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thehoodie posted:I'm reading EEG by Dasa Drndic, which is about mostly Latvian Nazis and Nazi collaborators but also occasionally about chess players who were Nazi collaborators, sometimes both. Funny, I just started Doppelganger by her which is about an old guy who has shat himself when the book opens up. He meets a lady (also old) and they diddle each other through their diapers. Nazis are also involved. And hats.
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Jan 6, 2020 05:16
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 09:33 |
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I finished Doppelganger and really enjoyed it. The Pupi part reminded me of Hamsun's hunger in all its depravity. I'll have to check out more by Drndic.
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Jan 12, 2020 22:23
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Now I will read Dictionary of the Khazars. seems to be a favorite here
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Jan 14, 2020 16:51
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re: dictionary of the Khazars. did y'all follow all the annotations and cross references as you came to them or what? I know it's not supposed to be read front to back necessarily. just wanna make sure there's no way for me to gently caress up. so far I've read about Daubmannus and Nikolsky but haven't really made much way into the first section, "a history..." anyway it's fuckin nice so far
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Jan 15, 2020 21:19
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the only way to gently caress up would be to not read it imo
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Jan 15, 2020 21:46
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Khazars question again. Is there any significance to the court transcript being in the appendix as opposed to the Green Book, say? The book is loving rad and I feel I'm gonna have to reread some of the first entries I peeked at like Nikolsky and Dr. Suk's. One of the coolest books I've ever read.
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Feb 20, 2020 21:00
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Thanks for that gonna give Elias Khoury a go
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Mar 20, 2020 15:07
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Gave Gate of the Sun 150 pages to grab me and it didn't so I'm moving on. I was excited to read a novel about Palestine but the level of detachment afforded by the frame of the story (guy telling stories to a comatose and dying fedayeen and imagining responses) to put me so far away from things as to lose sight of them entirely. I get that that's kind of the point; a conflict that's wreaked so much disaster on so many lives is difficult to address any way other than askance and infrequently. But it just wasn't what I wanted. So now I'm going to read one of the other books from archipelago's free ebook thing. A General Theory of Oblivion, which seems to be liked here. Happy reading, friends
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Apr 15, 2020 06:24
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I finished A General Theory of Oblivion and found it to be very cool and good. An entertaining allegory for the strange exchanges colonialism results in. Shouts out to Edward Said for Culture and Imperialism and shouts out to Agualusa for this book. Now I don't know what to read next but I've been digging all the translated lit y'all have been posting about. Though know you're talking about Pynchon and I guess I should give Gravity's Rainbow another try. All I remember is a hilarious madcap scene where some guy has his foot stuck in a toilet or a helmet.
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Apr 19, 2020 20:05
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I read that bit (in My Struggle) about taking bodies to the lowest part of a building and how taking a body to the top of a building seems wrong and it really struck me and I told a friend a out it and they thought it was very dumb
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Apr 29, 2020 18:38
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Infinite ajest is good it has a lot of funny parts and it taught me how to shave but it is also pretty far up its own rear end, you know. I am making paltry progress in Gravity's Rainbow. I did find the part I remembered where pointsman gets his foot stuck in a toilet bowl. Very funny. That was followed by a character journeying (on sodium amytal) through a toilet and becoming very attuned to different flavors of poo poo. It's mostly good but I really fail to understand what exactly Pynchon was going for in some scenes. Someone referenced the Weisenburger companion and it's been entertaining to compare my idea of what happened in a scene and Weisenburger's summary. I am often very very wrong.
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May 4, 2020 22:04
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Dasa Drndic wrote most of her stuff since 2000. I've only read Doppelganger but it was a hoot.
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May 13, 2020 20:51
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The best part of those books was when that little kid gets zapped by the cursed Mt Rushmore head and Severian just shrugs and moves on.
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May 15, 2020 14:38
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And of course Severian could've been lying about either the kid's name or that they were paired names spot matters even less. That was my general takeaway of the whole series. There's some cool stuff that happens, but it might not've even happened, so whatever.
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May 15, 2020 16:22
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It is better ethically and better for your sanity that you do not use Goodreads. Are there any literary publications y'all like for reviews and essays? For finding new books/authors and whatnot.
