okay team. I've just finished Dorian Gray (aptly, considering the BEE thing last night), and I'm going to wander down to Boke's Etc. this afternoon to buy another thing. Mini-meat? I'll be at the one on Victoria street between 1.45 and 2. C U there! Anyway, I know that people here read, like, tonnes, and I was hoping for a recomendation. For guidance, here is a loose preferential framework:
I like making money, which is why I do like:
Knowing post-modern self-referential wank
Violence, esp. towards women, children.
pop culture
funny
interwoven strands of angst
Paranoia
But I'm no gambler, so I don't like
Fantasy, esp swords, magic, made up languages.
over wrought 'beautiful' prose.
historical fiction
meaningless navel gazing
'comedy'
puppies
Any ideas?
---* OR *---
What have you been reading?
[ 11.10.2005, 06:27: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
Posted by herbs (Member # 101) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway:
Knowing post-modern self-referential wank
Violence, esp. towards women, children.
pop culture
funny
interwoven strands of angst
Paranoia
How about Paul Auster's New York Trilogy? Ticks most of dem boxes. Apart from violence. And it's not that funny.
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
I know its been recommended 10 gazillion times on here, but The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson fulfils most of your 'I Like' criteria, as does 'Money' by Martin Amis. Actually - Money is kind of like a gooder American Psycho (and I liked American Psycho, so that's a proper compliment). I reckon you'd get a kick out of 'Thinks' by David Lodge, too, but that might be a bit light-hearted for you. Oh! Actually you could try Legion of the Damned, by Sven Hassel, which is post-modern, unremittingly bleak and kind of funny in that laughter in the dark kind of way. I don't know if you've read Murphy by Samuel Beckett? That might be the last straw, actually. Best steer clear of that unless you're feeling quite mentally robust. I take an awful lot of book recommendations from this site, so it's hard to think of something that hasn't been mentioned a few times before. What about some Graham Greene? Our Man in Havana is kind of self-referential, funny, gripping, and paranoid.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
oh herbs.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
oh thorn.
Does nobody read my posts? I've been wanking on about NYT for years, and I read, and reviewed The Killer Inside Me a couple of years ago. FYI motherfuckers, I've also read Confederacy of Dunces, Murakami, Coupland, and DeLillo, so think harder, people.
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
I didn't read the review of Killer Inside Me, I'm afraid, but there are about 7 other recommendations in that post you blind c**t.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
Amis seems like he could be insufferably smug. Is this not the case? And, I enjoyed Brighton Rock and the one mentioned in Donnie Darko - the book of short stories, so maybe Havana could be the one. Is it long?
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
I thought that Sven Hassel was like boy's own war stories.
Posted by Darryn.R (Member # 1) on :
Benway have you ever read On The Road by Jack Kerouac ? It's one of the most important novels of the twentieth century, marking a turning point in US culture and leaving a significant influence on modern fiction ever since.
The story follows Sal Paradise (a thinly veiled Jack Kerouac) as he takes various road trips around the United States and Mexico with, or in pursuit of, his crazy friend and hero Dean Moriarty, based entirely on Kerouac's friend and fellow writer Neal Cassady.
The book was originally written as a stream of consciousness, where Kerouac taped 120 feet of paper together as a roll so he never had to stop typing. There was little punctuation, and he used everyone's real names
Posted by herbs (Member # 101) on :
You should take it as a compliment. We know you so well, we recommend books you read ages ago.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
quote:Originally posted by Darryn.R: Benway have you ever read On The Road by Jack Kerouac ? It's one of the most important novels of the twentieth century, marking a turning point in US culture and leaving a significant influence on modern fiction ever since.
The story follows Sal Paradise (a thinly veiled Jack Kerouac) as he takes various road trips around the United States and Mexico with, or in pursuit of, his crazy friend and hero Dean Moriarty, based entirely on Kerouac's friend and fellow writer Neal Cassady.
The book was originally written as a stream of consciousness, where Kerouac taped 120 feet of paper together as a roll so he never had to stop typing. There was little punctuation, and he used everyone's real names
yeah, I read that as light relief from Burroughs, and I thought it was kind of boring. They seemed like a bunch of twats. The kind of guys who sit by a fire all night playing the guitar and handing out weed, but only so they can bone your girlfriend when you've passed out in the woods.
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: I thought that Sven Hassel was like boy's own war stories.
Martin Amis can be a bit smug, but Money isn't. It's really brilliant, in fact. If you haven't read it that's the one to go for I reckon. Our Man in Havana is quite short, by the way. It might not take more than a day or two to read.
Posted by saltrock (Member # 622) on :
I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan and Ghostwritten by David Mitchell.
One's got your violence towards women and children, paranoia, humour and modern culture. The other has your strands of angst and is just beautiful to read.
Posted by Darryn.R (Member # 1) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: [QUOTE]Originally posted by Darryn.R: [qb] . They seemed like a bunch of twats. The kind of guys who sit by a fire all night playing the guitar and handing out weed, but only so they can bone your girlfriend when you've passed out in the woods.
LOL..
Benway, BTW did you ask about buying Itunes music from Itunes Japan or did I imagine it ? If you did try here: http://www.jlist.com/
But they have some other GREAT products..
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
quote:Originally posted by saltrock: I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan and Ghostwritten by David Mitchell.
One's got your violence towards women and children, paranoia, humour and modern culture. The other has your strands of angst and is just beautiful to read.
sounds like a good combo. Which one is better?
Posted by jonesy999 (Member # 5) on :
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: What about some Graham Greene? Our Man in Havana
I love that book.
Posted by saltrock (Member # 622) on :
They are both completely different and it would depend totally on what mood you were in when you read them I guess. Of the two, I can imagine I, Lucifer being the more popular with people, but I personally prefer Ghostwritten. Go to the library and get both out?
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
I have been reading two of these a day. They last about an hour each, ie. my two trains to work and two back, and for that period they give you an intense dose of a distinctive literary voice: Woolf, Kafka, Levi, Updike, Camus, Wodehouse. You also feel you've had quite a worthy taster of a great author whom you might otherwise not have read, and you can follow that up by buying a full novel.
PLUS it builds up into a gorgeous colourspan spine-display. I have about thirty now: fewer, when this photo was taken.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
I've seen those little books. They look really small though. I was going to get The Trial the other day, but it was about £8, and I balked. I physically balked, right in the shop.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
Yes - Kovacs must be a wealthy man to afford any number of those blighters. Rather than The Trial, which is gruelling and fairly godawful - if, tediously, unquestionably "great" - I would recommend a collection of the short stories of Kafka. The short form suited his fevered visions far better than the novel did and there are few more violent and upsetting C20 masterpieces than In Teh Penal Colony. You'd probably also like Report to the Academy and The Hunger Artist.
Also: Richard Matheson's I Am Legend which, though it ostensibly features vampires, is really the birth of the modern zombie in literature.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
They're about 55 pages each, cost £1.50 (come on man! that's less than a latte in most places) and take me, a quick reader, an hour to get through.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
After five days that's fifteen quid you've already spent - the price of two or three full length books! Survive for a week on hors d'ouevres - possible, perhaps, but why would you want to?
