Read Some Real Literature: Anyway hail satantango

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Mover: Jun 30, 2008

Peel posted:

just read 'invisible cities' and i've realised: it's good

I agree; it�s good

# ? Feb 5, 2018 22:56

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# ? Jun 12, 2024 12:08

Foul Fowl: Sep 12, 2008; Uuuuh! Seek ye me?

Peel posted:

just read 'invisible cities' and i've realised: it's good

read if on a winter's night a traveler. it is also good.

# ? Feb 5, 2018 23:42

Peel: Dec 3, 2007

will do

found njal's saga in the charity bookshop for �2 though so going to read that first while the thread is still warm

# ? Feb 6, 2018 00:19

Sleng Teng: May 3, 2009

What are yalls favorite pocket sized literature editions? Just finished my copy of Eugene Onegin which was really good but also pretty small physically. Having a small edition is pretty nice when you are out on your feet a lot

# ? Feb 6, 2018 13:15

CestMoi: Sep 16, 2011

Sleng Teng posted:

What are yalls favorite pocket sized literature editions? Just finished my copy of Eugene Onegin which was really good but also pretty small physically. Having a small edition is pretty nice when you are out on your feet a lot

Collected work of Rimabud and a weird little book of Tang poems are my go to things that fit in my pocket while also not taking up room required for my large dick.

# ? Feb 6, 2018 13:43

Tim Burns Effect: Apr 1, 2011

Sleng Teng posted:

What are yalls favorite pocket sized literature editions? Just finished my copy of Eugene Onegin which was really good but also pretty small physically. Having a small edition is pretty nice when you are out on your feet a lot

I got a pocket-sized edition of Dubliners off Amazon, only drawback is they use the really thin paper with the gold edges like some bibles have

# ? Feb 6, 2018 14:33

whatevz: Sep 22, 2013; I lack the most basic processes inherent in all living organisms: reproducing and dying.

whatevz fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Apr 25, 2022

# ? Feb 7, 2018 05:17

Chazani: Feb 19, 2013

I'm currently reading Can Xue's The Last Lover and I am slowly losing hope that the book will start to make any more sense.

It is an interesting experience. I've read a lot of confusing books, but Can Xue somehow manages to maintain clarity and rigour while going completely bonkers.

# ? Feb 8, 2018 21:39

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

I think all of her books are like that. Certainly Frontier is.

# ? Feb 8, 2018 22:07

Guy A. Person: May 23, 2003

Yeah I have to read some of her other stuff. So far I've read Frontier which baffled me, Vertical Motion which is a collection of short stories so the weirdness is in smaller doses and more manageable, and Five Spice Street which I thought was actually really straightforward (and also freakin hilarious)

# ? Feb 8, 2018 22:21

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

Chazani posted:

I'm currently reading Can Xue's The Last Lover and I am slowly losing hope that the book will start to make any more sense.

It is an interesting experience. I've read a lot of confusing books, but Can Xue somehow manages to maintain clarity and rigour while going completely bonkers.

the good news is that it will make more and more un-sense

# ? Feb 8, 2018 22:24

derp: Jan 21, 2010; when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again; Lipstick Apathy

sounds like my jam, goin on my list
i secretly think anyone who complains about things not making sense is just too stupid to get the deeper meaning tho
well i guess its not a secret now, sorry

# ? Feb 8, 2018 22:53

Chazani: Feb 19, 2013

derp posted:

sounds like my jam, goin on my list
i secretly think anyone who complains about things not making sense is just too stupid to get the deeper meaning tho
well i guess its not a secret now, sorry

I used to think the same before I grew up.

Regardless, everyone should give Can Xue a try. Understanding literature isn't the point of it anyway.

# ? Feb 9, 2018 05:21

Shibawanko: Feb 13, 2013

My favorite part of Fiasco is when Tempe wants to relax but instead of going to the dumb relax spa in the living quarters he hangs out in the bulkheads of the ship and floats around girders and beams and machines because machines and bare metal are cool.

