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Dave Foster Wallace was pretty awesome and if you enjoyed that review of Updike, you should pick up his essay collection Consider the Lobster - it's full of hilarious poo poo like that and was how I got into DFW years ago. Since this has become the "give me recommendations for transitioning to capital-L literature" thread, I want to mention a book I just finished, I, Claudius. Fans of George R.R. Martin in particular will find a lot to like about it - the narrator, Claudius, is a lot like Tyrion Lannister; a cripple who everyone hates but keeps surviving through three generations of Caesars by being smarter than everyone else. There's lots of backstabbing and poisoning and witty banter. Also, there's the last 1/4th of the book featuring Caligula, who even if Robert Graves made up half of the poo poo he wrote about him out of whole cloth would still be the most crazy motherfucker to ever walk the Earth. He forced random people on the street to marry each other and got his horse elected as a Senator and led his troops into a massive attack against the loving ocean. Seriously, anyone who says that "literature" isn't fun as hell to read should pick this up and see how wrong they are.
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Jun 20, 2014 22:56
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A Rambling Vagrant posted:RealTalk: Imo Martin Amis is one of our two or threw greatest living novelists & London Fields is a better book than Infinite Jest. I don't know why goons aren't over Amis' dick: he's unbearably snobby, has terrible teeth, is a turbo-feminist-social-justice-nerd who is simultaneously obessed with machismo and male violence, writes about fat miserable sacks of poo poo coming to their inevitable tragic ends(like E/N), & passionately hates all popular things that aren't pub sports or board games. He's like the goon Moses. Read the first couple of pages and it looks awesome. Real talk: this thread has already added more books to my to-read list than any other one in TBB.
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Jun 21, 2014 12:55
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Mr. Squishy posted:Speaking of, I picked up his Peace cheap the other day because of a vague recollection of the name (probably from a post of yours) and a lack of rocket-ships on the cover. Should I get round to it sooner rather than later? Yes. It's a book that defies short, punchy descriptions, but "Slaughterhouse Five as written by Nabokov" isn't terribly far off the mark. edit: I wrote a terrible review of Peace that nonetheless contains some tips for making the first hundred pages or so a little bit less confusing. Popular Human fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Jul 12, 2014 |
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Jul 12, 2014 21:05
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Yeah, there's no military stuff or anything in it, but like Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of Peace is "unstuck in time" - traveling back and forth through his life while the present-day version of him (a dying invalid) wanders around his increasingly labyrinthine and creepy-rear end mansion. It's my favorite Gene Wolfe novel and one of my all-time favorites, and I'd love for more people to read it since it definitely warrants discussion. On that note, I should probably stop talking about Gene Wolfe so much in the one "let's talk about good literature and not loving science fiction and fantasy for once" thread we have.
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Jul 12, 2014 21:35
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I really liked The Wind Up Bird Chronicle but thought IQ84 was the most disappointing thing I'd read that year. It's definitely the MOST Murakami of all Murakami's novels; all his usual quirks (a detached male protagonist, weird sex fetishes, supernatural elements that come out of nowhere) are cranked up to 11. I'd say give it a try but if it's not grabbing you after the first few chapters, feel free to skip it.
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Dec 10, 2014 04:42
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What would you guys recommend for someone who just finished (and loved) Dos Passos' The 42nd Parallel? I'm reading Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans while I'm waiting for the next book to show up in the mail, but not really feeling it.
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Apr 8, 2015 15:46
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david crosby posted:When you say 'waiting for the next book to show up in the mail' do you mean the next book of the USA trilogy? If not, you should uhh definitely read that, because it's good. Yeah, the next book of the trilogy. Is anything else like it? I love the way it uses collages of news clippings, stream-of-consciousness rants and multiple, shifting POVs to paint this big kaleidoscopic bird's eye view of American society at the beginning of the 20th century. Popular Human fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Apr 8, 2015 |
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Apr 8, 2015 16:15
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I liked Infinite Jest. I feel like Wallace is a lot like Tom Robbins - the latter writes really clever, memorable sentences but mediocre books; the former can write really good scenes but the final product is less than the sum of its parts. There's several 5-10 page sections of IJ that'll stay with me forever (the nuclear-war-as-tennis-game bit, that one conversation Orin and Hal have about finding their dad's body, the mini-essay about why video phones stopped being popular), but it's probably something I'll never read again, as there's so many parts that just drag on and on.
