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Reading thread

FlyingMonkey

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@noob , Moscow Stations is pretty stilted translation IMHO, but you stop noticing after a while. Haven't read the other versions, if that's what they are. I will check them out though. Found my copy years ago for about a dollar in a remainders bin in a local bookshop. Seems no-one wanted it, which is rather appropriate...

@Jbravo , personally I find Gogol interminable, just to make @LonerMatt happy, I have never managed to finish Dead Souls. I was refering more to the rather bleak sense of humour in Gogol. But I guess that's part and parcel of Russian culture more generally.
 
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Exdeath

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Wow, 24 pages without someone mentioning Ayn Rand. I think the same thread in CM would probably have lasted like five posts.

I'm reading Aravind Adiga - Between The Assassinations right now, which I highly recommend to anyone that likes depressing nihilist southeast asian stuff.
 

robinsongreen68

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Wow, 24 pages without someone mentioning Ayn Rand. I think the same thread in CM would probably have lasted like five posts.

I'm reading Aravind Adiga - Between The Assassinations right now, which I highly recommend to anyone that likes depressing nihilist southeast asian stuff.



this is why one should never, ever visit CM
 

Jbravo

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@Jbravo , personally I find Gogol interminable, just to make @LonerMatt happy, I have never managed to finish Dead Souls. I was refering more to the rather bleak sense of humour in Gogol. But I guess that's part and parcel of Russian culture more generally.

Gogol is my favorite Russian writer. I've read Dead Souls we well as the survived chapters of its second volume. As you may know, Gogol has burned the second volume.
 

LonerMatt

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I will say, though, the original cover for Dead Souls is a thing of majesty.
 
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wogbog

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Finished Against the Day. I really loved it. Random observations:
-simpler than other Pynchon: I was never underlining words because I didn't know what they meant. But he still comes across as a writer-Lizst.
-I don't hear an "author" behind the writing (Infinite Jest is an example of something where I'm always aware of a writer behind all the different narrations), and none of the characters have feelings that I can empathize with. This isn't a bad thing because the book's still compelling and wonderful, but it gets strange going through 1000 pages of it.
-Every time I put it down I felt like my brain was processing information, working towards figuring out a system. No idea what said system is, maybe something to do with absorbing the historical detail and figuring out how all the characters stand in relation to one another.
-"couple-three" warmed my heart every time.

Now onto Henry James' Bostonians.
 
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brightorangetrousers

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I will say, though, the original cover for Dead Souls is a thing of majesty.



Check out the Chagall illustrations for dead souls.

1161941
 

momentoftruth

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don't think it's been mentioned here but anyone with a library card should download the Overdrive app. Gives access to your library e-catalog, with seamless rentals, holds, etc. The most popular titles tend to all be checked out but if you just place a hold on one you'll get an email when it becomes available, with 2 days to check out.
I generally prefer physical books to electronic ones but this is helping make me a convert, conversation-worthy bookshelves be damned
 

noob in 89

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anyone digs lydia davis?


Should we be talking about Lydia Davis? I think we should. I just don't know what to say, really. I'm interested to hear what you guys think, you guys in the know.

My own take is that she's awesome, both as writer and translator. My own, slightly more nuanced, take is that she appears to have read and been influenced by some of Europe's more obscure short fiction writers -- people like Robert Walser or Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky-- who's work begins with an idea, often surreal, and then just sort of follows that idea and lops it off it at the most dramatically advantageous point. At best, in 2014 USA, this feels like a nice counterpoint to the more traditional MFA story -- though at worst -- at least for me -- it can all be slightly undone by her her scores of imitators, everything suffering from what I like to call the Last Year at Marienbad effect -- where once revolutionary approaches must now be read through their watery remakes.



[VIDEO][/VIDEO]

[VIDEO][/VIDEO]



This is all just conjecture. Somebody drop some knowledge...!
 
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wogbog

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I ditched Henry James because reading it made me feel like being stuck in a traffic jam. I'm open to being convinced to try him again though.

Now I'm reading Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey and loving it. Sterne makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
 

LonerMatt

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A review of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Michael Chabon's novel takes place in the late 1930s: Europe is descending into war, comic books are starting up, Jews are migrating. It follows two cousins Sam Clay (New York born, writer) and Joe Kavalier (Czech born, illustrator and magician) and their initial success in the comic book game, followed by a long, heart breaking decline into depression, separation, entrapment, and pain. Chabon's writing is fluid, lucid and beautiful, and although there were a few passages that I didn't feel added anything to the book (the chapter about the Golem, for example) I found myself not really caring. The characters are balanced and real, their story interesting without being too fantastical (except for the Nazi killing journey), the emotional side of the book is respectable enough.

I enjoy Chabon's prose, but often his narratives are lacking, this is not the case here. Definitely recommended.

Now reading: Watchmen. *******'s good, even on the fourth read.
 

Journeyman

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A review of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Michael Chabon's novel takes place in the late 1930s: Europe is descending into war, comic books are starting up, Jews are migrating. It follows two cousins Sam Clay (New York born, writer) and Joe Kavalier (Czech born, illustrator and magician) and their initial success in the comic book game, followed by a long, heart breaking decline into depression, separation, entrapment, and pain. Chabon's writing is fluid, lucid and beautiful, and although there were a few passages that I didn't feel added anything to the book (the chapter about the Golem, for example) I found myself not really caring. The characters are balanced and real, their story interesting without being too fantastical (except for the Nazi killing journey), the emotional side of the book is respectable enough.

I enjoy Chabon's prose, but often his narratives are lacking, this is not the case here. Definitely recommended.


I really enjoyed the Adventures of K&C, too - not quite as much as I enjoyed the Yiddish Policemen's Union, but still very enjoyable.

Now reading: Watchmen. *******'s good, even on the fourth read.


The graphic novel by Alan Moore? I should go back and read it again. I did re-read V for Vendetta a couple of years back, and enjoyed it upon re-reading.
 

dan138zig

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any recommendation for some page turners that are not borderline pulp (i.e. da vinci code)?
 

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