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Barlow posted:Fascinating and useful stuff, any idea how the Nobel Prize in Literature is perceived? Also what are your reservations with the Pulitzer? I don't know much about their fiction selections but the Pulitzer in History is usually a solid, but never pathbreaking, choice. With Nobel Prize you really have to differentiate the countries you're talking about. Pretty much everywhere it's regarded as THE main literary award for world literature, but it's perceived value varies from US on the low end (Americans usually are satisfied with their own prizes and authors) all the way up to China, where Mo Yan's victory was perceived no less as the Western world's vindication of their policies (especially after exiled Gao Xingjian had won it in 2000 causing great shame and upset). The Nobel Prize is often criticized for seemingly 'political' choices, and it's true there is some rotation going on: for instance, it's probably unlikely that another female English-speaking writer will win in the next couple of years. The talks of 'leftist bias' of the committee calmed down after right-leaning and often very politically outspoken Mario Vargas Llosa won it in 2010. Also, it's awarded by a small group of Swedish academics, so there obviously are the biases that go together with that, although I do believe they try very hard not to let them influence too much. In any case, all their choices in the recent decade or two have been very solid with the possible exception of Elfriede Jelinek. They can be quite highbrow, but they're all writers you can spend your whole life reading and re-reading and enjoying the time spent on them more and more. The problem is there are many more great writers deserving the highest possible accolade and the discussion is becoming much more visible and open in the modern world, so making a 'poor' choice would almost have to be done on purpose as they're playing catch-up a lot of the time now. Other notable international literature prizes are IMPAC Dublin (awarded for individual books, tends to be dominated by English-speaking authors, although not usual suspects), Neustadt International (much wider, less Eurocentric, more interesting/debatable choices) and Prince Asturias Award (very solid choices even if geography isn't very wide, seems to value 'readability' (as opposed to ideas/style) more than Nobel prize).
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Aug 7, 2014 14:16
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Ras Het posted:Although, quite to the contrary, it's been pointed out that MVL's very public criticism of Israel in the 2000s finally made him an acceptable Nobel candidate. Interesting, I hadn't heard of that. Israel might be one of the few topics that both sides of the political spectrum agree on. Either way, majority of well regarded writers seem to be leaning to the left (and I would guess so do the majority of people reading Nobel laureates), so I don't think the committee has an agenda to promote left wing views. It's just a self-perpetuating cycle, in my opinion. I'm secretly hoping Ngugi wa Thiong'o wins it this year, as it'll be fun reading the people criticizing the committee for choosing a passionate Marxist and anti-colonialist author. The guy re-wrote his 'A Grain of Wheat' to make the characters more Marxist and switched to writing in Gikuyu to 'decolonize' the mind, albeit translating the books to English himself. I've only read 'A Grain of Wheat' but it's great and even in the re-written version doesn't seem too political.
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Aug 7, 2014 14:36
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I also recommend reading one or two interviews with Dalkey Archive's founder/manager John O'Brien. See here, for instance: http://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-and-blogs/blogs/booktrust/511 He's very outspoken and tends to be righteous and critical. On the other hand, he might also be one of the most approachable people in publishing I've seen. "“John O’Brien has balls the size of a Henry James sentence,” Mr. Cohen told The Observer. “American literature has no better foundation.”" Also, to pimp myself a bit: I've created a world literature thread at http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3656630
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Aug 10, 2014 08:45
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toanoradian posted:If I love Invisible Cities by Calvino, for its incredible descriptions of imaginary concepts and the sheer sense of awe it inspires, what other relatively thin book would I enjoy? I am currently chewing on the delicious buffet that is Calvino's Italian Folktales and by god, I love folktales from foreign countries. I am p. sure you'll love Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo and Bruno Schulz's stories. Dino Buzzati's Tartar Steppe is a bit longer but you might also enjoy it. Don't try to memorise it, though, because seriously, what the gently caress Edit. Talking about Borges and novellas: anybody read Adolfo Bioy Casares's Invention of Morel? NYRB edition has an introduction by Borges and illustrations by Borges's sister, so if you want to keep it in the family... Burning Rain fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Oct 25, 2014 |
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Oct 25, 2014 14:05
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I tried reading Alice under acid. Then I realized that there are so many more interesting things than books. Like the toilet bowl.
