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WIldcard meUSMC_Karl posted:I already stated that I'm in, but I'd actually like to clarify something. challenge 9 (Read something in translation) basically means that I'm supposed to read a translated book, right? As in, the book is not originally English but has been translated to English? I spend all frigging day editing Korean patents and I'll be damned if I have to try to fumble my way through a Korean book. I would presume reading a book that was originally in English in a Korean translation would qualify too. e2: oh you're tracking it? Ya, put me down for 60 Mr. Squishy fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Dec 28, 2016 |
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Dec 28, 2016 04:02
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nefarias bredd posted:Unfortunately no I see a copy on Abe Books that would cost $28 including shipping. Time to start a kickstarter.
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Dec 29, 2016 14:31
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nearest library that has it is 40 miles away and it's for reference only. I think I might need another pick.
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nerdpony posted:Another edit: Someone wildcard me? Bernhard's The Limeworks.
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Dec 30, 2016 09:37
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How's the Heller? In my stabs it just seemed to prove the truth in the jibe that he never wrote anything as good as Catch 22, "neither did anyone else" notwithstanding.
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Jan 2, 2017 01:35
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Someone shoot me a wildcard - preferably something that's free or cheap online since my library sucks, or something I can snag through Kindle Unlimited. The Warden by Trollope's out of copyright, should be able to get that.
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Jan 2, 2017 13:54
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Franchescanado posted:I'm having a bit of an weird issue with this too, but with LGBT. I'm trying to mark my Goodreads so I have a list to draw from, but it's a blurry line to define sometimes. Michael Chabon has written several gay/bisexual characters, he quietly identifies as bisexual, but he's married to a woman. As someone committed to the booklord challenge I've adopted a "one drop" policy, and also ruled slavs as being PoC.
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Jan 3, 2017 19:30
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Sandwolf posted:It's handled so plainly, I get it
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Jan 17, 2017 13:44
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1 The Letters of Samuel Beckett 1929-40 edited by Martha Dow Fehsenfeld and Lois More Overbeck. This covers the first decade of his literary life, starting off with an essay on Proust and ending with Murphy. In between he flees from Ireland before feeling compelled, where he stays for as long as he can before escaping again. Mostly Paris and London, though he does spend some time in Nazi Germany, which I didn't know. He even toyed with going to Capetown, where he really would have been out of place! Like all book of letters there are a lot of mean ones to publishers, some crawling ones to the deans of reading rooms, and a lot of just social letters, none of which are ever particularly interesting, but the most every letter has some digression, normally on art rather than literature, which I figure he decided to keep for his work. Also, he was a terrible speller! 2 The Etruscans: History of Civilisation by Michael Grant. I mostly felt guilty for really liking the idea of the Etruscans without knowing anything, at all! about them. So when I saw this handsome book in a second hand book shop for cheap, I figured why not. So I'm not sure if this near-40 year old book is the cutting edge anymore, but I can honestly say I know something about them. Like how they probably died out because their city-states did not cohere to face off any mutual militarisitc threats, or that they got their start due to ready supply of metal, or that they probably didn't worship the dead and despise the living, despite what Pope said. Now I'm not saying this is particularly in depth stuff, but I am not a classiscist. 3 The Petty Bourgeois by Maxim Gorky as translated by Margeret Wettlin. At the same shop I came across a stout volume of all of Gorky's plays that had been published in the USSR and I couldn't resist it. I must say I don't know a lot about Gorky's comparative translations but this seemed a fine enough one. As for the play itself, I can see why they named a square after him. Political Chekov. 