Read Some Real Literature: Anyway hail satantango

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Read Some Real Literature: Anyway hail satantango

artism: Nov 22, 2011

this thread sucks so much rear end and most of you are insufferable.

thank you a human heart and ulvir for some excellent recommendations over the years. especially Hamsun and Bernhard. And ferdydurke. it�s possible that neither of you recommended those. your attempts at keeping this thread interesting are admirable nonetheless.

# ? Mar 14, 2021 17:05

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# ? May 17, 2024 09:07

Take the plunge! Okay!: Feb 24, 2007

nice snipe op

# ? Mar 14, 2021 17:06

artism: Nov 22, 2011

Take the plunge! Okay! posted:

nice snipe op

Jupiter Jazz posted:

At the risk of sounding utterly pedantic:

Reading War and Peace has satiated a deep hunger in me that has panged me for so long. Growing up I loved RPGs and deep stories with an entire roster of fascinating characters to note and keep track of. Games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Suikoden, Tactics Ogre, Fallout, Planescape, and Baldur's Gate would fill my proverbial stomach with the most delightful of tastes: philosophy, war, loyalty, legacy, morality.

A big reason I've fallen away from video games is that I feel the higher the budget the less we likely we get these kinds of experiences. Today's games - and especially RPGs - are for wish fulfillment, not stating something important. The past decade I've solely read non-fiction works, far more interested in the mechanisms of this world than the ones of fantasy, yet all this time I've craved deep stories like those of my youth where I had to get out a notebook to make sense of the characters and world. As I read War and Peace, for the first time in the longest of time I feel full. Going through a story that makes me question my very being and every chapter makes me lick my fingers, as if finishing off a delightful meal.

War and Peace has single-handedly reignited a love for literature and reading fiction again. I'm thinking of reading Crime and Punishment after. Reading Tolstoy has helped me accept how much I've grown out of video games yet still cherish the experiences I had when I was younger. I'll devote more time to literature instead of continuing to chase something that's not there anymore.

# ? Mar 14, 2021 17:08

artism: Nov 22, 2011

*reads one book in the course of my entire adult life* Licking my fingers as if finishing off a delightful meal.

# ? Mar 14, 2021 17:10

Gaius Marius: Oct 9, 2012

You okay bro?

# ? Mar 14, 2021 17:12

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

lol @ hearing about thomas bernhard and knut hamsun from a forums thread. are you 20

# ? Mar 14, 2021 17:21

artism: Nov 22, 2011

Ras Het posted:

lol @ hearing about thomas bernhard and knut hamsun from a forums thread. are you 20

in 2012 I was. you�re also one of the good posters, and I know you felt slighted by the omission. you goofy little European

# ? Mar 14, 2021 17:23

Shibawanko: Feb 13, 2013

i lick my fingers after finishing off a delightful meal. i also wear a bib and put a candlestick on the table every time, and everything i eat comes on a platter with a lid

# ? Mar 14, 2021 17:36

ulvir: Jan 2, 2005

i�m glad recommendations are followed up on, happy to have contributed to someone enjoying a book at some point

I finished Periodic table today, and the story that stood out to me the most was Vanadium, where he gets in contact with one of the civilians in charge of the factory outside Auschwitz. I really need to read Se questo � un uomo and I sommersi e i salvati

# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:02

Mrenda: Mar 14, 2012

Also gonna try and forestall the poo poo that may very well begin by reposting this (also someone who's read these books might be in this thread and I want attention.)

I finished I Is Another, the second volume (of three) from Jon Fosse, following up from The Other Name. If the first volume details the character's childhood, and the formative events that establish his thought patterns in later life, the second volume follows the path to show us where a teenager might start walking to given a bit of their own freedom.

It's an amazing book (both volumes) dealing with art, religion, alcoholism, loneliness, friendship, death, afterlives, and the nature of who we are from the perspective of a man hitting old age. The big "gimmick" (it's not at all a gimmick) is that Asle, the protagonist, has a doppelganger (who we actually get to interact with in this volume.) It provides a strange effect for the reader, because we don't know how the narrator, one specific Asle, has access to this other Asle's history. Doubt is cast over who is who, and who is speaking from where (and this gets into the book's dealing of who we are,) but this doubt, at times, has an effect of drawing the reader in. It makes us doubt which Asle is which, who is speaking, and so we become a participant in the story, an active reader seemingly inhabiting the space between one Asle and another Asle as a reader-person within the books.

