Read Some Real Literature: Anyway hail satantango

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

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Also, where did I say that old works are intrinsically better than new works? I've trumpeted Citrus County by John Brandon in this thread and that was written under 3 years ago.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 05:33

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 20:05

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Rime posted:

House of Leaves is pretty high on my list, if only because cramming three novels into one simultaneously and having them all impact each other is some 4th-dimensional magic that deserves respect.

Yeah but one of those was boring. I don't care about Johnny's life

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 06:00

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Xun posted:

It was Bulgakov, thanks! I might have been thinking it was Gogol, all I know is some stuff from a half remembered conversation. But now I have a bunch of other Russian writers to look at too yay.

Do I have a thread for you!

# ¿ Jul 20, 2014 23:26

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Captain Mog posted:

Fun question I've always wondered and this is the best thread I can see to do it in: who do you think will be regarded as our generation's literary stars one hundred years from now? Who will be our Hemingway, our Faulkner? Will we even have one or has the ease of publication ended the era of literary greats and instead started a new one of the literary "mediocre-to-good"?

Usually when I ask this question, I get a whole lot of "X author who like ten people have heard of". Which isn't answering the question at all.

No idea. People forget, but probably the best reviewed writer of that day, Franz Kafka was just a crazy guy in Prague. It'll probably be someone like that.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2014 02:09

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

blue squares posted:

Indefinite checkout? What?

At my university library, you can tell the librarian that you're studying the book for a class and you can borrow the book theoretically forever.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 23:15

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Mr. Squishy posted:

I also like it when people read... the thread, rather than just leap past 20 pages to give their hot take about a deliberately inflammatory OP.

The fact that anyone posted in a literature thread in TBB is proof that my crusade is working

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 16:54

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Guy A. Person posted:

I would like to dispel the "at least they're reading something" excuse that gets tossed around. In general the people posting on this site aren't like underprivileged kids who have reading levels well below the national average or something. In fact I would be willing to bet that 90% of the people on this forum are nerds (not using that as an insult since I'm one too) and consider themselves smarter than most of their peers. Holding them to such a low standard is insulting and also kind of laughable.

I am the dumbest person on the planet. I know poo poo about poo poo. Babies with Downs Syndrome look like Richard Feynman compared to me.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 22:04

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

computer parts posted:

For Whom the Bell Tolls had about a third of it written in Spanish.

Look at this joker who never read The Old Man and the Sea in elementary school

# ¿ Aug 1, 2014 02:14

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Mr.48 posted:

Of course it can. But it can also be mentally taxing, which after a full day of mentally taxing work is not the ideal way to relax. Also, way to be a douchebag about it.

Have you considered that you might be hearing it a lot because it could be true for many people?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

# ¿ Aug 5, 2014 00:13

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

bondetamp posted:

Considering your grown up reading habits, you guys sure get into some childish loving arguments.

No one's getting in an argument, we're having fun discussion amongst friends. Are you my friend? Would you like to join in the discussion?

# ¿ Aug 5, 2014 00:41

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Doulos posted:

I've seen other people ask for recommendations in this thread, so hopefully I won't get my throat slit. I've wanted to try and read more good books for a long time, since I actually enjoyed some of the books I read in high school, but then I went to school for engineering and never took an English class again. I've read and really like Catch-22, Faust, Frankenstein (this book is so utterly unlike every single reference to it I have no idea how it happened) and Heart of Darkness, read some others that don't stick out (hated Bronte but probably because it was high school), and I'm really well read on plays at least. My wife's favorite book is 1984, but I didn't make much headway when I tried to read that a few months ago. I adore absurfist theatre and Catch 22 is probably my absolute favorite novel, do any suggestion in that vein would be great, but I'm also considering some detective stories because I listen to old detective radio shows all the time.

But seriously, Frankenstein's monster is yellow, speaks eloquent French and was extremely physically coordinated, how the Hell did we get the modern version of the monster?

The best Absurdist theater is Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. The closest war novel to Catch 22 is Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Instead of Nineteen Eighty-Four, read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, it's better. If you like Frankenstein, you will like Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and Dracula by Bram Stoker. Which Bronte sister did you read in high school? There were three of them.

For detective fiction, read The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler and The Face by Seicho Matsumoto.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2014 18:23

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Wraith of J.O.I. posted:

^read Disgrace a few years back and thought it was real good, although, of course, depressing. Minimalist style can be so great when done well. Makes me want to dive back into some Carver.

Speaking of which, I'm about 2/3 of the way through Moby-Dick and am looking forward to something different after. Specifically, a few shorter books, around 200 pages or fewer. Anyone have any recommendations? On my list right now are The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Tolstoy), Child of God (McCarthy), Huck Finn (Twain), and Cathedral (Carver). I'm open to more, as I'm not dead-set on any of these. Thanks for any suggestions.

Read Hadji Murad by Leo Tolstoy as well.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2014 19:45

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

rasser posted:

Can I ask for some Mark Twain advice:
I read him as a kid, translated to Danish. It was collections of short stories or serial happenings going on around some Wild West newspaper, everybody shooting everything up because of the first person writer's articles. What is this/these books called in English?

