EPTWhat Are You Reading 2014 - Page 41
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babylon
8765 Posts
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
Looks like I'm just going to have to write this book myself, then edit: It's like, in a book like that, the character is not the "character", the character is the family. I certainly *cared* about the Buendia family. | ||
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babylon
8765 Posts
Not that I know much about magical realism, but Marquez seems to have relatively little competition in his little genre. XP Murakami doesn't do it for me, and D. Mitchell can be really hit or miss (though refreshingly experimental at times). | ||
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ComaDose
Canada10357 Posts
On June 04 2014 07:23 corumjhaelen wrote: I am not blaming Tolkien for anything, poor man, I have way too much admiration for him. And to be clear, I don't think anyone is stupid for reading fantasy. But I do wonder who are the heirs of Tolkien who have managed to get passed their admiration for him and produce something as revolutionnary as their forefigure. Fantasy just seems to be one of the most stale genre out there, which means it can produce entertaining books, but great ones ? Maybe it's time they kill the father. Also, "pages that didn't contribute to advance the story", this is too good, I can't really really focus on anything else after reading this, it's even funnier than comparing Tolkien's and the Bible's influence. I'm not sure if I should point out first how the Bible isn't exactly a novel or the pages about pipe-weed in LoTR, which I don't really view as an exception... pipe weed is the shit, its like, world building and stuff. No one is as revolutionary as Tolkien in fantasy unfortunately. There are some great novel concepts completely different from elves and dwarfs though. I don't think Tolkien is more influential than the bible I just feel very strongly that his Genesis is better despite its own share of begats. I guess the Bible's influence is why i read it in the first place. The lack of pages to advance the story bit was a bad word choice for boring. And I love the wheel of time too so its not the extra pages that make it so terribly boring. | ||
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dmnum
Brazil6910 Posts
On June 04 2014 08:13 babylon wrote: Don't get me wrong, I thought it was really good. Just not the thing I'd pick up on my own to read. Strong characterization is something that's important to me when I'm reading (and writing) a story. It's probably a testament to the writing abilities of both Marquez and his translator that I do like the book even if I personally found it lacking in some respects. Not that I know much about magical realism, but Marquez seems to have relatively little competition in his little genre. XP Murakami doesn't do it for me, and D. Mitchell can be really hit or miss (though refreshingly experimental at times). Magical Realism is by no means a small genre and Marquez has plenty of competition: Borges, Cortazar, Rulfo, Fuentes, Bioy Casares just off the top of my mind. Out those I cited, and including Marquez, Borges is by far the best writer. And yes, Marquez did say Rabassa's translation was better than his original. And no, it is not. - Also isn't it a bit unfair to judge the The Bible as one book, considering it's actually a compilation? | ||
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JumboJohnson
537 Posts
Anything similar anybody could recommend? | ||
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babylon
8765 Posts
@ dmnum: Feel free to throw specific recs at me! Also I don't think it's unfair to judge the Bible in such a way. I mean, whether or not it was written by a ton of people or written by just one person doesn't have an effect on most peoples' enjoyment of the text. | ||
Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21248 Posts
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dmnum
Brazil6910 Posts
On June 04 2014 09:43 babylon wrote: @ dmnum: Feel free to throw specific recs at me! Also I don't think it's unfair to judge the Bible in such a way. I mean, whether or not it was written by a ton of people or written by just one person doesn't have an effect on most peoples' enjoyment of the text. Alright. Borges: Ficciones, The Aleph, The Book of Sand, A Universal History of Infamy, The Maker, Dr. Brodie's Report, The Book of Imaginary Beings. All by Borges. I would start with Ficciones. Borges was fascinated with labyrinths(which he saw as a symbol of the infite) and tigers. He also intertwines a lot of philosophy in his works(he's especially fond of Espinoza) Rulfo: Pedro Páramo. Also The Burning Plain and Other Stories. Páramo jumps a lot through time and is really sad. Fuentes: The Death of Artemio Cruz. And Old Gringo, Aura. His whole ouvre is quite good. Hard to define. Cortazar: Hopscotch. I am not fond of Blow Up and Other Stories, except for the title text which is quite good. Hopscotch is a novel that can be read in two ways: either you read it straight through, or you follow the order given to you in the introduction. It's not a magical realist novel though. Blow Up is mostly realism with one magical realist short story. Bioy Casares: The Invention of Morel. Really, really good. Borges explained it better than me: it's a magical realist detective novella. I don't want to give anything away so I won't say more, but read it. It's very much worth it. All of those are very short works. None of them go beyond 150 pages(except for Hopscotch). In case you feel intimidated by the quantity of books: just start with Ficciones and see where it goes from there. | ||
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babylon
8765 Posts
 Thanks for the list. Do you have recommended translators? | ||
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dmnum
Brazil6910 Posts
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
On June 04 2014 10:23 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: On that tangent, does anyone know what the standard treatment of the Bible is with regards to stuff like reader-response/intentionally fallacy/etc? What do you mean? Those are not really current terms in literary criticism, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. When you are thinking about the Bible, you need to think about source criticism issues (the Torah e.g. has four main sources which are used to compile it, several of the letters of Paul are pseudepigraphal, Matthew and Luke use Mark as a source, and so on). Then you need to know something about the varying historical context in which the different pieces of the library known as "the Bible" were written, how they were compiled and by whom. Then you just read it in whatever way you prefer to read texts, if you are in a literature department that usually means using some combination of various (broadly defined) marxian, psychoanalytic, or foucauldian/historicist perspectives. The kind of "literary criticism" that you were taught in high school with things like "intentional fallacy" and so on is the kind of criticism people were doing 60 years ago that now everybody mostly thinks is boring and pointless. Which is not to say that what most people do now is not also boring and pointless. | ||
