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I'm reading Marlon James Black Leopard, Red Wolf. It's part 1 of a fantasy trilogy that draws heavily on African mythology. Gruesome and dark. Technically similar to Seven Killings in being very much written in dialect. Very cool book so far
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Nov 21, 2019 21:28
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thehoodie posted:I'm reading Marlon James Black Leopard, Red Wolf. It's part 1 of a fantasy trilogy that draws heavily on African mythology. Gruesome and dark. Technically similar to Seven Killings in being very much written in dialect. Very cool book so far I bet it's bad.
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Nov 21, 2019 21:33
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It's th book with the hyena raping and pissing on him iirc
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Nov 21, 2019 21:36
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thehoodie posted:I'm reading Marlon James Black Leopard, Red Wolf. It's part 1 of a fantasy trilogy that draws heavily on African mythology. Gruesome and dark. Technically similar to Seven Killings in being very much written in dialect. Very cool book so far sounds like poo poo
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Nov 21, 2019 21:43
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thehoodie posted:I'm reading Marlon James Black Leopard, Red Wolf. It's part 1 of a fantasy trilogy that draws heavily on African mythology. Gruesome and dark. Technically similar to Seven Killings in being very much written in dialect. Very cool book so far this sounds like it belongs in one of the five hundred fantasy threads, my dude
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Nov 21, 2019 21:45
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EmmyOk posted:The moby dick chapter about holding your boys' hands in the big sperm bucket is sublime its very good
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Nov 21, 2019 22:11
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Months later, I took the plunge to reading Ulysses somewhere other than on my occasional bus trips and finished it today. It's a pretty good book. And James Joyce not only hosed, but he hosed dirty, the hoo-er. I was enjoying it (reading slowly,) but I think the point it really all came together for me was the chapter with Bloom and Dedalus in the whorehouse, Bloom on trial and hallucinations galore. This makes sense to me, because it unites the Bloom/Dedalus Odysseus/Telemachus Father/Son aspect and provides the capstone for all their wanderings, with the final part of the book being them "returning home." It was only seeing the destination of the journey (them coming together) that allowed me to put the rest in context. I'm not sure I'll ever read another book like it, simply as it's a unique accomplishment.
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Nov 21, 2019 22:13
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Tree Goat posted:its very good 
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Nov 21, 2019 22:39
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Anyone read Machado's new book yet?
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Nov 22, 2019 08:25
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Anyone read Kokoro by Soseki? The wikipedia intro makes it seem like it'll be right up my street.quote:It continues the theme of isolation developed in Sōseki's immediately preceding works, here in the context of interwoven strands of egotism and guilt, as opposed to shame. Other important themes in the novel include the changing times (particularly the modernization of Japan in the Meiji era), the changing roles and ideals of women, and intergenerational change in values, the role of family, the importance of the self versus the group, the cost of weakness, and identity. It was recommended to me by someone who went down the Murakami route to finding him, but Murakami always seemed a little too frivolous and wistful for me. Of course my big problem now is that the ebook available is a completely different book with the same name.
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Nov 23, 2019 17:39
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Mrenda posted:Anyone read Kokoro by Soseki? The wikipedia intro makes it seem like it'll be right up my street. I have read it and it's good, the themes listed there could apply to basically any work of Japanese literature though, I always try to read Japanese literature looking for something deeper than "changing times, east vs west, new vs old, changing values", because those terms tell you little about any individual work and they're very broad social terms that ignore individual human feelings. Kokoro is really more about desire mixed with death, same as Mishima's or Dazai's novels but with a different focus
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Nov 23, 2019 18:11
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V. Illych L. posted:it is There's a bit later on about a boy everybody loves because of his masterful way with his organ, andpip there's a short story about searching for a good cock.
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Nov 24, 2019 01:11
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the best chapter is the one where he explains how to make a cassock out of a whale's penis, "that unaccountable cone — longer than a Kentuckian is tall" a while back i found a crowd-sourced audiobook where a different person reads each chapter and they got john waters to read that one lol
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Nov 24, 2019 01:54
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Oh nooooooo...quote:Note: this is the fourth time he has mentioned this particular character peeing in 250 or so pages, and the sixth time total he has mentioned a female character peeing. Other non-pee moments abound, as well. How did this win a Pulitzer? 
