EPTOn November 21 2012 03:20 sam!zdat wrote:
Oh Diamond Age is the best one...
How I loathe wuthering heights
Oh Diamond Age is the best one...
How I loathe wuthering heights
^^ Why ?
2013 - What are you reading? - Page 50
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
^^ Why ? | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
 to be fair, I care about very little fiction that is pre-20th century (and I don't really like the English anyway) edit: I should clarify: English novelists. the people are just fine I'm sure | ||
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wei2coolman
United States60033 Posts
On November 20 2012 05:48 Sn0_Man wrote: Agreed. Ender's Game is pretty darn close to the best book I've ever read, but aside from Ender's Shadow all the other ones are poor to middling at best. Now Reading: Some Malazan books, I guess (Stonewielder at the moment). e: spoilered quoted image. Oddly enough speaker of the dead, was my favorite, out of the saga i read. just bought infinite jest, dunnno where i'm gunna find time to read it though, | ||
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
On November 21 2012 03:31 sam!zdat wrote: Because it's melodramatic, overwrought, and pointless to be fair, I care about very little fiction that is pre-20th century Melodramatic in itself is not a problem And pointless, I'm not sure what that means in regard to literature. I guess I could say that for Homer.And you're crazy, you're missing out so much. XIXth century is the best century for litterature. If only from Flaubert and Dostoïevski. And Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Zola, Stendhal, Balzac, Hugo. I guess from an american point of view the XXth century is more interesting, but for a French it feels a bit like a slow decline after 1950... | ||
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farvacola
United States18820 Posts
On November 21 2012 03:31 sam!zdat wrote: Because it's melodramatic, overwrought, and pointless to be fair, I care about very little fiction that is pre-20th century (and I don't really like the English anyway) edit: I should clarify: English novelists. the people are just fine I'm sure Haha, excellent, though when I consider something "melodramatic, overwrought, and pointless", perhaps I conjure up a more positive connotation  | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
I've read a little Baudelaire and he's aight although my french is too poor to really appreciate (and Benjamin likes him so he gets a pass in my book). Same with Rimbaud. The others you mention I haven't read although I know some basic things about them. but to be honest I mostly only care about post-War American fiction. The rest is just historical context | ||
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
On November 21 2012 03:52 sam!zdat wrote: I liked Madame Bovary, I disliked Crime and Punishment (prefer Tolstoy, Anna Karenina is the shit) and I love Moby Dick (an American, but one of those strange pre-XX americans) I've read a little Baudelaire and he's aight although my french is too poor to really appreciate (and Benjamin likes him so he gets a pass in my book). Same with Rimbaud. The others you mention I haven't read although I know some basic things about them. but to be honest I mostly only care about post-War American fiction. The rest is just historical context Nothing bad can be said about Anna Karenina. Crime and Punishment I'm not a fan of, but The Idiot is an amazing book, and I need to get around the Brothers Karamazov and Demons... As for Flaubert, people disagree, but I'm not the hugest fan of Bovary (though it's still an incredible novel). I like Salammbô better, it's a really strange piece of work, but Sentimental Education is even better. the last 15 pages are among the best things I've read in my life... I know next to nothing about post war american fiction though. My excuse is that I'm only 24 ! Any advice ? | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
In my (as it should be increasingly obvious, highly idiosyncratic) opinion, science fiction pretty much IS american literature. Other than that, I'd maybe recommend stuff like Don DeLillo "White Noise", Paul Auster "New York Trilogy," Donald Barthelme "The Dead Father" and "Snow White"... And Infinite Jest obviously. To be honest I really need to go back to reading more novels, I almost only read theory these days. It's a little embarrassing how little non-SF lit I've actually read. But my excuse, also, is that I'm only 24 | ||
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farvacola
United States18820 Posts
On November 21 2012 04:08 corumjhaelen wrote: Nothing bad can be said about Anna Karenina. Crime and Punishment I'm not a fan of, but The Idiot is an amazing book, and I need to get around the Brothers Karamazov and Demons... As for Flaubert, people disagree, but I'm not the hugest fan of Bovary (though it's still an incredible novel). I like Salammbô better, it's a really strange piece of work, but Sentimental Education is even better. the last 15 pages are among the best things I've read in my life... I know next to nothing about post war american fiction though. My excuse is that I'm only 24 ! Any advice ? Well, Thomas Pynchon is pretty much my go-to 20th century American author, though I'm also working my way through William Gaddis's The Recognitions. Unfortunately, I find the delineation "post war American fiction" a bit too broad and my recommendations are accordingly circumspect. Edit: And I'm not 24 for 2 more weeks, so ha! | ||
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OkStyX
Canada1199 Posts
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Microchaton