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Wesso
Netherlands1245 Posts
On June 04 2014 09:33 JumboJohnson wrote: I have been hooked on The Dresden Files. I'm on the seventh book in as many days and I'll be sad when I hit the end. It's like the reading equivalent of popcorn. Anything similar anybody could recommend? The Iron Druid Chronicles are extremely similar to the Dresden Files, not as good as most of the Dresden books but still enjoyable. The Garrett P.I. series is also fun and similar in style, but set in a fantasy world instead of the real world with a fantasy underworld. | ||
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Boblion
France8043 Posts
Surprisingly good for lefties. Never bothered to read it before but it was quite interesting. Still a a lot of self-hate, way too much "we" and snobbery (they refuse to be called lefties lol). Looks like a good preview of "their" future. I somewhat enjoyed the analyzis of the utter meaningless of the slave life tho (it's very Baudrillesque !) and how even lefties can make fun of other lefties lol. Alas their solutions are utterly retarded as always and the two last chapters are atrocious to read. Recommended for our dear comrad Sam ! Igne and farvacola should also read it because they aren't edgy enough yet. (They are still talking about wages, GDP, unemployement and all the perverted capitalist concepts duh) | ||
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21248 Posts
On June 04 2014 15:20 bookwyrm wrote: What do you mean? Those are not really current terms in literary criticism, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. When you are thinking about the Bible, you need to think about source criticism issues (the Torah e.g. has four main sources which are used to compile it, several of the letters of Paul are pseudepigraphal, Matthew and Luke use Mark as a source, and so on). Then you need to know something about the varying historical context in which the different pieces of the library known as "the Bible" were written, how they were compiled and by whom. Then you just read it in whatever way you prefer to read texts, if you are in a literature department that usually means using some combination of various (broadly defined) marxian, psychoanalytic, or foucauldian/historicist perspectives. The kind of "literary criticism" that you were taught in high school with things like "intentional fallacy" and so on is the kind of criticism people were doing 60 years ago that now everybody mostly thinks is boring and pointless. Which is not to say that what most people do now is not also boring and pointless. I only used those because those are theories most directly focused on the role of the author that popped into mind, you can substitute it with any number of terms based on a similar perspective. I'm aware that those are horribly outdated (in fact I think I railed against it a few pages ago...), but they still pop up here and there. I guess on that line, how did authorial intent or whatever apply to the Bible 50, 60, 70 years ago back when it was all the rage? I'm aware of the source hypothesis, but I guess I wasn't too up to date on how it gets applied outside of the "this is what we think happened" history perspective. So I guess there's no "standard treatment" is what I'm getting from your post? Just a mishmash of Marxist/historicist/etc.? They teach literary criticism in high school now? | ||
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
1) is this text sexist? yes or no? (hint: the answer is yes) 2) repeat People just don't really ask those kinds of questions or worry about "what is the status of the author" or anything like that. If you asked them, they might kinda panic for a moment, say "the author is dead," giggle nervously, and then go back to whatever slogans they were chanting. | ||
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farvacola
United States18876 Posts
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babylon
8765 Posts
On June 05 2014 01:45 farvacola wrote: Indeed, the standard treatment nowadays almost always boils down to identity politics; there is a strongly represented faction among academics that would argue that anything other than attention paid to the political underpinnings of a given work amounts to bigotry. This is when I am happy that my field is so far behind that we don't have to deal with this. I think we're still stuck in the structuralist phase, bwahahha. | ||
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
On June 04 2014 22:35 Boblion wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_Insurrection Surprisingly good for lefties. Never bothered to read it before but it was quite interesting. Still a a lot of self-hate, way too much "we" and snobbery (they refuse to be called lefties lol). Looks like a good preview of "their" future. I somewhat enjoyed the analyzis of the utter meaningless of the slave life tho (it's very Baudrillesque !) and how even lefties can make fun of other lefties lol. Alas their solutions are utterly retarded as always and the two last chapters are atrocious to read. Recommended for our dear comrad Sam ! Igne and farvacola should also read it because they aren't edgy enough yet. (They are still talking about wages, GDP, unemployement and all the perverted capitalist concepts duh) Lol, was reading a Julien Coupat's interview yesterday (he's been accused of writing the book). Interesting stuff, what seems to be a pretty nice marxist philo understanding - I mean, he's not a french trotskyst - and then highly delusional cries of self-importance. Might still not be him who wrote it :p About the Bible, I'd advice to any french speaking guy listening to Thomas Römer conferences' at the college de France. Unless you're into the vibe farva and bookwyrm are describing, because he's not really interested in that. | ||
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Boblion
France8043 Posts
On June 05 2014 01:54 corumjhaelen wrote: Lol, was reading a Julien Coupat's interview yesterday (he's been accused of writing the book). Interesting stuff, what seems to be a pretty nice marxist philo understanding It was in a magazine/newspaper or on the internet ? (link pls). And yea it is interesting to some extend but they still think that hippies and communes are the future of mankind lol. They will have a rude awakening soon haha. | ||
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