The Book Discussion Thread [Archive] - Page 14

Hugh_Grant

09-21-2009, 06:19 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090921/ap_en_ot/us_books_you_vote

NEW YORK – The National Book Awards would like your vote.

Organizers of the prestigious literary prize are asking the public to choose the best fiction winner in the awards' 60-year history.

The six finalists, announced Monday by the National Book Foundation, are: "The Stories of John Cheever," Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man," William Faulkner's "Collected Stories," "The Complete Stories" of Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity Rainbow" and "The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty."

Starting Monday, through Oct. 21, votes can be cast through the Web site http://www.nbafictionpoll.org. The winner will be announced Nov. 18.

Mysterious Dude

09-21-2009, 06:32 PM

I've only read Invisible Man. I found it a bit bloated.

Ezee E

09-21-2009, 06:35 PM

I guess I should read some of this Pynchon guy.

Hugh_Grant

09-21-2009, 06:39 PM

I love Invisible Man.

Mara should be happy to see Cheever.

Eleven

09-21-2009, 06:57 PM

Apparently, you can vote already.

O'Connor is the true Southern short story writer, so Faulkner (whose stories don't quite compare to his novels anyway) and Welty are out.

The others are hard to eliminate. I slightly prefer Lot 49 to Rainbow, so I suppose Pynchon is out. Invisible Man is by far the most culturally important book on the list, but I think I enjoyed the short story collections substantially more.

Overall, Pynchon gets the bronze, Cheever narrowly the silver, and O'Connor wins gold.

ledfloyd

09-21-2009, 10:51 PM

i've read four of those. it seems hard to choose between cheever and ellison.

dreamdead

09-21-2009, 11:02 PM

Voted for Pynchon over Cheever and Ellison. Though I will happily acknowledge the cultural value of Ellison's novel, there's something beguiling and stimulating about Pynchon's text.

Cheever has two or three fabulous stories in his collected works, but reading them all was tedious for me.

Duncan

09-22-2009, 12:03 AM

Read Inherent Vice. Agree that this is Pynchon-lite. I liked Doc, and the twists keep coming, but it's actually pretty penetrable. Whereas his other books sort of disperse out into this diffuseness of meanings, ideas, and plot, here it all stays pretty much together in a cohesive, unambiguous (though winding) narrative. Good, but disappointing.

lovejuice

09-22-2009, 06:14 AM

from what i have read, invisible man and o'connor's shorts, i don't particularly like any of both. agree with antoine on account of invisible man. i might want to vote faulkner based on how much i like his novels in general.

Benny Profane

09-22-2009, 03:16 PM

I finished The Bonfire of the Vanities over the weekend. I am glad I never saw the movie so I had no idea what would happen. The novel is big, bold, and entertaining, and works very well as a satire on scandal. The media, justice system, race, class...all take their turns being skewered by Wolfe, who writes this tale so well it's incredible. So highly recommended.

lovejuice

09-22-2009, 03:54 PM

Benny Profane

09-24-2009, 02:20 PM

Now reading Three Famous Short Novels by William Faulkner after all this recent praise of The Bear. The two Faulkner's I read are both in my top 25 of all time and yet I haven't read anything by him in over a decade, so I am rectifying this foolishness.

lovejuice

09-24-2009, 02:35 PM

you know, it does feel kinda good reading moby-dick in a starbuck. :):cool:

Lucky

09-26-2009, 09:04 PM

A friend let me borrow The 48 Laws of Power yesterday. It's a seductive book. I'm slightly disturbed at how much I am enjoying it. It's taking me back to my Italian Lit classes in college and reminding me how much I appreciated Castiglione and Machiavelli.

Mysterious Dude

09-28-2009, 07:06 PM

I read The Pillow Book. I think Sei Shonagon's life was a little too easy. In some parts she comes across as kind of a bitch. I was particularly appalled at one chapter towards the end where she and the other ladies laugh at a man who's crying because his house burned down. Did I miss something?

Qrazy

09-29-2009, 03:44 PM

you know, it does feel kinda good reading moby-dick in a starbuck. :):cool:

Because?

lovejuice

09-29-2009, 07:36 PM

Because?
i guess, because they did a pretty good job with the nautically inspired interier. it's quite subtle, but when you did read the book, it makes you feel like you are in the pequod.

on an unrelated note, the turn of the screw is effing brilliant and scary.

Qrazy

10-01-2009, 03:51 PM

i guess, because they did a pretty good job with the nautically inspired interier. it's quite subtle, but when you did read the book, it makes you feel like you are in the pequod.

on an unrelated note, the turn of the screw is effing brilliant and scary.

Huh? Starbucks has a nautically inspired interior?

Milky Joe

10-01-2009, 05:31 PM

I thought lovejuice was just having a laugh at the fact that there's a character named Starbuck, but maybe I'm wrong.

lovejuice

10-01-2009, 06:12 PM

Huh? Starbucks has a nautically inspired interior?

I thought lovejuice was just having a laugh at the fact that there's a character named Starbuck, but maybe I'm wrong.
from what i understand, Starbuck, the coffee franchise is inspired by Starbuck, the first mate.

ledfloyd

10-01-2009, 07:13 PM

The company is named in part after Starbuck, Captain Ahab's first mate in the novel Moby-Dick, as well as a turn-of-the-century mining camp (Starbo or Storbo) on Mount Rainier. According to Howard Schultz's book Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time, the name of the company was derived from Moby-Dick, although not in as direct a fashion as many assume. Gordon Bowker liked the name "Pequod" (the ship in the novel), but his then creative partner Terry Heckler responded, "No one's going to drink a cup of Pee-quod!" Heckler suggested "Starbo". Brainstorming with these two ideas resulted in the company being named for the Pequod's first mate, Starbuck.
there.

Kurosawa Fan

10-01-2009, 07:32 PM

David Sedaris is touring the country (http://www.barclayagency.com/speakers/appearances/sedaris.html) with When You Are Engulfed in Flames. I know there are fans of his work, so I figured I'd post it. Unfortunately, I can't afford to go. Bought tickets to a Michigan Football game that same weekend, and it's also my 7-year-old's birthday. That's an expensive weekend for me.

thefourthwall

10-01-2009, 08:10 PM

Yes, but what do you think about Straight Man?

lovejuice

10-01-2009, 08:44 PM

Kurosawa Fan

10-01-2009, 10:40 PM

Yes, but what do you think about Straight Man?

I had a bit of a lull with the fall TV season starting, but the last two days I've read over 200 pages. Might finish it tonight. I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Hank is a fascinating character. It's been very funny, and even a bit poignant at certain moments (which I'm guess will only increase as the book draws to a close). I'm excited to see how things conclude.

Winston*

10-01-2009, 10:57 PM

Does David Sedaris read stories specifically for the live audience or is it just paying to see him read stuff you've already read?

Kurosawa Fan

10-01-2009, 11:34 PM

Does David Sedaris read stories specifically for the live audience or is it just paying to see him read stuff you've already read?

I don't know. When I've seen him on TV, he's read excerpts from his book, but this is an hour and forty-five minute presentation, with a book signing afterward. I might try to make the money work somehow. It's too tempting to pass up.

ledfloyd

10-02-2009, 01:26 AM

Does David Sedaris read stories specifically for the live audience or is it just paying to see him read stuff you've already read?
when i saw him it was both, but most of the stories i didn't recognize were published in when you are engulfed in flames, which hadn't come out then. so who knows.

thefourthwall

10-02-2009, 03:01 AM

I saw him live and there were published and unpublished stories. One of the ones he read was being recorded to play on NPR and he coughed or slurred a word or something. He ended up reading the final paragraph three or four times; by the end, the laughter at the funny part was very strained.

Qrazy

10-02-2009, 04:33 PM

there.

Thank you. Was that so hard lovejuice, was it? *shakes head slowly* ;)

Benny Profane

10-05-2009, 01:21 PM

The Bear is a serious chore to read. After the part in the woods it just totally rambles, and not in a good way. I'm sticking with it for the occasional spurts of clarity and depth, and because I only have 30 pages left.

ledfloyd

10-05-2009, 04:28 PM

i gave up on sunnyside. the parts with chaplin were interesting, but the rest was rambling and there was nothing to cohere the separate plot strands together./

so, looking for something more coherent. i've decided to finish gravity's rainbow, i've been on page 343 for several months.

Duncan

10-05-2009, 10:27 PM

Read Absalom, Absalom!. Liked it more than The Sound and the Fury. I thought the self-conscious mythologizing of the south worked better. Even though there is very little description of the actual scenery, every time the war was brought up I imagined the muddiest field under the fiercest nighttime thunderstorm ever. I think that's part of this theory I have about writing in general, which is that people will imagine their own settings based on the personalities of the characters or themes or whatever, and that their own imaginings are better than ten pages of description. So Faulkner writes about incest and fratricide and infanticide and doom, doom, doom with this sort of florid profundity, and even though it's a very internalized book, the result is this overflowing epic quality that spills out onto the landscapes he hardly ever describes. Anyway, I thought it was really good.

Also in the middle of a collection of essays by Montaigne (very interesting so far) and about 75 pages into American Pastoral (too early to judge, but I feel like I've heard this voice before).

Qrazy

10-06-2009, 03:58 AM

Spaceman Spiff

10-06-2009, 04:07 AM

Hrm I just bought this a few days ago.