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May 17, 2020 14:59
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I read a review of Otessa Moshfegh's forthcoming book (this one by Lauren Oyler) and it got me curious about Moshfegh's other novels. I've heard of My Year of Rest and Relaxation and was wondering if anyone has thoughts about it or her debut novel. Seems potentially cool but I've been burned before getting recommendations from outside this thread.
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May 29, 2020 02:27
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nut posted:how have you been reading it? front to back or jumping between dictionaries? I've been sitting on the male version for a while and maybe lockdown is the push I need to go for it. I read it by jumping around. Either following the references between entries and dictionaries or just picking one that seemed interesting. Reading it front to back is certainly one way to do it but part of the experience would be lost, I think.
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May 31, 2020 15:11
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derp posted:This sounds really cool, but how will you know when you've finished it? I made little marks by the entries I had read but also it's not really the kind of book you "finish"
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Jun 1, 2020 16:46
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I'm reading Michael Kohlhaas and maybe it's the simpleton's take to cheer him on when he starts loving poo poo up but it is really cool and I'm sure there will be no consequences to his vengeance
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Jun 3, 2020 22:25
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Are you going to follow it up with Ragtime, especially given the current zeitgeist? I might! I'm unfamiliar with it and with E. L. Doctorow in general but it seems neat. I like historical fiction especially when it involves real events or people that are the quintessential "if it weren't real it'd be unbelievable" kinda thing. A General Theory of Oblivion was kinda like that for me.
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Jun 4, 2020 00:52
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Goodreads as an Amazon subsidiary is probably worse morally than Twitter's @jack
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Jun 24, 2020 15:44
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The Herero genocide was discussed at length in Gravity's Rainbow
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Aug 13, 2020 04:08
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Imo don't sweat it too bad if you've got a loose grip of the plot. I'm most of the way through part 3 and have found a lot of enjoyment just letting things wash over me. It was weird though when Slothrop hosed a child but maybe that was just a hallucination
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Aug 20, 2020 19:05
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I finished Yoko Ogawa's The Memory Police and found it to be largely boring despite the neat concept. Wasn't really impactful until the very end when people's body parts started "disappearing." Also started Death in her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh and am enthralled. Not much actual plot but Vesta's internal monologue is wonderful. And nearly finished with part 3 of Gravity's Rainbow. Not much to add that isn't already known by this thread but yeah Pynchon's prose is delectable and I've loved the absurd puns he's set up. What are y'all digging atm?
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Aug 29, 2020 17:37
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If you want to read a book on books read Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory. While a leftist himself, On Literature is not an overtly political framing of literature and literary criticism. It gives a good history on the idea of literature and then humbly tells you how Eagleton himself views literature and criticism. It is wonderful and probably only 200 pages or so long. A poster a while ago asked about Ducks, Newburyport. I am about a third of the way through and am enthralled. I think it does evade the "novel" descriptor in that there's no plot, as such. But as a microscopic view of the anxieties and quirks of a present-day Ohioan housewife it is completely terrific. There are a lot of metafictional aspects to it that have been very rewarding. Since the book is almost literally a stream-of-consciousness I hearkened back to reading Joyce or Faulkner. What sets Ellman's narration apart is how self-censoring and self-effacing and self-correcting she is. It's an edited stream-of-consciousness. She calls her bum her "sit-me-down-upon." If her train of thought takes on oblique turn, she goes back and clarifies. She chastises herself if she has an overly sexual thought. In addition to that, I've experienced a couple times now is when something is brought up, a song or a book or a recent political event, and I can't remember if it's something I had been thinking about recently myself or if it had come up earlier in the text. There are certain thoughts that she comes back to to ground her as she goes about her day. It's all very "realistic" and wholesome and I don't think this much attention and dignity has every been brought to the thoughts and daily toils of a housewife.