Thing is: you're already fairly erudite, Kovacs, but someone wanting to broaden their reading and horizons would be barking up the wrong tree with this - from what I can make out - fairly conventional selection of 6th-former texts. Where's the adventure?
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
You're right about the type of literature on offer, I think, but perhaps there's not so much wrong with that traditional 6th form syllabus. As a sixth-former I read some of this stuff, but certainly not all of it. I've read Exile and the Kingdom, The Outsider, Orlando and The Waves, but not for years. And I wouldn't have bought another Camus or Woolf novel with the money I saved from not buying the Penguin 70s. That would have been too much commitment and challenge, I'm afraid. A flighty, feeble mind like mine needs lit in short bursts, as if it was on telly.
I hadn't read any P G Wodehouse or any Primo Levi beforehand, and I am very much inclined to read more of them now. Perhaps these samplers aren't for everyone, I admit. I think they've done me good though.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben: Survive for a week on hors d'ouevres - possible, perhaps, but why would you want to?
Call it a literary tapas bar?
Posted by mart (Member # 32) on :
quote:Originally posted by Benway:
Knowing post-modern self-referential wank
Violence, esp. towards women, children.
pop culture
funny
interwoven strands of angst
Paranoia
quote:
Fantasy, esp swords, magic, made up languages.
over wrought 'beautiful' prose.
historical fiction
meaningless navel gazing
'comedy'
puppies
Those two lists pretty much sum up TMO, mate.
Posted by Jack Vincennes (Member # 814) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway:
Knowing post-modern self-referential wank
Violence, esp. towards women, children.
pop culture
funny
interwoven strands of angst
Paranoia
If you like these things you might think you will enjoy Scarlett Thomas' PopCo. However, this will almost certainly not be the case. It starts of being good, and funny, and clever, and then around page 300 there's this horrible shift in the narrative and it turns into the kind of ani-globalisation tract you might have written in your sixth form. And it DOESN'T HAVE A PROPER ENDING.
If you've not read it already, I'd recommend Nabokov's Pale Fire, which is pretty much the daddy of point 1 and contains lots of 5 and 6.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben: the price of two or three full length books!
Actually, for the forty pounds you've admitted to spending so far on this crazy exercise you could buy most of C18 English literature from charity shops! Benway could get the works of Swift, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding and Smollett and still have change for a glass of port to get him in the mood.
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
The Sandman by Miles Gibson is sick, gory, tense and funny as fuck. I haven't read it for a few years and I lent my copy out for it never to return. It made me giddy and queasy and chuckle (all at the same time) in places.
Posted by Kira (Member # 826) on :
I loved the picture of Dorian Grey!
I have been reading Irvine Welsh 'Glue' which is funny and a bit tragic. Although you have to be quite comfortable reading 'weedgie', which I know some people dont have the patience for!
I am also trying but failing to read A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and struggling. Can anyone tell me if I should perservere?
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway:
Knowing post-modern self-referential wank
Violence, esp. towards women, children.
pop culture
funny
interwoven strands of angst
Paranoia
Like Herbs I'm going to say Paul Auster. I've just finished reading Oracle Night (it's the only thing of his I've read).
I can confirm that there's definitely a lot of:
knowing self-referentialness going on (narrator is a writer, copious footnotes),
unease and menace leading to violence
humour, if you like wincing at one man's paranoia
interwoven strands of angst, oh yes, it's positively multilayered.
And it's also a good story. There's some narrative drive, a mystery possibly lurking in all that menace. It's set in a dark and paranoid New York, which is what passes for pop culture these days isn't it?
Posted by Darryn.R (Member # 1) on :
For no money at all you should be able to find a copy of The Dork of Cork by Chet Raymo.
Read that.
Has anyone ?
Posted by mimolette (Member # 478) on :
I recommend some thin tomes:
- Hunger by Knut Hamsun - Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell - The Rum Diaries by Hunter Thompson - The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa
Posted by Carter (Member # 426) on :
Have you tried any Nicholson Baker?
The Fermata is quite, quite filthy, in a ver knowingly modern way. And is funny. No violence though, unless you count a very bizarre and virtually victimless kind of sexual assault.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
okay team, I'm afraid that Books etc. doesn't stock these books. Not even Our Man In Havannah! Imagine. So, I freaked out and grabbed the first book I could see that I wouldn't hate.
Glamorama
sorry, everybody. I did look, but I couldn't see them.
Posted by Endemic (Member # 821) on :
Unlucky Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
Godd Benway! This is worse than that time London posted asking everyone for hip-hop recommendations and then ignored them in favour of the opinion of some guy she knew who glamourously wrote about hip-hop for a magazine.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
no, because the fucking books weren't there.
Posted by Endemic (Member # 821) on :
That's still no excuse for buying Glamorama when two fucking days ago I told you it was shite.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
my friend Justin reckons it's okay.
Posted by Endemic (Member # 821) on :
It's not, it's shite.
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
It's very bad. I made it through about one chapter, fired off an abusive email to Endemic for ever saying the words Bret Easton Ellis in my presence and then burned it.
Can you take it back? Be ditzy. Admit you made a mistake. Beg.
Actually I didn't burn it, but I did have it encased in concrete and buried in a graveyard to keep it out of circulation.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
I bet I like it. I should make it clear that I've liked everything else that he's done. I even liked what little of "infinite Jest" that I made it through.
[ 11.10.2005, 10:08: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
Posted by London (Member # 29) on :
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Godd Benway! This is worse than that time London posted asking everyone for hip-hop recommendations and then ignored them in favour of the opinion of some guy she knew who glamourously wrote about hip-hop for a magazine.
Yeah, Benway's long been an admirer of my work on this forum. To be such an inspiration to him after everything that's gone on between us brings a warm little glow to my heart.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
No, I didn't do that, I tried to find a few of the books that were recommended, and they weren't there. I would never be like London. I Hatt her! Posted by Endemic (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by Endemic: To summarise succinctly, Less than Zero (1986) ground breaking brilliance, Rules of Attraction (1988), bitter, painful, excellent, American Psycho(1992) possibly the best violent satire ever written by anyone ever anywhere, The Informers (1995) interesting, well written, quirky ideas, Glamorama (1999) shite.
Posted by Endemic (Member # 821) on :
You're just going to fucking lie, Benway, aren't you, whether you like the fucking thing or not? I can see you now, eyes trying to shut themselves as you near the ending of the book, brain squirting out of your ears as it tries to avoid even ingesting the words, and then, next day, you'll be here, all glowing reviews. You're a dirty liar, Benway, and I'm never trusting anything you say again.
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
Where did you look Benway?
The book I recommended was on 3 for 2 at Waterstones the other week. Practically piled high, they were.....
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to force myself to like it either. So, there is every chance that I will think that it's shite too. But I'm willing to give it the benefit of my own highly evolved critical appraisal, rather than bowing to the lumpen and bullish summarising that so often passes for criticism, here at the TMO Literary Review.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
quote:Originally posted by OJ: Where did you look Benway?
The book I recommended was on 3 for 2 at Waterstones the other week. Practically piled high, they were.....
Books, Etc.