4 Essays on Conrad by Ian Watts. Here I started dogsitting in a university town so I borrowed my host's library card and just started reading criticism on the two authors I read all the time. I wanted to read stuff on de Assis and Bernhard but it was in Portugese and German, respectively. Anyway, this selection of essays is more a covert biography than literary criticism. But it was a good deal shorter than The Three Lives so who's complaining. Watts was also one of the PoWs who built the actual bridge over the river Kwai, so he tacks on an essay about The Bridge Over the River Kwai as Myth at the end. It didn't have anything to do with Conrad, but it was enjoyable. Basically lands the Vietnam war in the laps of Pierre Boulle and David Lean, which seems a bit harsh, but I guess it was his war. 5 Paper Empire: William Gaddis and the World System edited by Joseph Tabbi. I was quite excited to get to this as Tabbi's been plugging this in basically everything he can. Including Joseph McElroy showing off, an essay on the musicality of JR which is nice for someone like me who's less up on his Wagner than he should be. A very successful biography of the man himself as told through his archives. It was funny how Franzen reappears as a bête noire through so many different authors, but I suppose it's to be expected. 6 Joseph Conrad's Under Western eyes : beginnings, revisions, final forms : five essays edited by David R. Smith. I honestly didn't bring my reference with me so just happened to happen across this one. More historical information about the text itself, which is sort of famous among manuscripts because of a reference in a letter by his wife where it sits at the fevered author's feet as he guards it and won't let anyone touch it. Though there's also some more interesting stuff trying to put Conrad's attitude to Russia as a Pole when he had grown up as a Russian. Weirdest of all was something constructing an elaborate freudian interpretation based on a repeated doodle in the margins, a K occasionally converted into an R. I mean, there's something there but to get so heated over it? I'm not sure. 6 The Secret Agent: Centennial Essays edited by Allen H. Simmons and J.H. Stape. I was surprised when I was reading this to bump into again an essay whose opening have frequently quoted it's opening line: "Adam Gills could only find 2 jews in the work of Conrad, I have found at least 9" - mostly among the Anarchists which Cedric Watts is quite confident in identifying. Pedantic and pugnacious, he picks his way through an intertextual relationship between TSA and the works of Lombroso. He also, entertainingly, positively identifies the year of the novel as 1877 (certainly not 1894 as the layman might assume and not as the introduction of the book may have it 1879). There was also something studying the accuracy of Conrad's london entirely based on noise, a very good essay teasing out possible references to Tosca. Most baffling was something by Ludmilla Voitkovskaand Zofia Vorontsova applying some guy Turner's theory of liminality onto TSA. This mostly was achieved by taking a synposis of the text and saying how liminal it was, much like in the work of some guy Turner. Obviously went over my head. 7 A Frolic of his Own by WIlliam Gaddis. This one's really a hoot. There's a bit where someone works out suing god. This reading has pushed Frolic up to being "most fun." 8 The Ethics of Indeterminacy in the Works of William Gaddis by Gregory Comnes. A slender volume that has a very bad opening in that he waffles on about quantum physics. Now I may have the advantage on him here as he was writing in '94 before decades of waffling on about quantum physics. Guy might have transferred from a physics degree or something, but now it just sounds like a Fringe marathon was on as he was trying to fill space.I definitely have the advantage on him as this was written before Frolic was out, and without having been able to ransack Gaddis' letters where he embarrasedly admits to not having read any Benjamin until way after JR when it was suggested to him. So when Comnes seizes on any coincidences linking the two authors works as being, if not proof positive, then certainly reasons to believe in some sort of discipleage. Anyway, not the best thing on him I've read. 9 The Deceptive Text: An Introduction to Covert Plots by Cedric Watts. I enjoyed his essay on TSA so much I dug out this book of his, which is about that fun thing some authors do where they hide what's actually happening in the plot from anyone who glides along admiring the surface effects. In the