Also, what should I as an adult to read to know more about him? Huck Finn? And perhaps some more serious stuff?

Finally, my kids are five and eight. What would be nice to read to them before they can read everything themselves?

Tia.

IMO, his best books are Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer and Puddinhead Wilson.

You're Danish, just read your kids Hans Christian Anderson

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 18:45

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Can I test the book barn waters and gauge if people here like Nathaniel Hawthorne?

# ¿ Aug 31, 2014 06:04

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

I think the modern critical consensus is that Hawthorne is a bad writer that only gets credit for being in the first class of american writers along with Melville (the good one) and Poe (also dogshit for babies).

Note: this isn't my opinion, I like them all well enough.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2014 18:47

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

WAY TO GO WAMPA!! posted:

I've heard that about Poe but never Hawthorne. Who said that?

I read it somewhere, I'll try and look for it

# ¿ Aug 31, 2014 18:54

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Kubla Khan posted:

Poe's a bit clumsy as a writer/poet. Not in the same league with the great masters of the English language. His ideas and poetic imagery are still laden with strong personal emotion and very worth experiencing.

Poe is good because while his prose isn't the best, his influence is far reaching on the European continent, especially with French writers like Baudelaire and de Maupassant.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2014 19:18

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

I will reveal my secret and say that I like Stephen king

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 18:56

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

OldTennisCourt posted:

I love crime films and novels but I'd really like to read some of the best classics of the genre. I'm currently reading Hamett's Red Harvest, can anyone recommend some good classic Noir or any sort of crime/mystery novels that aren't airport fiction level garbage?

If you get a chance, check out Fant�mas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre. It's a series about an evil man who kills and steals for fun and profit without any remorse. It was also a favorite of French Surrealist painters.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2014 11:11

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Ras Het posted:

Unless you have Infinite Time that's a really absurd task to take on. Try reading The Bible and then report back on whether that was a lot of fun.

The Bible is incredibly fun to read, heretic

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 22:52

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

My problem with Bloom's list is that he includes Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, even though neither of them considered themselves western.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2014 14:20

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Otto von Ruthless posted:

Certainly no one should be looking at it as a list to just check off or anything like that. My thinking is that Bloom's list (or some other formulation of the same thing, I don't really give a poo poo about Bloom, it's just a convenient thing to reference) could be a useful for a beginner to look at just to get a sense of what some 'important' books are. I might distill my advice down to 'Find a book that people generally seem to think is important and then read it'.

Fair point - even if you are specifically interested in western culture, you shouldn't be ignoring the rest of the world. I'm not exactly sure how you would formulate the equivalent to that Bible, Shakespeare, etc. list (or if it really makes sense to think of it that way). As a start though:

-Some sort of overview on Chinese philosophy (I had a class that used this and I think it's pretty good)

-The Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Upanishads

-The Four Great Classical Novels

- I don't know what to pick from Buddhism. The Dhammapada maybe?

Where are the Japanese novels?

-Tale of Genji

-Kojiki and Nihon Shoki

-Basho

etc.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2014 15:35

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

A Rambling Vagrant posted:

When you think about it, TS Eliot is p. much a K-Mart brand William Carlos Williams.

This is how the world ends.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2014 00:00

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

mallamp posted:

Actually you do have to read whole western canon. In original languages.

If you can't speak Spanish and French what are you doing with your life

# ¿ Oct 5, 2014 19:07

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Segue posted:

Most classic literature is classic because it's good in some way, but my God Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" is terribly written. The book contains such thrilling prose as "He was sad", and I have never seen so many sentences start with "Indeed". I'd read about 100 pages in before I googled "Dreiser terrible writer" and got back a bunch of hits.

Apparently it's commonly compared unfavourable with Gatsby since they came out in the same year and chronicle the gap between rich and poor in early 20th-century America. I mean, the story itself is interesting, the moral emptiness of rich and poor as a poor boy climbs up the social ladder, but the clunky, horrendous prose and ridiculous exposition destroys it. It's the first "important book" I've read that is godawful, only classic apparently because of its themes. Yes the theme is important, but the whole point of a story is that it's told with some modicum of skill.

How anything this bad got into the American canon mystifies me.

Are there any other books out there that are this misplaced in the "classics" section? I'm interested.

I've never read Dreiser, but I don't think that "He was sad." is a bad sentence out of context. I could see that in a Raymond Carver style short story.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2014 02:33

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

you got the joke

# ¿ Oct 15, 2014 05:04

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

JackKnight posted:

I read the unabridged Quo Vadis and Ben Hur books when I was like 13 years old, as well as stuff like Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, etc. Now all I read is fantasy or scifi stuff. I've read 50-60 books in the last three months or so. :-). Some of this stuff you are talking about sounds like really heavy reading. A lot of people nowadays would not be able to comprehend some of these books mentioned in this thread, lol.

Hello. Thank you for choosing to use your first post ever on this thread!