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Apr 8, 2015 17:56
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JR is such a cool fuckin' book
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May 3, 2015 15:14
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I'm a Doceticst, myself. Bodily resurrection has never sat quite right w/me.
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Jun 9, 2015 22:20
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Burning Rain posted:No, i meant Canopus in Argos series, which is actually six books as i just found out (with the full title of the first book being Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta. Personal, psychological, historical documents relating to visit by Johor (George Sherban) Emissary (Grade 9) 87th of the Period of the Last Days) Canopus in Argos is okay; I read them all a few years back - they're good, but uneven. You really can't go wrong with any of Lessing's other directions, though: she owns. Had probably the best reaction ever to being told she'd won a Nobel Prize: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_qyvU6_7nE
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Jun 24, 2015 21:43
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You know, I usually like gigantic post-modern tomes, but The Tunnel did nothing for me. Something about it just turned me off.
Popular Human fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 15:08
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I would argue Latin America was the most consistently excellent region for fiction in the second half of the 20th century.  (I'm reading some Vargas Llosa right now)
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Jul 13, 2015 15:34
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Which one? I've read Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter and The War of the End of the World which is a pretty hilarious binary Feast of the Goat. It's really good so far.
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Jul 13, 2015 23:12
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This discussion of Mishima is really cool. I'm gonna dust off the copy of Temple of the Golden Pavilion I've had in my desk forever and put it at the top of my to-read list.
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Jul 28, 2015 18:58
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thehomemaster posted:This is my vote for book of the month September/October Aw, you guys are getting it like a month before the US. October's going to be insane, there's new Houellebecq/Mitchell/Valente/Wolfe novels all coming out within like two weeks of each other.
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Aug 10, 2015 22:23
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thehomemaster posted:Bought Submission today. I started My Brilliant Friend and its really, really good. I want Submission but it doesn't come out for another loving month here.
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Sep 16, 2015 00:50
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Guy A. Person posted:If you guys were pros you'd use umberto in a pun A pun derail. Oh, boy.
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Nov 4, 2015 03:38
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I just picked up Porochista Khakpour's The Last Illusion based on the strength of her awesome preface to The Blind Owl and so far it looks like I made a good decision.
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Nov 19, 2015 03:23
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Mel Mudkiper posted:A whole buncha people on this forum really like a book about an obsessive hideous shut-in who lives vicariously through RPGs Wolf In White Van : Literature thread :: Ready Player One : Babby thread
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Nov 26, 2015 01:17
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Smoking Crow posted:How does everyone in the thread acquire their books I mostly get them through my city library's Overdrive system. Usually I don't have to wait for anything because everyone's got 100 holds on YA Book That Came Out This Month, but I've been waiting on that Ferrante book for like three weeks now.
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Jan 17, 2016 14:28
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Chamberk posted:Blind Assassin is my favorite Atwood by far but the present-day "Iris is old" parts are wayyy less interesting than the sci-fi story or the story from the past. Still, it all comes together rather beautifully at the end there - while I like Atwood's sci-fi a good bit, I thought this was her masterpiece. I think Cat's Eye is probs her masterpiece. It's even less sci-fi (it has a little bit of the Slaughterhouse Five-style 'unstuck in time' stuff, that's about it) but as a chronicle of abusive friendships and horribly scarring girlhoods, it's second to none. Popular Human fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Jan 19, 2016 |
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Jan 19, 2016 20:11
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I bought the first Ferrante book finally b/c gently caress my library's 40-deep queue for it Also got the new Junji Ito horror collection because, you know, goon
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Jan 21, 2016 23:03
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Mel Mudkiper posted:did he write that one about this is my hole it was made for me yep. He's not at all in the wheelhouse of this thread, but he's fuckin' great
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Jan 21, 2016 23:52
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Smoking Crow posted:gently caress Haruki, give Ryu a nobel prize I've never read any of his stuff other than In The Miso Soup - that book was v. good tho Which of his other books are best?