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Nov 24, 2019 03:54
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I mean at the very least I feel like that thread title is inaccurate since it doesnt seem like he tried to hide it all that hard
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Nov 24, 2019 04:08
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The hand holding chapter is gay sure but it's also one of the most beautifully written chapters in the English language imo
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Nov 24, 2019 04:17
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Serious question: would Melville's contemporaries have read that and thought "Hah, GAY!" or something else?
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Nov 24, 2019 04:37
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Tim Burns Effect posted:the best chapter is the one where he explains how to make a cassock out of a whale's penis, "that unaccountable cone — longer than a Kentuckian is tall" This is awesome. Richard Attenborough did chapter 105: http://www.mobydickbigread.com/chapter-105-does-the-whales-magnitude-diminish/
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Nov 24, 2019 04:43
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while i'm sure that book is likely bad i dont really see the problem with writing about piss.
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Nov 24, 2019 05:16
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ThePopeOfFun posted:Serious question: would Melville's contemporaries have read that and thought "Hah, GAY!" or something else? i mean its deliberately a little weird but its a particular sickness of the modern mind that we cant view any strong homosocial relationship as platonic anymore. in developing the idea of 'gay' we've expanded it to include any physical or emotional intimacy between men. like dudes used to just straight-up hold hands and walk around like that. look at old pictures of dude's sitting on each others laps, or read old letters that men used to send one another. there are often intense expressions of emotion, even love, that are nonetheless not sexual or romantic in character - but, having dispensed with that category of relationship altogether, we really dont have any lens left to view it through besides 'queer'. so no, probably not, and certainly not the way we'd think of it now.
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Nov 24, 2019 05:18
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Has anybody had a chance to start Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad yet? Life and Fate was one of the most impressive books I've read ever and I'm hoping to start this soon.
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Nov 24, 2019 05:34
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frankly I'd be more surprised if a pulitzer winner didn't enjoy being pissed on
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Nov 24, 2019 10:28
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chernobyl kinsman posted:i mean its deliberately a little weird but its a particular sickness of the modern mind that we cant view any strong homosocial relationship as platonic anymore. in developing the idea of 'gay' we've expanded it to include any physical or emotional intimacy between men. like dudes used to just straight-up hold hands and walk around like that. look at old pictures of dude's sitting on each others laps, or read old letters that men used to send one another. there are often intense expressions of emotion, even love, that are nonetheless not sexual or romantic in character - but, having dispensed with that category of relationship altogether, we really dont have any lens left to view it through besides 'queer'. so no, probably not, and certainly not the way we'd think of it now. that particular scene is just enormously charged, though. the sperm squishing seems to induce a weird euphoric haze and a state of exception from the usual relationships the crew have with each other - i don't think it takes that much exegesis for it to be interpreted as an erotic scene imo. though i do agree with the main point of this post, it's worth noting that part of this freedom of homosocial platonic intimacy coincided with the direct suppression of homosexuality. there are hardly any intimate, physical relationships in the western world today which are not interpreted as sexual somehow. idk history of sexuality is some really funky poo poo
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Nov 24, 2019 15:05
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Mr. Squishy posted:There's a bit later on about a boy everybody loves because of his masterful way with his organ, andpip there's a short story about searching for a good cock. The Town Ho is full of seamen
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Nov 24, 2019 16:11
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Getting into Nabokov. Read Pale Fire and reading Lolita but after those two not sure which to pick up next.
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Nov 24, 2019 19:27
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Idaholy Roller posted:Getting into Nabokov. Read Pale Fire and reading Lolita but after those two not sure which to pick up next. Probably the collected short stories but you really can't go wrong. Ada or Ardor, maybe.
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Nov 24, 2019 19:33
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A human heart posted:while i'm sure that book is likely bad i dont really see the problem with writing about piss. Imo that page is really funny since its contextualised like "look! this author likes piss" and then the content is basically "look! this character likes piss". It's like the author is preparing his own explanation for liking piss
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Nov 24, 2019 19:47
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Idaholy Roller posted:Getting into Nabokov. Read Pale Fire and reading Lolita but after those two not sure which to pick up next.
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Nov 24, 2019 20:22
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I like piss.
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Nov 24, 2019 22:19
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Shibawanko posted:I like piss. Answer your phone, Mr. President.
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Nov 24, 2019 23:48
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Probably the collected short stories I agree with this but if you want to read Nabokov in a much less caustic mode, Pnin is a nice example of him at his most humane.