However, I believe that while it is good that you are reading, perhaps you should try to read books that take a little longer? Maybe something with a little more substance and density? Sometimes the best things in life require effort and time.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2014 21:13

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

I invite everyone in this thread to take the challenge and read through Finnegan's Wake with me.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3674764

# ¿ Oct 20, 2014 23:13

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

JackKnight posted:

I agree, but lately I have just wanted to zone out. Reading books such as those mentioned isn't a relaxing experience (for me) because it takes a lot of conscious focus to follow the language constructs and terminologies I never use in real life. Were I to read Shakespeare now, I would miss half of the wit the first time around, so I would have to read it twice or more to fully understand it. I agree I should know these books, but I am a truck driver. If I started quoting shakespeare all the sudden, people would look at me funny. :-)

A good thing with Shakespeare is that you don't have to read him! Support your local theater troupe and see a Shakespeare in the park play. Or watch one of Kenneth Branagh's movies (I recommend either Much Ado About Nothing or Hamlet).

# ¿ Oct 20, 2014 23:25

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

JackKnight posted:

I just bought both those on iTunes, as well as Twelfth Night. I know I like twelfth night quite a bit, but I am wondering about a four hour movie (Hamlet), lol

Am gonna try "For Whom The Bell Tolls"

If you like those, get Henry V and Othello. Branagh's Hamlet is the best version put to film, hands down.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2014 04:52

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

JackKnight posted:

I need to exercise my brain. I used to use big words all the time and was generally smarter and wittier, but now I am like every other blue collar moron out there. As a truck driver, I don't often have the occasion to actually use my brain for anything, so it's slowly turning into jelly from lack of use. So now I am thinking about how to educate myself again in proper and educated English. One of my observations over the years is the general devolution of the English language in general. I read something somewhere that said our early presidents made speeches you needed to be educated to understand properly. Now our president makes speeches a 4th grader can understand. It's one of my peeves that we as Americans do not maintain our standards in language usage and comprehension, and I am even more peeved that I am sliding down right along with the majority of other people.

Before I saw this post I was fairly content to read easy to digest books, then I was like "ha not me, I read the classics already 15 years ago" and now after contemplating the problem I have decided to memorize something big, and start to try communicating with a more complex language structure. First I will watch Hamlet a few times, and then try to memorize the play entirely (since it seems to have a lot of fans). Then I will start using the phrasing and wordage I learn from that. I don't know how it will work out, but that is the intent as of now. I assume I still have the neurological plasticity needed to memorize large amounts of content, but it may take some effort as I haven't memorized anything since I stopped playing piano. :-)

This is a bad idea. First off, Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play, so memorizing it would be really hard. Secondly, if you base your grammatical style off of it, you'll be speaking Elizabethan English, which as far as I know only exists in remnants in the backwoods of Appalachia (I grew up in West Virginia and my dad was an appliance repair guy. He told me once that he fixed a family's refrigerator and the people there spoke in King James Bible styled English�as in they didn't say you, they said thee and thou, and their vocabulary was wonky). If you truly want to do this, even if it isn't necessary (your vocabulary will improve by reading things with words you don't understand; you'll pick them up through osmosis), try listening to every one of either Umberto Eco or Thomas Pynchon's novels.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2014 18:06

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

CestMoi posted:

The last good English language literature was Beowulf.

This except Book of Exeter

# ¿ Oct 24, 2014 20:41

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Earwicker posted:

I'm going to have to go against the grain here and recommend that JackKnight does memorize Hamlet and then start using words and phrases from it in everyday speech. In fact in the context of the latter especially I encourage you to document this process on video and share the results.

I would never unleash those slings and arrows of outrageous fortune upon them

# ¿ Oct 24, 2014 20:54

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

drat we just got trolled

# ¿ Oct 25, 2014 01:03

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Everyone who likes nonlinear books should read Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2014 18:35

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

The Belgian posted:

Yes, the philosophical investigations are great fun.

what is this drawing of?

Pun Pun.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2014 19:44

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

The Belgian posted:

I read a short story by Mann and didn't like it very much, so probably not.

Dr. Faustus is by Marlowe...

# ¿ Oct 27, 2014 18:28

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Mr. Squishy posted:

Ugh I hate this avuncular madman telling me about whales why is my hobby so hard. He's such a good storyteller and so engaging, I'm crying.

A whale killed my parents, jerk.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2014 11:30

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Shibawanko posted:

Just read something simple and fun for starters then. Kafka's Metamorphosis is fun as all gently caress because it's about the main character turning into a beetle which sounds just like a Family Guy episode and reads that way too, except it's good and also short. Everybody can enjoy the Metamorphosis.

The Metamorphosis is mad depressing

# ¿ Nov 20, 2014 13:50

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 20:05

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Mercrom posted:

Can anyone recommend proper novels that explore and critizice utilitarian and nihilist concepts sort of the way Gen Urobuchi does but less anime?

Aldous Huxley

# ¿ Dec 8, 2014 10:16

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