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Oct 13, 2020 18:03
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I've started The Iliad after neglecting ancient lit since school days and it rips. Back when I read exclusively sci fi and fantasy I loved it when gods directly interacted in the story and it's so much cooler in The Iliad. Call me a monster but I hate the heroic verse and find it very distracting. Hoping it'll grow on me. Also, my desire to read more short stories led me to Dubliners by Joyce and it's exceptional. Have been jumping around in it and my favorite's Ivy Day in the Committee Room. Makes me wish Joyce had written more in that style rather than whatever Finnegan's Wake is (I haven't read it and I'm sure it's good but it's definitely not the same as Ivy Day)
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Mar 23, 2021 13:30
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Thanks for the recs Franchescanado you have a different werewolf avi now Maybe I should try a diff translation of yon Iliad. I just nabbed the Pope one off of Project Gutenberg. Is there a thread favorite? Fagles sounds good for readability's sake
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Mar 23, 2021 14:41
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I invoke the muse before my every post, as any man of legend must
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Mar 23, 2021 17:20
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thehoodie posted:Reading Doppelganger by Dasa Drndic. So far it's about two old people who poo poo their diapers and then give each other handjobs. And also Nazis That book loving owns and I keep forgetting to read more Drndic
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Mar 24, 2021 11:45
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There's another translated novel called Leica Format apparently but idk anything about it except that it's probably good
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Mar 24, 2021 17:11
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Is there an audio version of The Iliad where everyone has Peter and the Wolf-like music cues everytime they're like Achilleus the swift-footed or Helen of the white arms or Agamemnon leader of men or Trojans breakers of horses? The little catch phrases are so cute and I guess were included to help keep every character straight in the original work. Also just read 10 pages of names of people who their fathers were and how many black boats they've got, usually 40. It was awesome
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Mar 31, 2021 17:24
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Another cool Iliad thing is just when I was becoming numb to dudes being laid low by bronze speartips someone's leg gets obliterated by a boulder and it was just brutal. I think this Homer chap is going places.
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Apr 2, 2021 13:56
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I've read Robert Walser's Kleist in Thun I think four times this week. What a wonderful melancholy little story. A perfect distant bookend to Michael Kohlhaas which I read last year. I forget who, but someone from this thread recommended Walser and I must say thank you. Interesting to think of him as the missing link of sorts between Kleist and Kafka. Speaking of Kafka, his collected works are likely to be my next foray into short stories. Happy reading, everyone.
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Apr 14, 2021 17:52
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A Farewell to Arms is interesting because (and this might be present in other Hemingway books but i haven't read them) because the alcoholic drinks get more care and description than anything else Dude loved a bevvy
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May 22, 2021 13:04
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Thanks for posting that Storygraph thing, i was kind of missing the social aspect of Goodreads. Add me if you want I'm paymentplan
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Jun 1, 2021 15:10
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I'll bite on the Real Literature tip because Gravity's Rainbow is a super obvious recommendation
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Jun 1, 2021 15:12
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In Iliad news I think Achilles is about to be very upset. Is he really so proud he'll let Patroclus die rather than join the fray himself? What a tragedy.
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Jun 1, 2021 17:01
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Blindsight and its sequel Echopraxia deal with very alien aliens. They're bleak and not high lit but they're pretty fun and cool and worth a try. Be warned though, there are autistic vampires
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Jun 2, 2021 17:35
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It's exactly as important as you want it to be. Reading Blood Meridian and thinking "haha everyone has met Judge before" is just as good as recognizing whatever metaphysical symbolism there is. Reading Gravity's Rainbow and laughing about rocket explosions giving Slothrop a boner without noticing all the references to the zodiac and astrology doesn't mean you enjoyed the book any less. If it's fun to read capital L Literature regardless of whether or not you Understand it then that's all ya need. If it's fun to read genre cause it doesn't have too much subtext or nuance or whatever then do that. Trying to chase some ideal of Understanding Literature will just lead to frustration. There are a lot of books about "how to read literature" and interpreting the classics. My best advice is to read stuff you like, let the words form meaning in your mind, drop stuff you aren't enjoying, but always stay open to being just gobsmacked by a pretty paragraph. That's more valuable than "getting" something the same way someone else did
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Jun 15, 2021 19:35
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 09:33 |
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I mean is thinking big thoughts not fun? Is being moved not enjoyable? You don't have to get the "right" meaning of something to like it. That's part of the reason Literature has persisted. It can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And letting something mean something specific to you should be an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Spending too much time hung up on whether you're getting what the author meant or what other, supposedly smarter, people think a work meant is definitely gonna make you hate it.
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Jun 15, 2021 20:05
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