same entertainingly strident tones he asserts that the misfortunes of Alameyer are all the work of an Arab trader whose machinations have to be totally inferred, though the inference does seem reasonable as Watts explains it. Similarly, Kurtz is deliberately stranded by a sinister quarter master whose incompetence is actually a screen for professional jealousy. He casts two separate stories as ghost stories slyer than Turn of the Screw as you don't even notice it happening, and throws in some religious analogies within the text as a "covert plot" for good measure. After all this it's a brief round the houses of all fiction which has employed similar tricks. Didja know the protagonist of Death in Venice is hounded by the god Dionysus in the form of 7 separate men and the fever itself? Well, food for thought. 10 Arthur Miller by Christopher Bigsby. Colossal biography which knows very well what the story is at any time. This leads to a weird effect where future meaning is definitely stamped on past accidents. Miller's early years are marked by the CIA and HUAC, with the general rule of thumb that any insignificant thing is filed away by Hoover's lot and anything actually compromising is not followed up in the hearing yet to happen. He also chops up After the Fall and scatters it throughout the book. Whenever he needs an example of Miller's difficult relationship with wives, he dips in there, meaning, which is really disorienting. He seems to have been writing that play ever since he was born. Another thing that came across was how short a period it was that Miller did some really significant work. Now I'm speaking out of ignorance, as I've not seen or read any of the less-famous ones, but the biography concludes shortly after The Misfits, 45 years before his death. Once he was happily married I suppose, or once he outlasted McCarthy. It's a good book though, he knows enough to put in the legend first though not without correcting it where the record doesn't support it. He also feels free to digress, going on lengthy walks around politics and the state of the art at the time. He even fends off pro-HUAC revisionists, though this of course leads to some more chronological confusion. 11 Agapé Agape by William Gaddis. Did you know this was at one time intended to refer to King Lear, with the author writing and tearing up wills, cutting out the devoted daughter who was, presumably, sleeping outside the door of his room like a dog. He discarded that for being "too literal" but you can see traces in the first lines about "sorting out this property", which was pretty quickly abandoned. But did you also know some perfidious editor took advantage of the author being dead to excise three sentences about how fellow-editor Robert Gottleib and the shameful way he treated John Kennedy O'Toole and A Confederacy of Dunces. I don't know if these sentences have been re-instated in a more recent publication but they're not in my '05 edition, I checked. 12 The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier as translated by Harriet De Onis. This was something I picked up ages back where a lot of modernist authors were flooding te cheap second hand book shop. Alejo's a cuban musicologist and boy does it show. Not since Antony Burgess have I read so musically-literate a text. It's like The Steppen Wolf for opera lovers. The Cuban element comes from how this guy has to retreat into the wilderness to listen to a river. Anyway, some good stuff. 1) Read some books. Set a number and go hog wild. 12/60 2) Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women. 0/12 3) Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 0/12 4) Read at least one book by an LGBT author. 5) Read at least one TBB BoTM and post in the monthly thread about it. 6) Read a book someone else in the thread recommends (a wildcard!) 7) Read something that was recently published (anything from after 1st January 2016). 8) Read something which was published before you were born. 10) Read something from somewhere you want to travel. 11) Read something political. 12a) Read something about the First World War. 14) Read some poetry. 16) Read a collection of short stories. 19) Read a satire. 20) Read something about honour. 21) Read something about fear. 22) Read something about one (or more!) of the seven sins. 23) Read something that you love. 24) Read something from a non-human perspective. Mr. Squishy fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Jan 31, 2017 |
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Jan 31, 2017 02:32
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And last time I asked for a Wildcard I got loving blanked so someone give me an wildcard you fucks.