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Oct 25, 2014 19:37
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CestMoi posted:I jus tfinished Mason & Dixon and it's pretty fantastic I'd recommend it for those of you that like books. Here's an interesting article by the English translator of Kadare explaining the re-translation: http://www.complete-review.com/quarterly/vol6/issue2/bellos.htm Because Albania was a Stalinist shithole for a long time and at one point had less than ten foreigners (inc. diplomats) living there, you probably won't get great ALB-ENG translations for a while. But Kadare is great and you should read him. The Successor was the amazing despite being a re-translation. I'm jumping between Ionesco's plays, Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas and Pamuk's lectures on writing atm. All good, so I pick and choose the read according to the mood.
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Nov 10, 2014 16:37
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CestMoi posted:It's pretty good it's just stilted I guess? I probably wouldn't give it much thought if I hadn't realised I was reading a translation of a translation just before I started. I might see if I can pick up Broken April in French since it looks like Kadare was explicitly on board in the French translation process. Should I go for BRoken April or another, better one? Sure, why not, apart from The Successor I've only read Spring Flowers, Spring Frost from him which seemed boring, but I was also a boring teenager then, so.
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Nov 12, 2014 15:24
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For this thread, there's no competition: "I gently caress babies"
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Feb 18, 2015 17:42
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Mel Mudkiper posted:This book seems like a competently constructed version of those weird "rear end nazis from faggotsville" books that pop up on Amazon Dude, what the gently caress are you buying if Amazon recommends those to you?
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Feb 18, 2015 18:34
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huh, it's just criticism on T.S. Eliot, children's videos and laminated tape for me
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Feb 18, 2015 19:12
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Fuentesss Good conscience is good pro read dunno about thr others but Cortazar is def better known
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Mar 20, 2015 17:37
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I like all tbb posters even the ones with poo poo tastes
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Mar 20, 2015 17:38
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Ive read atonement & saturday. They wrre both decent but very artificial in the hollywood movie sense, lacking only sad string music in some parts. Really, there are tons of better and more fun writers. Maybe in 80s & 90s his stuff was new and interesting, but not now.
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Mar 22, 2015 07:44
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Shall we not rather start another 20 pages of pynchon/mccarthy/delillo chat instead?
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Apr 5, 2015 22:08
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Boatswain posted:IMO lets get into some current European fiction. What do you guys think of Vila-Matas? I loved Bartleby & Co, Montado's Malady and Dublinesque (and Never Any End to Paris to a lesser extent). I have Dublinesque on my shelves, but I'm always put off thinking that it requires a doctorate in Ulysses trivia to be remotely enjoyable. c/d? Also, any Juan Goytisolo readers here? I mentioned in the reading challenge thread that I've been given five of his books none of which are among his best-known ones (i.e., Marks of Identity trilogy, Coto Verdado and The Marx Family Saga), so I'm mostly leaving them stay for now until I pick one blindly.
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Apr 6, 2015 07:35
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CestMoi posted:I'm reading Pantagruel by Rabelais in between bits of Infinite Jest and it (Pantagruel) is far better and funnier than Infinite Jest which has had some good bits lately, to be fair. i'll reread Don Quixote for the fifth time before i open another page of Rabelais . maybe it would be better if i read a page a month i'm sure it's better than Infinte Jest tho
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Apr 8, 2015 07:29
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CestMoi posted:Why don't you like it? I'm finding it pretty easy to read, and its got really good jokes for a book written in 1532. I couldn't see the book through all the fart jokes, fart related names and 16th church minutiae seen thru a farting rear end that had me constantly looking at the endnotes (there were no footnotes in my edition). some of the jokes were good, but they're always followed by a 5 page long gag about some bishop who drank too much with an endnote of the same length but i have low tolerance for medieval/renaissance lit anyway, even for Dante's Inferno, don quixote being the exception. maybe cause Cervantes didn't write to destroy his opponents.