Posted by saltrock (Member # 622) on :
Dr Benway, could you please e-mail at trask.s@gmail.com so that I can e-mail you something??? Ta.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Hello Kira.
quote:Originally posted by Kira: I have been reading Irvine Welsh 'Glue' which is funny and a bit tragic. Although you have to be quite comfortable reading 'weedgie', which I know some people dont have the patience for!
I also enjoyed this book, and Porno.
quote: I am also trying but failing to read A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and struggling. Can anyone tell me if I should perservere?
Depending on how far you're through it, I would say yes just because you've started, and it is one of the most important science-fiction novels of all time. I read it when I was 16 and (I sadly believe) brighter, keener and intellectually stronger than I am now; and I didn't find it difficult at the time.
However, if you give up I would recommend you read Nineteen Eighty-Four, which is genuinely gripping as well as being equally important.
I hope you're not someone I don't like off some other forum, under a new name, Kira, because I am the only person kindly replying to your post here.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
quote:Originally posted by saltrock: Dr Benway, could you please e-mail at trask.s@gmail.com so that I can e-mail you something??? Ta.
d-done..
Posted by saltrock (Member # 622) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway:
quote:Originally posted by saltrock: Dr Benway, could you please e-mail at trask.s@gmail.com so that I can e-mail you something??? Ta.
d-done..
Stop looking so bloody scared!
Posted by Kira (Member # 826) on :
quote: Originally posted by Kovacs I hope you're not someone I don't like off some other forum, under a new name, Kira, because I am the only person kindly replying to your post here.
Thanks for the reply! And no I dont think you dislike me on another board as I dont post anywhere else....
[ 11.10.2005, 13:22: Message edited by: Kira ]
Posted by Darryn.R (Member # 1) on :
Kira,
How did you stumble into our forum if not from another ?
Not that it's really that important I just like to try and keep some form of track if I know you're not ex/current-handbag/TCL,TMT,Whatever.
Posted by Kira (Member # 826) on :
Hi Darryn,
I didnt say I didnt read other forums I just dont post on other forums
I've been to Handbag, TCL, TMT and here. Generally just lurking and reading to pass time (when not I'm busy at work).
TMO is the only place that doesnt seem to be overrun with airheads.
Posted by Darryn.R (Member # 1) on :
Ah ha, that's a good answer
Well, welcome to TMO - I hope you have a good time.
Posted by Kira (Member # 826) on :
thanks *blush*
and I will Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
Kira, did you ever play bass for Black Flag?
Posted by Kira (Member # 826) on :
er...no?
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Did you come from here?
Posted by Kira (Member # 826) on :
er...nope lol
but feel free to ask more random questions ...I'm here all night Posted by Darryn.R (Member # 1) on :
DS9 ?
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
This Life?
Posted by Benny the Ball (Member # 694) on :
Keep reading Brave New World, it's not the best book, but it is good. Also, agree with Kovacs, Nineteen Eighty-Four is fantastic.
Thorn, I have a Sven Hassel book in my by-the-bed pile ready to read once I've finished the never ending (or ne'erending) The Confusion (it's the first one Legion of the Damned, the Sven Hassel book), which I bought purely because I think you mentioned his books in an art thread on the board.
Benway - have you read The Master and Margaretta? (sorry not sure of spelling).
ETA: Those who control the past etc
[ 12.10.2005, 04:05: Message edited by: Benny the Ball ]
Posted by squeegy (Member # 136) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: I would recommend you read Nineteen Eighty-Four, which is genuinely gripping as well as being equally important.
I have just finished reading this at work (which says a lot about my workload!) and absolutely loved it. What a great book! If anyone has any recommendations similar to 1984 they would be most welcome.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
There's always Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Coming Up For Air, Orwell's 2nd and 3rd greatest books in my opinion. Though Nineteen Eighty-Four, and I'm afraid I persist in thinking that's the only way to spell the title, is set in the future (past), it has much more in common with Orwell's other novels about the 40s than it does with any 80s fiction. Funny really to compare Nineteen Eighty-Four with something like Money from 1984. Amis was born, by the way, in 1949, the year Nineteen Eighty-Four was published... and John Self, in Money, reads Nineteen Eighty-Four. Perhaps there's an essay there for someone. Perhaps it's already been written.
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
Is Martin Amis really that old. Perhaps I should know as I did read his autobiography once.
I would of course say carry on with Brave New World, but if you're finding that difficult, I'd say 1984 is perhaps harder- it's quite a dense, relentless book. The Handmaid's Tale is another great dystopian novel with lots of interesting ideas, although the politics are more subtle.
Benway, have you read any Kurt Vonnegut? I am currently re-reading The Sirens of Titan and I'd forgotten how sharp and funny he is. I think you'd enjoy it.
Posted by squeegy (Member # 136) on :
Thanks Kovacs. I'm off to look for online versions of these. It's quite a difficult adjustment reading ebooks but the chances of me finding either title in paperback are pretty slim.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by squeegy: Thanks Kovacs. I'm off to look for online versions of these. It's quite a difficult adjustment reading ebooks but the chances of me finding either title in paperback are pretty slim.
They're both on Amazon... they are not obscure.
Posted by squeegy (Member # 136) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: They're both on Amazon... they are not obscure.
Unfortunately amazon doesn't deliver to Botswana. Obscure around here means something other than Dan Brown or John Grisham.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
OK, sorry. Didn't think of that.
Posted by Fionnula the Cooler (Member # 453) on :
quote:Originally posted by squeegy:
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: I would recommend you read Nineteen Eighty-Four, which is genuinely gripping as well as being equally important.
I have just finished reading this at work (which says a lot about my workload!) and absolutely loved it. What a great book! If anyone has any recommendations similar to 1984 they would be most welcome.
Here is an excruciatingly predictable list of top ten dystopian novels. Alternatively, you could read something less obvious, perhaps even written by a woman! Kathy Acker's Empire of the Senseless is about pirates, paedophiles, suicidal mothers, psychotic bikers, syphilitic prostitutes, whole Western populations ravaged by AIDS, and Algerian terrorists who take over the world. The chapters are called things like 'The Psychosis Which Resulted From Gonorrhoea', 'Algeria's Cock', 'Child Sex', 'Me Equals Dead Cunt'. It doesn't have the drawings of raped red-raw vaginas you find in her other books, but the drawings of skulls, pirate ships and dead fish fucking are quite lovely to look at all the same.
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
quote:Originally posted by Fionnula the Cooler: Alternatively, you could read something less obvious, perhaps even written by a woman!
What the fuck is Margeret Atwood, then? A fucking gibbon?
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
I would love to read a dystopian novel by a gibbon.
Posted by Carter (Member # 426) on :
Don't be insensitive. Lesbians are humans too.
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: I would love to read a dystopian novel by a gibbon.
Try This Other Eden by Ben Elton.
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
For relatively recently published novels that are dystopian after a fashion, you could try Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood or Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
I'm working on the wild guess that recently published and/or Booker-shortlisted novels may be slightly easier to come by in Botswana. But perhaps not.
Posted by Fionnula the Cooler (Member # 453) on :
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis:
quote:Originally posted by Fionnula the Cooler: Alternatively, you could read something less obvious, perhaps even written by a woman!