So... did... I. Actually.

This is weird.

Benny Profane

10-06-2009, 12:45 PM

I gave up on The Bear. I found the whole family history of the boy and McCaslin to be pretty incomprehensible, and due to the unreadability of the prose, I didn't feel like putting forth the effort and re-reading what I didn't grasp. Faulkner hates punctuation. I know it has some supporters here so I'd like to hear what they think.

Started Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer.

Kurosawa Fan

10-06-2009, 01:55 PM

Finished Straight Man a couple days ago. Very entertaining read. Couldn't put it down once it got rolling. Equal parts hilarious and poignant. Hank and Rourke are two characters I'd love to read about and adventure with again. This has to be a favorite among college professors (or teachers in general). I can only imagine that if I was more acquainted with school/union politics, it would have been all the more affecting.

Moved on to Invisible Man by Ellison. Blew through 100 pages last night.

ledfloyd

10-06-2009, 02:22 PM

Moved on to Invisible Man by Ellison. Blew through 100 pages last night.
the opening of that book is unbelievable. i'm due for a reread on it.

thefourthwall

10-06-2009, 03:52 PM

What does everyone here think of Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier? Not done yet but it's quite good so far.

I love it, which was surprising to me when I read it. An excellent example of a text that's not quite Victorian, not quite Modernist. Pairs nicely with Conrad's Heart of Darkness in my mind...probably with Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby too.

Finished Straight Man a couple days ago. Very entertaining read. Couldn't put it down once it got rolling. Equal parts hilarious and poignant. Hank and Rourke are two characters I'd love to read about and adventure with again. This has to be a favorite among college professors (or teachers in general). I can only imagine that if I was more acquainted with school/union politics, it would have been all the more affecting.

:pritch: Surprisingly, in my school at least, I only know of one other person (and it's another grad student) who reads academic lit like this--but I certainly love it. When I read that book, I was literally lol-ing a lot, which is unusual.

Kurosawa Fan

10-06-2009, 04:05 PM

:pritch: Surprisingly, in my school at least, I only know of one other person (and it's another grad student) who reads academic lit like this--but I certainly love it. When I read that book, I was literally lol-ing a lot, which is unusual.

There were several moments where I laughed out loud. One of those moments being the last paragraph of the book. Such a great way to leave things.

lovejuice

10-07-2009, 09:50 AM

after the language instinct and the stuff of thought, i don't think i really like this steven pinker guy afterall. :sad:

Kurosawa Fan

10-07-2009, 03:30 PM

Has anyone here read any Simenon? Any idea where I should start, or any favorites I shouldn't miss? Shoe? You're a Belgian, come through for me.

Qrazy

10-07-2009, 08:56 PM

after the language instinct and the stuff of thought, i don't think i really like this steven pinker guy afterall. :sad:

I was given The Blank Slate about 10 years ago. Worth reading?

lovejuice

10-07-2009, 09:07 PM

I was given The Blank Slate about 10 years ago. Worth reading?
depend on your position on the issue. pinker is, to some extend, a nativist who believes language skill is inherited in human gene. he tends to overlook the difference in languages and how they shape different cultures. instead, his book is about how we have this kantian a priori framework to handle language. and it matters little if that language is chinese, english or deutsch.

it's fascinating idea, but if you, like me, are too much a linguistic determinist -- people who overjoy by so many words for "snow" in eskimo -- you'll probably be irked by or even hate what he wrote.

Grouchy

10-07-2009, 11:25 PM

Has anyone here read any Simenon? Any idea where I should start, or any favorites I shouldn't miss? Shoe? You're a Belgian, come through for me.
I read a bunch of his Maigret novels a few years back. All of them very good stuff. Eh... start with the first one, I guess. I also remember a novel called Black Neighborhood which was non-Maigret.

Kurosawa Fan

10-08-2009, 12:36 AM

I read a bunch of his Maigret novels a few years back. All of them very good stuff. Eh... start with the first one, I guess. I also remember a novel called Black Neighborhood which was non-Maigret.

I'm having trouble finding a reliable site that lists the novels in order while still being able to tell if they're Maigret novels. Any help there?

Our Aurora

10-08-2009, 01:35 AM

Wow, I'm reading The Lunatic by Anthony C. Winkler, and it is one of the funniest novels I have ever read. It is a perfect balance of dark comedy, political satire, and astute social commentary. Check it out if you get the chance.

lovejuice

10-08-2009, 09:47 AM

I'm having trouble finding a reliable site that lists the novels in order while still being able to tell if they're Maigret novels. Any help there?
unlike grouchy, i don't think it really matters which one you read. i did a few, and they were quite good, although uniformly unexceptional. just go to a local second-handed bookstore and pick whichever one they have.

you might be able to tell though i'm not that big of a fan, so perhaps grouchy is the one you should listen.

as a side note, i always find his ranting over camus -- why does that bastard get the nobel prize but not me? -- hilarious in an egotistical way.

Mara

10-08-2009, 01:29 PM

By the way, I read The Looking Glass Wars and the sequel Seeing Redd by Frank Beddor over my vacation. The first was okay, with the ideas and individual parts being better than the whole. Hatter Madigan is a fascinating character.

The second one was somewhat worse.

I always find it awkward to comment on books that mediocre, but I thought I'd throw a quick word out in case anyone was considering reading them.

ledfloyd

10-08-2009, 03:35 PM

all you chabon fans, there was a fantastic interview with him on fresh air yesterday. should be able to find it on npr's site.

Grouchy

10-08-2009, 07:15 PM

I'm having trouble finding a reliable site that lists the novels in order while still being able to tell if they're Maigret novels. Any help there?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maigret

Lists all of the novels and short stories. I've read like three or four of those in no particular order and, no, I guess that doesn't matter much since they're all self-contained stories.

thefourthwall

10-08-2009, 10:58 PM

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel won the Booker, and I'm trying to make myself want to read it because I generally respect that prize, but it just sounds so boring. Maybe the whole historical fiction genre is what I find boring though.

Any one read it or plan on reading it? Or even care about the Bookers?

lovejuice

10-09-2009, 01:54 PM

wow, ivanhoe turns out to be quite a fun read. weirdly enough, remind me a lot of Gu Long and Jin Yong. perhaps, this the closest you poor westerners can get to the awesomeness of wu xia. ;):D

Hugh_Grant

10-09-2009, 02:48 PM

Hugh_Grant

10-09-2009, 02:53 PM

after the language instinct and the stuff of thought, i don't think i really like this steven pinker guy afterall. :sad:
My degree is in linguistics, so Pinker is revered in the field. However, I can't say I'm a huge fan. (The same can be said for Noam Chomsky.)

lovejuice

10-09-2009, 08:12 PM

My degree is in linguistics, so Pinker is revered in the field. However, I can't say I'm a huge fan. (The same can be said for Noam Chomsky.)
because? i am mighty interested since you surely know more about the field than i do.

also i feel the same way toward chomsky. haven't read any of his linguistic work, but while his research in hegemony or survival is legendary -- haven't read any book so much plauged with references as this one -- on the debate regarding war on terror, his book adds very little to the table.

thefourthwall

10-10-2009, 04:20 AM

Hey, you linguists--how big of a deal is George Lakoff?

lovejuice

10-10-2009, 07:00 AM

Hey, you linguists--how big of a deal is George Lakoff?
not a linguist by a mile, but he's among those made fun of by pinker. that puts him on my immediately-to-read shelf.

Duncan

10-10-2009, 10:31 PM

Finished American Pastoral last night. Not a big fan. It seems almost overly rigorous with its characterizations. Like, the wife wasn't a ditzy beauty pageant contestant even though she won Miss New Jersey. OK, interesting enough, I guess, but then with 20 pages left in the book he's still going on about this. I get it already. The whole book also seems chock full of cliches, and I guess the point is to deconstruct these cliches, but isn't that, by now, kind of cliche in and of itself? I mean, star high school athlete goes through horrible downfall? Really? The whole glove factory thing was alternatively annoying in its quaint Americana-ness, and actually kind of moving when the Swede is going into details about stitch length or whatever. But he takes it too far. It's hard to imagine making gloves melodramatic, but Roth does it. But the thing I really disliked about this book is that it's kind of an embodiment of American self-pity. The whole Dream thing is flawed. Everybody already knows that. Grow the fuck up about it already. Jesus. 425 pages of "rage," which is almost always a cover for self-pity. Poor, poor America. Oy vey.

thefourthwall

10-11-2009, 07:36 PM

not a linguist by a mile, but he's among those made fun of by pinker. that puts him on my immediately-to-read shelf.

Thanks!

We've got him coming to speak at a conference I'm co-organizing, and my co-organizers were having a squee-fest when we got him locked in. I'd not heard of him before we were talking about having him come, so I wanted to know if he was a legitimate big fish catch for a speaker or if my co-organizers are just fanboys/girls.

lovejuice

10-11-2009, 07:50 PM

Thanks!

We've got him coming to speak at a conference I'm co-organizing, and my co-organizers were having a squee-fest when we got him locked in. I'd not heard of him before we were talking about having him come, so I wanted to know if he was a legitimate big fish catch for a speaker or if my co-organizers are just fanboys/girls.
oh, he's a huge fish. according to pinker, once proclaimed as the savior of the democrat party.

finished ivanhoe. prince myshkin is nearly dethroned as my favorite character. if anything, for sure, rebecca and de bois-guilbert are my literature's most tragic couple. like the book. but some of scott's subplot/subtext, intensionally or not, is amazing beyond word.