France342 Posts
Currently I'm reading DeGaulle's "La France & son armée", before that I read Metro 2033 (played the game first, both are excellent and I can't recommend them enough, though very different) & Robert Silverberg's Downwards to the Earth (also excellent book about colonists/indigens relation, on a SF background, with multiple references to Kipling and Conrad (Heart of Darkness) | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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cronican
Canada424 Posts
I'm reading Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy now, and the contrast of styles has been a total shock to the system. | ||
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GhostLink
United States450 Posts
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ZapRoffo
United States5544 Posts
On November 21 2012 03:31 sam!zdat wrote: Because it's melodramatic, overwrought, and pointless to be fair, I care about very little fiction that is pre-20th century (and I don't really like the English anyway) edit: I should clarify: English novelists. the people are just fine I'm sure It's the best melodrama I've ever read. Especially given Emily Bronte's insular life and it being her only publication other than some poems, it's such a piece of storytelling and personal expression that there's no way I could ever remotely call it pointless. On November 21 2012 04:08 corumjhaelen wrote: Nothing bad can be said about Anna Karenina. Crime and Punishment I'm not a fan of, but The Idiot is an amazing book, and I need to get around the Brothers Karamazov and Demons... Notes from Underground, Notes from Underground! You can't leave it out, it's essential and the most stylistically striking 19th century work I've ever encountered and also the grandfather of the existentialism. It's like 50+ years ahead of its time. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On November 21 2012 05:35 ZapRoffo wrote: It's the best melodrama I've ever read. Especially given Emily Bronte's insular life and it being her only publication other than some poems, it's such a piece of storytelling and personal expression that there's no way I could ever remotely call it pointless. sure, it's just that I'm postmodern enough not to care much about "personal expression" and the entire thing just seems utterly self-absorbed. That book has no historical consciousness at all, for me it's just irredeemably bourgeois. The only interesting part of the book is what's NOT in it, which is what happens when Heathcliff isn't wasting his time embroiled in inbred relationship drama with a bunch of degenerate aristocrats edit: I understand that it wasn't Emily Bronte's fault that she had no idea there was an actual world out there and therefore couldn't write about it, that doesn't mean I'm gonna like the book | ||
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deth2munkies
United States4051 Posts
Call me and ADD reader or what have you, but I can sit down and read through 30 pages of the Critique of Pure Reason without breaking a sweat, but trying to get through the first 150-200 pages of Game of Thrones was a nightmare. Unless your fiction is going to grab me and hold me at the beginning, you're not getting my attention throughout. Sure, I may miss/not appreciate great stories and authors this way, but it's due to a failure on their part, not mine. As I mentioned earlier, the only book series in the last 3-4 years that I've picked up and actually stayed reading was The Dresden Files mostly because Jim Butcher knows exactly how to open a story and how to pace it. Not saying it's perfect at all times, but compared to most books where I'm bored from slogging through exposition or not being straight forwardly told what the hell is going on in the first couple of chapters, it's amazing. Edit: Generic examples: In the first couple of chapters of a romance novel, you meet the leads, typically set up a triangle, set up the characters' various motivations and foreshadow possible clashes, etc. The problem here is that I have no sense of scale or what's at stake. Relationships are fickle things, it's not like if this girl doesn't get this guy or vice-versa the world ends or someone dies or something like that. I'm not saying that everything needs an apocalyptic bent, but if you're telling me that I should care about these 3 people and their romantic problems "because" then you're doing it wrong. A good book needs to tell me this stuff in the first 50 pages or I'm done: 1) Who are we dealing with? 2) Where are we? 3) What is going on? 4) How does it relate to the characters you introduced? 5) Why the hell should I (or the characters) care? | ||
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Bunn
Estonia934 Posts
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Manit0u
Poland17220 Posts
On November 20 2012 07:49 SecondManRex wrote: ![[image loading]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0uZqgmOGrrE/TIpu0nZtB-I/AAAAAAAAIiQ/UPimRb3Jkn0/s1600/Frankenstein.jpg) Midway through it at the moment. Can be a little slow at times (for some reason Shelley decided to go off and tell a tale of a relatively unrelated family for a good few chapters) but there's a few decent themes which makes it interesting and the monster is certainly a tragic character. Worth reading even if just for the fact that it's the first sci-fi book ever written. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On November 22 2012 07:38 Manit0u wrote: Worth reading even if just for the fact that it's the first sci-fi book ever written. Lucian wants a word with you | ||
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