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Jan 31, 2017 02:45
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Mr. Squishy posted:1 The Letters of Samuel Beckett 1929-40 edited by Martha Dow Fehsenfeld and Lois More Overbeck. This covers the first decade of his literary life, starting off with an essay on Proust and ending with Murphy. In between he flees from Ireland before feeling compelled, where he stays for as long as he can before escaping again. Mostly Paris and London, though he does spend some time in Nazi Germany, which I didn't know. He even toyed with going to Capetown, where he really would have been out of place! Like all book of letters there are a lot of mean ones to publishers, some crawling ones to the deans of reading rooms, and a lot of just social letters, none of which are ever particularly interesting, but the most every letter has some digression, normally on art rather than literature, which I figure he decided to keep for his work. Also, he was a terrible speller! I skipped Februrary but it's been a very fallow couple of months 13 The Three Perils of Women by James Hogg. Very shaggy story without as clear an idea as Justified Sinner. But Hogg is always entertaining. 14 Single and Single by John le Carré. Badly lacked unity of plot or originality. 15 Don Carmusso by Machado de Assis as translated by x. Re-read this one again so soon because I soon lent it away. 16 The letters of Samual beckett 1941-56 edited by George Craig, Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Dan Gunn and Lois More Overbeck. AKA the years he wrote the things you've read. Amazing to see how phenomenally successful Godot was. Though a lot of the letters of successful writers are all the same, bullying translators, thanking agents and the occasional stinger asking where the money is. SHould be noted how incredibly profecient the editing is, footnoting every reference they could possibly find. 17 A Dog's Heart by Mikheal Bulgakov as translated by Andrew Bromfield. You could see how a guy like him could lose friends with those in authority. Great translation too. 18 Adam Bede by George Eliot. Well, it's a strangley split narrative, like Eliot was surprised by where the story took her. 19 Opium by . A truly mental airport novel, sort of a blend of drug confessionals, espionage thrillers, and, most jarringly, private detective stuff. He even calls himself a gumshoe at one point. Also, liberal mention of Iranian literature, or at least numerous mentions of One Thousand and One Nights. 20 Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut. When reading Vonnegut it's always fun to think about how famously grumpy he was. Anyway, it's a Vonnegut book, you know how they are. Unless you don't, then read Slaughterhouse V instead of Jailbird. 21 Letters by John Barth. I dunno, maybe I don't find the very concept of fiction as wondrous as I should. 22 Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut. I was fed up by being taunted by these unread Vonneguts on my shelf. 1) Read some books. Set a number and go hog wild. 12/60 2) Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women. 0/12 3) Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 0/12 4) Read at least one book by an LGBT author. 5) Read at least one TBB BoTM and post in the monthly thread about it. 6) Read a book someone else in the thread recommends (a wildcard!) 7) Read something that was recently published (anything from after 1st January 2016). 8) Read something which was published before you were born. 10) Read something from somewhere you want to travel. 11) Read something political. 12a) Read something about the First World War. 14) Read some poetry. 16) Read a collection of short stories. 19) Read a satire. 20) Read something about honour. 21) Read something about fear. 22) Read something about one (or more!) of the seven sins. 23) Read something that you love.
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Apr 2, 2017 19:41
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Mr. Squishy posted:1 The Letters of Samuel Beckett 1929-40 edited by Martha Dow Fehsenfeld and Lois More Overbeck. This covers the first decade of his literary life, starting off with an essay on Proust and ending with Murphy. In between he flees from Ireland before feeling compelled, where he stays for as long as he can before escaping again. Mostly Paris and London, though he does spend some time in Nazi Germany, which I didn't know. He even toyed with going to Capetown, where he really would have been out of place! Like all book of letters there are a lot of mean ones to publishers, some crawling ones to the deans of reading rooms, and a lot of just social letters, none of which are ever particularly interesting, but the most every letter has some digression, normally on art rather than literature, which I figure he decided to keep for his work. Also, he was a terrible speller! Lord, let's see what I remember 23The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maughm This is what stopped me updating as I realize I had forgotten it and could not be hosed writing down my responses to it. Maughm leaves me cold in general 24Bloody Old Britain by Kitty Hauser One of those fun biographies about a guy I'd never even thought about not hearing about. Man who was instrumental whipping the Ordinance Survey thing into shape, and devolved into general crankery 25Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz I feel bad for Schulz because I mostly want to read his stuff because of the Quay brothers and Wojciech Jerzy. But it's very obvious what they responded to in their work, a sort of fun febrility in everything. 