Kurosawa Fan

10-11-2009, 10:38 PM

Benny Profane

10-12-2009, 01:46 PM

New Krakauer = WOW.

A caution: be prepared to feel tremendous rage and sadness if you read it. Still, a must read. The man continues to prove that he is one of the best writers today.

ledfloyd

10-12-2009, 02:31 PM

New Krakauer = WOW.

A caution: be prepared to feel tremendous rage and sadness if you read it. Still, a must read. The man continues to prove that he is one of the best writers today.
this is promising. i didn't think the subject matter was that intriguing. but he has yet to write a book that isn't amazing.

Benny Profane

10-12-2009, 02:38 PM

this is promising. i didn't think the subject matter was that intriguing. but he has yet to write a book that isn't amazing.

Not intriguing? I can't even fathom that. I was looking forward to this one for over a year.

ledfloyd

10-12-2009, 09:04 PM

Not intriguing? I can't even fathom that. I was looking forward to this one for over a year.
the pat tillman story is interesting enough, but i can't imagine it filling a book. i will read it though, because it's krakauer.

in other news, i think at page 500 i'm due for another extended hiatus from gravity's rainbow. it's brilliant in spurts but it is just too unwieldy and all over the place. for every 10 or 20 pages i blow through there is another 30 that are a pain to get through. the work of a genius, but not, i think, a work of genius. i need to try something else from pynchon. crying of lot 49 seems promising.

Benny Profane

10-12-2009, 09:39 PM

the pat tillman story is interesting enough, but i can't imagine it filling a book. i will read it though, because it's krakauer.

Well it goes pretty in depth into the clusterfuck that is Afghanistan and the Bush propaganda machine (how they staged the Jessica Lynch rescue and covered up Tillman's death among other embellishments) and it goes into a lot of tactical decision-making processes in the military. But really the best part of the book are the excerpts from Tillman's journal which reveal a very sensitive, inquisitive, and introspective person who was extremely mature for his age.

lovejuice

10-13-2009, 08:30 PM

now reading pride and prejudice without zombie. it's been a while since my last austen, emma. and it's quite an interesting read. austen is indeed more than a lot of people give her credit for.

Benny Profane

10-14-2009, 03:19 PM

For the first time in a long time I have no idea what to read next.

Tell me.

Kurosawa Fan

10-14-2009, 03:49 PM

One of these:

Clockers - Richard Price
Straight Man - Richard Russo
The Infernal Desire Machine of Dr. Hoffman - Angela Carter

Benny Profane

10-14-2009, 04:14 PM

The Infernal Desire Machine of Dr. Hoffman - Angela Carter

This is what I ordered, thanks.

Mysterious Dude

10-17-2009, 03:21 AM

I read André Breton's Nadja, which was advertised as a great surrealist novel, but I've failed to see any surrealism is it. It seems more like rambling stream-of-consciousness to me. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary happens, and there are numerous references to real people and places, which make it seem more realistic. Is is "surrealist" just because the guy was part of the surrealist movement? Franz Kafka seems more surrealist to me, but does he not count if he wasn't part of the movement?

I also read Ryunosuke Akutagawa's In a Bamboo Grove, which was the basis for Kurosawa's Rashomon. I wasn't surprised that the final story in Kurosawa's film, told by Takashi Shimura's woodcutter, is nowhere in the original story. I always thought that part didn't really belong.

Ezee E

10-17-2009, 06:09 AM

Going to go to a bigger library and check out Pynchon for the first time.

lovejuice

10-17-2009, 06:33 AM

I read André Breton's Nadja, which was advertised as a great surrealist novel, but I've failed to see any surrealism is it. It seems more like rambling stream-of-consciousness to me. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary happens, and there are numerous references to real people and places, which make it seem more realistic. Is is "surrealist" just because the guy was part of the surrealist movement? Franz Kafka seems more surrealist to me, but does he not count if he wasn't part of the movement?
melville and i have a wonderful discussion about this novel somewhere back there. totally i agree with you. melville, however, is a fan of the book, and in its defense, "surrealism" as we know it best today -- perhaps from the work of dali or magritte -- is different from what it was back then or what breton believed it to be.

i find it interesting that breton seems to adamantly deny freud and psychological analysis -- claimming it reveals the secret and make banal what should be most mysterious -- while later surrestlist work is, and perhaps can only be, viewed with some freudian perspective in mind.

Hugh_Grant

10-17-2009, 03:03 PM

Thanks!

We've got him coming to speak at a conference I'm co-organizing, and my co-organizers were having a squee-fest when we got him locked in. I'd not heard of him before we were talking about having him come, so I wanted to know if he was a legitimate big fish catch for a speaker or if my co-organizers are just fanboys/girls.

Yep, big fish. Metaphors We Live By is a staple on linguistics reading lists. He's also one of those rare linguists who has come down from the ivory tower. (See also Deborah Tannen.)

Mysterious Dude

10-17-2009, 03:47 PM

I wonder if anyone has ever tried to write a cubist novel. That could be fun.

The Sound and the Fury, maybe?

Qrazy

10-17-2009, 05:44 PM

I also read Ryunosuke Akutagawa's In a Bamboo Grove, which was the basis for Kurosawa's Rashomon. I wasn't surprised that the final story in Kurosawa's film, told by Takashi Shimura's woodcutter, is nowhere in the original story. I always thought that part didn't really belong.

It does belong.

Mysterious Dude

10-17-2009, 10:15 PM

It does belong.
Try to be a little more flippant, Qrazy.

Qrazy

10-18-2009, 05:04 AM

Try to be a little more flippant, Qrazy.

Can't. My flippancy levels are maxed out.

Seriously though, what do you dislike/find overkill about it? Also I've been meaning to see Before the Rain for a while, glad to see it's good.

Mysterious Dude

10-18-2009, 03:24 PM

Can't. My flippancy levels are maxed out.

Seriously though, what do you dislike/find overkill about it? Also I've been meaning to see Before the Rain for a while, glad to see it's good.
I don't dislike it. I just don't feel that it belongs with the others. You've got three versions of the events in which the narrator confesses to killing the guy, then one version told by a guy who was hiding in the trees. The first three versions are all a little "weird" (for lack of a better word), whereas the fourth version seems quite plausible. It's like the last ending of the movie Clue where the title says, "...but here's what really happened." I find it incongruous with the other stories, and I think it undermines them as well. Akutagawa's story doesn't tell us what really happened, so we're left with the mystery.

Qrazy

10-18-2009, 04:49 PM

I don't dislike it. I just don't feel that it belongs with the others. You've got three versions of the events in which the narrator confesses to killing the guy, then one version told by a guy who was hiding in the trees. The first three versions are all a little "weird" (for lack of a better word), whereas the fourth version seems quite plausible. It's like the last ending of the movie Clue where the title says, "...but here's what really happened." I find it incongruous with the other stories, and I think it undermines them as well. Akutagawa's story doesn't tell us what really happened, so we're left with the mystery.

I was under the impression that the fourth story wasn't entirely true either. I felt that K wanted to drive home the point that even an onlooker (witness testimony) who has the least motive for bias, may still be biased. Therefore it's not only the individuals involved in the crime, but even the witnesses who are suspect, or if not suspect, at least in many cases incapable of being entirely honest. So the story still ends with the mystery.

Mara

10-18-2009, 11:24 PM

By the way, I finished my "commuting book" that I was reading aloud with my mother, The Professor and the Madman. I'd recommend it, because the subject matter is fascinating, but I wasn't completely taken with the author's style. I would have preferred a more scholarly approach, and I couldn't help but feel that the prose sounded less professional, and more like a talented and enthusiastic amateur.

My mother had just finished The Mill on the Floss on my recommendation and loved it, so I decided our next commuting book would be Adam Bede. I read it once about a decade ago and loved it, so I'd like to revisit.

Winston*

10-19-2009, 03:17 AM

I read The Inheritance of Loss. Liked it quite a bit. Desai's very skillfull with all the paragraph to paragraph time and space juggling so it reads as easy as if it had a linear narrative.

Dead & Messed Up

10-19-2009, 03:55 AM

Listened to Slaughterhouse Five as read by Ethan Hawke. Wow. Amazing. Touching. Involving. Sad.

lovejuice

10-19-2009, 09:47 AM

I read The Inheritance of Loss. Liked it quite a bit. Desai's very skillfull with all the paragraph to paragraph time and space juggling so it reads as easy as if it had a linear narrative.
like it too for the very same reason. a rare chance that an experiment leads to something rather than for the experiment sake.

kuehnepips

10-19-2009, 06:16 PM

My fav. Non-Maigret for KF:

The Man Who Watched The Trains Go By

Dead & Messed Up

10-20-2009, 07:56 PM

My new book-on-CD is Dune, and, after only one disc, I'm realizing that George Lucas has a lot of 'splainin' to do.

Duncan

10-20-2009, 08:18 PM

I've been reading Pynchon's Vineland, and after the halfway point I'm quickly realizing that Quentin Tarantino has a lot 'splainin' to do. An American, female master assassin referred to as "Blondie" who tries to live a quiet life but is pulled suddenly back into a revenge plot and who is even compared to Superman/Clark Kent? I think that's going a bit beyond homage.