What the fuck is Margeret Atwood, then? A fucking gibbon?
I don't see Margaret Atwood mentioned anywhere in the lame-ass male-only Guardian top-ten list I was referring to, do you?
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
quote:Originally posted by Fionnula the Cooler: I don't see Margaret Atwood mentioned anywhere in the lame-ass male-only Guardian top-ten list I was referring to, do you?
No, but her book was mentioned as a dystopian novel to check out about six posts earlier in the thread.
Posted by squeegy (Member # 136) on :
quote:Originally posted by OJ: I'm working on the wild guess that recently published and/or Booker-shortlisted novels may be slightly easier to come by in Botswana. But perhaps not.
Yeah, you would be correct. I could order them online and have them delivered to a bookstore here via South Africa at a 300% markup but Im also poor. There probably isnt much TMO can do about that. Hence the online book thing I mentioned. I have just started Coming Up For Air as suggested by Kovacs. Seems OK so far.
quote: Alternatively, you could read something less obvious, perhaps even written by a woman!
As Thron has said, if you read the last few posts you would see its not easy getting less mainstream literature around here. I ain't likely to come across anything with 'Me Equals Dead **** ' in it.
Posted by Fionnula the Cooler (Member # 453) on :
Listen up, forum! Nobody pay attention to any of Carter's or OJ's book recommendations. Both of them were full of praise for Louise Welsh's novel The Cutting Room which I subsequently borrowed from the library. Turns out the book is atrocious. So atrocious, in fact, that it reminded me of a novel I wrote when I was fourteen and tanked up on too many Point Horrors. It was called The Ladies of Crippleton Wynd and it was about an iniquitous cult that held weekly meetings in the basement of a Scottish brothel. Like The Cutting Room, every chapter ended with a line about the protagonist walking out into the shadows of the night, and it featured the same abortive attempts at direct-speech Scottish vernacular and 'gritty' descriptions of urban violence - street stabbings, whores dead in skips, a girl-pyromaniac blowing up a petrol station etc. As I say: atrocious. Never again will I trust the opinions of Carter or OJ.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Fionnula the Cooler: Here is an excruciatingly predictable list of top ten dystopian novels. Alternatively, you could read something less obvious, perhaps even written by a woman!
It's not like something written by a woman is inherently more interesting or "novel", though, is it.
However, I think that list is plain incorrect, rather than predictable. Lord of the Flies is not a dystopia in my opinion. Do Androids Dream... is not a dystopia (neither is Blade Runner.) Idoru is certainly not a dystopia, any more than Neuromancer or Virtual Light.
[ 12.10.2005, 08:26: Message edited by: kovacs ]
Posted by Carter (Member # 426) on :
quote:Originally posted by Fionnula the Cooler: Listen up, forum! Nobody pay attention to any of Carter's or OJ's book recommendations. Both of them were full of praise for Louise Welsh's novel The Cutting Room which I subsequently borrowed from the library.
You dirty lying gypsy. I've never read any Louise Welsh, and the only thing I've recommended on this thread was The Fermata, by Nicholson Baker.
Because it's filthy. And good. And not just because it's filthy.
I'm sensing jealousy. Coming off you in curdled waves of boar-suppressed manlust.
You fucking love it. You slag.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Also I think The Fermata is dreadful, like watching the author wank. I say that as someone who enjoyed The Mezzanine and its samey retread Room Temperature but became gradually more repulsed during reading of Vox, Baker's phone sex novel where he gives voice to insanely baroque, unerotic fantasies that he clearly thinks will excite the reader as much as they do him. U and I was also a masturbatory novel, this time with Baker spunking over the books of Updike; the best that can be said of it is that it got me reading more Updike.
[ 12.10.2005, 08:56: Message edited by: kovacs ]
Posted by Fionnula the Cooler (Member # 453) on :
quote:Originally posted by Carter:
quote:Originally posted by Fionnula the Cooler: Listen up, forum! Nobody pay attention to any of Carter's or OJ's book recommendations. Both of them were full of praise for Louise Welsh's novel The Cutting Room which I subsequently borrowed from the library.
You dirty lying gypsy. I've never read any Louise Welsh
Oh, neither you have. It was Fish. Sorry Carter!
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
Yebbut, I did second that recommendation and I'd stand by it.
Alternatively I'd lock it in an antique wardrobe in an empty warehouse with only a webcam, some speed cut with rat poison and an extremely twisted fourteen year old for company.
Posted by discodamage (Member # 66) on :
i am going to give another you- are- allowed- to- recommend- or- read- stuff- by- auster- that- isnt- nyt- arent you- arent- you? recommendation to the young doctor which is moon palace. the lead character is really pointlessly nihilist, and goes down on his girlfriend in a cupboard, and she is HOTT and CHINESE, which is quite modern and popcultural because asian women are arent they yeah. and theres a really unpleasant old man in it who does some stuff i cant remember but i promise you it is really good. it is better than glamorama anyway. okay benway has bought his books already but this being so i think he should join the fucking library where, if they havent got the books you want, you ask them to get them for you. and they send a card to your house saying 'HEY YOU GUY WE GOT YOUR BOOK MOTHERFUCKER COME GET IT WE WILL GIVE YOU SOUP IF YOU COME AND GET THE BOOK ALTHOUGH NOT IF YOUR A HOMELESS BECAUSE WE ARE ALREADY PROVIDING YOU WITH SOMEWHERE TO KICK BACK/ MUMBLE/ RESEARCH FUTURE FANTASY CAREERS IN TREE SURGERY, CHARTERED ACCOUNTANCY/ MAKE WHIFFY NO- GO- AREAS. PLEASE COLLECT YOUR BOOK WITHIN ONE WEEK AND GIVE US 80P OR WE WILL... PROBABLY NOT SANCTION YOU AT ALL BECAUSE WE ARE MUNICIPAL AND FLUFFY AND WEAR BIG JUMPERS THANKS BYEEE.' and then you get the book and its really exciting! its like buying a book without spending very much money and being delivered a parcel, all the joy of both those things, wrapped up in a bow, with a picture of a sausage dog drawn on it by a small child with special needs. its that nice.
KEYWORDS: italicised Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
yeah, I liked Moon Palace. The dude lives in a cave, right? That book made me want to live in a cave. If only I had, eh readers?
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
heh heh discodamage. I remember libraries, they were great.
So, tell me...when you find a local library, how do you get them not to approach you upon entry asking if you're a) disadvantaged and b) in need of computer lessons.
Posted by Carter (Member # 426) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: Also I think The Fermata is dreadful, like watching the author wank.
Fair enough. I was about to construct an outraged riposte to this, then remembered that I had actually read this 6 years ago. 6!!
I really can't remember it that well, apart from the dirty bits. And I suspect that at 22, that's what I'd have been reading it for. I've grown up since then. Oh yes.
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
quote:Originally posted by Carter: curdled waves of boar-suppressed manlust.
This sounds great. Can we have more of this on the boards please?
Posted by Carter (Member # 426) on :
You'll have to ask bne. He's the gland, I'm merely the target organ for this whore moan.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Martin Amis famously likes
Bellow
Nabokov
Pynchon
Has anyone read these authors?
