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Nanomashoes
Aug 18, 2012

Professor Shark posted:

I like to pretend that McCarthy only wrote a trilogy of Border Crossing books: Blood Meridian, No Country for Old Men, and The Road

The real Border Trilogy books are pretty meh, and the others are blah

I hope his next one is better

Suttree is up there with blood meridian, and no country for old men and the road are middling.

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raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless

whoflungpoop posted:

ok, here's a infinitesimally short list of poo poo ur going to miss decent chunks out of without understanding the biblical references/inspirations of the authors, starting with the most obvious:

- Inferno
- Paradise Lost
- Moby Dick
- Ulysses
- anything by: Twain, Hawthorne, Hemingway, Tolstoy
- Christ-like comparisons of characters, like Faulkner's Benjy or Dostoevsky's Myshkin
- even foo-foo poo poo like C.S. Lewis books, and the one i recced in the thread, A Canticle For Leibowitz

u dont have to like the bible to understand that its the most pervasive influence throughout almost 2k years of western literature and a defining and inseparable force in the worldview and minds of most of its authors and while u dont need to know it front to back u at least need to be able to look poo poo up and understand it enough to place it in the literary context of whatever ur reading as needed

ps. im an atheist

I read the bible but I don't think so WFP

It's nice to have the background but even the first two things you got listed there you only need as much bible as gramma mentioned on one cloudy Sunday. Oh who is Judas. Oh who is Lazarus. Oh gee Christ is god incarnate, a sinless man, the redeemer. Got it got it. Movin' along.

I would especially argue that "Christ like comparisons" add little to reading the two books you mentioned as if there were no person of christ (or character or whatever) we would still understand these characters to be as they are. We might not have one guy to compare them all to but we wouldn't be like Oh no the Benjy and that Myshkin sure are similar in some particular way to a number of ancient gods who became mortal and selflessly died in the interest of man, sometimes in order to redeem him, or the concept thereof, which at its essence is fixing the flaw of god, that being an experiential gap in his perfection despite his stated perfection (he may know what it's like to die but he has not died as his creations have, therefore he is missing one aspect of creation and therefore not a whole god), which of course makes that the inevitable path of exploration for any storyteller working with that sort of a god eventually.

BTW walmart has Timtams now and usually I hate wafer cookies but they're good.

Nanomashoes posted:

Suttree is up there with blood meridian, and no country for old men and the road are middling.

A correct post.

BM is probs better than Suttree but I enjoy reading through Suttree more.

Hobohemian posted:

What about that bible with illustrations by robert crumb?

IDK sounds like a waste of time unless you like Crumb drawings a lot.

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless

Ddraig posted:

Even in the relatively poo poo and hacky world of genre literature, David Eddings is the worst I've ever read.

The Redemption of Althalus is such a loving terrible book about David and his wife Leigh who is a cat who is actually an ancient goddess of immense beauty and wisdom. They're totes in love too.

e: How do you sodomize a watermelon? It doesn't have any of the required orifices.


concerned mom
Apr 22, 2003

by Lowtax
Grimey Drawer
gently caress you op blood meridian is lioke the best book

praxis
Aug 1, 2003

Immortan posted:

Such as _____________________________ ?

Don't be a dickbag.
Keep your word.
Be nice to people who are different than you.
If things are lovely for you, look in the mirror first.
Life is hard. Being a whiny bitch isn't going to make it any easier.
Don't be jealous of people who are better off than you, you don't know their situation and it's none of your goddamn business anyway.

slinkimalinki
Jan 17, 2010
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

WAY TO GO WAMPA!!
Oct 27, 2007

:slick: :slick: :slick: :slick:

Professor Shark posted:

I like to pretend that McCarthy only wrote a trilogy of Border Crossing books: Blood Meridian, No Country for Old Men, and The Road

The real Border Trilogy books are pretty meh, and the others are blah

I hope his next one is better
Child of God is awesome and relatively short and easy to read compared to his other books (especially the Border Trilogy)

whoflungpoop
Sep 9, 2004

With you and the constellations

Ddraig posted:

Even in the relatively poo poo and hacky world of genre literature, David Eddings is the worst I've ever read.

i read the belgariad/other set and the elenium/otherset when i was a kid and enjoyed them and went back to revisit them as an adult and jesus christ that guy had like 5 unique characters between all of his series and all had the same annoying speech patterns and there was always one that slipped in and out of some drawl or somethiaaaaa how did i ever read that poo poo

ArmedZombie
Jun 6, 2004

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singer_of_Tales

prinneh
Jul 29, 2005
prince of denmark

Nanomashoes posted:

Notes from Underground is the book with the biggest goon. Confederacy takes #2 or #3 after The Tunnel.