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Apr 8, 2015 14:04
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Also, among all the prize lists being published, the shortlist Man Booker International is surprisingly interesting (this is the 'international' prize that has had 5 awards 4 of which had gone to an English speaking/writing author): César Aira (Argentina) Hoda Barakat (Lebanon) Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe) Mia Couto (Mozambique) Amitav Ghosh (India) Fanny Howe (United States of America) Ibrahim al-Koni (Libya) László Krasznahorkai (Hungary) Alain Mabanckou (Republic of Congo) Marlene van Niekerk (South Africa) I have Aira, Couto and Ghosh in my to be read pile. Along with Krasznahorkai they're obv. the big names, but what about the others? Most of them would probably be hard to find even on ebay, but should I try to look for them? The previous shortlists were mostly good even if they included Pullman and le Carre in an attempt to stand out and look hip I guess.
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Apr 8, 2015 14:18
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Its weird how post-modern book 2 of Don Quixote is. Everyone talks about him fighting windmills and poo poo but that is the first 100 pages. Halfway through the whole thing becomes a meditation on narrative and legacy and no one ever talks about that part. Yea, book 2 is my favourite, too. But I reread the first one last year and it's interesting how all the seemingly unconnected encounters are about people who pretend to be somebody else and in the process become this other - at least for themselves. At first it seems that this transformation is incomplete, because everybody else sees them as mad, but in the end there is a subtle realisation that there's some grace in their obsessions and pretense - don Quixote's included - definitely more than they normally come across in their everyday lives. Book 2 continues this point but does it more elegantly, I think, but I will reread it this year - maybe finally checking out the Grossman's translation.
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Apr 8, 2015 14:58
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Ras Het posted:read Eduardo Galeano instead Actually read both, theyre both good.
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Apr 13, 2015 17:48
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ulvir posted:no, this was my first Böll novel. is it good? I c an vouch for it too. Also, "Billiards at Half-past Nine" is fun, dunno about the others, but I don't see why they shouldn't be good. His novels might be a touch too dramatic, but they're also great reads while not shying away from getting quite deep in some serious stuff. A bit like Hans Fallada or more literary Erich Maria Remarque in my memory.
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Apr 20, 2015 14:19
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you should all follow kobe bryant on goodreads
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Jun 7, 2015 08:51
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i'm reading the history of early christianity called 'the closing of the western mind' and now i'm halfway through and im'beginning to think that some htings might've made more sense if i'd read at least the new testament to see for myself if paul seems such an rear end in a top hat in his letters as the author is showing him to be and if matthew's gospel really seems to be aimed at jews.
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Jun 8, 2015 22:01
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mistermojo posted:Hello that's me, thanks cool! So why don't you post here?
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Jun 9, 2015 09:46
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I prefer Caecilius Natalis (via Minucius Felix) to Dawkins for sick burns: Christians come from the lowest ranks of the people . . . ignorant and gullible women who indeed, just because of the weakness of their sex, are easily persuaded . . . [These] bands of conspirators . . . fraternise in nocturnal assemblies and at solemn fasts and barbarous feasts, not through a holy ceremony, but through an unatonable crime . . . Everywhere they also practise among themselves, so to speak, a kind of cult of sensuality; without distinction they call each other brother and sister, and through this holy name even the usual immorality becomes incest . . . In a darkness that is favourable to shamelessness they are consumed by unspeakable passion, as determined by chance Burning Rain fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Jun 10, 2015 14:29
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I like both Philip and Joseph roth
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Jun 12, 2015 06:47
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if anybody's read Doris Lessing's (presumably crazy) SF trilogy, they're welcome to discuss it here though, I guess. bsically, i don't mind some limited discussion of sf books even in this thread (unless it goes out of hand), but not talking about the lack of recognition of sf/f in lit circles, and nitpicking if this or that author should be 'lit' or 'sf/f'. Burning Rain fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 19:09
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Earwicker posted:ive read Memoirs of a Survivor which is very good, and I guess could be categorized as scifi or at least speculative fiction. I dont think its part of a trilogy so I guess you are talking about something else. But its an incredible book and quite atmospheric 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) But I've only read a bunch of her short stories, which was some powerful stuff, but now i'm basically paralysed with choice cuz her stuff is all quite different, and i'm not sure if i'm interested more in her Zimbabwe, feminist, dystopic or autobiographical writing
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Jun 24, 2015 19:31
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Ras Het posted:dunno but Things Fall Apart is genuinely terrible Actually, it owns. So does Man of the People. I mean, it's not literary pyrotechnics, but both are v good novels with immense influence.