Me: no, Lolita, half of Mason & Dixon.
Posted by Benny the Ball (Member # 694) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: Martin Amis famously likes
Bellow
Nabokov
Pynchon
Has anyone read these authors?
Bellow - nope
Nabakov - Lolita (fantastic) and some short stories (alright, but I tend to struggle to like short stories anyway)
Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49 and Vineland - really didn'y like either of them - it's almost as if Pynchon is trying really hard to be really vague and let somebody somewhere else argue his narrative for him at a later date - I got little from them.
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
Amis also is very gay for JG Ballard, an author I think you might enjoy kovacs. His novels often don't really go anywhere, but are full of very interesting ideas. The Drowned World is a very atmospheric SF novel and a good one to start with. Time's Arrow is a rip-off of one of Ballard's short stories, but I forget the name.
I've never got round to reading any Bellow. It's a very ugly name isn't it? In Dickens Saul Bellow would be some sort of squat, puce-faced butcher who shouted at his apprentice carvers until they cried.
I've read Nabakov's first novel, The Luzhin Defence, which was ok but not great. Pale Fire is like nothing else I've ever read, and (along with If On a Winter's Night A Traveller was responsible for my 3rd year disillusionment with the academic study of Literature. I think it's an amazing book, but it is a bit mad and I can understand if others didn't enjoy it.
I did The Crying of Lot 49 on my Modern American Fiction course. I can't remember much about it, but I don't think I rated it that much.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Good call: I haven't read any Ballard either. [sadly tears off home-made "fairly erudite" badge Ben awarded him] Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
Don't worry about it. I have yet to read a book which can't be bought in HMV.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
Update: 100 pages into Glamorama, really enjoying it, baby.
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
I finally finished The Magus, which I felt like I'd been reading for half of my life. As Thorn says, another disappointing recommendation from so-called litxpert, ben.
Other recent stuff include Out of the Silent Planet- odd early SF from CS Lewis and The Maltese Falcon which made me want to spend a week reading proper hard detective fiction.
Posted by Roy (Member # 705) on :
I'm reading Roth's The Plot Against America and enjoying it.
Next will be either Everything is Illuminated (maybe I'm turning Jewish) or The Constant Gardener.
Posted by Roy (Member # 705) on :
Oh, I've read The Magus. I liked the sex bits.
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
quote:Originally posted by Roy: Next will be either Everything is Illuminated
Russell Banks said of Jonathan Safran Foer: Clearly, the author of this first novel is an extraordinarily gifted young man. Rare enough, surely, but this young man also happens to possess something approaching wisdom." Which I stole to write ryhmes for some punk-rock-hip-hop.
I'm sorry to tell you such a boring fact, but when am I ever going to get to mention that in a thread eh? Eh?
Posted by Roy (Member # 705) on :
Is it worth reading?
Norton might try and gas me if I keep this up. And then deny it, natch.
[ 17.10.2005, 10:35: Message edited by: Roy ]
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
quote:Originally posted by Roy: Is it worth reading?
It's funny in places. But I don't want to endorse laughing at the holocaust though. I'm not a very choice of metering whether books are good or not so the worse you can do is burn it afterwards and type me some harsh words.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Maybe you should try some Primo Levi too, Roy. I read 3 stories of his in the ever-reliable Penguin 70s format last week, and found them pretty compelling. I think Rick has found evidence on some website that Levi never existed.
I enjoyed Everything Is Illuminated, but not as much as most reviewers did. There is a film of it coming out shortly, if you want to get the essence of it in a far shorter space of time.
Posted by dance margarita (Member # 848) on :
i didnt like it much, if that means anything. but then, i dunno, theres something about russia in the early 20th century that i find really super- untempting as a topic.
Posted by Poshlust (Member # 850) on :
quote:Originally posted by Darryn.R: For no money at all you should be able to find a copy of The Dork of Cork by Chet Raymo.
Read that.
Has anyone ?
Yes, it sounds like it is going to be a bizarre joke... an Irish dwarf celestial dreamer? But it is actually a well-plotted, thoughtful story, despite the pages and pages of introspections and reminiscing. You know this character inside and out by the end of the book, a very overlooked and talented writer. I don't think I've ever heard anyone else ever mention this book.
Posted by herbs (Member # 101) on :
I've been reading EII for about an eon, which is unfortunate as I don't think dipping into it now and then is the best way to appreciate it. It has three narrative strands, one of which is 'written' by a Ukranian in bad English, with misused synonyms for comic effect. Continuity is thus not its strong point, and it justifies a good long session, rather than a few minutes at bedtime with half-shut eyes.
I'm currently at the point when I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but can't decide if it's because I've got lost, or because I'm not supposed to understand just now.
Four shiny pebbles out of five.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by herbs: I've been reading EII
It took me a while to work this one out. Maybe we should start giving novels kewl shorthand names, like T2 and ID4. Eh I'll think of an example soon, probably.
Posted by Roy (Member # 705) on :
What's EII?
Posted by herbs (Member # 101) on :
*tongue in lower lip*
Everything is Illuminated. Admittedly the acronym is less clear when my post didn't directly follow mention of the book...
Posted by Roy (Member # 705) on :
I thought it was the sequel to something.
Posted by MiscellaneousFiles (Member # 60) on :
quote:Originally posted by Roy: I thought it was the sequel to something.
The sequel to:
Posted by Benny the Ball (Member # 694) on :
In my to read next pile is;
Sven Hassel - Legion of the Damned
Ed McBain - Cop Hater
Patrick O'Brian - Master and Commander
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
Which one and why?
Posted by Boy Racer (Member # 498) on :
I'm sure I've mentioned this before, and I'd be mildly surprised if you weren't already aware of it, but I'd whole heartedly recommend this pitch-black tragi-comic private-eye story to you Benway.
[ 21.10.2005, 08:50: Message edited by: Boy Racer ]
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
Finished Glamorama. I really liked it. Ellis seemed to lose control in the last quarter, but it seemed appropriate, in that it mirrored the xanax haze that had enveloped Victor. I'd agree that it was frustrating, especially when everybody was telling him that everybody else was lying to him, with each revelation appearing and then being blown away so many times that in the end the truth seemed inconsequential. Overall though, I really can't see how anybody could dislike it. It's funny and cool and thought provoking. Similar to Fight Club in many ways, but perhaps more ambitious and less restrained. The violence and sex seemed more meaningful than in his other books, even if the shagging did tend to slip into the familiar cold descriptive pr0n as is the way with Ellis. It was good in Psycho, but a bit boring in Glamorama. Well, maybe not boring, but more like, it makes me a bit sad because they always seem to have a million orgasms, and I can mangage, like , two at best
I really liked the celeb world that Victor inhabits, and the dialogue was beautiful. The use of song lyrics, the idiotic strings of "whoa" and "cool, baby". The humour was like, a better, more painful elder brother to that of Zoolander, and I think it would be fair to compare the two - the cameos, the attack on the modeling industry, and the uneasy marrying of the worlds of professional celebrity and political activism.