# ? Feb 9, 2018 19:46

the black husserl: Feb 25, 2005

I'm dying lmao

World Cup of Literature: Your Face Tomorrow vs. Barley Patch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MokLXSfnUEM

# ? Feb 10, 2018 09:49

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

the black husserl posted:

I'm dying lmao

a very meaty soprano i should say, and very good

# ? Feb 10, 2018 10:05

smug n stuff: Jul 21, 2016; A Hobbit's Adventure

Is your face tomorrow good? Marias has been on my to-check-out list for a while

# ? Feb 10, 2018 11:11

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

ive been awake a lot so probably my face has a lot too

tomorrow is sunday--- no work unless extra money

# ? Feb 10, 2018 12:04

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

smug n stuff posted:

Is your face tomorrow good? Marias has been on my to-check-out list for a while

very

# ? Feb 10, 2018 19:21

the black husserl: Feb 25, 2005

smug n stuff posted:

Is your face tomorrow good? Marias has been on my to-check-out list for a while

it's up there with "The Man Without Qualities" and "In Search of Lost Time", so its like, transcendent, but also immense.

I would not start with Marias there unless you're down for that kind of adventure (you might be!). Marias is amazing though, check out "A Heart So White" or "Tomorrow, in the Battle..."

# ? Feb 10, 2018 21:34

curlys gold: Jan 17, 2018

I�m crazy late to this massive thread, but I just started Innocents Abroad and I�m really digging it.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 04:00

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

what are the thread's feelings on The Yiddish Policeman's Union

# ? Feb 12, 2018 06:00

Tree Goat: May 24, 2009; argania spinosa

chernobyl kinsman posted:

what are the thread's feelings on The Yiddish Policeman's Union

i think kavalier & clay is a better constructed, but yiddish policeman's union is probably his most interesting book.

i'm sort of middling about chabon in general, though.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 06:23

Down With People: Oct 31, 2012; The child delights in violence.

chernobyl kinsman posted:

what are the thread's feelings on The Yiddish Policeman's Union

I thought it was really loving good

# ? Feb 12, 2018 06:27

the black husserl: Feb 25, 2005

chernobyl kinsman posted:

what are the thread's feelings on The Yiddish Policeman's Union

Mildly entertaining, a nice "beach read".

Though I'm sort of down on Chabon right now because a positive blurb from him made me pick up an Edward St. Aubyn novel on a whim and its garbage.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 06:41

Guy A. Person: May 23, 2003

Tree Goat posted:

i'm sort of middling about chabon in general, though.

I think some of his shorter novella length stuff is better like Gentlemen of the Road and The Final Solution, since he can do whatever clever idea but it doesn't overstay its welcome.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 17:36

curlys gold: Jan 17, 2018

Down With People posted:

I thought it was really loving good

Same.

# ? Feb 13, 2018 04:39

david crosby: Mar 2, 2007

the black husserl posted:

it's up there with "The Man Without Qualities" and "In Search of Lost Time", so its like, transcendent, but also immense.

If you're going to throw around comparisons like that, you're going to make me want to read it.

# ? Feb 13, 2018 14:37

Shibawanko: Feb 13, 2013

quote:

Hope (translated by Steve Rabson)

It was the lead story on the six-o'clock news. The small child of an American soldier had been missing, and today the corpse was found in the woods not far from the Koza city limits. All eyes of the customers and employees in the diner were glued to the television screen. The marks of strangulation had been found on the body, and now the prefectural police were using evidence from the abandoned corpse in their search for the murderer. After reciting these details, as usual in "crime stories," the report moved on to interviews of people on the street. "Now I'm afraid to let my kid walk around outside. Even Okinawa's becoming a dangerous place." When she saw the woman of about fifty who appeared on the screen, the waitress yelled out gleefully, "Hey, it's Fumi. Look! She's on TV!" A fat woman wiping the sweat off her face came rushing out of the kitchen, but the screen was already showing something else, and both women groaned in disappointment. Now the reporter was commenting on the killer's declaration that had been mailed to the office of a local newspaper. Next to him lay a copy of the evening edition with a photograph of the declaration on the front page. What Okinawa needs now is not demonstrations by thousands of people or rallies by tens of thousands, but the death of one American child. It had been written in menacing red characters with sharp angles and straight lines.