I think the biggest standout for me is how un-judgmental the storytelling is about all the "problems" the characters face. The two main strands are alcoholism and religion. Both Asles are alcoholics, one "recovered", who quit for love and religion. The book shows (so far at least, I'm eager for Volume 3) that both are more-or-less valid choices for how we cope with the pressures of the world, whether it's losing a wife, or not having the success we wanted, or simply to escape the noise that is every day (the book is written in "slow prose" where the main character's thoughts are repeated and repetitive.) There's parts where you can feel the trepidation of his beginning-drinking, later refusing drinks, and how his religion is just as much an escape or excuse as alcohol. And so from that we can't judge the other character's near-death from alcohol.

It's a phenomenal series. Probably some of the best storytelling I've ever read, with a style that may not climb to the literary showmanship of some great authors, but matches better and surpasses many of their efforts with the effect of aligning what we're experiencing from the events in the story with our view and expectations as readers.

I'd fully recommend both The Other Name and I Is Another to anyone. It's a thoroughly modern book that I hope will be looked at as a great in the future (if it's not happening already.)

# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:05

Eugene V. Dubstep: Oct 4, 2013; Can't post for 8 years!

lmfao at gatekeeping the single ongoing discussion of good books in TBB. I seriously hope you're 28

# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:10

artism: Nov 22, 2011

Eugene V. Dubstep posted:

lmfao at gatekeeping the single ongoing discussion of good books in TBB. I seriously hope you're 28

turn your monitor on

# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:21

Eugene V. Dubstep: Oct 4, 2013; Can't post for 8 years!

artism posted:

thank you a human heart and ulvir for some excellent recommendations over the years.

You have made a terrible enemy this day.

# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:22

CestMoi: Sep 16, 2011

i didn't spend years accumulating the second most posts in this thread for this

# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:23

artism: Nov 22, 2011

CestMoi posted:

i didn't spend years accumulating the second most posts in this thread for this

think I thought that you were a human heart? you're one of the premier tastemakers itt

# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:32

Tree Goat: May 24, 2009; argania spinosa

gonna need to see everybody's tier lists immediately.

# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:48

ulvir: Jan 2, 2005

This is my Tiere list https://www.kindernetz.de/oli/tierlexikon/alletiere/-/id=75028/nid=75028/did=74672/su03l0/index.html

# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:53

Eugene V. Dubstep: Oct 4, 2013; Can't post for 8 years!

ulvir posted:

This is my Tiere list https://www.kindernetz.de/oli/tierlexikon/alletiere/-/id=75028/nid=75028/did=74672/su03l0/index.html

grudging lol

# ? Mar 14, 2021 18:57

Burning Rain: Jul 17, 2006; What's happening?!?!

Hey guys I'm reading Cortázar's short stories and... oh poo poo sorry nevermind

# ? Mar 14, 2021 19:23

Guy A. Person: May 23, 2003

CestMoi recommended me Book of the City of the Ladies which was my best rec from here, and human heart recommended some Jelinek and Le Clezio which were also good. I can't remember if I go any recs direct from ulvir but they'r ecool too

artism what else should I read?

# ? Mar 14, 2021 20:05

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

Burning Rain posted:

Hey guys I'm reading Cortázar's short stories and... oh poo poo sorry nevermind

I didn't like those when I read them, boring macho modernism where women can't resist any of the protagonists

# ? Mar 14, 2021 20:16

Burning Rain: Jul 17, 2006; What's happening?!?!

Hmm, can't say I've noticed that, but my collection has stuff from a bunch of hjs books, so maybe that appears more jn the later works or something

# ? Mar 14, 2021 22:31

Mr. Nemo: Feb 4, 2016; I wish I had a sister like my big strong Daddy

Autopista al sur it top tier. I don't remember any of his other stuff, not that I've read too many of his books. Team borges forever.