Qrazy

10-21-2009, 05:44 AM

Adam

10-21-2009, 08:50 AM

*cough* (http://www.match-cut.org/showthread.php?t=2455)

Kurosawa Fan

10-21-2009, 11:34 AM

My fav. Non-Maigret for KF:

The Man Who Watched The Trains Go By

Almost missed this. Thanks Nada! I'll put this on my short list of his novels to grab from the library.

lovejuice

10-21-2009, 01:06 PM

the right stuff is a wonderful book. it is as much -- or even more so -- a documentary as a fiction. (assumed wolfe doesn't make all that up.) i'm impressed by his immense research especially given his arsenic tone toward the space program, the military and NASA. did the people who allow him into the archive resent this book later?

ledfloyd

10-21-2009, 06:23 PM

ledfloyd

10-22-2009, 02:32 AM

i picked up vineland and white teeth at the library today.

thefourthwall

10-22-2009, 02:43 PM

White Teeth is laugh out loud funny at points and an amazing novel. I hope you like it!

ledfloyd

10-22-2009, 02:47 PM

White Teeth is laugh out loud funny at points and an amazing novel. I hope you like it!
i'm quite fond of 'on beauty' so i'm expecting to like white teeth as well.

thefourthwall

10-22-2009, 02:58 PM

I finished Descent into Hell recently which I've been intermittently reading for a few months--I know that doesn't sound like I liked it too well, but life is just busy and I often feel guilty reading something not for school. But this book was incredible; it's written by Charles Williams who was one of the Inklings (C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, etc.). I hadn't even heard of him until I read another book in which one of the characters reads this. Descent into Hell mixes spiritual and philosophical inquiries with horror and the supernatural in a very fluid, readable manner. The main character, Pauline, has been haunted since she was little by her double until she meets a playwright who helps her contend with the situation. Set in a town on top of a hill where battles were fought and a man committed suicide (even though it was a couple of hundred years from the book's present, he's still a character), there's a wonderful cast of characters and story lines that weave the physical and spiritual realms from numerous times. Everything ends up being connected in wonderful, believable ways.

MadMan

10-23-2009, 07:14 AM

Recently I decided to read more of Douglas Addam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. So I checked out the big book continuing all of the stories, and I plan to finally pick up where I left off after reading The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Qrazy

10-24-2009, 12:39 AM

ledfloyd

10-24-2009, 02:48 AM

vineland is refreshingly easy to read.

lovejuice

10-24-2009, 06:49 AM

The third one is good. The fourth and fifth aren't.
haven't read the last two, but yeah, the third one is superb. are the last two really that bad? i'm reading adam's last chance to see, and it's ungodly funny, so i'm thinking about revisitting the series.

Qrazy

10-25-2009, 03:29 AM

haven't read the last two, but yeah, the third one is superb. are the last two really that bad? i'm reading adam's last chance to see, and it's ungodly funny, so i'm thinking about revisitting the series.

The fourth and fifth have isolated moments of good (some of the digressions) but the entire premise of hitchhiking and jumping around the galaxy and seeing crazy stuff is pretty much abandoned. The fourth is a love story with Arthur on earth. And the fifth just shits all over the entire mythos. I hated the way Adams ended the series.

Duncan

10-25-2009, 05:29 PM

Finished Vineland. I found it very inconsistent. Some parts were on par with his best, other parts felt like dull detours. I liked his little rant about cop shows and how they're tranquilizing propaganda for a police state. I saw 20 minutes of L&O: SVU last night, and they must have violated people's constitutional rights at least twice. I found the opening 50 pages really compelling. Very funny with a fairly linear plot, and then we spend time with each of the separate characters and some of them are just a lot more interesting than others. And I find that his California books are just way simpler than his others. He takes easy routes out, makes bad guys totally cartoonish, and doesn't seem to really try as hard. This feels like a pretty reactionary book. Maybe justifiably so, I don't know. Wasn't alive back then.

I guess I'd rank Pynchon's books as so:

1. Gravity's Rainbow
2. Mason & Dixon
3. V.
4. Vineland
5. The Crying of Lot 49
6. Inherent Vice

And Against the Day remains unread for now.

Duncan

10-25-2009, 05:32 PM

I've decided to only read books by author's I'm unfamiliar with for awhile. 75 pages into Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden. It won the Giller Prize last year, though I've found that to be a fairly poor judge of a book's quality in the past.

Milky Joe

10-25-2009, 07:21 PM

I have. Took a class on it actually. What do you want to know?

lovejuice

10-25-2009, 10:35 PM

Nothing really. I just happen to be going through it now and was suddenly curious about what others thought of it.
many people here love it. melville, milky joe, and i think duncan and benny profane. to some degree, i do too, although it's not a sort of books that i admire or want to write one myself. the best thing about it, i think, is the structure. the book's like a playground that invites you to enjoy it in bits and pieces. and if you don't, just skip the section and move on to the next. no harm's done.

Benny Profane

10-26-2009, 02:38 PM

many people here love it. melville, milky joe, and i think duncan and benny profane.

Nope. Sorry, never read it. Don't plan on it anytime soon.

Duncan

10-26-2009, 03:02 PM

I haven't read it either, actually. Been meaning to for a long time, but something always get picked before it.

Mara

10-26-2009, 03:20 PM

kuehnepips

10-26-2009, 04:12 PM

Nope. Sorry, never read it. Don't plan on it anytime soon.

Why?

*is surprised*

Benny Profane

10-26-2009, 05:02 PM

Why?

*is surprised*

I didn't really like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man much.

kuehnepips

10-26-2009, 05:13 PM

I didn't really like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man much.

Well: Who didn't?

Or: I hate Death in Venice but to skip Buddenbrooks therefore is just nonsense.

Benny Profane

10-26-2009, 06:01 PM

Well: Who didn't?

Or: I hate Death in Venice but to skip Buddenbrooks therefore is just nonsense.

Never said I was skipping it, my child. I'm just not in a rush to get to it.

lovejuice

10-26-2009, 06:43 PM

I didn't really like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man much.
just so you know, me neither. ulysses, i think, is a vastly different book and much better.

Qrazy

10-26-2009, 07:17 PM

I and many others like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Milky Joe

10-26-2009, 10:27 PM

I and many others like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Yeah, it's a beautiful book, I don't see what there is to hate about it--very different book than Ulysses, though, that's for sure.

lovejuice

10-26-2009, 10:59 PM

Yeah, it's a beautiful book, I don't see what there is to hate about it--very different book than Ulysses, though, that's for sure.
i went back to read my blog from two years ago. my problem's that, i feel, the sum is not quite equal to its parts. the book's full of original idea, but together they don't quite build up into something elegant. joyce seems to have more fun with passages and thoughts, while leaving much of the novel itself to be desired.

that almost describes my feeling for Ulysses. the main difference is that, writing around Homer's famous epic, joyce already has a strong base to hang all his passages and thoughts, so the novel works much better as a whole.

Milky Joe

10-27-2009, 06:00 AM

I dunno, I think Joyce is *always* elegant. Portrait, in particular, is elegant as fuck (sorry just wanted to use that phrase), especially w/r/t its structure.

thefourthwall

10-27-2009, 03:45 PM

I love bookmooch because you'll put on something random, like Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts: The Subversive Folklore of Childhood (American Storytelling) by Josepha Sherman‏, and months later, voila!

This, like, made my day.

Yay! I'm hoping that happens with Sheldon Vanauken's Little Lost Marian some day.

Or any of a number of books, of late the bookmooch community has not had much that I've wanted.

thefourthwall

10-27-2009, 03:49 PM

When I was studying for my comprehensive exams in British literature since 1900 a professor was looking at my reading list and told me it was better I didn't attempt Finnegan's Wake without the supervision of a class. And I took that to apply to Ulysses as well and only read the Norton excerpts, which I'm a bit ashamed of now, but hope to rectify that situation one day.

Dukefrukem

10-27-2009, 04:08 PM

Finished a few books over the weekend.

Finished Too Fat to Fish - Artie Lange

and finished the Codex - Douglas Preston.

Started, The Cabinet of Curiosities - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

EvilShoe

10-28-2009, 09:45 AM

Hiya gang.
I was wondering if you guys had any recommendations when it comes to John Updike. I loved the Rabbit series, and am looking for other stuff.
Are the Bech short stories (novels?) any good?

Also, after reading 2666, I'd like to read more Bolano. Problem is: I don't know where to start. Any recs?

Hugh_Grant

10-29-2009, 06:29 PM

I just found out I'm teaching a fiction class in the spring semester. I'm psyched but a bit overwhelmed trying to figure out what the theme is going to be. So many books I want to teach...

Duncan

10-29-2009, 07:18 PM

Finished Through Black Spruce yesterday. It's a simple story told simply. Short sentences. Not many SAT words. It's about a Cree family dealing with a vanished sister and drugs in northern Ontario. Half the book is told by Annie Bird. She goes to Toronto, Montreal, and New York looking for her sister, Suzanne, and has adventures, I guess, but in a way I'm not sure what the point of her story was. A lot happens, but at the same time, nothing really happens. The other half of the book is told by Will Bird, and his story seems a lot more meaningful. He's a bush pilot with serious personal issues. Seems like the heart of the book lies with him and the other stuff is just excess baggage. Anyway, I guess this joins the middlebrow, humourless, CanLit canon.