There's almost something Roman about the orgies and the politics, the murder and the narcissism, and the use of Europe as a stage for slaughter and intrigue. The toned bodies, the relaxed sexual boundaries. That desire leads to death is inevitable. The level of corruption within Glamorama is so deep and wide that it has an apocalyptic feel, like these characters are going to be the ones who will one day bring down the Western world, punching a whole in civilization just using the power of their decadence and perversion. For me, that's what the book was about - the end of civilization.
It's clear that Ellis actually loves the world of celebs and bars and photoshoots and cocaine. As much as he attacks it, as he said in the talk he did recently, you can only satirise something that you are a part of, and enjoy. The attacks seems to be more about what it can do to people, rather than the lifestyle itself, and in this sense, it fuelled my own fantasies about being rich, screwing models, and committing murder. You can read it as a scathing critique, or an unrestricted fantasy, and I really like the way that he merges the two, causing you to search for the moral truths yourself, rather than ramming them down your throat like so many viagra powered cocks. There are moral extremes, but there are also places where it's not so clear.
Overall, I really enjoyed it, and preferred it to his less intricate earlier work. It's probably not as accesible as Psycho, but it's more mature, less sensational, and has more of an upbeat view of people in general.
So, it's a 'hit'. Sorry Louche
[ 24.10.2005, 07:30: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
And, saltrock, I've thought about the book that I said I'd recommend, and I've decided on "hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world" by Haruki Murakami. It's my favourite of his, and it's the one that got me into him. It was either that or Kobe Abe's The Box Man, that being the strangest book I've ever read.
Posted by saltrock (Member # 622) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: And, saltrock, I've thought about the book that I said I'd recommend, and I've decided on "hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world" by Haruki Murakami. It's my favourite of his, and it's the one that got me into him. It was either that or Kobe Abe's The Box Man, that being the strangest book I've ever read.
I shall go and order it from my local library.
I found another one I like at the weekend - The Drink and Dream Teahouse, Justin Hill. I think a lot of my books tend to be a bit on the lowbrow side for you lot though, looking at what you all read.
[ 24.10.2005, 07:18: Message edited by: saltrock ]
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
right, well, I've just started on Ghostwritten. This better be good.
Posted by Jack Vincennes (Member # 814) on :
I'd be interested to know what you think of that one Benway, I wasn't so impressed -have you read Cloud Atlas? Ghostwritten felt a lot less coherant to me...
ET change tense.
[ 24.10.2005, 08:18: Message edited by: Jack Vincennes ]
Posted by saltrock (Member # 622) on :
Funny huh? I didn't like Cloud Atlas as much as Ghostwritten. In fact, I don't think I even finished it, which is very ususual for me.
[ 24.10.2005, 08:48: Message edited by: saltrock ]
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
I'm not familiar with the author at all, and I know nothing about this book. Normally, I'd steer well clear of anything with a sunset/silhouetted tree on the front, because that suggests to me that there's going to be some kind of cod-philosophy involved. I realise that this is an unfounded prejudice; one that I look forward to dispelling.
And, I wouldn't hold your breath for an interesting opinion from me, Jack. I'm generally wrong about these things.
[ 24.10.2005, 08:57: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
Posted by Boy Racer (Member # 498) on :
Much agreement with Benway's Glamorama review.
I didn't dig on Cloud Atlas much at all, for many of same the reasons that ben outlined in his rigorous mauling of it some time back (although obviously not the really clever, well read ones), but I really liked both Ghostwritten and Number 9 Dream.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
I've heard of number 9 dream. I don't know why, but that rings a bell.
Posted by Boy Racer (Member # 498) on :
Lennon?
But it's also the David Mitchell novel between Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas.
Posted by Endemic (Member # 821) on :
fair enough, Beenwah. I've been thinking I might try it again; I've been on an Ellis reread since the reading he gave. I liked Cloud Atlas; thought it was excvellent and wide ranging and massive in scope but the central link let it down a little for me.
Posted by Jack Vincennes (Member # 814) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: And, I wouldn't hold your breath for an interesting opinion from me, Jack. I'm generally wrong about these things.
In the job I have any opinion about popular culture is to me manna from heaven. If you don't want the cod-philosophy, it's worth ploughing through the section where it's the most prevalent (you'll know which it is when you get there) as it's never as evident in the plot again.
Boy Racer, saltrock -what was it that you liked more about Ghostwritten than Cloud Atlas? Endemic mentioned the central link as something she found weak in the latter, but I rather liked that, felt it wasn't too intrusive and thought that Ghostwritten just rambled on until David Mitchell couldn't be arsed writing any more. The first five or so stories are superb though.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
Well, I feel pretty bad about this, because I can't even finish Ghostwritten. I really don't know what people see in this book. His style does NOT wildly differ between the stories as is so often said in reviews. It remains caught in fairly conservative and twee voice, and all the dialogue and internal thought sections feel forced and unlikely. The language doesn't change to fit the stories, and the stories themselves are fairly boring. I hated the one about the woman and the talking tree, and it's the one after that I've given up on, where a load of people are talking about nothing in Mongolia. It's not funny, it's not sharp, it isn't really saying anything, the characters are semi-formed and bland, but it's his voice that gets to me the most.
It's such a meek, quiet little thoughtful voice that it frustrates me to read it. It's like he doesn't really have any new ideas, but by using flowery prose he's hoping to create a 'beautiful' effect, but it's beautiful like the stationary at Liberty is beautiful.. In an conservative and obvious way that has long been left behind.
I don't mind ponderous and thoughtful. I'm not generally impatient.. A few reviewers have compared him to Murakami AND Auster, and they are like my two favourite authors, so I can see what he's doing. The looping of characters, metamorphisising the central theme, playing on the relationship between the geography of identity/personality and place/time are all stuff that I love. Mitchell loves it too, but he can't be assed with the stuff that actually makes a book readable, which is character. Every character seems like a facet of Mitchell, which is all the more apparent as he strains to make them different from each other. At least Auster, Murakami et al. recognise that to speculate about character, you have to take it from the perspective of one that you yourself understand, so readers can trust the narrator as he explores himself. Mitchell seems to be trying to run before he can walk here. They just blab on for a while, and then piss off.
I really tried, I really did, because I hate not finishing books, but he just got to me. Maybe it's not the best book to read straight after Brett Easton Ellis.
I've only got half way through, and I know that I'm well in the minority here, so my thoughts/comments aren't worth the bandwidth that they've been downloaded on. Sorry Saltrock
Article reproduced with kind permission from 'Read-a-long with Humpty Dumpty' Magazine
eta: I deleted something that made it look like I was having a go at saltrock, which I'm not.
[ 04.11.2005, 11:08: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
Posted by Jack Vincennes (Member # 814) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: I hated the one about the woman and the talking tree, and it's the one after that I've given up on, where a load of people are talking about nothing in Mongolia.
This was the cod-philosophical part I mentioned (the tree and then the Mongolian section). What I hated so much about the tree was that it came straight after the investment banker (I think) which I probably enjoyed more than anything else in the book, so to get the worst bit after that was even more of a let down. On the plus side, you might enjoy Cloud Atlas since enjoyment of the two books seems to be mutually exclusive. He got the voices sorted out better in that one too (I think, at least).
