure you don't accidentally get the wrong idea that he's on Satan's side. In the first book one of the devils presents Satan's plan to attack humans as a way of getting to God and Satan then volunteers for it despite the fact he knows its insanely dangerous and literally cannot possibly work in the way he intends it. In the second book God presents the plan for the salvation of mankind and the Son volunteers, but it comes across like the entire brave sacrifice idea was just copied from Satan's and it's barely even a sacrifice anyway, cos they know they're going to win and God could just not do that if he wanted. The way it's written is so good.
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Jan 3, 2017 06:58
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