# ? Mar 14, 2021 23:09

artism: Nov 22, 2011

Guy A. Person posted:

CestMoi recommended me Book of the City of the Ladies which was my best rec from here, and human heart recommended some Jelinek and Le Clezio which were also good. I can't remember if I go any recs direct from ulvir but they'r ecool too

artism what else should I read?

*nervously tugging at collar* p...past master

# ? Mar 15, 2021 02:26

Shibawanko: Feb 13, 2013

i re-read louis-auguste blanqui's eternity by the stars, which is intended to be a book of philosophy and physics but which is written in a style and circumstances (in jail) that give it a kind of enjoyment similar to what i get from invisible cities or stanislaw lem or platonov, i like the summary at the end:

quote:

The universe as a whole is composed of stellar systems. In order to create them, nature has only one hundred simple bodies at its disposal. In spite of the prodigious wealth that she is able to draw from these resources and the incalculable number of combinations that make its fecundity possible, the result is surely a number as finite as the elements themselves, and in order to fill the expanses, nature must repeat every one of her original combinations or types.

Any celestial body, whatever it is, exists in infinite numbers in time and space, not only under one of its aspects, but such that it appears at every second of its life span, from its birth till its death. Every being great or small, live or inert, that is spread over its surface, shares the privilege of this immortality.

The earth is one of these celestial bodies. Therefore every human being is eternal at every second of its existence. That which I am writing at this moment, in a dungeon of the Fort du Taureau, I have written and shall write again forever, on a table, with a quill, under clothes and in entirely similar circumstances. And so it is for all of us.

All of these earths stumble, one after the other, into the rejuvenating flames, so as to be born again and to stumble again, in the monotonous flow of an hourglass eternally turning itself over and emptying itself. What we have is ever-old newness & ever-new oldness.

Those who are curious about extra-terrestrial life may smirk at a mathematical conclusion that grants, not only their immortality, but eternity? The number of our body-doubles is infinite in time and space. In all honesty, one could not demand more. These body-doubles are in flesh and bones, even in trousers and vest, in crinoline and chignon. They are not ghosts, they are a piece of eternity actualized.

Yet there is one shortcoming: there is no progress. Alas! no, these are vulgar reissues, repetitions. So too are the copies of past worlds, so too are those of future worlds. Only the chapter of bifurcations remains open to hope. Let us not forget that everything we could have been on this earth, we are it somewhere else.

Progress on this earth is reserved only to our nephews. They are luckier than us. All the beautiful things that our world will see, our future descendants have already seen them, are seeing them now and will see them always, of course, in the form of doubles that preceded them and will follow them. As sons of a better humanity, they have already properly humiliated and defamed us on the dead earths, in passing there after us. They continue to denigrate us on the living earths from which we have disappeared, and they will forever continue to hunt us with their scorn on the earths yet to be born.

Like them and like all the other guests of our planet, we are reborn as prisoners of the time and place which fate assigns us in the series of our planet's avatars. Our immortality is an annex of our planet's own. We are but the epiphenomena of its resurrections. Men of the 19th century, the hour of our appearance is fixed once and for all, and always assigns us the same incarnation. At best, it gives us the perspective of lucky variations. Nothing here to flatter the thirst for improvement much. What can we do? I haven't sought my pleasure; I have sought the truth. There is neither revelation here, nor prophet, but a simple deduction drawn from spectral analysis and the cosmogony of Laplace. These two discoveries make us eternal. Is it a blessing? Let us take advantage of it. Is it a mystification? Let us resign ourselves.

But is it not a consolation to know that at every moment, on billions of earths, we are in the company of beloved people, people who are now only a memory for us? Is it not another consolation, however, to think that we have tasted this happiness and that we shall taste it eternally, under the guise of a body-double, of billions of body-doubles? It is truly ourselves. For many a narrow mind, those blessings by proxy provide little intoxication. They would readily exchange all the duplicates of the infinite for three or four extra years in the current edition. We are prone to clinging, in our century of disillusions & skepticism.

At heart, man's eternity by the stars is melancholic, and even sadder this estrangement of brother-worlds caused by the inexorable barrier of space. So many identical populations come to pass without having suspected each other's existence! Well, not really: this shared existence is discovered at last in the 19th century. But who shall believe it?