Posted by saltrock (Member # 622) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway:
Stuff wot Benway said and:
Sorry Saltrock
Hey, I don't mind. I like Ghostwritten a lot - but I don't expect everyone else to on the strength of that.
Maybe you'll like I, Lucifer better.
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: Murakami
On the strength of this recommendation I bought Norwegian Wood on the way home on Friday. It's shaping up quite well so far - although nI haven't read that much of it yet. I wish I'd spent longer reading this weekend, rather than the hours and hours and hours I spent ploughing limply though the Gigabytes of pornography I downloaded from torrentspy.
Anyway, yeah. Off to a good start so far, but it's too early to tell whether you'll join the ranks of TMOers capable of recommending good books, like Black Mask and Dang65, or whether you'll fester in a thick puddle of shit along with ben and London and their copies of Generation X, Boxy an Star, and The Magus.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
interesting how both ben and london hardly post these days. Is this it then? Make or break? Does a thumbs down for Murakami mean that it's time for me to think about moving to new internet chatboard?
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
I mildly enjoyed Ghostwritten, but certainly wouldn't compare it with Auster, or what I've read of Murakami (1 collection of short stories). I can't think of anyone who really compares to Auster. I didn't really concentrate on any underlying theme in Ghostwritten, I just took it as a bunch of short stories which had a few connecting points. I liked the bit talking about the different London tube lines, as it tallied with my view of the dread monstrosity that is the Northern Line. However, this kind of London-centric chatting used to really fuck me off as it's meaningless to non-London readers.
Some TMOers recommended Ali Smith, whose short stores I thoroughly enjoyed. Which is the best of her novels?
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
quote:Filled with stories and characters, mystery and fraud, these lives intertwine and become bound together
Sounds like he's going in a bold new direction.
[ 07.11.2005, 04:42: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
Posted by Endemic (Member # 821) on :
I liked Ali Smith's Hotel World. Like the short stories is a bit confusing fey, but beguiling prose and you feel all kind of ethereal whilst reading it. The ending was not quite as good as the beginning promised, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it.
Posted by Gemini (Member # 428) on :
I am currently in the middle of Joyce Carol Oates - The Tattooed Girl. I opened it with much expectation and it started well however it descended into brilliant observation of scene but characters too dull or self-absorbed or charactitured (sp!) to care about, and whilst at first the story hinted of dark secrets to come it has continued to hint at dark secret without actually revealing anything. Has anyone read it? Is it worth continuing with?
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: you'll fester in a thick puddle of shit along with ben and London and their copies of Generation X, Boxy an Star, and The Magus.
Shit, I feel a bit bad now, but I didn't know he was dead when I wrote that. There's nothing in the article that says me slagging off his book caused his death, but I can't imagine it helped.
[ 07.11.2005, 10:20: Message edited by: Thorn Davis ]
Posted by squeegy (Member # 136) on :
That is exactly how I imagine ralph to look.
Posted by ralph (Member # 773) on :
Please stop imagining what I look like. It's a bit unsettling.
ETA: For the record, I'm so much hotter than that.
[ 07.11.2005, 10:52: Message edited by: ralph ]
Posted by Roy (Member # 705) on :
I thought ralph looked like this:
Posted by ralph (Member # 773) on :
*sigh*
My beard's much longer.
Posted by Jack Vincennes (Member # 814) on :
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: Some TMOers recommended Ali Smith, whose short stores I thoroughly enjoyed. Which is the best of her novels?
I've just finished Hotel World and whilst I enjoyed the writing I think I wanted it to be more of a 'traditional' novel rather than having interrelated different voices to whom more or less inconsequential things happen. If you're going to be reading it more for the prose than the plot, though, that might make more sense -I might look into her short stories and see if I prefer those.
Posted by Jack Vincennes (Member # 814) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jack Vincennes: whilst I enjoyed the writing I think I wanted it to be more of a 'traditional' novel rather than having interrelated different voices to whom more or less inconsequential things happen
I'm completely losing it, I think I need to have an asprin and go to bed now. Next thing I know I'll be saying it's not a proper bloomin' poem if it doesn't ryhme and scan, is it?. Urgh.
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: interesting how both ben and london hardly post these days. Is this it then? Make or break? Does a thumbs down for Murakami mean that it's time for me to think about moving to new internet chatboard?
I wouldn't think too hard about that, Doctor B. Murakami's shaping up incredibly well at the moment - I'm really really enjoying it. It's really crisp and sweet and funny. I love it.
After that, Black Mask is in the dock again with Sandman, by Miles Gibson, which arrived yesterday. It's looking promising though - being a serial killer book published by the Do Not Press.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
I read that book as an undergraduate, way back when, and enjoyed it. I don't know if that's a slight on the novel in any way.
I was newly impressed by Amis' Success this week. It really is a tremendous manipulation in its structure of reversal -- it would be one thing to have two foster-brothers whose fortunes neatly rise and fall in ironic tandem, another to make this a metaphor for the emergence of a new working-class money-made-man (and with hindsight a draft for John Self in Money) while the old money of the landed families declines (in a way, again, this is a swan song for Charles Highway's type, from The Rachel Papers). The discrepancy, slowly and pleasurably emerging, between the two brothers' versions of events -- Terry's stolid self-deprecation vs Gregory's fey swanning -- is constantly tangy relish. It's a neat trick that you want to keep reading and believing Gregory's story, his superior flitting, even after he's started to give up on it himself, to stop lying and speak in a plainer, stripped-down style... a sorrowful naked prose.
But Amis also subtly nudges and moulds the reader's perceptions so that after the mid-point you begin to sympathise with the hateful Gregory, something you wouldn't have thought possible at the start, and feel scared and sorry for him at the end, while starting to despise the once-pitiful, now newly-brutal and sadistic Terry, who has found that his class can, bolstered with money, command power. This is a plunging into the meat of character, like the author's hands working right in the gunky, tearful centre of the people he's created, to change them... it's a brave and poignant effect and unexpected from a writer who, now at least, is accused of being pure style, riff and language.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Thorn, I'm now reading Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis and Jim Dixon also reminds me of you, though inevitably constrained in his behaviour and his reporting of that behaviour by 1950s manners & convention. Maybe I've found the key trait that unites the prose of Amis father and son: both of them write characters like Thorn Davis at various points in the 20th century (Thorn visits the 1970s; What If -- Thorn was working in the 1950s)
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
Why can't the Amis family just leave me alone? Like my life isn't miserable enough, already and now every time I turn around one of them has found a new way to eviscerate me in fiction. Martin's got a couple of kids hasn't he? Why not get them to put the boot in, too? Get it over with.
[ 10.11.2005, 12:08: Message edited by: Thorn Davis ]
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Black Mask is in the dock again with Sandman, by Miles Gibson, which arrived yesterday. It's looking promising though - being a serial killer book published by the Do Not Press.
Good for you! I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
Breaking news! I've just read the first issue of Brian Azzarello's new comic book, the Western Loveless... it's looking good. Very good.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
I received that Captain Britain you recommended today, BM. I've also been enjoying, and recommend to all superhero fans, The New Frontier, a fabulous retelling of the DC Silver Age in the context of American 1950s politics, all drawn in a gorgeous period pastiche like the credits of Bewitched or contemporary advertisements for brand new cookers and washing-machines.