I've begun reading Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels. Also in the CanLit canon, but this seems surprisingly great so far. She wrote a couple poetry collections before this, and you can definitely tell. Just about every sentence is drop dead gorgeous.

ledfloyd

10-30-2009, 02:33 AM

i'm reading Netherland. which is really good. O'Neill's prose is reminiscent of Fitzgerald's and in theme it feels similar to Gatsby. it's about time someone wrote a book about the inseparable topics of Cricket and the American Dream. but for some reason i can't help picturing the protagonist and his wife as ETM and his girlfriend. i have no idea why this is happening. especially since the protagonist is described as a 6'5 dutch guy.

[ETM]

10-30-2009, 03:06 AM

for some reason i can't help picturing the protagonist and his wife as ETM and his girlfriend. i have no idea why this is happening. especially since the protagonist is described as a 6'5 dutch guy.

Heh, yeah, I'm not really the type. Although I am 6'3". Dina could be, but Rachel is not dutch in the book, if I understood correctly.:)

Mara

10-30-2009, 03:19 AM

ledfloyd

10-30-2009, 08:54 AM

;214431']Heh, yeah, I'm not really the type. Although I am 6'3". Dina could be, but Rachel is not dutch in the book, if I understood correctly.:)
no, she's british i think. i have no idea why my mind does the things it does.

I have to finish this one of these days. I started it a year ago and lost interest. So. Much. Cricket.
what have you got against crickets mara?

kuehnepips

10-30-2009, 05:48 PM

Never said I was skipping it, my child.

Okay, son. :lol:

I'm reading The Road now.

lovejuice

10-30-2009, 10:45 PM

regardless of not being a fan of midnight's children, i now enjoy the satanic verses quite a bit. i'm only at the beginning though, and the book is rather massive. i expect myself to have the same problem with its length as with midnight's children.

Winston*

11-02-2009, 05:52 AM

Hey Kurosawa Fan, I think you should read Tokyo Year Zero by David Peace. I think you would really like this book.

Kurosawa Fan

11-02-2009, 09:18 AM

Hey Kurosawa Fan, I think you should read Tokyo Year Zero by David Peace. I think you would really like this book.

Just checked the synopsis. I've added it to my list. Any particular reason you think I'll enjoy it?

Winston*

11-02-2009, 06:13 PM

Just checked the synopsis. I've added it to my list. Any particular reason you think I'll enjoy it?

The Kurosawa influence and just generally looking at your taste I think it's something you'd dig. Could be wrong though. I liked it a lot.

dreamdead

11-03-2009, 12:45 PM

Finished John Dos Passos's Manhattan Transfer, a 1925 text arguing that the modernization of New York has led to an urban metropolis that continuously consumes those that enter its capitalistic design. Those who try to get at the "center of things" and try to achieve upward mobility either become dehumanized objects or surrender to the psychological degradation of the era, committing themselves to acts of suicide via fire or water. Naturally, Dos Passos rocks a huge Old Testament parallel against New York City, positioning his male protagonist as a contemporary Lot who must escape the city to avoid being consumed by the capitalistic sway of the period. It's plenty good, but it's also disorienting since Dos Passos creates so many snapshots of characters in that historical environment.

thefourthwall

11-03-2009, 02:57 PM

I just found out I'm teaching a fiction class in the spring semester. I'm psyched but a bit overwhelmed trying to figure out what the theme is going to be. So many books I want to teach...

w00t! I'd love to see your syllabus and see what you chose. Just a general fiction class? Our's is "Experience of Fiction" affectionately known as "My Six Favorite Novels" since we're not supposed to teach poetry or drama in it. Or is your's a particular time period/country?

ledfloyd

11-03-2009, 09:08 PM

Netherland was very good. On to Kafka on the Shore.

Benny Profane

11-03-2009, 09:42 PM

On to Kafka on the Shore.

Without question one of the worst books I've ever read. Let me know if you agree.

ledfloyd

11-03-2009, 10:24 PM

Without question one of the worst books I've ever read. Let me know if you agree.
if the first 40 pages are any indication i have a feeling i'm going to be right there with you. the form seems very forced and the prose just seems bad. i suppose it could be the translation. didn't this win a ton of awards?

Milky Joe

11-04-2009, 02:09 AM

Without question one of the worst books I've ever read. Let me know if you agree.

Oh, pish posh. You need to read worse books.

lovejuice

11-04-2009, 09:57 AM

Without question one of the worst books I've ever read. Let me know if you agree.
thank. i finally found a bad book to review. yeah. i hate murakami. this'll be so much fun, considered he's among literature gods in thailand.

dreamdead

11-05-2009, 01:28 PM

Reading Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for a class this semester. It adopts a cloying sensibility a little too heavily sometimes, and seems a teensy bit too indebted to Salinger, Twain, and Gunter Grass in its construction of the narrator, but when Foer gets things right and stops being influenced by his forebearers, the book gets a lot right. The last couple pages, in combination with the closing images, are surprisingly affecting. And most of the pomo touches where he plays with form work out well. It's main flaw really is a sometimes too unoriginal lead character.

ledfloyd

11-05-2009, 02:37 PM

i really dug extremely loud. it's been a little while though and i don't remember it very well. i was really annoyed by the pomo stuff in everything is illuminated. specifically how hard to read the russian's dialect was. but extremely loud just clicked for me.

lovejuice

11-05-2009, 04:59 PM

Lucky

11-08-2009, 06:06 PM

Has anyone read House of Leaves and can you give me a brief yay/nay? I'm interested in reading it but its length is offputting so I want to ensure it's worth my time.

Lucky

11-08-2009, 06:21 PM

I reread Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning this past week and found it more rich than I remembered. It drives me to ask an interesting question to people I value conversation with...what do you believe drives the will for human life?

Do you side with Nietzsche's will for power?

...Freud's will for pleasure?

...Frankl's will for meaning?

...or your own theory?

I used to be a Nietzsche/Machiavelli believer, and I would still say that's the general rule of thumb for human civilization, but now after truly digesting this book I would personally apply my life to Frankl's theory.

thefourthwall

11-08-2009, 08:00 PM

Has anyone read House of Leaves and can you give me a brief yay/nay? I'm interested in reading it but its length is offputting so I want to ensure it's worth my time.

I haven't read it myself, but one of my best friends did and she thought it was excellent. She said she was scared to go to sleep the week she was reading it, so it's powerful if nothing else. I'd like to read it but probably won't until this summer when I'll hopefully have a few months just to read what strikes my fancy not what I should read for school.

lovejuice

11-08-2009, 08:35 PM

i'm more in tune with freud's than with nietzsche's, although i don't think the two are polar opposite. i'm not familiar with frankl's. :|

ledfloyd

11-08-2009, 10:28 PM

Has anyone read House of Leaves and can you give me a brief yay/nay? I'm interested in reading it but its length is offputting so I want to ensure it's worth my time.
in my opinion it's worth it. don't let the length put you off.

Hugh_Grant

11-08-2009, 11:47 PM

w00t! I'd love to see your syllabus and see what you chose. Just a general fiction class? Our's is "Experience of Fiction" affectionately known as "My Six Favorite Novels" since we're not supposed to teach poetry or drama in it. Or is your's a particular time period/country?

I can teach it as general fiction, or I can have a theme. I'm leaning towards the latter. Perhaps a class on postcolonialism? Immigrant literature?

thefourthwall

11-09-2009, 12:59 AM

I can teach it as general fiction, or I can have a theme. I'm leaning towards the latter. Perhaps a class on postcolonialism? Immigrant literature?

Now I'm even more interested--postcolonialism is one of my areas. I'll reiterate my desire to see your syllabus/reading list.

Hugh_Grant

11-09-2009, 02:54 PM

Will do. I'm just in the planning stages now.

And I'm open to any recommendations. :)

Mara

11-09-2009, 04:14 PM

And I'm open to any recommendations. :)

I loved a class in college that was about cultural imperialism in the English novel, which often dealt with colonization. I'm not sure if any of the would count as post-colonial, but I loved the syllubus. What I recall being on there:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster-- LOVED this, and never had it assigned in any other classes
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

And in case you're not set on any particular theme yet, here are my favorite books I read in college that I had either never heard of before, or seemed to be rarely assigned:

Evelina by Fanny Burney
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

In fact, I have just made up my own syllubus. The theme is feminist deconstruction of classic English Literature, between the 18th and 19th centuries. I'll do it by pairing up two classic works of literature that show opposing or contradictory views on women's issues. (Upon writing it up, yes, I know this is too many books. My fantasy class is, like, two years long.)

Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson (1740), vs. Shamela by Henry Fielding (1741): Issues of class, manipulation, marriage for profit, rape and attempted rape.

[Possibly-- this would be very interesting]Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (1722) vs. Fanny Hill by John Cleland: Prostitution (more specifically, sex outside of marriage for profit vs. pleasure), semi-legal prostitution (marriage for profit, marriage for profit under false pretenses, mistresses), criminality, polygamy, lesbianism, incest, child abandonment, and the female orgasm. [The reason I'm unsure about this is that while they would be fascinating to compare and contrast, Moll Flanders is literature and Fanny Hill is porn.]

The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox (1752) vs. Evelina by Fanny Burney (1778): The education of women, women's place within society (especially in regards to class, education, breeding, and wealth), and the difference between being book-educated and knowing the rules of society. The perceived danger of both forms of education. Physical danger to women: specifically abduction and rape.

