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Gaius Marius posted:6.Characters Do you really see characters as nothing more than puppets? For me, while obviously characters are figments of the authors imaginations and everything that happens to them is also not real, the beauty of storytelling is ability to make me forget that I am reading about non-existent people. That's why my favorite writer (who I guess many people ITT dislike) is Jonathan Franzen. When I read his books, his characters become for me completely real, and I connect with them emotionally. Most writers are unable to do this, but the ones that can are a treasure.
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Jan 20, 2023 17:30
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ThePopeOfFun posted:I am very surprised that this paragraph ended in Franzen. What about Franzen’s work do you think makes this happen for you? Do you have an example? I attended a (virtual) event with Franzen and another writer after buying Crossroads from my local bookstore (the bookstore hosted the event) and one of the topics he covered a lot was his love of the close third person. I think he is a master of that POV. It's very nearly first person, but using he/she instead of I. He started the reading during that event with the first instance of the Marion character: "Disgusted with herself, the overweight person that was Marion fled the parsonage." He isn't being unkind to his character and making light of a woman who feels overweight; that's how she is constantly thinking of herself as a woman in the 1970s midwest who had a very turbulent late adolescence. I also like what he does with structure. His structure provides a lot of time to get immersed into a character's POV. In Corrections, Chip is the exclusive focus for 122 pages. In his most recent four books (with Purity being the weakest by far) he spends a lot of time with each character before moving on. His multiple character POV books can read like a series of highly interconnected novellas. His writing, I think, does a very good job of conveying the scene infused with the perception of the focus character. And he puts his characters in situations I enjoy reading... very tragicomic situations. As a smart person who is kind of an idiot much of the time, tragicomic is highly relatable to me. Another interesting example would be in Freedom. There is a section of the book (220 pages) that is presented as an autobiography (but in third person) of one of the characters, generated as a therapeutic exercise recommended by her therapist. There is the piece itself, which tells the character's backstory, combined with the knowledge that it is being written by the character herself, and I found it very compelling.
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Jan 20, 2023 18:57
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I wouldn’t necessarily consider Corrections (or any Franzen novel) to be works of genius. Like they’re not as good as Moby Dick or other massive classics. I don’t think he is the best writer (no such person exists), just that he is my personal favorite and I enjoy reading his books above all others. I’ve read many that are “better” but his just work for me in a way that I find supremely enjoyable
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Jan 20, 2023 20:06
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Guy A. Person posted:Is Franzen the one who thought he had a shot with Natalie Portman because she complimented one of his books because lol I always think of that scenario and how dumb you'd have to be I try to avoid learning anything about his life or his nonfiction writing because its always dumb as poo poo lol. He's some kind of fiction savant where he is bad and wrong about everything else However in this case it was the other Jonathan (Safren Foer) quote:According to Daulerio, Foer told his wife, the acclaimed novelist Nicole Krauss, that he was in love with a beautiful, intellectual movie star. He did not check with Portman to find out if she was on the same page but more or less took it as fact that of course they were meant to be. He and Krauss divorced. blue squares fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Jan 20, 2023 |
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Jan 20, 2023 20:31
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All that said, this discussion has encouraged me to try Ulysses again. I gave up last time because I couldn’t follow the narrative. But if I drop that and just focus on enjoying the beauty of individual sentences and images and moments, perhaps I’d appreciate it
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Jan 21, 2023 19:03
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Segue posted:
That was me. I’m glad you’re enjoying it! It’s such a fascinating work that’s equally suspenseful as it is unique in form
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Jan 26, 2023 19:18
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I’m waiting for Frank Miller to do it
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Apr 8, 2023 15:17
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It was probably a child
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Jul 15, 2023 21:48
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FPyat posted:Philip Roth really caught my breath with Goodbye, Columbus. Makes me much more eager than I was earlier to read his later work. The lightbulb monologue in particular gives me a reason to go back and give Death of a Salesman another look. I'm reading the first short story in the volume and I bet they're all gonna be great. Have you read American Pastoral? I couldn’t put it down, though I haven’t really enjoyed anything else of his that I’ve read (sabbath, portnoy, ghostwriter)
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Sep 30, 2023 18:07
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thehoodie posted:Matrix by Lauren Groff This is a great book but yeah if you haven’t read Moby Dick then 100% that. It’s a blast and not confusing
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Oct 10, 2023 12:18
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I know it doesn’t fit the general vibe of this thread but I just now finished Nathan Hill’s second novel, Wellness, and boy did I love it. At times it’s satire was too outlandish and silly, but the heart of it was just fantastic. Great characters whose psychologies were very deeply investigated, and really funny at times too
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Oct 13, 2023 02:00
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Gaius Marius posted:So are any of Tartt's novels worth reading? I've never heard about the middle novel, Goldfinch seems very negatively received and Secret History seems to have attracted a very cringecore crowd. People ITT love to hate on anything written in English since 1980. Her books are good Edit: by this I really mean that Secret History is phenomenal, I didn’t read the middle book, and Goldfinch is pretty good but also forgettable blue squares fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Oct 13, 2023 |
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Oct 13, 2023 20:00
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It's written in the first person, and he talks to you. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/albert-camus-the-fall
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Oct 17, 2023 15:07
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I’m finally reading Cărtărescu and I’m blown away. Solenoid
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Mar 9, 2024 01:40
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ulvir posted:I have about 250ish pages left of M. son of the century to go. I don't know about you guys, but this Mussolini-fellow seems to me like he was a bit of an rear end in a top hat Gonna have to check this one out. I’m finally reading Richard Evan’s nonfiction account of the Nazis so why not introduce more horrifying fascism into my life?
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Mar 9, 2024 01:47
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Is the Sea of Fertility tetralogy the best place to jump into Mishima? I don't plan to read his entire oeuvre
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Mar 20, 2024 18:45
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I’ve been reading V. very very slowly as I also read other things. I don’t really enjoy it, but I don’t hate it either. It just seems so pointless, like at any time it could end on the next page. I don’t think I really get it. For the record I’m only on page 160
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Mar 28, 2024 00:30
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Maybe I’ll skip the rest of the book. Or just keep reading it one section after another for a couple years haha. I’ve read 49, GR, IV, and M&D. I wanna do a full read of his bibliography but I’m stuck on book 1 haha
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Mar 28, 2024 01:23
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I find the scenes describing them going out partying and bar hopping to be disorienting and grating… But yes hunting cocodrillos was fun  mdemone posted:If you've not read GR (or even if you have), read the Weisenburger companion alongside it. I’ve read it twice… I need to make the third reread with the companion
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Mar 28, 2024 02:25
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Mrenda posted:It's cool that GR opens with a holocaust train. A simple observation, but still cool. Doesn’t it open with people in London going down into a bomb shelter?
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Apr 6, 2024 19:04
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His newest one is really good
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Apr 14, 2024 03:40
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Lolita is probably not the novel I would use to gain insight into Nabokov’s personal views
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May 5, 2024 02:53
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