2008 Post-Facto Literary Discussion

Ooh ooh me first call on me!

I have read: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, 2002 (but the English translation didn't show up until 2004, I believe) Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, 2005 What is the What by David Eggers, 2006

and I think that's it. Only one of those is really fiction, so I feel inadequate and in need of a helping hand. If I think of anything else, or if I read anything else, I'll be sure to post it ASAP.

The last fiction I read was The Da Vinci Code, because I wanted to see wtf everyone was yammering about. Of course I was thoroughly unimpressed by it. No, it was worse than that. I actively disliked that book, because it sucked so bad. The writing was unartful, the characters thinner than the paper they were written on, the historical connections so preposterous as to be LOLable. Yet it was all packaged with an almost solemn air of authenticity. Blecchh.

It's a case study in why I prefer non-fiction.

Oddly, I absolutely loved The Da Vinci Code. I thought it was filled to the brim with mystery, and it was intelligently plotted. If you read the book and complained about it's authenticity, then you may have missed the point entirely.

I've read most of the HP series, I'm in the midst of book 4. I can't even describe how fun these books are.

dent: ...you may have missed the point entirely.

Perhaps. I dunnolol, but I respect the fact that you and lotsa other folks liked it. It's just not my thing, I suppose.

That being said, however...SWORDHANDS!

It's not fiction, But I recently read The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain. I highly recommend it to anyone, as this guy rocks 100%.

dinozoa: Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, 2005

Thanks, I didn't know this existed. Good?

Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami Liked it.

That's about it for anything you might call literary fiction, which doesn't include DaVinci Code or HP, both of which I also liked.

Cormac McCarthy's The Road and No Country for Old Men

Many graphic novels, if you are into those, I'll expound

and not fiction, but still interesting...

Houellebecq's
H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life

Saturday-Ian McEwan, liked it a lot even though I'm not a big novel fan Kite Runner-Khalid whatever, it was good. Harry Potter-I'm on book 5, you can tear through these and they are so enjoyable.

i don't read much newer stuff, cause there are so many good older books. i hardly buy anything when it first comes out.

i asked for books from 1949 and 1960 for christmas (earth abides and a canticle for leibowitz).

anyway, the only recent books i've read:

BigDinWaunakee: Cormac McCarthy's The Road

i enjoyed gibson's pattern recognition and world war z as well.

Consider the Lobster is a collection of essays. Some highlights include the title essay, published in Gourmet magazine and an increasingly pertinent acct of John McCain's run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000, published in Rolling Stone.

Check it out from your library. Chances are you're not going to be interested in all the essays in the collection.

I am curious about Ian McEwan. His name is thrown around a lot (isn't there a movie coming out based on one of his books?). What's his writing style like? What stuff does he write about? Would I like his books? Ian McEwan is perfectly representative of the type of modern English language author who I feel I Should know about but I Don't.

I read On The Road by Jack Kerouac a while back, that might count as recent. Recommended.

And, Lolita by Nabokov, also almost recent. Recommended too.

dinozoa: Consider the Lobster is a collection of essays. Some highlights include the title essay, published in Gourmet magazine and an increasingly pertinent acct of John McCain's run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000, published in Rolling Stone.

Sweet. I loved 'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again' and might have even read it at some point within the last couple years. The bit on the cruise Ship, and on David Lynch's filming, are meep, as is basically everything else in it, even the tennis.

Checkpoint by Nicholson Baker. It is a short book big on LOL's.

I did wade through The Da Vinci Code meep. Did anyone else notice the main characters were too busy to eat or pee?

I am currently chewing through Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk. His Survivor was also a great read.

I read the Southern Victory series by Harry Turtledove. It starts out with the United States losing the Civil War, suing for peace and recognizing the Confederacy. There are later wars over Confederate territorial expansion and the first and second world wars are fought in North America as well. Good reading for war buffs.

<span class="post_was_edited">On 2008-01-13 at 15:23:23, middle_age_man asked to smell your meep</span>

<span class="post_was_edited">On 2008-01-13 at 15:25:52, middle_age_man asked to smell your meep</span>

<span class="post_was_edited">On 2008-01-13 at 15:31:23, middle_age_man asked to smell your meep</span>

I just finished Against the Day, by Thomas Pynchon.

dinozoa: I just finished Against the Day, by Thomas Pynchon.

Thoughts? He and DFW supposedly go together like peas and carrots. I tried reading his Mason & Dixon book and wanted to stab my face off.

Peas and Carrots.

The similarities between David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon, as far as I am aware start and end with they both write long books. Oh, and they both write in English, and are American, but really.

Of DFW's fiction, I've only read Infinite Jest and two or three short stories. I admire his elaborate paragraph structure, his excellent vocabulary, the way he works you into his syntax idiosyncrasies, so reading his work is more pleasure than effort. He builds a context of language in his essays, kind of like Hunter Thompson did with relentless references to the Raoul Duke persona, the 'fear and loathing/decadent and depraved' vocabulary, etc. DFW is, in my eyes, a modern, looking ahead type of writer.

Thomas Pynchon, as far as I can tell, is looking backwards, squarely at meepens, Hawthorne, Milton even. Long, hard to read sentences written in an anachronistic syntax and vocabulary. He is so good at evoking, in Mason & Dixon, for example, the 18th century culture, not as they saw it, but as we see it looking back. Same thing for Against the Day and the late 19th, early 20th century.

Son & Xon was confusing. I liked it, but it was more work than play. Against the Day is maybe the best book I've ever read. I can't recommend it more thoroughly. Read the first five pages at a book store.