Emma by Jane Austen (1815) vs. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847) [or, if I want to stick to lesser-known works, I might to try Agnes Gray by Anne Bronte (1847). But, I already have one Anne Bronte book on the list in my continuing fight to prove that poor Anne is severely overlooked.] How The Other Half Lives: privilege vs. poverty, socialization vs. work, beauty vs. "plainness."

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte (1848) vs. Middlemarch by George Eliot, (1869). Unhappy marriages: how and why women get in them, what they do within them, and the options of escape.

Adam Bede by George Eliot (1859) vs. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (1891): seduction vs. rape, pregnancy outside of marriage, infanticide, religion and blame.

Mara

11-09-2009, 04:24 PM

OR I could divide it into two semester-long classes, for 18th & 19th centuries, respectively. That way the kids can start reading Middlemarch over Christmas break, 'cause whoo, boy.

Hugh_Grant

11-09-2009, 06:11 PM

Awesome posts, Mara.

I worry about assigning too much reading.

An oft-told personal story--Heart of Darkness is responsible, for the most part, for me not being required to take freshman composition in college. The AP exam that year had an essay question, and I don't remember what the question was, but my mind went almost totally blank. However, I remembered something from Heart of Darkness and score high enough on the exam to exempt ENG 101 & 102.

I love HoD, not just for that reason, but there has been a PC-backlash against it. Silly.

lovejuice

11-09-2009, 07:47 PM

i really really want you to consider return to laughter. i already mentioned it in my top 100 books thread. it's virtually unknown, but also a very good read.

lovejuice

11-09-2009, 09:53 PM

:sigh: so the satanic verses turns out to be exactly as i predicted. overbloated, with perhaps 100 or even 150 pages too long. i prefer it to midnight's children, since it's better structured.

the funny thing is that among what i wish rushdie would have cut is the chapter that most offends islamic fundamentalist. aside from that the controversy seems to serve him well, this could have been a better book that offended no one. oh well.

Mara

11-10-2009, 12:43 PM

Zipped through Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts in an evening, since it's minimal on text and more a collection of folklore. Fascinating, nostalgic, and fun. My mother and I got into a very animated discussion about it this morning.

YOU WILL BE AMAZED at how many of these you know.

ledfloyd

11-10-2009, 03:09 PM

so benny, i didn't think kafka on the shore was particularly good, but i'm curious as to why you think it's one of the worst books you've read.

thefourthwall

11-10-2009, 03:25 PM

Will do. I'm just in the planning stages now.

And I'm open to any recommendations. :)

I love White Teeth and it's certainly a good example of hybridity in modern England.

Peter Carey's Jack Maggs is an interesting adaptation of Great Expectations.

Things Fall Apart can be very interesting, especially if you read Heart of Darkness (one of my favs too!) because of Achebe's essay on it.

Will you do film? Every since seeing Walkabout, I've been itching to teach it.

I'll be thinking of more...as I'm going on the job market one of my favorite "games" to play is if I'm teaching class X what texts do I use.

lovejuice

11-10-2009, 05:44 PM

so benny, i didn't think kafka on the shore was particularly good, but i'm curious as to why you think it's one of the worst books you've read.
i'm curious too since if i'm going to carefully read and review it, i want to make sure the book is bad in an interesting way.

Hugh_Grant

11-11-2009, 09:00 PM

Thanks so much!

Regardless of what direction I take with the class, I'm definitely including White Teeth on the syllabus.

I plan on using film as well. I was actually thinking about showing a great little film called Jump Tomorrow.

I was surprised to hear that many of my first-year college students had already read Things Fall Apart in high school. (I read Achebe's Arrow of God in college.)

thefourthwall

11-12-2009, 12:36 AM

Huh. Things Fall Apart in high school surprises me in some ways, but I can see why it's palatable stylistically for hs.

I started thinking about what I wanted to teach in my Rhetoric & Composition (First Year Writing) course, and I'm tempted to use Roger Ebert's Awake in the Dark. Anyone read it?

monolith94

11-13-2009, 04:31 PM

Mara, any thoughts on Wilkie Collins as his works relate to issues of feminism in 19th century britlit?

Mara

11-13-2009, 04:53 PM

Mara, any thoughts on Wilkie Collins as his works relate to issues of feminism in 19th century britlit?

I've only read The Woman in White, which I enjoyed in a fun, semi-trashy sort of way. It had a few interesting things to say about feminism, particularly in how powerless women were to control their own finances and inheritances.

The chapters in TWIW when the wife is imprisoned in her room until she signs over her properties to her husband were harrowing.

monolith94

11-13-2009, 04:59 PM

You might also enjoy The Moonstone, as it deals with similar themes. I don't think it's quite as powerful as TWIW, as it doesn't have any characters as interesting as Count Fosco, but it's still good, and again another interesting look into Victorian thought. I think that Wilkie Collins would have thought of himself as a friend to women, while at the same time differentiating the genders in hard-fast ways.

I'll overlook the word "trash" being in anyway connected to TWIW... for now...

Benny Profane

11-13-2009, 05:16 PM

so benny, i didn't think kafka on the shore was particularly good, but i'm curious as to why you think it's one of the worst books you've read.

Just saw your post. It's been a long time since I read it, but I remember it going something like this:

Simpleton: Is it OK if I take a quick dump?

Truck Driver: Oh yes. It feels good to take a dump, doesn't it, simpleton?

Simpleton: Oh, yes, I really enjoy taking a dump.

Truck Driver: Go ahead and take a dump then. I'll wait.

And that's about the breadth of insight this book offers. It never really goes anywhere, and is totally uninteresting in almost every facet imaginable. Overall, I just found it to be ludicrous and stupid.

Benny Profane

11-13-2009, 05:20 PM

I guess I could post this in The Road movie thread, but I'd rather do it here.

Here is a great interview (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870457620457452 9703577274572.html?mod=WSJ_hps _sections_lifestyle) with Cormac McCarthy in the Wall Street Journal.

Seriously, it's great. Gotta read it.

kuehnepips

11-13-2009, 05:25 PM

... It's been a long time ...

Murakami: I've only read Norwegian Wood. Guy's whiny.

lovejuice

11-13-2009, 05:44 PM

Murakami: I've only read Norwegian Wood. Guy's whiny.
that describes the book very well.

kuehnepips

11-13-2009, 07:12 PM

that describes the book very well.

*passes bottle*

I live near the city Hesse was born, there is a museum. If you PM me your address I'll send you something from.

@Zak: I'll read that interview tomorrow.

ledfloyd

11-13-2009, 10:57 PM

Just saw your post. It's been a long time since I read it, but I remember it going something like this:

Simpleton: Is it OK if I take a quick dump?

Truck Driver: Oh yes. It feels good to take a dump, doesn't it, simpleton?

Simpleton: Oh, yes, I really enjoy taking a dump.

Truck Driver: Go ahead and take a dump then. I'll wait.

And that's about the breadth of insight this book offers. It never really goes anywhere, and is totally uninteresting in almost every facet imaginable. Overall, I just found it to be ludicrous and stupid.
yes. there was a surprising amount of talk about taking good dumps. i felt like there were some interesting passages, but the prose, structure and plot were all lacking. if i cared enough to delve into it i'm sure it wouldn't take much thought to come up with some huge plot holes. i don't know if it's the worst book i ever read. but it's certainly far far worse than it's reputation would suggest, and not something i would recommend.

Mara

11-14-2009, 01:48 PM

I know there are some people here who love Kiss of the Spider Woman, which I'm tearing through quickly. I bought it because I thought the film was wonderful, but in the book, it's obvious the first film he's talking about is a real film, Cat People. So-- are the rest of them? Is Her Real Glory a real film? I can't find a reference for it online.

Grouchy

11-14-2009, 02:37 PM

lovejuice

11-14-2009, 04:54 PM

Ezee E

11-14-2009, 08:40 PM

Picked up The Crying of Lot 49 last night.

baby doll

11-16-2009, 04:23 PM

Picked up The Crying of Lot 49 last night.I picked that up and V. while I was in Montreal last week. And I finally finished Gravity's Rainbow last night. Suck it, Pynchon!

kuehnepips

11-16-2009, 04:34 PM

Here is a great interview (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870457620457452 9703577274572.html?mod=WSJ_hps _sections_lifestyle) with Cormac McCarthy in the Wall Street Journal.

Seriously, it's great.

Yes, it is. And so damn true.

baby doll

11-16-2009, 06:57 PM

Malickfan

11-19-2009, 07:18 PM

Then again, I'm not really a fan to begin with.

of the Wall Street Journal? Yeah, I agree with you.

baby doll

11-19-2009, 10:01 PM

of the Wall Street Journal? Yeah, I agree with you.Well, now that you mention it...

As for McCarthy, I've just read one of his books, so I don't want to make any generalizations about his work as a whole. But as far as Blood Meridian is concerned, there's a lot of riding around on horses and killing people, but not a heck of a lot else.

Adam

11-19-2009, 10:07 PM

But as far as Blood Meridian is concerned, there's a lot of riding around on horses and killing people, but not a heck of a lot else.

Nah

Winston*

11-19-2009, 10:45 PM

Hey, what's a good novel to get my mother for Christmas? Is the latest Audrey Audrey Niffenegger book any good? It's got a very stupid title.