Moreover, so far the past represented barbarity, and the future meant progress, science, happiness, illusion! This past has witnessed the disappearance of the most brilliant civilizations on every one of our globe-doubles, they disappeared without a trace, and they will do so again, without leaving more of a trace. On billions of earths, the future will witness the very same ignorance, the very same foolishness, and the very same cruelties of our old ages!

At the present hour, the entire life of our planet, from its birth to its death, unfolds, day by day, on myriads of twin-globes, with all its crimes and misery. What we call progress is locked up on each earth and disappears with it. Always and everywhere, on the terrestrial camp, the same drama, the same set, on the same narrow stage, a noisy humanity, infatuated by its own greatness, thinking itself to be the universe and inhabiting its prison like an immensity, only to drown soon along with the globe that has borne the burden of its pride with the deepest scorn. The same monotony, the same immobility in the foreign stars. The universe repeats itself endlessly and struts on its legs. Unfazed, eternity plays the same performance in the infinite.

it reminds me of his master's voice, where a jewish guy who thinks he's about to be shot by an SS soldier, imagines that his spirit will somehow be transubstantiated into the soldier's body at the moment he dies, it's a completely irrational and baseless fantasy of immortality that i like for some reason

# ? Mar 15, 2021 13:12

A human heart: Oct 10, 2012

artism posted:

this thread sucks so much rear end and most of you are insufferable.

thank you a human heart and ulvir for some excellent recommendations over the years. especially Hamsun and Bernhard. And ferdydurke. it�s possible that neither of you recommended those. your attempts at keeping this thread interesting are admirable nonetheless.

# ? Mar 16, 2021 08:40

A human heart: Oct 10, 2012

Ras Het posted:

I didn't like those when I read them, boring macho modernism where women can't resist any of the protagonists

I thought hopscotch was pretty cool and then i tried to read 62: a model kit and just found it really irritating. it's cool how he was a celebrity that people would recognise on the street in spanish speaking countries though

# ? Mar 16, 2021 08:42

TychoCelchuuu: Jan 2, 2012; This space for Rent.

After a while of not reading a ton of novels for various reasons I've started back up again. I read Philip Roth's The Human Stain which was fine. It's the only Roth I've read - I started American Pastoral many years ago but put it down after less than 100 pages because it kind of felt like he was writing about Judaism for outsiders or something and I wasn't really feeling it (I'm Jewish). Anyways The Human Stain (2000) is about a professor at a small liberal arts college in the northeast US in the Clinton years who is railroaded out in disgrace in his twilight years over a misunderstanding according to which he is falsely accused of racism. The book was pretty good, in part I guess because it is practically a cool drink of water in today's climate to read a nuanced story about "the PC police" rather than what you might expect from a relatively aged novelist (some sort of diatribe against political correctness for instance). There's a near-caricature young French literature professor but she's not in the novel very much and she gets a chapter devoted to her which fells her out enough to keep her from being entirely a joke, and all the other characters have enough depth to make them interesting. Overall I enjoyed it.

Next I read Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood (1987), the first of his novels that I've read (previously I had only read some short stories). It's about a Japanese college student in the late 60s in Tokyo and his romance with the former girlfriend of his childhood friend. I only finished it a couple days ago and I am not really sure how I feel about it. I certainly know I didn't dislike it. I guess as I reflect on it I like how the characters were very evocative and intriguing, and I like the tremendous melancholy that suffuses the whole thing. As it marinates in my head more I'm sure I'll come up with more things to say. I have more Murakami on the "to-read" list - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Sputnik Sweetheart, and the 1Q84 trilogy are among the batch of books I bought.

Right now I am reading Milkman (2018) by Anna Burns which is about a young girl in 1970s Northern Ireland. I'm not very far in but it's interesting so far. It perfectly captures the ways in which various social mores (mostly patriarchal ones, but others too, like nationalist ones) generate injustice and other ills, and it's written in a bit of a strange style (few proper names, for instance) for reasons which are not yet clear to me, and both of those do not yet stick in my craw, which they certainly could if they were handled with a less deft touch. So we'll see how the book turns out.

