new novels and why they suck and whatever

i actually dont even know what traditional narrative-type books youre reading besides zadie smith and the fucking kite runner.

white teeth, btw, is arguably an adventurously structured book--certainly nontraditional enough for james wood to hold it up as an example of a new quasi-genre of novel

btw people looking for completely-unsatisfied-with-old-paradigms fiction should read NY Tyrant magazine, about which I feel 1/2 the time v. enthusiastic & 1/2 the time cranky & reactionary "you're just doing that because you know if you tried writing straight narrative they'd laugh you out of here" dude

in lit theory this is known as Indie Kid's Dilemma btw

yeah, i agree. i've talked about that before on ilx somewhere. she is deceptively conventional. on the surface, it looks like the same old same old, but nothing could be further from the truth.

xx-post

did you read 'the corrections', shakey? i avoided it for years because the subject matter sounded well-trodden and boring, but finally read it last month on the strength of a recommendation. franzen does play with the timeline in some very slight ways, but that's not really the point, nor is the plot. and yet the writing is so good that it's totally compelling, and feels very unique and fresh because of it.

xps

this is a list of books that i liked that ive read p recently that i really liked:

the privileges by jonathan dee
your face tomorrow by javier marias
ice by vladimir sorokin

only the 1st is what i think of as "conventional" but it uses convention in strange ways - makes choices about voice & perspective that undermine some conventions idk im typing the word conventions a lot

nope never heard of the Corrections before but someone rec'd it upthread

xp

I avoided The Corrections for the same reasons (I sold a copy to Iggy Pop in 2001 lol) but was also surprised by its effectiveness.

just to avoid confusion, someone recommended thomas bernhard's "correction" upthread and i'm talking about jonathan franzen's "the corrections".

" yeah, this is what I meant about the neatness of the loop. the syntax at the beginning is confounding and doesn't make sense -- is it a story she wrote or read? "

You're gonna have to graph this out for me -- I didn't get Primer, either.

The Corrections is excellent, but (uninformed statement coming up) I'd always mentally lumped him in with the Brooklyn Lethem Safran Foer big-seller-credible crowd, not anything which seemed to be an antidote to rote contemporary trends, or anything under the radar.

privileges is good, yeah

i mentioned franzen as a response to this:

I just don't see anyone on this thread stanning for that much conventional/mainstream narrative novels

fwiw ill stan for a lot of convential/mainstream novels

and imo he can write circles around lethem, and i like lethem (at least up through 'fortress of solitude'). never read any safran foer.

xp

i read both the ask and flauberts parrot last week, and i liked the conventional/mainstream one about 6 billion times more

everyone read correction

yeah yeah its translated whatever

okay!

everone read war and war by Laszlo Krasznahorkai I think it's what shakey's talking about

I got a cheap-ish paperback by Lydia Davis called Varieties of Disturbance a few weeks ago. Was enjoying hugely before deciding that I had to finish my library loan, give it back and not pay any more fines. Interesting that Shakey liked that, given what he's said about 'dryness', because I think that could be a cumulative effect of her stories. They're so concentrated that its a good approach to read a few and take a break to digest.

Quite happy to not bother with 'new' things except the likes of Lydia, which I don't have to trawl for, as I only found out about because of her translation of Proust. Not that anyone new sucks or not but I'm busy sorting out what's good or not between 1912-1949 or so. That's tricky and might be a lifetime's work. After that its a few Euro/Latin American guys and gals with SF/noir from the US, mainly.

also watch Werckmeister Harmonies its a good movie, I didn't even fall asleep in it

Has Nabisco published any fiction prominently, out of interest? I'd be interested to read his stuff.

war and war is basically correction but the main character gets punched in the face every 30 pages. I mean its a lot more but that's the gist of it.

I can't get through this entire thread at work, but here are recent (ie "modern") novels I've read that I loved:

early works by Steve Erickson (everything up through Tours of the Black Clock)
David Mitchell (number9dream isn't that good but the others are extraordinary. I really liked Black Swan Green for doing the 'normal' thing as well)
Katherine Dunn's "Geek Love"
Marilynne Robinson's "Housekeeping"
Denis Johnson's Already Dead and Angels.
DFW (but I liked the short stories in Girl with Curious Hair more than anything else)
Karen Joy Fowler's "Sarah Canary"
Chris Adrian's "The Children's Hospital"
Barry Yourgrau's "Wearing Dad's Head" (short stories)
Brian Evenson's "Altman's Tongue" (short stories. He has others as well as a novel which I didn't like as much, but Altman's Tongue is a perfect collection).