Unfortunately I also received a mail today telling me that my friend whose wife had a novel published recently has just had his novel read with interest by Orion, and recommended by them to an agent at Curtis Brown just because he met people at a party with his newly-successful writer-wife. Beneath the congratulations in my reply churned an undercurrent of sick, bilious jealousy.
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
heh. I get that, too. I even got it a bit whilst reading your post, and I don't even know the guy. I hate successful people.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
as I've explained before - if you release your aspirations, then this kind of thing won't bother you.
Posted by Kira (Member # 826) on :
I'm with you Benway...
I dont have any aspirations... I just float along through life on a little cloud dealing with each mini triumph/major blow as it comes...
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
exactly. To try is to beckon failure.
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: sick, bilious jealousy.
That is sickening, isn't it? You have to try really hard now to get invited to a few of these parties with the lucky fuck.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
I know, I was thinking that he was now my own best shot of success as I held back the spew of "but you know my writing's better than yours! how can you ethically take this offer when you know I deserve it more, and you're just jammy?"
I wonder if he detected the wormy desperation behind my gritted-teeth, fake-smiley closing line "don't forget your mates now you're a big-shot, will you".
And the painful sincerity behind my earlier, breezily bright "I suppose you're my best contact in the industry now!"
Posted by herbs (Member # 101) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: as I've explained before - if you release your aspirations, then this kind of thing won't bother you.
But you are a secret trier, Dr B, with your magazine producing feature-writing ways. You have let us all down.
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: I know, I was thinking that he was now my own best shot of success as I held back the spew of "but you know my writing's better than yours! how can you ethically take this offer when you know I deserve it more, and you're just jammy?"
I wonder if he detected the wormy desperation behind my gritted-teeth, fake-smiley closing line "don't forget your mates now you're a big-shot, will you".
And the painful sincerity behind my earlier, breezily bright "I suppose you're my best contact in the industry now!"
lol
Way to go, whore.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
I just had one of those unnerving time-perspective revelations, like when you realise your first girlfriend is more than half your life away.
The novel The Rachel Papers was published in 1973. The apparently-awful film adaptation with Dexter Fletcher was released what seemed ages later, in 1989. But actually that's the mid-point between now and the novel's appearance -- 16 years each way.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Jeez, your friends' dreams coming true can be such a nightmare. That pal of mine greeted me this morning with another email -- his missus' novel has just won the most prestigious genre prize and they're fielding calls from film companies.
You would laugh to see how many times I tweaked my mail to take out all the references to luck and right place right time, along with phrases like sure she probably deserved it, she has some talent after all, and filthy rotten unfairness of things. Posted by doc d (Member # 781) on :
take that bile choke it down, and then sell them out to the tabloids."famous author wouldn't suck my cock when i was snorting coke off her husbands jaw" or something.
Posted by Jack Vincennes (Member # 814) on :
You are, however, providing terrific advertising through the medium of pain and jealousy. I'm really curious to know the name of yr mate's wife's book now...
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
It's called Running Hot. See, I am making up for my jealous spleen (now, that's jealousy... that's me being jealous, and that's something to be jealous of. What I feel about Vikram's world-wandering is nothing remotely similar) by promoting her work.
It's not really what I'd choose to read for pleasure, as it's steeped in Black British experience and my tastes in novels are so awfully narrow (almost entirely books by and about white Anglo-American men, 1950 onwards) -- but it has a very striking and original "voice" and prose style, so I can see why it would grab attention in a genre where perhaps the tone and milieu is very samey and, well, white.
Stepping dangerously outside my comfort zone, I read The Cave of the Cyclops this morning, by "Homer". What a rip off Joyce's Ulysses!
I see my pal has sent me a mail this morning entitled "More Good News". I may have to get stinking drunk before reading it.
[ 14.11.2005, 08:32: Message edited by: kovacs ]
Posted by dance margarita (Member # 848) on :
'more good news'? okay, hes got one toe over the smug-line right there.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
To be fair, he is a really humble and likeable guy who has been toiling away at his writing since I've known him (from our 3 years on a fiction evening course at Goldsmiths, 1991-4) ... it's not his fault he's doing so well suddenly. The little shit. The fuck.
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: interesting how both ben and london hardly post these days. Is this it then? Make or break? Does a thumbs down for Murakami mean that it's time for me to think about moving to new internet chatboard?
Bneweigh, I finished Norweigian Wood yesterday, and really thought it was quite something. Then I read the translators note in the back and the gist of it was "this is the Murakami book that all the plebs like", which made me feel like a thickie.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
this is good news. My personal favourite is "Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World", although Kafka on the Shore is shaping up well.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
That Jonathan Safran Foer (sp) Unabridged Pocketbook of Lightning was pretty good. It mostly contains extracts from his book Unbelievably Loud and Incredibly Close (sp). I think of him very much in the same way as Dave Eggers, ie. annoyance probably tinged with more jealousy about "young" new talents, mixed with grudging enjoyment. However, for a young man he does seem, dare I say it, tediously unable to get away from the shadow of the Holocaust that took place many decades before his birth.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Today I read some of "Idiot Nation" by Michael Moore. It is like a bad student essay: a bunch of stats marshalled clumsily into supporting blusters of crude personal opinion that contradicts itself within a chapter.
On the way home I read seven stories by "Borges".
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Tomorrow I will be back on Billy Liar, which follows on neatly in many ways (tone, period, title) from Lucky Jim last week.
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
Wow, a post in Media that isn't on that stupid zombie game thread!
I have just finished Iron Council, which I enjoyed. It took a while for me to get into it- although you are thrown into the action straightaway, I wasn't quite sure exactly what was going on and who to root for, given the author's habit of killing characters off so casually. "The Perpetual Train" section is the stand-out part of the book- really gripping. Although everything came together in the end, it felt a little disjointed and unsure of its direction in places. But still very very good.
I've also finished Norwegian Wood. Although Murakami is clearly a skillful writer, I didn't honestly find the book that exciting, I'm afraid people reminiscing about boyfwends and girlfwends doesn't really hold my interest. So I've read one of his novels and a short story collection and the verdict is: good, but not quite sure what all the fuss is about.
I'm just starting Book 6 of 100 Bullets which is rocking along nicely.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
I am at the section in Iron Council where the iron council forms, so I look forward to discussing this novel further in a week or so. I was just thinking it's a shame we had a whole lengthy thread called "Bas-Lag Confidential" for the previous two books, and nothing on this one.
Posted by Ponder (Member # 859) on :
I just picked up The Zombie Survival Guide : Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks. It's a nice diversion from all the urbandead stuff going on here at the moment.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
I think I'm going to dig out my copy of Fun With BASIC on Your ZX Spectrum so I can make a time-sucking, forum-zombifying game as advanced as this one.
OK here we go:
10 PAPER 4 15 REM that's a green background! 20 INK 2 25 REM this gives the atmospheric blood-red typeface! 30 PRINT "YOU ARE IN A SPOOKY TOWN"
check back for more developments in my state-of-the-art MMOPOMMOPRPG.
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