Untrue, the russian book with the biggest goon is Oblomov. From wiki: "Oblomov is a young, generous nobleman who seems incapable of making important decisions or undertaking any significant actions. Throughout the novel he rarely leaves his room or bed and just manages to move from his bed to a chair in the first 50 pages".

Anyway, aside from the addition of Moby Dick to the list I quoted on page 4, these recommendations seem to have gone down the drain. What book did the op pick?

Borneo Jimmy
Feb 27, 2007

by Smythe

prinneh posted:

Anyway, aside from the addition of Moby Dick to the list I quoted on page 4, these recommendations seem to have gone down the drain. What book did the op pick?

Guy Sajer's the Forgotten Soldier

Shasta Orange Soda
Apr 25, 2007

prinneh posted:

Untrue, the russian book with the biggest goon is Oblomov. From wiki: "Oblomov is a young, generous nobleman who seems incapable of making important decisions or undertaking any significant actions. Throughout the novel he rarely leaves his room or bed and just manages to move from his bed to a chair in the first 50 pages".


tolstoy or maybe dostoevsky had a story about some dude that got cucked and then ran around proudly telling everyone in the village the story of how he got cucked

Hobohemian
Sep 30, 2005

by XyloJW
If anyone is reccomending Ulysses without first telling you to read the Iliad, the odyssey, and the aeneid they're probably idiots trying to sound smart so it's pretty safe to ignore their advice.

Rush Limbo
Sep 5, 2005

its with a full house
The guy from Hunger is pretty goony, but he doesn't eat, so that's one point against him.

Leroy Dennui
Aug 9, 2014

Gina McCarthy made us gay,
but we would not have met
had Biden not dropped his cones
:gaysper::frogbon:
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a vivid depiction of a culture alien to most Westerners. It's a fascinating read, but get a copy with footnotes so you can understand the meaning behind the names and Igbo terminology.

Nanomashoes posted:

Notes from Underground is the book with the biggest goon.
Ahahaha yes

whoflungpoop
Sep 9, 2004

With you and the constellations

Hobohemian posted:

If anyone is reccomending Ulysses without first telling you to read the Iliad, the odyssey, and the aeneid they're probably idiots trying to sound smart so it's pretty safe to ignore their advice.

Def iliad and odyssey for direct narrative parallels, then the Aeneid makes it more complicated bc some eps like Hades its more direct narrative, for but for the eps like Cyclops and Circe, it takes on a political level to Irish political/national identity and concepts of the nation state and traditions during the violent end of the irish revolutionary period, parallels between Rudy and Marcellus as the lost heirs and symbols of political uncertainty etc

honestly if anyone is recommending Ulysses without first telling you to be prepared to expect references to every goddamn thing in the western canon and beyond in multiple languages then :smithicide:

Opulent Ceremony
Feb 22, 2012
This is a good thread, thanks for all the recommendations and I've got lots of stuff to check out.

I'm really big on short stories. In case those interest you, my favorite collections recently are Adam Levin's Hot Pink and Steven Milhauser's We Others. DWF's best stuff is also in his short stories.

And the greatest love story ever written is Ada.

BravestOfTheLamps
Oct 12, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Lipstick Apathy

Nanomashoes posted:

Notes from Underground is the book with the biggest goon.

I recall that the Diary of a Superfluous Man is also good for that.

mazzi Chart Czar
Sep 24, 2005

Professor Shark posted:

Ulysses is great for collecting dust on my shelf. I got through the first two parts before I gave up. Someday...

https://archive.org/details/Ulysses-Audiobook

Listening to this will have it make perfect sense.

mazzi Chart Czar
Sep 24, 2005

Nanomashoes posted:

Notes from Underground is the book with the biggest goon. Confederacy takes #2 or #3 after The Tunnel.

Then it should be read as it as it will explain how goons work, and how they won't marry the whore they love because it's too cliche'

crazy eights
Aug 23, 2015

by Lowtax
My tank is fight, OP

SKELETON GHOST
Jan 11, 2015

by Ralp
hrmm yes yes may i recommend House of Leafs and Star Wars: Spaceships Battle and furthermore Ulillyses

CatBlack
Sep 10, 2011

hello world
House of Leaves is rad because half the pages barely have any words on them

Rush Limbo
Sep 5, 2005

its with a full house

Opulent Ceremony posted:

This is a good thread, thanks for all the recommendations and I've got lots of stuff to check out.

