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I read The Art of Fielding as a wild card (from Mel Mudkiper). It was really good. Dragged in the middle a little bit, but it worked, since every character was hitting their rock bottom. Glad I read it while it was still summer.
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Jun 28, 2016 22:17
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Yeah I always saw that book as like a Franzen novel that wasn't irretrievably up its own rear end I still haven't read Franzen because of this prevalent opinion. I have The Corrections on my shelf, but I want to try and get through The Vegetarian so I can contribute to that thread before it closes. I feel guilty for procrastinating on BOTM when it's something already on my list. Rusty posted:John Irving books remind me of the Art of Fielding, but a lot better. I really disliked The Art of Fielding in just about every way. Irving books hit a lot of the same beats but have interesting characters. I liked Affenlight, he's a good character. Irving is good. I re-read A Prayer for Owen Meany this year, and it holds up. Hits similar themes about friendship, but with more talk about faith vs. religion and the loneliness of a life constantly looking to the past (with a failing memory). And hatred for 'Nam.
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Jun 28, 2016 23:01
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Rusty posted:Yeah, he was okay, it wasn't all bad, I just thought a lot of the characters fell flat and the plot was weird the way large parts of it were just skipped in a sentence.. When compared to characters like Owen Meanie and Dr. Larch or Homer Wells, it seemed one dimensional. I am not sure why, but I was thinking of Cider House Rules when I read Art of Fielding, so maybe it wasn't fair to compare the two. They seems similar to me for some reason though, so I couldn't look past it. I think I saw this comment right before I started reading. I can see how you'd make that correlation, but I wasn't bothered, since the book did well when capturing different causes/forms of depression and anxiety with chasing a perfect life. Mel Mudkiper posted:The Corrections is very very good and I'll bump them up on my reading list, then.
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Jun 28, 2016 23:56
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Any book where every character is obsessed with Herman Melville is pretty cool.
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Jun 28, 2016 23:57
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You always mention Pynchon's shallow characters, but everything he writes has characters that are fleshed out. The dude is willing to write one-off or short characters, and his books sometimes reach the hundred, but he always gives you people to root for. V. is almost half devoted to Benny Profane. Pynchon's style is growing in the book, but Benny keeps you moving in the story. Gravity's Rainbow gives you Slothrop, who starts off human, but deteriorates throughout. With that, Roger Mexico goes from being a heartbroken side character that carries the emotions and love of the war and becomes a loving hero. That and hundreds of others, from jokes to Byron the Bulb. Vineland is flawed for many reasons, but it has the largest cast of fleshed out characters. Zoyd and Priarie are some of his most sympathetic characters. And Doc Sportello is one of my favorite literary characters and happens to be in Pynchon's funniest book
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Jun 29, 2016 02:44
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By the way, Aquarium by David Vann is on sale for $5 on Amazon with free (Prime) shipping if anyone wants to buy it in hardcover.
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Jun 29, 2016 17:59
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My hardcover of Aquarium just came in, and it's very nice. Light blue ink headings, full color pictures printed on high quality paper. I was going to procrastinate, but now I'm more excited to start reading it.
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Jul 1, 2016 17:03
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I actually craved banana pancakes with banana syrup for a weeks after that scene.
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Jul 1, 2016 18:27
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Invicta{HOG}, M.D. posted:FYI this thread and the ASOIAF thread are talking about being vegetarian at the same time ya'll better up your game. Vineland is very good, but falls apart in the last third of the book from two bloated subplots while other plots don't get as much attention. It's very strange how muddled it gets. Overall, a very good book with some great characters and ideas.
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Jul 3, 2016 21:28
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But do any of those books have crowbar rape?
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Jul 5, 2016 14:15
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the_homemaster posted:On the other hand I got through 25% of A Confederacy of Dunces and it blows my mind how bad it is. loving trash. Is this the section where he gets a job selling hotdogs, then eats all the hotdogs, then lies about eating all of the hot dogs? A lot of people I know love/revere that book and talk about how they laugh their asses off at it, but I always found Ignatius to be such a grating character that I only got through about half the book. I did like the jive-talking black guy, though. I've considered going back to it and seeing if I like it now that it's been a few years, but there's so much I'd rather read. How did it win the Pulitzer?
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Jul 7, 2016 13:22
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Burning Rain posted:Because the judges felt sorry the guy killed himself. I mean i kinda sorta enjoyed it, but if toole would've gone on to write more stuff, confederacy hopefully would be an alright early work of a writer who'd gone to write better books. I agree, it shows a lot of promise. His other book The Neon Bible is actually pretty good, considering it was written before CoD.
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Jul 7, 2016 14:00
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:I refuse to believe that a real person would wade into a thread about minimalist contemporary Korean feminist literature and explain that he didn't read it and we should be talking about the real modern classic that is the nine-volume fantasy rape epic Prince of Nothing instead, it's too perfect Don't forget his bitching that the third of the book that he admits to reading had trite themes on feminism and were unrealistic and benign, unlike the "epic tome with human bones" that is Malazan, because Fantasy is the best ever and here's some fantasy authors quoting themselves as their references. I never really understood why he assumed a series of 800-page books is considered more substantial than a 200 page book. If a book can convey it's story and message in 200 pages, why is that a problem?