Malickfan

11-19-2009, 11:14 PM

Hey, what's a good novel to get my mother for Christmas? Is the latest Audrey Audrey Niffenegger book any good? It's got a very stupid title.

I've heard good things. I plan on giving my gf that book as one of her gifts. She's a huge fan of Time Traveler's Wife.

ledfloyd

11-19-2009, 11:55 PM

it's been over a week since i finished the last book i read and i haven't picked anything new up yet. i think this is the longest i've gone without reading in several years.

kuehnepips

11-20-2009, 01:16 PM

it's been over a week since i finished the last book i read and i haven't picked anything new up yet. ...

Wow.

thefourthwall

11-23-2009, 05:47 PM

I just finished Sayers's Clouds of Witness, which was pretty good. I'm excited that there are still a lot of books in the Peter Wimsey series that I'll get to read one day.

But not quite yet.

I started Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. I'm excited to read an original story by her and see if it stands up to the quality screenplays she does for Merchant and Ivory.

Hugh_Grant

11-24-2009, 11:01 AM

I started Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. I'm excited to read an original story by her and see if it stands up to the quality screenplays she does for Merchant and Ivory.

I read it in college--you guessed it, the post-colonial class--and I remember enjoying it. It's still on my bookshelf.

greyhaven

11-24-2009, 06:50 PM

lovejuice

11-24-2009, 09:06 PM

I just finished Sayers's Clouds of Witness, which was pretty good. I'm excited that there are still a lot of books in the Peter Wimsey series that I'll get to read one day.
this, whose body? and five red herrings are all I've ever read in the series. the first two are fun, but i find FRH drags on and is much too long for its own good. i like the main character, though, and don't mind reading more about his adventure.

ledfloyd

11-24-2009, 09:30 PM

i started rereading moby dick the other night. i love every page of this book.

thefourthwall

11-27-2009, 04:13 PM

this, whose body? and five red herrings are all I've ever read in the series. the first two are fun, but i find FRH drags on and is much too long for its own good. i like the main character, though, and don't mind reading more about his adventure.

My friend got stuck on that one too. I really want to read Gaudy Night because it's also an academic fiction book, but I find it extremely difficult to read a book or watch a show without knowing every thing there is to know about the overarching narrative prior to the one I'm interested in. It's probably an unhealthy quirk. I'd be a better read/watched individual if I relied on general consensus and just went for the good stuff at times.

Spaceman Spiff

11-27-2009, 10:06 PM

Hey, what's a good novel to get my mother for Christmas?

Blood Meridian

Also, have any of you bums read anything by Boileau-Narcejac (two of their stories were adapted in Les Diaboliques and Vertigo), or Robbe-Grillet?

Winston*

11-28-2009, 01:29 AM

Blood Meridian

Good call. How did you know about her burning hatred of Native Americans?

Spaceman Spiff

11-28-2009, 01:34 AM

Good call. How did you know about her burning hatred of Native Americans?

We really opened up to each other last motel.

If your local book shoppe doesn't have that though, try Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho.

Winston*

11-28-2009, 01:36 AM

I bought her A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini as I'm sure you're all dying to know.

Morris Schæffer

11-29-2009, 09:19 PM

I'm reading Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol and...one of the gargoyles of the Washington Cathedral is Darth Vader?!

http://www.toadhaven.com/images/IMG_5255.jpg

Good God! Who says history is boring?:)

Kurosawa Fan

11-30-2009, 01:27 AM

After an extended break from reading(due to a number of circumstances) I'm almost finished with Invisible Man by Ellison. Amazing how timeless and universal some of the themes are in a book that seems so focused on a specific era and people.

Benny Profane

11-30-2009, 12:40 PM

I, too, have not been reading much lately (baseball playoffs and other reasons) but I finally finished The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman. I don't rate it highly at all. It started out pretty well with the battle between the Minister and Dr. Hoffmanand had a very Camus The Plague type of vibe going on. And then once Desiderio leaves the city it just kinda rambles into these strange events that were not at all interesting nor insightful. Behind it all is a very flimsy love story that just left me saying meh. I give it credit for the beginning and ending. I feel like if it had stayed in the city throughout the entirety of the novel there would have been a lot more tension and interest. I also don't think highly of Carter's style, which was mostly overwritten.

Now on to Fathers and Sons by Turgenev, which I can tell I will really like.

thefourthwall

12-03-2009, 10:49 PM

Now on to Fathers and Sons by Turgenev, which I can tell I will really like.

Because of the cover? :P

Kurosawa Fan

12-04-2009, 02:32 PM

Finished Invisible Man, which was amazing.

Now reading Friday Night Lights.

dreamdead

12-06-2009, 03:37 AM

Halfway through Nella Larsen's Passing, one of the premiere 1920s African-American texts about light-skinned blacks able to pass and live in white society. The prose is sometimes beguilingly simple, but I'm holding out hope that there will be a masterful twist soon for a better payoff. We'll see. It's good but not revelatory yet.

lovejuice

12-06-2009, 10:12 PM

the way of a man with a maid suffers from the same problem as any modern pornographic "literature." besides the titillation and the shock value, the book's just not very interesting.

thefourthwall

12-07-2009, 05:05 PM

Finish Heat and Dust which was quietly excellent. It has the parallel narratives (like Possession) that I love. It raises interesting issues and presents multiple perspectives on the relationship between England and India before and after independence in a very accessible way. I'd definitely consider teaching it.

Now, on to either Greene's The End of the Affair or Isherwood's Berlin Stories.

Kurosawa Fan

12-07-2009, 05:06 PM

Now, on to either Greene's The End of the Affair

THIS! THIS!!!!

Benny Profane

12-07-2009, 07:13 PM

Finished Fathers and Sons by Turgenev, which was really great.

Now on to Blindness by Jose Saramago, which is incredibly awesome so far.

Adam

12-07-2009, 09:30 PM

Jose Saramago's The Cave is one of the most wonderful books I've ever read

dreamdead

12-10-2009, 09:44 PM

Nella Larsen's Passing never quite reaches the heights of her first pages, where the whole matter of African-Americans passing for white is such a moral outrage. Certainly, having racist white characters who are aghast to learn their wives are black comes close, but Larsen holds too much off the page, trusting that the central conflict is racy enough. And it is. But dramatically speaking, it tends to leave much of the internal dynamics off the page as well. And the ending, with accidental deaths, is a dud, dramatically inert given all of the possibilities that could be drawn.

Meanwhile, I'm already two-thirds through McCarthy's The Road. I'd started it about two years ago, but too many students had already read it for a prior class, so I'd canceled that assignment and never got around to finishing it. I'm loving the chance to rectify that mistake. It's wonderful so far, and I'm treasuring its prose. Haunting stuff. Especially the reverie in the bunker, given the starkness of the first half. Just amazingly paced in its narrative approach.

Ezee E

12-10-2009, 10:15 PM

Started on The Crying of Lot 49 after having it for a while. Love the chapter with the couple watching the movie. I doubt that would work on film.

ledfloyd

12-10-2009, 11:22 PM

http://tinyurl.com/ylq34bx

most influential books of the decade. i think i've heard of three. i've only read kelly link's.

Milky Joe

12-10-2009, 11:33 PM

Nice first pick.

Kurosawa Fan

12-11-2009, 01:13 AM

Friday Night Lights was the best sports-related book I've ever read. Period. No hyperbole. Texas in the 80's could have been a warning sign for the entire country over the last couple years. Bissinger is an amazing talent. I'm very excited to read more from him.

lovejuice

12-11-2009, 05:17 AM

today i start house of leaves. don't expect to love it, but it seems useful for what i'm trying to write now.

next year resolution: finish either one pynchon or infinite jest.

Benny Profane

12-11-2009, 01:17 PM

Blindness is fucking awesome.

I know the film had mixed reviews but I'm very eager to see how this crazy story was adapted.

Kurosawa Fan

12-11-2009, 07:01 PM

My wife bought me Too Cool to Be Forgotten the other day as a late birthday gift. Read it last night, and thought it was solid. I was a little underwhelmed until that final act, which actually got me a bit choked up. 'Twas a good read.

Next book will either be Ender's Game or Netherland. I'm going to read the first chapter of each and see which one sucks me in faster.

Ezee E

12-11-2009, 07:13 PM

Blindness is fucking awesome.

I know the film had mixed reviews but I'm very eager to see how this crazy story was adapted.
I should read it because there was so much written about how the book wouldn't translate to the movie well, and I actually thought the movie was pretty great.

Benny Profane

12-11-2009, 07:21 PM

I should read it because there was so much written about how the book wouldn't translate to the movie well, and I actually thought the movie was pretty great.

It is written extremely well. Saramago's style just flows.

Kurosawa Fan

12-11-2009, 07:23 PM

Next book will either be Ender's Game or Netherland. I'm going to read the first chapter of each and see which one sucks me in faster.

That was a quick experiment. Ender's Game it is. Never even started Netherland.

Mara

12-11-2009, 08:15 PM

That was a quick experiment. Ender's Game it is. Never even started Netherland.

Ender's Game is a bit of personal favorite. I've reread it a few times.

I started Netherland last year. I should try it again.

Beware the sequels. BEWARE.

Kurosawa Fan

12-11-2009, 08:25 PM

Ender's Game is a bit of personal favorite. I've reread it a few times.

I started Netherland last year. I should try it again.

