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Borges is probably my favorite author period, both his more famous thought-experiment-style work and his simpler later stories. "Death and The Compass" and "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" are not either of them to be fucked with. I haven't read any Saramago, but he is on a list of authors to get to eventually.

Maupassant FTW!! His short stories are some of the best I´ve read. Also big fan of Murakami. Currently reading the Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Reading his novels has made me want to visit japan 10000 times more than before knowing anything about him.

if we discussin' Borges, would it be declasse to plug Grant Morrison's run on the Doom Patrol?



the shah said:

What's a good book without a fantastic cup of coffee or espresso (or [spiced] chai)
Wondering if anyone has experience with any of these ...
I normally just get Intelligentsia Black Cat, have tried some of their blends as well, but keep going back to the Black Cat. Local coffee shop brings in a variety of different things, supposedly getting Stump Town soon and now has Couter Culture Baroida and Bufcafe...
I've tried both Stump Town and Counter Culture espresso at 9th Street Espresso (they had one then switched to the other), but I'm hoping to get different beans for myself at home.

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i walked by Dark Horse the other day . twas packed



Makeshift_Robot said:

Borges is probably my favorite author period, both his more famous thought-experiment-style work and his simpler later stories. "Death and The Compass" and "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" are not either of them to be fucked with. I haven't read any Saramago, but he is on a list of authors to get to eventually.

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Saramago is really good. Probably good to start with something short like The Tale of the Unknown Island which is definitely more in line with the stuff I have read from Borges. News of a Kidnapping is excellent non-fiction as well.

trafficjam said:

if we discussin' Borges, would it be declasse to plug Grant Morrison's run on the Doom Patrol?

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I am still yet to read Grant's Doom Patrol. I guess I am a bit worried that all the hype for it will spoil it for me, having read a lot of his later stuff, that seeing a presumably 'rougher' execution of ideas used in books like The Filth, Flex Mentallo or Seaguy might not be worth it any more. Are there major Borges influences in the books?



pickpackpockpuck said:

Portrait of the Artist is the best English prose I've read. ...I think Moby Dick rivals it, but it's not as consistent. Nabokov is consistently excellent, but his prose gets too florid for me.

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I'm sorry, my friend, nothing against Joyce, but if you've read Palace of the White Skunks, by Reinaldo Arenas, you'd know that it contains the greatest sentences of all time. Below Arenas, I'd put William Vollmann (Rainbow Stories, probably), David Foster Wallace, for sure (Infinite Jest), Nabokov, whom you totally mentioned, Robert Coover (Pricksongs & Descants), mutha-fuckin' Lautreamont, of course (Maldoror), James ******* Agee (Let Us Now Praise Famous Men), Proust and Melville, which are just so obvious, but still -- plain old boring Edgar Allan Poe, of course, Charles Brockden Brown, if you squint real hard, Robert Burton like you wouldn't ******* believe, possibly Bruno Schulz (maybe more of a tie), Bonhumil Hrabal on a good day, Heinrich Boll at his crazyest best, probably a few more Frenchmen, the Faulkner of Light in August, maybe the uncorrected, shell-shocked version of Robert Graves' memoir, and then James Joyce.



SHAH EDIT:

GENERAL EDIT:

How is it that so many of your favorite English prose stylists wrote in other languages? Your number one pick is a translation! Is it the translator or Arenas you nominate? And Edgar Allen Poe, the sing-song man! The reason Poe is so popular in France (or was, anyway) was because they didn't have to read him in English. I don't doubt that Palace of the White Skunks had some great sentences, but I'm talking about consistent excellence throughout a work, not a few flashes in the dark.

Also, I would include The Great Gatsby, which I think has flaws as a story, but the prose is, again, consistently excellent.

Edit: forgot to address David Foster Wallace. He was undoubtedly a great writer, but I find his prose too sensationalist. Great prose, in my opinion, evokes sensations through the sounds of the words, their subtle plays on meaning and connotation, and of course through their arrangement. Joyce, to me, is like listening to complete music; DFW is like listening to just a very loud, very impressive drum solo.



Ivwri said:

I am still yet to read Grant's Doom Patrol. I guess I am a bit worried that all the hype for it will spoil it for me, having read a lot of his later stuff, that seeing a presumably 'rougher' execution of ideas used in books like The Filth, Flex Mentallo or Seaguy might not be worth it any more. Are there major Borges influences in the books?

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It's really good, and I in fact much prefer it to his work on, say, the Invisibles. It's my favorite from him. He pulls from a lot of places, but one story arc cribs very specifically from Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.

As I said, DFW is one of my favorite authors but I wouldn't say he's a better writer than Joyce. It's just that the bit of Joyce I've read was, well, kinda miserable to read . Were you guys english majors?

I would also like to add that whenever I mention Joyce I'm talking specifically about Portrait and Dubliners. I actually can't stand Ulysses and Finnegan's. If I just wanted word games I would go play word games.

one more edit: James Agee was definitely awesome. I also like Mary Ann Evans (aka George Eliot) a lot.

noobizor i guess it might be obscure, i read it some 50 years ago when I was 14

Another short story, The Most Dangerous Game, by R. Connell. Exciting !

The chase for the dervish is what drew me to this. I laboured through it eventually.


While one of the words in the title is the same, this could not be any more different from the previous listing. At times quite repulsive, it was an exhilarating tale. From what I gather, part of a pseudo-biographical series on Alexander.

Haha. In case you haven't already seen it, here's NIN on Dance Party USA