book 4 (and prologue too in retrospect) is more Kafka than Dante
― you will always be wrong (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 14 September 2011 17:20 (thirteen years ago) link
despite enjoying the beginning i found lanark kind of a slog. frustrated man blah blah. i probably didn't 'get it'
― seasoning sauce all over me (tpp), Wednesday, 14 September 2011 17:32 (thirteen years ago) link
reading Vladimir Sorokin's "Ice"... this is interesting on some levels, incomprehensible on others (I have already missed a bunch of references, I'm sure, as well as some jokes in German). On the fence about it.
― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 20:39 (thirteen years ago) link
I have gotten back to reading Dhalgren. It is... so good.
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link
no
― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link
yes
― Antonio Carlos Broheem (WmC), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 20:56 (thirteen years ago) link
That's one of the Delany's I just can't finish. 900 pages eek.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 20:57 (thirteen years ago) link
I put it down and was able to get right back into it! Really, the sections can almost be read as different stories.
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:01 (thirteen years ago) link
his prose is so so terrible. I've read Nova, Babel 17, and couldn't finish Empire Star or Dhalgren just because the writing is so distractingly poor. cf this gem that I cited on some other thread:
"San Severina took him shopping in the open market and bought him a black velvet contour cloak whose patterns changed with the pressure of the light under which it was viewed."
this is like jr high school-grade level abuse of grammar.
― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:09 (thirteen years ago) link
But the fact is, almost any codic convention we can talk of in language matters is likely to be over determined. Where there's communication, there's redundancy—starting with the one between what's in your mind and what's in mine, which allows words to call up similar meanings for both of us. Indeed, if there's a codic rule of thumb governing the vast complex of codes which makes up life in the world, it would seem to be: the more obvious, important, and indispensable a codic convention, the more redundant it is—including this one. That results from all the other little rules, often very hard to ferret out because the obvious hides them, that obliquely replicate parts of it, that manage to reinforce much of it, that give it its appearance—in short, that make it "obvious," "important," and "indispensable" in the first place. Well, here I sit, in the middle of all these playful, sensuous sentences and codes, writing my SF, my sword and sorcery, more or less happily, more or less content. But I suspect there's little to say about writing, mine or anyone's that doesn't fall out of its sentences, or the codes which recognize and read them, the codes which the sentences are—and the sentences which are the only expressions, at least in verbal terms, we can have of the codes.
― remy bean, Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:12 (thirteen years ago) link
"Having to admit that it was pretty simplex after all, Jo went down in the hole to turn over the boysh and rennedox the kibblebops."
fuck Delany for writing this sentence.
― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:12 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah, but he wrote this passage:
“There is no articulate resonance. The common problem, I suppose, is to have more to say than vocabulary and syntax can bear. That is why I am hunting in these desiccated streets. The smoke hides the sky's variety, stains consciousness, covers the holocaust with something safe and insubstantial. It protects from greater flame. It indicates fire, but obscures the source. This is not a useful city. Very little here approaches any eidolon of the beautiful.” ― Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren
― remy bean, Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:15 (thirteen years ago) link
I think it's somewhat unfortunate that he was talented enough to get his juvenilia published. Dhalgren is a mature work by someone with some definite stylistic quirks.
― Antonio Carlos Broheem (WmC), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:19 (thirteen years ago) link
you're never gonna convince me re: Delany
has anyone else read Sorokin...? he seems like a big deal in certain circles.
― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:20 (thirteen years ago) link
I didn't get that at all. I think some turns of phrase are a little odd out of context, but I've found it very readable and others have felt he was capable of teaching comparative literature, so results vary. That's probably a negative for the "those that can't, teach" lobby, though.
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:20 (thirteen years ago) link
Really, the sections can almost be read as different stories.
OTM
― funk master friendly (moonship journey to baja), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:33 (thirteen years ago) link
i find it hard to imagine anyone who loves sf not cherishing some of those delany short stories. i think wmc is a little harsh calling the early stuff "juvenalia" -- though i guess they are, in the strict definition -- but there are fewer clunkers as he progresses for sure.
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:36 (thirteen years ago) link
otoh i am not the most impartial critic here because his very existence on this planet is kinda inspiring to me.
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:37 (thirteen years ago) link
I like Delany a lot. I just found Dhalgren a bit of a chore. I think I prefer the "juvenalia" frankly.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:45 (thirteen years ago) link
Have you guys read any Joyce stuff or Pynchon? More of a chore imo, but it's been a long time.
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:52 (thirteen years ago) link
Read both and I find both a chore.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:52 (thirteen years ago) link
i find none of the people mentioned a chore
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:54 (thirteen years ago) link
well, pynchon, a little, when he gets too cutesy
Joyce is one of my favorite authors ever (Ulysses is a bit of a chore. never bothered with Finnegan's Wake). Pynchon I like: Crying of Lot 49, Vineland, V.
― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:58 (thirteen years ago) link
only read crying of lot 49 from pynchon
I've read bk 1 and am halfway through bk 2 of rothfuss in the past week. Trips along nicely, but may never finish. He's read harry potter, i'd imagine.
― holby city thrilled b cosby (darraghmac), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 21:59 (thirteen years ago) link
i've got both gravity's rainbow and ulysses on the shelf, looming at me, i'll probably get round to it one of the years yknow
― holby city thrilled b cosby (darraghmac), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 22:00 (thirteen years ago) link
"Joyce is one of my favorite authors ever (Ulysses is a bit of a chore. never bothered with Finnegan's Wake)."
