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Baka-nin posted:There was a case where the Mughal Emperor Akbar, had a house filled with very young children and forbid anyone to speak in their presence or show them writing in order to discover humanities natural language. The results were not what he had hoped for. What happened? I can't find any info through google.
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Sep 14, 2015 10:02
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Suggestions for next month's BOTM? Windeye by Brian Evenson
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Dec 30, 2015 07:23
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Mel in The Vegetarian thread you showed some interest in Literary fantasy, I made a post in the fantasy thread about just that, ( I also got told off for very mildly suggesting that Terry Pratchett wasn't as a good as Jane Austen).fez_machine posted:If you want Literary fantasy here are a few suggestions (beyond this anything published by the Fantasy Masterworks imprint is a good starting point): You might like "The Slovo Stove" by Avram Davidson if you want a Magical Realist emphasis.
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Jul 7, 2016 18:57
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Has anyone else ever read Richard Powers? He is one of my favorite authors and its interesting because his writing is probably the closest I have ever seen to the big red line between sci fi and literature. These look really interesting, I'm going to check them out. I posted that list in here because no one should ever have to go back into The Vegetarian thread again.
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Jul 7, 2016 19:54
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thehoodie posted:Runaway Horses was a drat good book, and boy do I have no idea what books 3 and 4 could involve. Jeno Rejto, or P. Howard, The Hungarian Wodehouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jen%C5%91_Rejt%C5%91
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Aug 12, 2018 13:32
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Tree Goat posted:sing to me, o muse, of the man with the x-factor
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Jan 4, 2020 00:41
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derp posted:I've been wanting to read some history lately, because I'm uneducated. Any subject other than American history. But I want stuff with top notch prose. Any standouts in the non-fiction / world history area that shouldn't be missed? The more focused and obscure the better. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbons is often wrong but it's got sick burns aplenty Memoirs from Beyond The Grave is lovely John Mchphee is great but it's American history If you want obscure micro-histories Tim Robinson's Stones of Arran books are fantastic Ian Sinclair if you want eliptical walking histories of London.
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May 15, 2020 10:15
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Vogler posted:What does this thread recommend re: horror? I think the genre got great potential but I'm always disappointed in what I read. The only exception in recent years is the terrific Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin. Brian Evenson's work, particularly his short stories.
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Aug 18, 2020 01:59
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OscarDiggs posted:Can anyone recommend something good and interesting to read, but that is also fun? My last few Lit books have all been depressing and Russian and Id like to buck the trend. The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek
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Jan 27, 2021 11:08
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cebrail posted:What's some good Russian literature from the 20th century? I haven't read anything newer than Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. A new translation of Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad came out recently. Maybe Nadezhda Mandelstam who I haven't read but have heard good things about.
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Jan 29, 2021 08:49
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shirunei posted: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 There's a few options you can follow for an easy path from SF/Fantasy to literature: 1. You can read literary work from within those genres. I made a bigass list here which might be a good start. 2. You can read works of literature that were meant to be accessible: Jane Austen, Victor Hugo, Irish Murdoch, Hemingway, Swift, Graham Greene, Dickens, Shakespeare, Rudyard Kipling, Charles Portis, Zola, most classical literature. 3. You can read sub-literary works that while not all the way are still better than what you'll get in SF/Fantasy: Dumas, Patrick O'Brien, Poe, Greene's entertainments, John Le Carre, Dashiell Hammet, etc. etc. There's thousands of books to choose from here. A great way to find them is to read interviews of your favourite genre authors and note their faves and influences who don't write in the genre. Just remember if you don't like something classified as literature that's a fair response, put it down, and find something else you do like. There's a challenge to this stuff but it shouldn't be like eating gruel. fez_machine fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Mar 20, 2021 |
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Mar 20, 2021 18:08
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Shibawanko posted:why isnt stanislaw lem on your big list though, thats the most obvious one honestly? I haven't read enough Lem to remember him when I was making the list. Coincidentally, his name did come up in an unrelated context just before I read this post and I was like yeah I should have put Lem in.
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Mar 22, 2021 23:46
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ulvir posted:has anyone in the lit thread read anything of Antal Szerb? there’s a norwegian translation of Journey by moonlight out and it sounds intriguing I've read it and liked it. Didn't consider my time wasted.
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Apr 19, 2021 08:41
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NikkolasKing posted:Most folks seem to know it from the musical, anyone here read Les Miserables? I don't mind the long expositions on history and stuff, it actually spurred me on to read more about modern French history and politics, but it's such a long book that I did wander off after a time. I'm thinking I'll try to finish it now. I'll have to start over, though. I read it years ago. It's good! Skip the Waterloo section though, it's much less interesting than the history of Paris' sewers and you can always come back to it.
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Oct 9, 2021 23:23
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CestMoi posted:by 16 i got really obsessed with the concept of most major historical events and tried to channel them constantly developing prodromal schizophrenia from exposure to the American education system
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Dec 1, 2021 02:37
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Proust Malone posted:very short ones that use the prose in a deliberate fashion to show the emotional condition of the characters. derp posted:lydia davis
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Jan 30, 2022 11:52
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FPyat posted:Is anyone familiar with The Seven Basic Plots? I keep running into people who hype it up. You'll learn more about how to write from Exercises in Style
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Feb 14, 2022 00:32
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People fell in love with these books even with flawed translation so it doesn't matter to me too much. The worst translations are those that render a great book unreadable and there's more than a few of those.