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Nov 25, 2019 00:54
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cda posted:I agree with this but if you want to read Nabokov in a much less caustic mode, Pnin is a nice example of him at his most humane. I really enjoyed Pnin. Made me smile.
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Nov 25, 2019 01:43
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I'm thinking of (and so should you) a specific reception to recently lauded books; books about millenial life, especially female millenial life. Short stories if you want, from the New Yorker, Granta, wherever. Take that to the wider example of women as part of the canon. There's a forensic examination of these books, their impact, the response to them and their authors, the cultural significance of them. Authors being asked if the bad sex, or peccadillo, is their own. If they specifically hate men, capitalism, like chick lit, or whatever. There seems to me to be a process where books, and often their authors, are used as a signifying insight into something alien to the reviewer or cultural commentator. Expand it to stories of mental illness, or minority ethnic groups, where the book is a tool to better understand and appreciate someone's life at a distance and the reader doesn't have to engage with the person's, and more often a character's struggles, as they could be to themselves. There's separating the art from the artist, which is something I wholeheartedly agree with. Often I get the feeling that commentators are separating themselves from the context of the work and the effect of the work. That the talked about works of art these days are cold tools to be utilised, briefly. However, in uniting the artist with the art and making names of them both, the commentariat are separating themselves as impartial, unable to embody the artist, unable to embody the art. It's a disaffected stance not from a culture or society failing to include the disaffected, or respect the commentator's views, but a removal of affect because separation from and isolation of the art allows, what? Esteemed haughtiness? Clarity? Perspective? Maybe a momentary insight into something the reader intellectually wants a reason for, an opinion on, but not a reason to understand or make their own. I feel like a lot of review, analysis, conversation, whatever, I've come across entails a refusal to engage with a work. It's almost utilitarian in its coldness but entirely absent in providing utility outside a small subsample of analysis and comment. The view of responses to books I'm seeing is a failure to see the object could be me as subject. And not even the specifically written object as me, not necessarily the characters and plot movements, but the broader understandings, associations, revelations from the immediacy of the art. There's a refusal of spirit (and all the personal faith that demands) for a homogenized clarity, an objectivity that can be agreed to, and a commodity that, ultimately, is specifically and prescriptively consumed.
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Nov 25, 2019 03:11
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idk how it is on the states, but here in norway this pretty much correlates perfectly with magazines and newspaper putting their literature and culture departments on the chopping block we’ve had instances where one of the biggest national newspapers thought fact checking a goddamn novel was a valuable contribution to the discussion of the work, and recently some dumbfuck journalists engaged a bunch of proofreaders and has-been prescriptivists to boldly state that there was 500 instances of correction and comma errors in Dag Solatad’s latest novel and if you’re a minority? congratulations, you are now a poster-child we’re slightly better with women, but I think that’s because there are so many who are active and prolific ulvir fucked around with this message at 09:52 on Nov 25, 2019 |
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Nov 25, 2019 09:47
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like there was this bloke who won a prize for best debut novel last year or so, and he pretty quickly ended up denying interviews and debates because he overnight became The One True Minority Voice, even when one of the main themes of the novel was how bad that is
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Nov 25, 2019 09:55
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The idea of a magazine having a literature department in the states is a foreign concept to me.
Heath fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Nov 25, 2019 |
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Nov 25, 2019 17:24
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Heath posted:The idea of a magazine having a literature department in the states is a foreign concept to me. is the new yorker and NRYB and the like another category than a magazine? (earnest question)
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Nov 25, 2019 17:48
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I suppose "magazine" makes me think of something intended for mass publication rather than something like the NYRB that also publishes books. I think it wouldn't be incorrect to call it a magazine, but I think the hangup was the idea of a lit department. I picture the literary analysis of most US publications being limited to like, two people talking about bestsellers. Then again I get most of my book recommendations from here, so I'm not the target audience for that sort of publication either.
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Nov 25, 2019 19:52
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ulvir posted:idk how it is on the states, but here in norway this pretty much correlates perfectly with magazines and newspaper putting their literature and culture departments on the chopping block i’ve read two books by norwegian women this year (paradise rot + will and testament) and they were both great. well that’s all i have to contribute to this conversation
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Nov 25, 2019 22:28
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I've heard good things about paradise rot, but I'll probably rot before I find it anywhere for cheap and i have too many books to read to buy it full price
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Nov 25, 2019 22:38
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