So basically the Dubliners and Portrait are your favorite works?
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 22:00 (thirteen years ago) link
yep. and there are parts of Ulysses I like a lot
― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 22:09 (thirteen years ago) link
some good poetry too
― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 4 October 2011 22:10 (thirteen years ago) link
A noteworthy thing about Delany: he didn't publish his first short story ("Aye, and Gomorrah...") until he'd written at least eight novels (counting the lost Voyage, Orestes!). The stuff Shakey likes to quote is in those early novels. So yeah, Strongo, his early short stories are pretty good, because he'd already gotten a lot of crap out of his system. I don't want to come down too hard on the guy, because he's been one of my favorite writers for years and I'm stoked for the new novel this month, but strictly speaking precociousness ≠ talent. He made a big splash with the former, but I really can't get behind any of his work until Babel-17.
― Antonio Carlos Broheem (WmC), Wednesday, 5 October 2011 00:02 (thirteen years ago) link
I read V. and as a result will never willingly read another Pynchon novel.
― the tax avocado (DJP), Wednesday, 5 October 2011 00:06 (thirteen years ago) link
and I'm stoked for the new novel this month
lol believe it when i see it chip
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Wednesday, 5 October 2011 00:09 (thirteen years ago) link
Huh, Magnus Books website says November instead of October now. Still, I think it will happen this year.
― Antonio Carlos Broheem (WmC), Wednesday, 5 October 2011 00:13 (thirteen years ago) link
why not DJP?
― funk master friendly (moonship journey to baja), Wednesday, 5 October 2011 00:26 (thirteen years ago) link
It set up several interesting storylines I was very interested in and wanted to see resolved, then torpedoed them in favor of a wholly repellent sojourn to Africa as told from the viewpoint of virulent unrepentant racists.
― the tax avocado (DJP), Wednesday, 5 October 2011 00:28 (thirteen years ago) link
hmmm i never got that far into it. i put it down about halfway for some reason i was unclear about.
there is always a lot of questionable racial stuff in pynchon
― funk master friendly (moonship journey to baja), Wednesday, 5 October 2011 00:31 (thirteen years ago) link
er that should say "i am unclear about" ... like i don't know if i got busy or what but i put it down halfway through and didn't come back. i'd just finished "crying of lot 49" and i might have been partly turned off by the similarities and the nagging feeling that these plot lines, too, would go unresolved.
― funk master friendly (moonship journey to baja), Wednesday, 5 October 2011 00:32 (thirteen years ago) link
The first time I tried to read V. I put the book down when it got to the Africa bit.
I later went back to it because so many ppl I know RAVED about Pynchon that I thought maybe I had judged that scene too harshly. I hadn't, but I was going to be damned if I didn't finish the book.
Pynchon is now very firmly entrenched on my list of authors I think ppl only read to prove to themselves that they are clever. I would rather read a "stupid" but fun pulpy LCD media tie-in paperback any given day of the week.
― the tax avocado (DJP), Wednesday, 5 October 2011 00:35 (thirteen years ago) link
Pynchon is now very firmly entrenched on my list of authors I think ppl only read to prove to themselves that they are clever.
smdh.
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Wednesday, 5 October 2011 00:39 (thirteen years ago) link
DJP I just can't agree w/ u on this. Pynchon is loads of fun, except when he's being a ponderous boor (boer?), and his enshrinement in the high literary canon is really more a product of the decade in which he came to prominence (lol 70s) than any affectation on behalf of his readers.
― remy bean, Wednesday, 5 October 2011 00:46 (thirteen years ago) link
also new delany sounds DIRE based on plot description, and my bad memories of DARK REFLECTIONS
In some amount of fairness, the ppl I know who love Pynchon love The Crying of Lot 49
still, life is too short and I haven't read any of the Doctor Who novels since they went hardcover
― the tax avocado (DJP), Wednesday, 5 October 2011 00:53 (thirteen years ago) link
i think ~ jade pyramid ~ sounds good
― remy bean, Wednesday, 5 October 2011 00:59 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah i agree that pynchon's not for everyone but it's a stretch to say he's a meritless pseud w/ racist tendencies
― funk master friendly (moonship journey to baja), Wednesday, 5 October 2011 01:12 (thirteen years ago) link
49 is great, V is terrible, there is almost no relation between the two
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 5 October 2011 01:35 (thirteen years ago) link
49 is okayv is terriblevineland is okaymason and dixon is okay (but funny)rainbow is greatagainst the day is greatinherent vice is vineland part two
― remy bean, Wednesday, 5 October 2011 01:45 (thirteen years ago) link
top tier: gr, m&dsecond tier: v, 49, against the daybottom tier: vineland, inherent vice
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Wednesday, 5 October 2011 01:54 (thirteen years ago) link
still not 100 percent sure vineland and inherent vice weren't written by assistants and given a once-over by the master before being sent to the publisher.
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Wednesday, 5 October 2011 01:55 (thirteen years ago) link
man i really love ATD, and i struuuuggled w/ the duck part of M&D
― remy bean, Wednesday, 5 October 2011 01:58 (thirteen years ago) link
as it happens this week i returned to attempting to read Gravity's Rainbow after losing interest in it about a month ago -- really slogging through it
― some dude, Wednesday, 5 October 2011 01:59 (thirteen years ago) link