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Dec 5, 2022 01:02
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I read interviews from authors I like. Usually if I like what they write I'll like what they read and most interviews have a couple of recs tossed in here and there. If a book you like was published by a small press they probably only have one editor making the decisions so you might share similar taste.
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Dec 31, 2022 04:09
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Gaius Marius posted:Gonna try and read more short stories this year, any recommendations for collections to read? I've already read Ficciones, all of Poe, Salinger, and a smattering of Tolstoy. I've just picked up Hawthorne, Gogol, and Maupassant to start. Flannery O'Connor, The Moon in its Flight by Gilbert Sorrentino, James Purdy, O Henry (he's too influential ignore), similarly Saki. Also Kipling and Twain if only to remind you they exist and are very good even if very obvious. fez_machine fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Jan 3, 2023 |
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Jan 3, 2023 22:28
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The only ocean novel more gay than Moby Dick is Billy Budd
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Jan 3, 2023 23:42
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Gaius Marius posted:This is the literature thread, please try to elevate your thinking beyond that of a middle school aged child who labels anything with two men in it "gay" No, it's the literal century of queer literary criticism and identification with the novella that makes Billy Budd 'gay'
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Jan 4, 2023 01:57
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Good reads rating
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Jan 19, 2023 10:41
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ThePopeOfFun posted:I should read more Pynchon. Gave up on Gravity’s Rainbow pretty early, but I think I might dig other stuff. Against The Day is very readable and while it takes awhile to get there is full of relatable generational family drama
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Feb 28, 2023 22:42
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started reading Vikram Seth's Golden Gate which I like and so decided to read the Charles Johnston translation of Eugene Onegin which served as Seth's model. It's pretty fun so far although apparently the Falen translation is a little better written (I've noticed some moments where Homer nods in Johnston).
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May 23, 2023 00:02
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continuing to read verse novels reading Robert Browning's The Ring and The Book (which is good and you can see why it revived his reputation). Prefigures a lot of true crime "look at this gnarly crime I discovered" stuff, including I went there and walked in the tracks of the victim.
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Jul 28, 2023 19:10
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mdemone posted:I have a Dalkey Archive copy with the voices in different colors like Faulkner always wanted. It's intimidating as hell.
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Aug 24, 2023 17:10
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Gaius Marius posted:Speaking of Mann, any opinions on Doctor Faustus? I picked up a copy of it and Death in Venice recently and trying to decide which to read first, I'm leaning towards Faustus purely for love of Goethe's work which I can compare and contrast while reading Mann's. Faustus depends on how much you enjoy music theory, but the core relationship is very powerful. Death in Venice is my least favourite Mann. Feels like it was overvalued for depicting homosexual desire when that was hard to get. Never mind that desire being paedophilic.
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Sep 18, 2023 03:38
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I had someone get insanely tilted at me for saying the Da Vinci Code was bad in 2006, so it's always been around
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Nov 1, 2023 23:01
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McSpankWich posted:This got lost in the middle of whatever that all just was and I didn't hear any response to it re: Russian Literary Masterworks. Has anyone read Pasternak that can compare it to the others? Dr Zhivago's very positive reception is tied up with cold war politics. The earlier Russians are unbeatable. Highly recommend Eugene Onegin as an accessible work of classical Russian lit that's stood the test of time.
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Nov 2, 2023 14:33
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Lobster Henry posted:This is pretty woolly, but imo there is some basic warmth and humanism about The Big Lebowski that Pynchon for the most part lacks. Maybe it’s even just at the level of performances and production, but it is there. If you want basic warmth and humanism from pynchon, then it's there in mason and dixon and against the day.
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Nov 10, 2023 13:37
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Its consumption without sustenance. Rabbit Starvation
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Nov 20, 2023 22:34
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Don Quixote or the original hikikomori
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Dec 7, 2023 00:02
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ahh Moby Dick, the first Kaijudrrockso20 posted:It's funny when you think about it that Moby Dick(which The Whale God is sort of an adaptation of) is one of the prototypes for the Kaiju genre and that doesn't really get talked about as often as you'd think(compared to say how Frankenstein gets brought up all the time as the first piece of science fiction)
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Dec 27, 2023 01:24
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closet_drama
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Jan 18, 2024 15:12
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Against the day is far less disorientating up front
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Feb 6, 2024 06:27
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ulvir posted:i started with Stoner today, its decent enough. realism is a good change of pace after a whole bunch of Fosse, Bolaño etc the last few months change of pace?
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Feb 6, 2024 21:11
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Ras Het posted:I always thought Stoner was a Cormac McCarthy style blood and guts book by the people who talk about it. You're thinking of one of John Williams's other books, Butcher's Crossing.
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Feb 7, 2024 14:31
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It's important to note that Wolfe has a pretty steep decline in his late period (and as an ageing conservative Catholic gets pretty Fox News poisoned)
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Feb 9, 2024 22:45
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NikkolasKing posted:When I was growing up and reading Greek literature, I used to always hear "well, Greek Heroes aren't exactly what we'd call heroes." And, indeed, maybe they aren't what we'd call heroes, but that's only because the values we prize are so different from Ancient Greece's. These were heroes to the Greeks, as deserving of admiration as our heroes are. Although there were multiple currents running through Greece even back then. I suppose my understanding has been largely shaped by Nietzsche's idea that all the Greek values were ruined by Socrates and Christianity. I mean Odysseus survived in popular memory way longer than Ajax. He had plenty of fans in the classical period. The Aenid isn't based on the legends of Ajax.
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Feb 26, 2024 03:12
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