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Jul 7, 2016 15:20
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Have you ever talked to Fantasy writers? "I did three hours of world building yesterday. Pretty gratifying. Some awesome stuff in the works." "How much did you write?" "Oh I've got pages and pages of notes and sketches and drawings of the characters and maps." "But how much of the story did you write?" "???" Not to bust anyone about their craft, and I'm not trying to imply all Fantasy writers are like this, but this has been most of my interactions with them, published and unpublished. Fantasy writers and Film Students: most of them can go gently caress right off.
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Jul 7, 2016 16:23
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In reference to Confederacy of Dunces, I'm going to start reading Walker Percy's first novel, The Moviegoer, tonight. Percy was instrumental in getting CoD published after Toole's death. I've never read the guy, but I'm excited.
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Jul 7, 2016 17:36
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Cloks posted:Confederacy of Dunces is legitimately funny as well which is really difficult. I'm going to say that anyone who enjoyed it should read Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up to Me - it's what would happen if Pynchon had written Confederacy. Been Down So Long is the funniest book I have ever read (except for maybe Inherent Vice), and it remains one of my favorites. I cannot recommend that book enough. Gnossos Pappadopoulis is such a lovable dick. I don't think CoD is near the quality of Been Down So Long, but I guess I need to give it a re-read sometime.
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Jul 7, 2016 18:30
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Also, hawks apparently don't really flock together, as they are solitary predators. So getting a thousand together screech in chorus is silly from an ornithological perspective.
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Jul 7, 2016 18:38
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Struggle Against the Booze Wizard would be a cool book idea Isn't that Doctor Sax?
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Jul 7, 2016 18:39
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"I don't like Fantasy. It's not a genre that appeals to me." "Oh! Well, you should read all these Fantasy books." "No, I mean, I've read some Fantasy. It doesn't appeal to me." "Ohhh. Well, then you should read THESE Fantasy books." "No no. Consider that it may take me five hours to read a book. I would rather devote those five hours to a book that doesn't have wizards. Because I don't like them." "Oh, okay. Well, you should read THESE books with wizards, because they're good books with wizards." "They may be good books with wizards, but that is not something I want to read. Because there are wizards. Which I don't like. I have a finite amount of money and time on this planet, and even less time to devote to reading. So wizard books are not a priority to me." "Got it, got it...So, here's a list of fifteen books with wizards that will show you why you should like books with wizards." "Okay, hear this: you like books with wizards. Okay, I accept that. I do not like books with wizards. Can you accept that? So, with a mutual understanding of our interests, I do not want to read a book with wizards, or is a book traditionally considered in the Fantasy genre." "Great. I understand." *Slides a copy of "Moon Wizards and the Rape of Ul'Gath'Ma'Zan" across table* *Wink* EDIT: It's a bitter irony that a genre that constantly has gratuitous rape scenes has a fan base that is constantly trying to push that genre onto other unwilling people. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Jul 7, 2016 |
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Jul 7, 2016 19:19
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Enfys posted:I don't really understand the title that much though. I know cuckoo can mean crazy, but I also know cuckoo's don't have nests but sneak their eggs into other nests. I always have a hard time working out the meaning of poems/rhymes in books, especially when they are where the title comes from. Note, I haven't read the book in a few years, but: Crazy people are called cuckoo. A mental institution could be called a cuckoo's next. McMurphy is convinced he doesn't belong in the institution, that he is beyond that. He also believes that he can be a Christ figure, a messiah, to these lunatics by letting them live a true life, outside of the oppression of the medical field/nurses/doctors/society. He is also fighting a personal battle to never be controlled by these forces. So, there's a few ways he's "flying over" the cuckoo's nest. It is also an actual nursery rhyme for children, and Nurse Ratched is like an overprotective/cruel mother. You should try The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, since it's all about Ken Kesey after his success with Cuckoo's Nest.
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Jul 7, 2016 20:47
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Also, most of the perspectives from Cuckoo's Nest comes from Kesey working in mental institutions and being horrified by the conditions, during a time when counter culture was looming and everyone (especially himself) was experimenting with drugs.
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Jul 7, 2016 20:57
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Solitair posted:Yeah, I watched the movie and I was firmly on Ratched's side before that one guy killed himself. If someone like Jack Nicholson's character got in my face like that I'd really want him to gently caress off. This is interesting, because the book does more to blur the lines, where you can see she is struggling with control. But the movie always makes her seems so goddamn stoic and evil, and I always found it obvious that she's completely disregarding the well-being of her patients just to gently caress with McMurphy because she can, just to prove she's in charge. McMurphey's doesn't begin as a hero, but his rivalry with Ratched ends with him having good intentions (with poor execution). I have never once sympathized with movie Ratched. Solitair posted:Also, doesn't Chief have really intense hallucinations that aren't apparent in the movie? Yes. He has schizophrenia. It's also told from perspective, so it bleeds into the prose and story.