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Jun 24, 2015 20:38
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CestMoi posted:I recently remembered Ngugi wa Thiong'o's name for the first time so I'm feeling p[retty good about my contributions to helping continued victims of imperialism atm A grain of wheat was great (i read the reworked version done after he became a marxist but it doesn't read like propaganda) So far my fav of the black african lit is ahmadou korouma tho. Should read Mabanckou soon, wll keep u updated.
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Jun 24, 2015 21:24
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Popular Human posted: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: Cool, thx!
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Jun 25, 2015 06:51
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CestMoi posted:What is some good postcolonial lit that doens't do this tia i haven't ready any that does tbh
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Jun 25, 2015 14:36
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Shibawanko posted:Once Were Warriors yah, i haven't read or even heard about it. is this what you mean with mainstream? just saw the edit. well, considering that the colonial nations and/or empires mostly tried to erase the national identities or construct them according to their own needs, it only makes sense to look back into the past to see what has been lost. glorifying it is another matter ofc, but i really can't remember any book i've read that did that. the ones i've read somewhat recently (rushdie, ngugi, achebe, adichie, naipaul, marquez, rulfo, amado, maalouf, cortazar) sometimes criticise the colonising powers and/or look for what's lost in the past, but i would argue that both of these things are v. important in postcolonial nations. Burning Rain fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Jun 25, 2015 |
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Jun 25, 2015 14:52
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i mean, there always are ppl who look to some imagined golden age to go back to, and when you're setting up a new nation and looking to construe your narrative its ghost might seem very alluring to a lot of ppl (and god knows we had & still have a lot of them in latvia). there also might be novelists trying to capitalise on this sentiment and produce pandering work about sexy maori girls living in desert or whatever, but i really think it's a stretch to insist it's mainstream in postcolonial lit, especially Real Literature. if anything, i'd say thatthe refusal to prescribe simple recipes to the problems of life the book is dealing with is a good sign that you're reading Real Literature For loving Adults.
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Jun 29, 2015 17:57
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CestMoi posted:I would like to read the book about sexy Maori girls living in a desert, please. i think the book shibawanko (Once Were Warriors) mentioned as an example was something like that. it was runner-up for Goodman Fielder Wattie Award!
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Jun 29, 2015 18:09
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reading while high is good, esp. poetry, drunk reading is pointless
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Jul 5, 2015 21:52
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please talk about helen oyeyemi or tea obreht or eleanor catton or valeria luiselli if you want to talk about young authors. they also look better. thanks.
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Jul 15, 2015 08:32
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Jansson's The Summer Book is v. popular, at least in the uk (going by copies we got in my oxfam) and her newly translated adult novel (or were they stories?) got shortlisted for btba or smth. I'd abstain from voting at least until i read summer book.
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Jul 24, 2015 06:39
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V. Illych L. posted:i like arto paasilinna, who is a very witty if somewhat formulaic observer of contemporary mentality and society His 'erotic farce' Kymmenen riivinrautaa (Ten Grates, I guess) was so boring I want to give the book to an enemy. just need to find one. have you read it and are the other ones similar? Burning Rain fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Jul 24, 2015 |
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Jul 24, 2015 14:54
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Romaine Gary (Promise at Dawn) and Josef Škvorecky (The Engineer of Human Souls, but it's a brick, so maybe Bass Saxophone?) manage to talk about big, often painful issues in a straightforward manner without getting too grim. I don't really see a common thread between the authors you listed tho...
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Jul 26, 2015 05:54
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