I'm really big on short stories. In case those interest you, my favorite collections recently are Adam Levin's Hot Pink and Steven Milhauser's We Others. DWF's best stuff is also in his short stories.

And the greatest love story ever written is Ada.

Astrotruckers by Mikael Niemi is a pretty good book of short stories. It's not as goony as the title would have you believe.

memy
Oct 15, 2011

by exmarx
Since someone almost certainly mentioned it itt, I'm just going to say that House of Leaves is the gooniest goon book that's ever been gooned

BigBadSteve
Apr 29, 2009

This isn't a Goon Book, it's a Goons book.

Tite Barnacle
Jun 4, 2014

Meowdy Purrdner

Grimey Drawer
James Branch Cabell's Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice is astonishing, I'm always surprised it never seems to come up in the book threads, especially given the fact that many of you appear to be pretty well-read (judging from the replies in this thread, anyway). There are a ton of good recommendations in here today. Atwood's been mentioned a couple of times---Oryx and Crake is one of her best. Anything by Malamud is worth reading, especially The Fixer and The Natural. Arthur Rex by Thomas Berger, The Eye, Speak, Memory, Invitation to a Beheading and Despair by Nabokov, Memoirs From the House of the Dead by Dostoyevsky, The Yellow Arrow by Pelevin and Tomb for 500,000 Soldiers by Guyotat are all good stuff as well.

Blue Raider
Sep 2, 2006

if youre looking for something that hasnt been part of the literary canon for many years, theres a new book called soil by jaime kornegay thats a solid entry into the southern gothic thing

Xaris
Jul 25, 2006

Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

DeadBlack posted:

House of Leaves is rad because half the pages barely have any words on them

i remember when goons were jizzing all over that book when it came out and was like #1 for rec goon reading lists in the early 00s. now i think goons all hate it? idk

whoflungpoop
Sep 9, 2004

With you and the constellations
Cuck Im Gay, by Gibbis R. Same

SopWATh
Jun 1, 2000
I'm enjoying Sherman's memoirs.

Command and Control was an interesting read about the cold war.

SKELETON GHOST
Jan 11, 2015

by Ralp
Killing Lincoln
Killing Kennedy
Killing Patton
Killing Jesus

SKELETON GHOST
Jan 11, 2015

by Ralp
Star Wars: The Force Legends: Jedi Legends: Awakening Origins

SKELETON GHOST
Jan 11, 2015

by Ralp

SopWATh posted:

Command and Control was an interesting read about the cold war.

my favorite characters were that spy chick with the biig hooters who blows up buildings and that evil russian psychic dude

Hector Beerlioz
Jun 16, 2010

aw, hec

SKELETON GHOST posted:

Killing Lincoln
Killing Kennedy
Killing Patton
Killing Jesus

whoflungpoop
Sep 9, 2004

With you and the constellations
since goons like :dong: and :sonia: and :hist101: i recommend Gary Jennings Raptor, a historical biographical fiction novel set in 6th century western europe where the protagonist has all of these on one body

frytechnician
Jan 8, 2004

Happy to see me?
Oh yeah, I forgot to also recommend The Orphan Master's Son which was really good. Certainly a lot better than the Pulitzer winner the following year.

Siddhartha Glutamate
Oct 3, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Here are some mainstream suggestions, don't know how Goons feel about them but I enjoyed them all:

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Some classics that I haven't seen listed:

The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy (the benefit being that it is incredibly short so you can see if you like his writing style.)

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens



Perhaps these were too obvious to be listed or I have poo poo taste in books. But I wanted to share anyway.

centaurtainment
Jun 16, 2015

WAY TO GO WAMPA!! posted:

Child of God is awesome and relatively short and easy to read compared to his other books (especially the Border Trilogy)

A brief guide to McCarthy's early work (1965-1979):

-The Orchard Keeper: A pastoral Tennessee pastiche set during prohibition. Quite enjoyable and McCarthy's easiest read for sure.

-Outer Dark: McCarthy at his most "Gothic." Incestuous and violent at times, humorous at others.

-Child of God: This is where things began to get really dark for McCarthy, though for having a necrophiliac serial killer as its protagonist the book is somehow less disturbing than Blood Meridian or The Road.

-Suttree: An educated man gives up his place in society to make a simple life living on the river in Knoxville. McCarthy's best book next to Blood Meridian.

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mallamp
Nov 25, 2009

Why aren't you reading goon books? Don't pretend bro

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