26The Confidence Man by Herman Melville I reread an ebook of this because I'd leant my physical copy, with plentiful notes, away. Very different reading experience, obviously, both because it's much more fluid, but also because I had forgotten about various dogmatic schisms, or what that stool in the end is. 27Nixonland by Rick Perlstein I asked this forum for a good book on Nixon and was told this and Crooked, which I've not read, but this was a good steer. Sometimes the author's a bit too proud of his sentences, and sometimes he rushes off w/out carrying me with him, but you gotta love how he captures the finagling. 28Before the Storm by Rick Perlstein Did you know the guy has done a sort of Nixon trilogy? Well, I read the shorter one. Good background for understanding the southern strategy. 29Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer Yes yes I know, scifi thriller but this was sold to me as a sorta Wittgensteiny thing and it sorta is. Writing can be pretty careless at times but that's a thriller for you. 30Aquarium by David Vann Truly baffling how many people think this is good. I like how every time it looked at a fish the author came round to my house and explained that this is a metaphor, and what metaphors are. First person voice was pretty careless too. 31Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders The duelling epigram form was a lot of fun until it became just a gimmicky way of formatting a play. Conclusions about war, racism, and america seemed pretty pat and unconvincing but if I had stronger attatchment to Lincoln I might feel differently 32Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf Picked this one up because I'm interested in artifice and so on, but it didn't really do much for me. 33Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal Honestly reading a very ropey translation, but yeah, a lot of fun 34Demolished Man by Alfred Bester A friend really recommended this, I don't really know why. 35Epitaph for a Deadbeat by David Markson One of his books before he found his thing. Casts doubts on his claims to be able to write normal novels. 36Father of the Blob by Jack H. Harris Old horror producer's self-aggrandizing biography. Entertaining. 37The Last Novel by David Markson Oh yeah, that's the stuff 38Man Descending by Guy Vanderheigh For some reason I was talking to a Canadian and apparently this is about the limit for Canadian fiction. Perfectly fine short stories. 39A Master on the Periphery of Capitalism by Roberto Schwarz It's hard to find criticism of Assis in English. I didn't quite grasp its central thesis but it had some good biographical info, and his place in slave-owning Brazil 40New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos edited by Ramsey Campbell God bless Stephen King, trying his best. Also a lot of people feel a good way to handle the subtextual racism is making it textual as well but otherwise not commenting on it 41The Public Burning by Robert Coover More Nixon! This one was a lot of fun 42Reader's Block by David Markson I can't remember if it's this one or the other one where he falsely claims to throw a cat out a window. Seems weird to build your books effect on the reader beign aware of Markson's bad reviews. Basically the only review I know is DFW saying he's the greatest. 43Roadside Picnic by the Stugatsky brothers Oh now I get Stalker 44The Stories of JF Power I was feeling like re-reading Mort D'Urban but had lent away my copy. The father Burner trilogy is very good. 45A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder by James DeMille I was charmed by the first few pages I read and felt compelled to finish it. I'd say unfairly forgotten, less for its virtues and more for the vices of the things we remember 46The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien I'm going to classify this as scifi, no one can stop me 47Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal Now this is a high concept book. I should read more Hrabal, or read the Hrabal I have read more carefully 48We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shriley Jackson I liked the Lottery so much I decided to go for the famous one. It's alright. 49The Thing on the Doorstep and other Weird Tales by HP Lovecraft I did actually read this after New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. I've got it out of my system now 50Uncle Vanya by Anton Checkov I read this because I wanted to see if the production I saw had textual support for a lesbian kiss. Turns out they did but the disgruntled blowjob was pure fabrication. 51A Shropshire Lad by AE Housman I wouldn't rate my knowledge or appreciation of poetry but I did like these. 52Mawrdew Czgowchwz by James McCourt This was like the one reference I didn't know in the Marksons I followed up on. 53Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson It struck me that I did re-read this first. 54Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett I don't know why I had the urge to reread this. I'm pretty sure it's based on the business coup but that might just be the podcast i heard about the business coup before reading this again speaking. I read a lot of trash this year, in that I read much of anything.
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Jan 8, 2018 14:28
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