/lit/ - Literature

>>19082331
Laszlo Krasznahorkai is supposedly similar in that he uses lots of repetition, although not with the same destructive intent as Bernhard - Krasznahorkai tends to have more sensibility to structural games and prose style, and can be very uplifting at times in a way Bernhard rarely was. There are many characters that fit in the crazy-old-man-rambling-about-life archetype which Bernhard seems to love, though, in Krasznahorkai novels. Best place to start is Satantango.
Otherwise, you may want to check Celine if you liked the caustic style and constant de-construction and anger at almost everything, although Celine writes more streams of consciousness.

>he's a genius
Agreed. He destroyed the possibility of using philosophical thought of any kind in literature, which is a much welcome step forward for european literature, and a much needed one in German literature. Which book of his did you like most?

>>18800002
But what about the horse?

Kraznahorkai's War and War. Best living european author in my opinion.

>The only streetlights burning were those at the top of the stairs and the light they gave fell in dingy cones that shuddered in the intermittent gusts of winds assailing them because the other neon lights positioned in the thirty or so meters between them had all been broken, leaving them squatting in darkness, yet as aware of each other, of their precise positions, as of the enormous mass of dark sky above the smashed neon, the sky which might have glimpsed the reflection of its own enormous dark mass as it trembled with stars in the vista of railway yards spreading below it, had there been some relationship between the trembling stars and the twinkling dull red lights of semaphores sprinkled among the rails, but there wasn't, there was no common denominator, no interdependence between them, the only order and relationship existing within the discrete worlds of above and below, and indeed of anywhere, for the field of stars and the forest of signals stared as blankly at each other as does each and every form of being, blind in darkness and blind in radiance, as blind on earth as it is in heaven, if only so that a long moribund symmetry among this vastness might appear in the lost glance of some higher being, at the center of which, naturally, there would be a minuscule blind spot: as with Korin . . . the footbridge . . . the seven kids.

Lrjcfnj Kijcoasnjfnjocisfs

>>18506677
I just bough three Krasznahorkai books:
- The Melancholy of Resistance
- War & War
- Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming

Greatest living writer.
I wish I could buy Fosse's Septology, but it's not available in my country.

>>18498801
pic related is unironically on that level, get yourself Satantango

>>18321099
>most relevant living author
Pic related is the most relevant in Europe. Most relevant living authors are likely Pynchon or McCarthy. Writing bland, half-distopic political drivel does not make you relevant. Except for his first two books, most of his "prophecies" got old very quickly

>The only streetlights burning were those at the top of the stairs and the light they gave fell in dingy cones that shuddered in the intermittent gusts of winds assailing them because the other neon lights positioned in the thirty or so meters between them had all been broken, leaving them squatting in darkness, yet as aware of each other, of their precise positions, as of the enormous mass of dark sky above the smashed neon, the sky which might have glimpsed the reflection of its own enormous dark mass as it trembled with stars in the vista of railway yards spreading below it, had there been some relationship between the trembling stars and the twinkling dull red lights of semaphores sprinkled among the rails, but there wasn't, there was no common denominator, no interdependence between them, the only order and relationship existing within the discrete worlds of above and below, and indeed of anywhere, for the field of stars and the forest of signals stared as blankly at each other as does each and every form of being, blind in darkness and blind in radiance, as blind on earth as it is in heaven, if only so that a long moribund symmetry among this vastness might appear in the lost glance of some higher being, at the center of which, naturally, there would be a minuscule blind spot: as with Korin . . . the footbridge . . . the seven kids.

Holy shit this motherfucker can write

>>17577443
Pic related. He doesn't talk about a literal apocalypse, but I think it's as close as you can get without putting on a semi sci-fi plot. If you like depressing, hopeless people in a world that is falling apart - or has already fallen apart, read this guy. Start with Satantango.

Last winter an anon made a thread about Laszlo Krasznahorkai, and I bought Satantango following his advice. Anon: thank you. You were that bi-monthly good advice which makes me think I am not entirely wasting my time on this board (though I mostly am).

Satantango is an amazing novel. I immediately went to sleep after finishing it because I wanted to dream about it. I wish I could say that this novel has at least some flaws, in the same way it can be said that Bolano is not the best prose stylist, or that Houellebecq goes on too long with his complaints, but I can't. I just can't: this novel was as close to perfection as a novel by a living author can be. The story is very simple: the inhabitants of a farm in Hungary live in misery and want to give up everything to go to the city. They await the arrival of a certain Irimiàs, whom for some reason they identify with the hope of changing their life. Irimiàs arrives, and things happen - at the center of the book there is a "mysterious" event.

Now, the mastery with which Kraznahorkai moves a cast of a dozen characters all together through the chapters was something I hadn't seen since Wandering Rocks on Ulysses. The first six chapters are masterfully orchestrated: each chapter focuses on a handful of characters, but also refers to all the others (eg Futaki talking about Ms.Halics saying she's crazy, and later we see why), and every detail that is mentioned reappears in other chapters, observed from other perspectives. In the apparent chaos of a prose that proceeds in long and articulated periods (mostly), everything is actually perfectly ordered and under control - exactly as everything is ordered in the sequence of events of the book, where in the midst of the mess of misery, mud, rain, east-european annoying and yet terribly fun drunkenness, half-hearted thoughts, half-dreams and half-criticisms, everything is disposed in perfect order. Structurally, the book has a rare and masterfully crafterd symmetrical perfection. It was an immense pleasure to read, striking the perfect balance between experimental narrative game, high and low registers in prose, as well as simple and complex prose styles, and the sheer pleasure of storytelling. The theme, from what I believe to have understood, is that of "hope", which is a word that returns often and that all the characters repeat in thought and speech, and of how hope establishes continuity and meaning in life. The only contrast is that between a life where one still hopes and one in which hope is lost, which Krasznahorkai translates formally in this game between continuity / chaos of the novel. The novel itself, like the lives of the characters, reconstructs itself in a moment of hope: the narrative continuity of life, as well as of the book, is guaranteed (or superimposed) on the idea of hope, and, vice versa, crumbles into nihilism.

(1/2)

>>15814513
Anon, I would like, though I see you are busy, and have not had time to sit and realize in the darkness what nightmares may crawl from the webs spun down from the rafters, though you reach for a glass of palinka and, of due course, your comrade Patrina asks the bar tender for another, and he, large and reserved, ogling Mrs. Halics all evening, though she is distressed, drunken, already slumped over with spittle from yesterday’s borscht, sends the deaf boy into the storage room to fetch another bottle, and when he returns to refill your glass, again, I realize, it is time that I, have a word with you, in due course...

Anyone read Krasznahorkai? What’s the /lit/ opinion of him

What's your favourite Krasznahorkai?

Will 2019 be his year again? I'm thoroughly enjoying The World Goes On and I'm excited for his new book out in a couple months.