A taxi driver slurping a bowl of Okinawan noodles grumbled, "They better nab him quick, and give him the death penalty." "Yeah, 'cause this'll hurt business too," the waitress chimed in. "The tourists won't come here any more." After panning pictures of the woods and Koza city from a helicopter, the report continued with statements by the governor and high U.S. and Japanese officials. They expressed "outrage" and "revulsion" at a crime targeting an innocent child. Stifling a laugh, I shoved a spoonful of curried rice into my mouth. There was no way their pompous pronouncements could hide their exhaustion and bewilderment. That Okinawans--so docile, so meek--could use such tactics was something the bastards had never even imagined. Okinawans were, after all, a people who followed their leaders, and, at most, held "anti-war" or "anti-base" rallies with polite protest marches. Even the ultra-left and radical factions staged, at most, "guerrilla warfare" that caused no real harm, and never carried out terrorism or kidnappings against people in power, or mounted armed attacks. Okinawans were like maggots who clustered around the poo poo of land rents and subsidy monies splattered by the bases. And Okinawa was called "an island healed by the love of peace." It made me want to puke. I left the diner, crossed the pedestrian bridge at Goya Corners, and walked along Airport Avenue. Orders must have come down restricting all military personnel to their bases. No American soldiers in civilian clothes were out walking the streets. A camouflage-colored jeep drove past. A patrol car, its red alarm light gyrating, was parked in front of the gate at Kadena Air Base. High above a row of poinciana trees, a white crescent moon hovered like the fang of a poisonous habu snake. I stopped and stood for a moment. Only the worst methods get results, I muttered to myself. On the other side of the street, a television camera was swivelling. I turned into a side street and was careful not to quicken my pace as I walked back to my apartment. From the refrigerator I took out a can of iced tea and drained it in one gulp. Then I sat down at my desk and wrote the address of the newspaper office on the envelope I had put there. Opening one of the drawers, I took out a small cellophane bag containing strands of straw-colored hair. The child's face in profile came again before my eyes.

The kid had been sleeping in the back seat of a car parked in the supermarket parking lot. A white woman who looked only about twenty yelled several times, but the kid didn't wake up. After she went into the market alone, pushing a shopping cart, I tossed my empty iced tea can into the trash bin and walked across the parking lot. I got into the car that had been left idling with the air conditioner on, and pulled out onto the prefectural highway. I drove north for about fifteen minutes, then turned off into the woods on the north side of a municipal housing project. Only after the car began rattling along this bumpy road did the kid wake up. When I heard crying from the back seat, I stopped the car. Turning around, I saw that the kid had gotten up and was trying to open the door. He was a boy and looked about three. I quickly parked, turned around and tightly grasped his little crying and screaming body. As I finished strangling him from behind, something burst in the back of his throat and a gob of filth dribbled onto my arm. I wiped it off with the kid's shirt, and started the car again. I drove around to the rear of the woods, and parked in the shadows of an abandoned pig shed. After wiping the steering wheel and door handles with my handkerchief, I moved the kid to the trunk of the car. Then I twisted some strands of his straw-colored hair around my fingers, ripped the hairs out, and folded them up in my handkerchief. All over my body, covered with sweat, goose-flesh had broken out. On my way out of the woods, I buried the car keys and, after walking to the national highway, transfered taxis twice on the way back to my apartment. The air conditioning in my car had little effect and, even when I opened the windows, my sweat kept pouring. I took the envelope containing the hairs to Naha city and dropped it in a mailbox. On the way back I stopped at the seaside park in Ginowan. This had been the site of that farcical rally after the twelve-year-old girl was raped by the three American soldiers, when 80,000 people gathered here but could do absolutely nothing. Now it seemed so long ago. I had finally done what I'd thought about doing that day as I'd stood on the edge of the crowd. I felt no remorse now, or even any deep emotion. Just as fluids in the bodies of small organisms which are forced to live in constant fear suddenly turn into poison, I had done what was natural and necessary for this island. When I reached the center of what had been the rally site, I poured a bottle of gasoline syphoned from the car on my jacket and pants. The fumes stung my eyes. Then, taking a hundred-yen cigarette lighter from my pocket, I spun the flint-wheel. Flames sprang up in the darkness, and, toward the walking, tumbling fire a group of middle school students came on the run, then cheered as they took turns kicking the smoking black lump.

This is a short story by Medoruma Shun, an Okinawan writer. I don't remember if I posted this story here before, but I like it and I'm writing about it now so here you go.

# ? Feb 13, 2018 15:31

Shibawanko: Feb 13, 2013

I want kids to kick my body when I die.

# ? Feb 13, 2018 15:37

Lex Neville: Apr 15, 2009

What makes you like it and what are you writing about it?

# ? Feb 13, 2018 15:50

fridge corn: Apr 2, 2003; NO MERCY, ONLY PAIN

Is the Ivan morris translation of mishima any good?

# ? Feb 13, 2018 16:00

Shibawanko: Feb 13, 2013

Lex Neville posted:

What makes you like it and what are you writing about it?