# ? Mar 16, 2021 09:56

snailshell: Aug 26, 2010; I LOVE BIG WET CROROCDILE PUSSYT

TychoCelchuuu posted:

Sputnik Sweetheart

It was a little precious for me, even if you've liked other Murakami, but don't take that as a discouragement.

# ? Mar 17, 2021 02:22

swimsuit: Jan 22, 2009; yeah

you should suck my dick and also my balls

# ? Mar 19, 2021 10:10

swimsuit: Jan 22, 2009; yeah

im rererereading dictionary of the khazars (male) and simultaneously reading chabon's dumb little swords and sandals novella gentlemen of the road (because it has khazars)

# ? Mar 19, 2021 10:11

Shibawanko: Feb 13, 2013

i dislike murakami

# ? Mar 19, 2021 12:46

thehoodie: Feb 8, 2011; "Eat something made with love and joy - and be forgiven"

I'm reading Pubis Angelis by Manuel Puig because it has a cool name

# ? Mar 19, 2021 16:11

Carly Gay Dead Son: Aug 27, 2007; Bonus.

Reading Mardi by Melville. It's fun as hell. Early Melville rules.

# ? Mar 19, 2021 17:52

Mokelumne Trekka: Nov 22, 2015; Soon.

I'm early into Ulysses.

I enjoyed Buck Mulligan the jackass blasphemer and this exchange between Stephen and one of his students:

- You, Armstrong, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus?
- End of Pyrrhus, sir?
- I know, sir. Ask me, sir, Comyn said.
- Wait. You, Armstrong. Do you know anything about Pyrrhus?
- Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier.

# ? Mar 19, 2021 18:36

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Mokelumne Trekka posted:

I'm early into Ulysses.

I enjoyed Buck Mulligan the jackass blasphemer and this exchange between Stephen and one of his students:

- You, Armstrong, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus?
- End of Pyrrhus, sir?
- I know, sir. Ask me, sir, Comyn said.
- Wait. You, Armstrong. Do you know anything about Pyrrhus?
- Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier.

-Correction. A FEMALE pier

# ? Mar 19, 2021 19:23

3D Megadoodoo: Nov 25, 2010

Mokelumne Trekka posted:

I'm early into Ulysses.

I enjoyed Buck Mulligan the jackass blasphemer and this exchange between Stephen and one of his students:

- You, Armstrong, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus?
- End of Pyrrhus, sir?
- I know, sir. Ask me, sir, Comyn said.
- Wait. You, Armstrong. Do you know anything about Pyrrhus?
- Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier.

Pier, pr��t, pask. :hmmyes:

(It's what Joyce was into big-time stylee.)

# ? Mar 20, 2021 01:57

Carthag Tuek: Oct 15, 2005; Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
sl�gt skal f�lge sl�gters gang

3D Megadoodoo posted:

Pier, pr��t, pask. (It's what Joyce was into big-time stylee.)

fis / prut / skid ?

# ? Mar 20, 2021 06:13

Segue: May 23, 2007

I made the mistake of picking up Interior Chinatown after hearing it won the National Book Award and man is it some low-hanging literature.

It feeks like baby's first adventure in postmodernism: oh my god the Asian characters are all playing roles! It's set out like a script! The fictional show and the life of the characters blend and become indistinguishable and did you know that maybe all of us are just playing roles in life??

There are literally two separate monologues at the end making basic points about intersectional inequality if you didn't get it.

I mean it's entertaining enough and there's some fun satire but it feels like the literature equivalent if airport fiction, written to make the reader feel smart about breaking from reality and telling HARD TRUTHS about Asian stereotypes. Has it made Oprah's book club? It feels perfect for Oprah's book club.

# ? Mar 20, 2021 06:21

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# ? May 17, 2024 09:07

shirunei: Sep 7, 2018; I tried to run away. To take the easy way out. I'll live through the suffering. When I die, I want to feel like I did my best.

Hello, so I've only ever read web serials, science fiction, and fantasy. If I wanted to dip my tow into this real lit thing what would be considered the kiddies pool? I don't want to overload my mind right off the bat obvs

# ? Mar 20, 2021 06:24

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Read Some Real Literature: Anyway hail satantango

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