Some stuff I've read recently that really annoyed: Motherless Brooklyn. I thought Fortress of Solitude was better (actually much better) but it annoyed in a similar way, mainly, I didn't feel like these books had an ending at all. They seemed like they were going somewhere and then just kind of fizzled for me. This is true to a lesser extent with kavalier and clay and that eugenides book I'm blanking on. Does it seem stupid to want a book to have a good ending that seems thought out and pertinent? I kind of like Lethem though and not just because he lived in Berkeley.

I'm reading "The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao" right now and it's ok.

The Age of Wire and String is excellent but I don't know how 'hugely critically acclaimed' it was; it got good reviews where it got reviews. It's an experimental collection and consigned to Dalkey Press afficionados, Oulipo followers, and people who went to Brown. It's good and so is "Noteable American Women". It's kind of the sort of thing that I dont' think would automatically get published by a big house these days. Maybe I'm wrong.

tom rachman's the imperfectionists was p good too but its like - i liked it a lot its funny and smart and p well written but its not like a "big deal" or really impressive its just good idk i guess thats not enough? i want to engage with shakey's argument but i dont really understand whats he saying i think

i really disliked the ask

xp: uh oh im having a fantasy u started a thread about an east european or mb german dude like a year ago whose books i really wanted to read but i forget who it was now. also did i ever ask u about hard rain falling? i really really love that book

Chris Adrian's "The Children's Hospital"

^^ this is really great

so can everyone feverishly post one name in all caps of an author that they really want everyone to read cuz OMG they are AWESOME and you HAVE to read them RIGHT NOW. cuz i'm kinda slow and breathless enthusiasm works best with me. a recent/modern/living author. you don't really have to if you don't want to. but i will remember the names.

HILARY MANTEL

Katherine Dunn's "Geek Love"

oh man I hated this

(and yes i am paying attention and already remembering names mentioned)

It's kind of the sort of thing that I dont' think would automatically get published by a big house these days. Maybe I'm wrong.

It probably wouldn't, but that's a wider thing not confined to literature: if you like some contemporary classical and see the amazing work older, established labels like Deustche Gramophone did for difficult composers like Stockhausen or Kagel, you know. Its just something that has to be dealt with in one way or another.

Wouldn't 'forcefully argue' but I find Murakami, Calvino and Cortazar (bar a short story or two) kinda meh and it annoys me when they get placed alongside Borges. A lot of this stuff needs severe sorting out and its not clear cut at all between experimental and the more straightforward.

VICTOR PELEVIN

xp to lamp

that would probably be Laszlo Krasznahorkai! Yeah you told me about that book, I wanted to read it but it was really expensive when I was at the book store so I bought carpentier's the chase for like a dollar instead (which is a great book too). I still need to get it from the library.

i am finally reading middlesex and it's pretty good tbh

TOM MCCARTHY - REMAINDER. for pete's sake!

I don't understand Murakami's appeal at all. Friends who stan for her won't read, say, Colm Toibin.

him

she's hot though

argh

i think i used to confuse lydia davis with kathryn davis.

consigned to Dalkey Press afficionados, Oulipo followers, and people who went to Brown.

i loled

should i read the crazed by ha jin? i have a copy in the store. looks kinda good. is he gonna be one of those future genius icons a hundred years from now? people talk about him like he is.

btw the age of wire and string is basically tender buttons but whatever

him

― max, Friday,

ha, yeah -- I was thinking of Mary Gaitskill, cuz her last book is on my table.

@ scott i read waiting bcuz ill read books that win prizes but again i liked it a fair amount but idk if it was genius. i didnt feel like a different person after reading it or w/e

btw the age of wire and string is basically tender buttons but whatever

if this is a ref to the Broadcast album I consider this a sterling endorsement...

I couldn't finish Waiting. I can't fully articulate why its dryness repelled me.

it's a ref to gertrude stein

xpost

btw the age of wire and string is basically tender buttons but whatever

if this is a ref to the Broadcast album I consider this a sterling endorsement...

― insert your favorite discriminatory practice here (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, June 25, 2010 3:28 PM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark

nabisco is gonna make fun of you

lol