new novels and why they suck and whatever

Two of my best friends are total Alice Munro freaks. i rly need to check her out.

my older sister has 2666. it is big. she gave it to me and my other sister said "its really hard to find the kind of books i like"

i like agni. should probably read more lit journals.

any suggestions for "historical fantasy that is not about vampires in the '40s"

plax I highly recommend Moorcock's Pyat novels, a re-counting of the first half of the 20th century as told through a highly unreliable narrator who fancies himself a scientific genius but is actually just a deluded stooge. hits all the high points - the Russian Revolution, Roaring 20s and Depression-era America, north Africa and the middle east just prior to WWII, and then of course a love affair with Hitler. Fantastic.

long but REALLY fun

I second the love for Alice Munroe, I've only read Runaway, but it was really good and I'll def be seeking out more.

Munro*

Did anyone read "Tree Of Smoke" and can they recommend it? I hate to admit it, but I do not read enough female authors.

i read about 40 pages of tree of smoke and stopped. couldn't get into it.

Also are who are the good contemporary authors from Asia? I am particularly interested in South and Southeast Asian authors.

Good thread, btw

plax, re: excellent historical fantasy, try anything by Tim Powers (except for his lone vampire one). Anubis Gates and Last Call particularly recommended.

There was a contemporary Chinese novel reviewed in the Times last year, I believe the title was 'Living And Dying Are Getting Me Down', which sounded hella awesome, subversive talking animal stuff.

my older sister has 2666. it is big.

it's easy to read, though. i've read half of it in less than a week.

I started The Savage Detectives but it really annoyed me

what about it?

Too meta? The wrong kind of meta?

Definitely willing to give it another try

huh, i guess i find his kind of meta to be fairly subtle. or well integrated into the story/characters.

Too many characters to keep track of in that second section (says the guy reading Dickens).

i think i'm gonna end up liking 2666 a lot more than The Savage Detectives

There was a contemporary Chinese novel reviewed in the Times last year, I believe the title was 'Living And Dying Are Getting Me Down', which sounded hella awesome, subversive talking animal stuff.

Sorry, missed this. Thanks! Google search not turning anything up, sadly.

What I want is the literary equivalent of an Apichatpong film.

would read ^

ah:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/books/review/Spence-t.html

Thanks, JL!

Ha, yes, 'Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out' was it. It's good for me to be reminded, I need to track that book down.

What I want is the literary equivalent of an Apichatpong film.

The good parts of Pound's Cantos?

alice munro is the only living author i truly love. now that muriel spark is dead. and janet frame. and saul bellow. i feel like a grouch when it comes to new books. i'm mostly happy with old ones. i'm sure there is a ton of great stuff out there. hopefully i will get to it before i'm ancient. i can't remember the last "new" book that i've read that i thought was GREAT or a WORK OF GENIUS or EARTH SHATTERING.

people watch too much t.v. these days!

(hahaha, that's my theory on the lack of genius writers out there.)

Also are who are the good contemporary authors from Asia? I am particularly interested in South and Southeast Asian authors.

the couple things I've read (Mian Mian's Candy, for ex.) I was not impressed with, unfortunately. Murakami doesn't appeal to me, at least not as much as say, Kobo Abe did.

i liked "tree of smoke" but long-form is definitely not johnson's strong suit.

scott i thought you liked mary gaitskill, too. but perhaps not "truly love."

I missed this and posted something shouty to the other thread. Too bad I have a bunch of work to finish up today.

But Shakey, immediately upon reading your description about the formal qualities of novels, my first thought was ... David Markson just died. Have you read or heard of Wittgenstein's Mistress?

Also, since I was talking about the interior nuances of fiction on the other thread ... I think there is an argument that could be made that the kind of formal inventiveness you're describing was a very big thing in America through the second half of the 20th century, but might be considered a little exhausted and "over" now, by some people.

I think most people here would sorta mercilessly mock anyone who came to ILM and was like "modern music is terrible -- I listened to the radio in the car, and no one's doing anything like X, Y, or Z." You'd remind them that there's more music in the world than that. If someone said "I really liked music in the 90s, nobody does that stuff anymore," you might remind them to ask what music is doing today, instead of demanding something it did before. Right? I don't expect anyone to know or care about modern fiction, seriously, but I really want to stress that it has the exact same complexity of taste as the music people talk about here. Like if you'd tear into someone or consider them a clueless moron for saying something about music, think twice before saying it about literature.

^^ btw that third paragraph is not intended to really say formal invention is "played out" or something. It's just interesting that plenty of music geeks here would happily say "I am so sick of every act doing this or imitating that." Because you follow music. Modern fiction is obviously less quick and trend-driven than pop music, but if you followed it, you might have some similar feelings in terms of what you were sick of or thought was getting old or imitative!

I think there is an argument that could be made that the kind of formal inventiveness you're describing was a very big thing in America through the second half of the 20th century, but might be considered a little exhausted and "over" now, by some people.

yeah, this seems true to me. and i identify with it as a reader. there's more than one kind of formal inventiveness, too.

the kind of formal inventiveness you're describing was a very big thing in America through the second half of the 20th century,

I wouldn't limit it to America at all fwiw

Plus, the idea that we could return to the narrative hanky-panky of Coover-Barthelme-Pynchon is itself a conservative notion.

a third of the authors I listed are Latin American, for ex

Barthelme and Pynchon were largely too dry for me to get into (altho I do love Crying of Lot 49)

"I really liked music in the 90s, nobody does that stuff anymore," you might remind them to ask what music is doing today

also I don't think this is really an accurate analogy because it's not like a lot of popular literature TODAY is doing anything new, tons of it is still stuck in, as I said, forms that were popularized in the 19th century.

xp The most recent Pynchon, Inherent Vice, is worth a look if you liked Lot 49

that's not true, Shakey!!! i mean i guess it depends on your definition of "popular" and "tons" but it's still not really true.

also depends on your definition of "new" sorry to be pedantic but lol

a more accurate analogy for music would be like, despite tons of groundbreaking, genre-shattering, formal innovations in the 90s and 00s, a majority of popular music was still being produced to sound like it was 1965, with small live combos augmented by orchestras doing 2 1/2 minute songs about teenage love.

xp

xp The most recent Pynchon, Inherent Vice, is worth a look if you liked Lot 49

yeah this is on my list, what I read of it sounded really promising

Omg Music is still made with guitars!!!! AND RHYTHM

okay you're on your own shakey

Yeah, Shakey, that is one of those things that makes you sound like you don't know or care much about fiction. I don't mean that in a mean way. It's just a bit like saying music today is the same as in the 1800s, because it's basically the same scale and harmonic rules and ballad formats and such. I.e., it seems truer the less you care about particulars.

Fiction does have more continuity with its long-term history than pop music, but I tend to consider that a good thing.

"I'd read more modern novels but authors are still stuck on archaically using WORDS."

Like, I don't even read any decent fiction and even I know that you are completely talking out of your ass in the most ignorant manner possible.

that's not true, Shakey!!! i mean i guess it depends on your definition of "popular" and "tons" but it's still not really true.

yeah I know I'm making some horrible strawman generalizations

xp