I like how matter of fact it is, it's violent and pretty gross but if you've ever been to Okinawa it's also hard not to sympathize with this sort of feeling. It's very short, but suggests a lot of background. It's an expression of pure frustration at the American occupation of the islands without any bullshit. It's also the first postcolonial sort of writing to come out of Okinawa at all.

I haven't started writing yet but I'm just doing a short essay and this seems like a good subject, I think I'll focus on some of the material details like the glob of gross matter that comes out of the kid, the lump the speaker turns into at the end, it suggests being reduced to bare matter.

Shibawanko fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Feb 13, 2018

# ? Feb 13, 2018 16:07

Lex Neville: Apr 15, 2009

Shibawanko posted:

I like how matter of fact it is, it's violent and pretty gross but if you've ever been to Okinawa it's also hard not to sympathize with this sort of feeling. It's very short, but suggests a lot of background. It's an expression of pure frustration at the American occupation of the islands without any bullshit.

Thanks! I'm not familiar with Okinawa myself (or Japanese culture in general, for that matter) but I can dig the assessment.

Have you read the Japanese text as well/are you able to? In this translation, one thing stands out to me from a micro-level perspective and it's the use of 'the' in "The marks of strangulation". Using the definite article there gave away that the narrator's the perpetrator long before the stifling of the laugh, which appears to be the bit that is intended to give it away, and I wonder whether that was intentional. I'm not familiar with Japanese at all so I can't check myself but it almost seems like a translator's 'slip of the tongue'. Is it?

e: of course, I'm aware of foreshadowing etc, but it seems kind of out of place here.

Lex Neville fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Feb 13, 2018

# ? Feb 13, 2018 16:17

Shibawanko: Feb 13, 2013

Lex Neville posted:

Thanks! I'm not familiar with Okinawa (or Japan, for that matter) myself but I can dig the assessment.

Have you read the Japanese text as well/are you able to? In this translation, one thing stands out to me from a micro-level perspective and it's the use of 'the' in "The marks of strangulation". Using the definite article there gave away that the narrator's the perpetrator long before the stifling of the laugh, which appears to be the bit that is intended to give it away, and I wonder whether that was intentional. I'm not familiar with Japanese at all so I can't check myself but it almost seems like a translator's 'slip of the tongue'. Is it?

I haven't found the Japanese version yet, I could probably read it with a dictionary, but Japanese has no articles at all so it must be something the translator put in.

Here's where I got it from, it explains some of the background:
http://www.jpri.org/publications/critiques/critique_VI_12.html

The title is also strange in the translation. The original is "machi-monogatari" which means "town story".

I'm going to read some of his other stories too. He also looks loving cool in real life:

Shibawanko fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Feb 13, 2018

# ? Feb 13, 2018 16:25

Lex Neville: Apr 15, 2009

Yeah I found that link. It's interesting. Good luck with the essay.

# ? Feb 13, 2018 16:33

Jrbg: May 20, 2014

I'm reading Graveyard Clay (Cr� na Cille) by Mairt�n � Cadhain. English translations of the book came out last year and it's uh pretty drat good. It's a bunch of dead people talking among themselves while buried in differently priced plots. You lot would like it

Shibawanko posted:

He also looks loving cool in real life:

Anton Chigurh lives on

# ? Feb 13, 2018 16:52

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Shibawanko posted:

I'm going to read some of his other stories too. He also looks loving cool in real life:

Garthu Marenghi-san

# ? Feb 13, 2018 16:56

true.spoon: Jun 7, 2012

Shibawanko posted:

I haven't found the Japanese version yet, I could probably read it with a dictionary, but Japanese has no articles at all so it must be something the translator put in.

Here's where I got it from, it explains some of the background:
http://www.jpri.org/publications/critiques/critique_VI_12.html

The title is also strange in the translation. The original is "machi-monogatari" which means "town story".

I'm going to read some of his other stories too.

If you haven't already, check out his short story Droplets (a translation can be found in a collection of short stories from Okinawa called Southern Exposure, which you are probably already aware of).

# ? Feb 13, 2018 18:16

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# ? Jun 12, 2024 12:08

Shibawanko: Feb 13, 2013

true.spoon posted:

If you haven't already, check out his short story Droplets (a translation can be found in a collection of short stories from Okinawa called Southern Exposure, which you are probably already aware of).

Yeah! I just ordered it from my library, it looks really good.

# ? Feb 13, 2018 23:33

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