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Jul 7, 2016 21:49
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McMurphy's not an admirable guy, but he's more sympathetic to me than Ratched. He's a career criminal, and he probably does deserve to be in the institution, even though he's only there because he thinks he's breaking the system and getting out of prison. And now he's surrounded by a bunch of new saps. The patients, however, do mold him into this weird figure of freedom. I think it's after the guy drowns himself when he has the change of heart, and he feels defeated. That, and there's no hope for him to ever have his own freedom if he keeps raising hell for the people around him. He's selfish throughout the whole book, because it's fun for him, it's his nature. But it's also an existence where his actions MEAN something. He hurts other people, but he does help them in a weird way. He's liberating them. He's reminding them they are people, humans, and that their existence is under the stern fist of mother figure who is an emotionless robot, who doesn't REALLY care. It's her job. And after he has given the patients a taste of hedonistic freedom, to remind them they are alive, he has an opportunity to escape, to be free, to re-enter the cycle that he's been living his whole life. And instead, he allows himself to take the consequences of his actions. Maybe it's defeat, maybe it's fear, maybe it's because he WANTS to be the Messiah that some of the patients consider them, or it's some kind of selfless act for all the bullshit he's done, or to give Nurse Ratched her inevitable victory under his own terms, but nonetheless, it's still a sacrifice. And with the bad poor Billy... there is good Chief's liberation. Again, it's been seven years since I read the book, so I could have hosed up some of the details. Solitair posted:Anyway, the book sounds better and I should read it sometime. You really should, it's awesome.
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Jul 7, 2016 22:18
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Officer Sandvich posted:sometimes books have characters you're not supposed to like No poo poo, Sherlock, but sometimes characters actively annoy you, so you stop spending time with them.
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Jul 8, 2016 01:45
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I'm halfway through The Moviegoer, and I'm enjoying it. It reads like J.D. Salinger grew up in the south and wrote The Stranger.
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Jul 10, 2016 07:25
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Sylvia Plath's pretty cool. A little gassy, though.
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Jul 14, 2016 20:37
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I haven't read all of The Bell Jar, actually. Got through half before putting it down from depression. I like her poetry quite a bit. "Daddy" and "The Colossus" are very good.
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Jul 14, 2016 21:10
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Roger Mexico is one of my favorite characters, and I loved his arc (heh) in Gravity's Rainbow. My only problem with Gravity's Rainbow was that I couldn't wrap my head around Blicero's motivation. Was it simply evil for evil's sake? Destruction for some form of rebirth? Dude spends the whole book in the background, coming to the foreground to rape people and then blows poo poo up, and I never had a grasp on why.
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Jul 14, 2016 22:21
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You never did? The Kenosha Kid. You never? Did the Kenosha kid? You never did the Kenosha, kid?
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Jul 15, 2016 17:13
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My favorite parts were Slothrop being force fed British candy, or Pig Bodine's coke binge in the Red Cross van. Least favorite was the poo poo eating or the castration scene
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Jul 15, 2016 17:30
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Finished The Moviegoer. It was very good, with a lot of wonderful passages in the heart of the book. Next up is My Name Is Red.
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Jul 17, 2016 18:47
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I lived in Italy for two weeks.
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Jul 20, 2016 20:24
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Learn "I don't need help, but thank you" in Italian and say it to anyone who gets near you in a train station when buying a ticket. They try to "help" tourists order a ticket for money, and will gently caress you up if you don't. Ask everyone you meet what their favorite Umberto Eco/Italo Calvino book is so they will look confused and ask you "Who is that?" before they tell you how much they love Dan Brown.
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Jul 20, 2016 22:23
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This is what happens when you stop reading books to binge watch movies, blue squares. Have you tried reading Richard Farina yet?
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Jul 21, 2016 17:55
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Guy A. Person posted:lol this character literally just came up 1 minute ago on a podcast I'm listening to. I had a big problem with that section of Blindness.
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Jul 21, 2016 18:44
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Mel Mudkiper posted:idgi Tom Noonan from Stephen King's The Stand is a mentally handicapped adult who has a verbal tic where he spells everything like Moon. "I love apocalyptic fiction! M-O-O-N, that spells apocalypse!"
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Jul 21, 2016 20:10
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Hahaha. The character is Tom Cullen
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Jul 23, 2016 04:30
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Saerdna posted:What is the worst book you've read in the last few years? Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes Ashley's War by Gayle Lemmon
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Jul 24, 2016 03:03
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What about lit nerds that are also punk rock nerds, but aren't really into history?
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Jul 25, 2016 13:44
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Your GIF killed him, blue squares. The guilt weighs on your shoulders, loving monster.
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Jul 25, 2016 15:35
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