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Jan 21, 2016 23:59
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Mr. Squishy posted:obese protaganoist fiction thread. I want an obese protagonist thread, even though it would be filled to the brim with Game of Thrones and that one Mieville novel with the fat black scientist.
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Jan 22, 2016 00:59
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MY WIFE usually loves that middlebrow poo poo, but she read The Goldfinch and hated it so I never read it. That's my Goldfinch story. Ferrante is really loving good so far.
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Jan 24, 2016 22:06
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Ferrante chat: I liked when the entire Cerullo family won the reading competition because Lila stole all their library cards 
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Jan 28, 2016 19:19
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I have a similar problem. I loved JR, but I stalled out of The Recognitions not long after the introductory section. Maybe I'll give it another shot after I finish Ferrante.
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Feb 5, 2016 05:17
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mallamp posted:why's everyone reading ferrante it's good, and this thread tends to do things in waves see also: that month when we all read dictionary of the khazars
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Feb 5, 2016 18:20
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I just finished the third Ferrante book and my copy of A Little Life just came off hold at the library, so I fully expect to be all out of tears by this weekend.
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Mar 31, 2016 19:34
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Burning Rain posted:As far as translated books published in English, the two main prizes to look into are Man Booker International Prize (formerly Independent Foreign Fiction Prize as International Booker was author-only prize) for more straightforward 'literary fiction' - i.e., like the regular Man Booker or Pulitzer -, or Best Translated Book Award (for prose - they also have poetry award) for generally more daring and experimental stuff. There are exceptions, of course. This is relevant to my interests. Thank you. And please stop trying to turn the ONE non-SF/F thread in this forum into a sci-fi discussion. I refrain from talking about Gene Wolfe and Sam Delany here, you should be able to stop yourself from typing the words 'Piers Anthony', jesus loving christ.
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Apr 20, 2016 13:59
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CestMoi posted:No good author has ever had sex. William Gaddis had a reasonable and decent amount of sex.
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Apr 23, 2016 03:34
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Nanomashoes posted:God had sex with Mary and he wrote the bible. Only if you're a Mormon, though.
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Apr 23, 2016 13:54
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Nanomashoes posted:What are some books that are pam-pa-ram, and what books are pickle-pee-core? I know this was a joke, but Dunsany is pretty much the most Dark Souls-esque writer in terms of the ethereal fantasy feel of the setting. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fortress_Unvanquishable,_Save_for_Sacnoth Dunsany owns and pretty much all of the ur-nerd texts (Lovecraft, Tolkien, etc) cribbed off him shamelessly. Popular Human fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Apr 24, 2016 |
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Apr 24, 2016 02:17
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A human heart posted:It would have cool if the fantasy genre had been destroyed, imo modern lovely mega-series fantasy, sure, but people have been writing fantasy far longer than they've been writing so-called "realistic" fiction. I mean Christ, we were just talking about Beowulf
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Apr 28, 2016 14:26
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Ras Het posted:No they didn't. gently caress off. Okay.
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Apr 28, 2016 15:33
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I'm kind of shocked he listed Vollmann's The Dying Grass as one of his favorites, because that is a legitimately great book.
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Jul 7, 2016 16:32
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Saerdna posted:What is the worst book you've read in the last few years? worst book that could be discussed in this thread: Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins worst book period: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
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Jul 25, 2016 01:37
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Zorodius posted:What didn't you like about it? It's one of the laziest books I've ever read. There's multiple points where it either directly plagiarizes or cribs from Let The Right One In, like Gaiman thought nobody was going to notice. The ending is just twenty pages of Neil giving himself a long, sloppy blowjob. At least when Stephen King wrote himself into Dark Tower he made himself an annoying, drug addict rear end in a top hat - Gaiman uses it to reassure himself that he's a good, important writer, and that even the fairies that secretly rule the world love him. It's garbage. On the plus side, it did finally make me realize that he's a loving hack, so that's a point in it's favor.
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Jul 25, 2016 14:09
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