Beware the sequels. BEWARE.

I've been warned about the sequels before. I'll be sure to stay away.

I'll probably read Netherland next. You should read it as well and we can swap notes.

Mara

12-11-2009, 08:43 PM

I've been commuting with my mother for a year and reading aloud, but mostly classic English lit that I've read before. (We just finished Adam Bede. It was more didactic than I remembered, but still nice.)

Anyhoo, my mom quit and so I need to start getting books on CD for my commute again. I'll have to see what the local library has.

Winston*

12-12-2009, 01:53 AM

That was a quick experiment. Ender's Game it is. Never even started Netherland.

I was going to read Ender's Game last year but then I read Orson Scott Card's wikipedia page and found out what a gross person he is and it shot down my priority list. Still sitting on my shelf.

Mara

12-12-2009, 10:47 AM

I've met him. I was really excited, but he comes across as pompous and arrogant in person.

Still a great book, though. He's been hit-or-miss in his other books I've read. Some were good, but none were great-- which I think Ender's Game is.

dreamdead

12-12-2009, 07:39 PM

Finished The Road. Strong stuff--some of the reverie sequences where the father and son come upon barrels of canned food are just breathtaking in how much power is conveyed so effortlessly.

Moving onto Morrison's Beloved next

Mara

12-12-2009, 08:43 PM

Slim pickings for audio books at the library. I got A Confederacy of Dunces... is it any good?

Winston*

12-12-2009, 08:50 PM

Slim pickings for audio books at the library. I got A Confederacy of Dunces... is it any good?

The book? It's fantastic.

Kurosawa Fan

12-12-2009, 09:43 PM

Slim pickings for audio books at the library. I got A Confederacy of Dunces... is it any good?

Brilliant. One of my all-time favorites. Top ten material.

ledfloyd

12-12-2009, 11:44 PM

Slim pickings for audio books at the library. I got A Confederacy of Dunces... is it any good?
how have you lived for 30 years without it?

Mara

12-13-2009, 11:43 AM

Anyone looking for a good picture book for a Christmas gift-- I picked one up on a whim yesterday, used, and I'm kinda in love now. The rhyming text is charming and clever, and the pictures are sort of messy-hilarious. It's called Never Tease a Weasel. (http://www.amazon.com/Never-Tease-Weasel-Picture-Book/dp/0375834206/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260707910&sr=8-1)

Benny Profane

12-14-2009, 01:34 PM

Started reading Brazil by John Updike. Me gusta, so far.

Mara

12-14-2009, 01:49 PM

The book? It's fantastic.

I was excited by all the positive responses, but I had mixed feelings listening this morning. The narrator is using different accents for all the voices, and it's a little bit annoying. Still, this is a convenient way to experience the book, so I'm going to give it a few days to see if I can look past it.

megladon8

12-14-2009, 09:17 PM

I picked this up in the used books section at the library today...

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0345371135.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Synopsis:

"The book charts the fortunes over a number of years of a single mother and her young son, John Huffam, through the eyes of the latter. There is a complex web of scheming and conspiracies between five families - the Huffams, the Mompessons, the Clothiers, the Palphramonds and the Maliphants - as they circle and maneuver around a fortune being determined in Chancery, and several wills (and one codicil) competing to be found valid. John and his mother fall from comparative wealth to poverty and eventual destitution before the prospect of his inheritance offers a change of fortune."

Our Aurora

12-15-2009, 09:23 PM

I picked this up in the used books section at the library today...

Synopsis:

"The book charts the fortunes over a number of years of a single mother and her young son, John Huffam, through the eyes of the latter. There is a complex web of scheming and conspiracies between five families - the Huffams, the Mompessons, the Clothiers, the Palphramonds and the Maliphants - as they circle and maneuver around a fortune being determined in Chancery, and several wills (and one codicil) competing to be found valid. John and his mother fall from comparative wealth to poverty and eventual destitution before the prospect of his inheritance offers a change of fortune."

Well, let's hope it is not as poorly written as that synopsis.

I'm really looking forward to this winter break. I have a stack of books that I have been waiting to sink my teeth into, but have not had the opportunity due to (the seemingly endless) reading for classes.

Almost two papers done and one to go. Tomorrow night cannot come soon enough.

Our Aurora

12-16-2009, 10:43 PM

Well ... finished the papers

So, I started reading Me Talk Pretty One Day. As I giggle to myself, I can't help but wonder whether I would be enjoying it as much, if I had not heard him read his own stories on This American Life first.

Hearing his cadence and the rhythm of storytelling first, I think interestingly, enhanced the writing.

Mara

12-17-2009, 12:49 AM

I'm a Sedaris fan. He's so cool. Naked is my favorite of his books.

megladon8

12-17-2009, 02:35 AM

I'm a Sedaris fan. He's so cool. Naked is my favorite of his books.

I had no idea 'til recently that he is the brother of Amy Sedaris.

And both of them lifelong friends of Stephen Colbert.

Kurosawa Fan

12-17-2009, 03:38 PM

I had no idea 'til recently that he is the brother of Amy Sedaris.

And both of them lifelong friends of Stephen Colbert.

There is almost nothing better on television than when Letterman has Amy on as a guest. He does it frequently, even when she has nothing to promote, simply because he finds her hilarious.

megladon8

12-17-2009, 07:30 PM

There is almost nothing better on television than when Letterman has Amy on as a guest. He does it frequently, even when she has nothing to promote, simply because he finds her hilarious.

She is hilarious. And I find her freaking sexy in an adorable way *blush*

"Strangers With Candy" is one of my very favorite live-action comedy shows. She's just off the wall, it's great.

Benny Profane

12-17-2009, 07:35 PM

There is almost nothing better on television than when Letterman has Amy on as a guest. He does it frequently, even when she has nothing to promote, simply because he finds her hilarious.

Weird, the one time I saw her on there was totally awkward, and I felt Dave couldn't wait for it to be over. She seemed like she was absolutely shit-faced.

Our Aurora

12-18-2009, 04:09 PM

Weird, the one time I saw her on there was totally awkward, and I felt Dave couldn't wait for it to be over. She seemed like she was absolutely shit-faced.

Really? There are a bunch of clips on youtube, you should check them out. After watching most of those its clear he absolutely adores her. In fact, there are some moments that are downright awkward because of his fawning over her.

I'm still enjoying the book, but it seems its best enjoyed in tiny spurts rather than longer sessions.

Kurosawa Fan

12-18-2009, 05:15 PM

Really? There are a bunch of clips on youtube, you should check them out. After watching most of those its clear he absolutely adores her. In fact, there are some moments that are downright awkward because of his fawning over her.

This has been my experience as well.

Benny Profane

12-18-2009, 05:39 PM

Anyone ever read John Barth? Looking at The Sot-weed Factor in particular.

What about Donald Barthelme's short stories? Any collection that stands out above the others.

Melville

12-18-2009, 06:23 PM

Anyone ever read John Barth? Looking at The Sot-weed Factor in particular.
I've read Chimera. It's pretty much exactly what I think of when I think "postmodern": layers of references to both itself and other art, focusing on clever metatextual reworkings of genre and commentary on the nature of storytelling. It was okay.

Qrazy

12-18-2009, 11:03 PM

As I have finished my exams I will now read Hunger by Hamsun, finally.

Melville

12-18-2009, 11:57 PM

As I have finished my exams I will now read Hunger by Hamsun, finally.
:pritch:

Spaceman Spiff

12-19-2009, 03:22 AM

Yeah, I just finished my exams too and picked up Darkness at Noon, The Simple Art of Murder and some de Sade for the week. A bunch of movies from the library too. Pretty awesome.

EvilShoe

12-21-2009, 09:58 AM

Homicide: A Life on the Streets is really good. Definitely recommended to those who love The Wire (everyone?).

Wonder how much the TV show is like the novel.

Adam

12-21-2009, 12:10 PM

Homicide the TV show is pretty compelling stuff, but the last few seasons are hot zoo garbage

Llopin

12-21-2009, 12:23 PM

Anyone ever read John Barth? Looking at The Sot-weed Factor in particular.

What about Donald Barthelme's short stories? Any collection that stands out above the others.

Barth and Barthelme are among my favourites, or so I like to think. Superior to Pynchon and Vonnegut, if I dare say so. These guys don't fuck around, they are postmodernism transformed into word: scholars, literature freaks, interested on form and on creativity. For Barth I'd recommend his seminal book of short stories, Lost in the Funhouse. When I read it a couple of years ago, it felt like nothing I had put my eyes on before. It goes beyond meta-literature. Unfortunately his novels are hard to come by around these parts (I don't think he's ever been translated to spanish at all) but I've been able to get ahold of a couple, Chimera stands out. Also check out his essayistic work on literary criticism (and on the ongoing debate of what is postmodernity). For Barthelme, I'm very, very fond of the collection 40 stories published on Penguin. It's some sort of compilation of his various books. Again, he rocks my mind in each of these short pieces. Just when you think things couldn't get more creative, he twists the perspective of the world even more. His novels Snow White and The Dead Father, as well as his nonfiction stuff, are also well-worth seeking out. Both are inspiring writers to me, following the footsteps of the tradition-based ideal of TS Eliot, yet unafraid of really messing up the whole literary game.

Might I add, you should also get ahold of the works of John Hawkes, Richard Brautigan, Stanley Elkin and Robert Coover.