/lit/ - Literature

>written in the '90s on an old computer
>left scattered across a stack of floppy disks in a forgotten drawer
>author's masterwork
>nobody knows about it until his friend finds it after his death
>finally published in 2015

The feelgood story of the decade

I'm against reading that sort of lit, but the woman's name puts me off a bit desu.

I'm not against reading that sort of lit, but the woman's name puts me off a bit desu.

>>19935438
It sounds like a bowl of white cheddar macaroni and cheese looks

>>19935393
recently read Leave Society by Tao Lin, most recent book I read before that was a collection of short stories by Miranda July, would recommend both

>>19935438
She's Jewish just fyi

>>19935393
I just finished this. It was pretty good. I guess you could call it experimental to some extent as it has no plot at all and is essentially just a collection of conversations about life, relationships, etc. although in terms of prose it is not particularly stylized (though it is well written). Kind of like a less pretentious Waking Life.

I don't read much contemporary lit (i.e. last 10 years or so as you said) so I'd like some suggestions as well. Last one I read was A Little Life and that book was dogshit. Lincoln in the Bardo was great, had a very unique structure. I also want to read The Overstory by Richard Powers, and maybe the new Ishiguro. Anyone read those? Monitoring this thread.

>>19935482
I assumed she was Muslim. Jewish is not much better.

>>19935404
Seconding this one

A short novel written as a looping cycle of surreal vignettes. It’s fun and easy, reminded me of Bolano’s prose poems

Image is tiny but its called The Desert and It’s Seed

As I’m dumping these images I realize most contemporary lit I read is Latin American

Last one from me for now. If this threads still up tonight I’ll try to think of more

>>19935701
tropical russia. now is the era of latam literary classics

>>19935393
Just finished Never Let Me Go
Really wanted to like it a he is a contemporary and I've heard good things from people whose opinions I usually share but I just couldn't get on with it. It had some good moments but ultimately it was kind of uncompelling and not anywhere near as emotional as I expected, especially the ending. It's more interesting to think about, I think, than it is to actually read. Also, I've seen Ishiguro's prose style described as "utilitarian" and "conservative" but I just found it boring and the bare minimum.
Are Ishiguro's other works worth checking out?

>>19935646
It's worse.

>>19935701
This was fun. Wouldn't consider it a "good book" though.

>>19935393
My gf said this book was total shit. She was really excited to read it too. Then the day after she finished reading it she was about to put it in one of those street libraries, then she said "no", and put it in the dumpster. Anyways. She didn't like it.

I only have contemporary poetry recs. I guess it depends on what you define as contemporary as well.

>>19935991
>things that %100 never happened

>>19935487
People always mention Cusk in the Knausgård threads, so check out Knausgård, I guess.

>>19935404
This one is fucking crazy, highly rec

>>19935786
I thought Never Let Me Go was pretty good. Remains of the Day is much better- I would check that out. I also really like his short story "A Village After Dark".

>>19936050
Cool, always seemed like a huge undertaking to read his whole series but perhaps I'll check out the first one.

>>19936000
Let's hear em. I guess some of my favorite (relatively) contemporary poets would be Frank Bidart, Galway Kinnell, James Tate. Got anything for me senpai?

>>19935720
What's this like? It has a cool title and I've heard of it but I don't know anything about it.

>>19936023
It was utterly unhinged.

>>19936190
I only know tate out of those poets I'll look the rest up.
>Adam Aitken
>Nathan Sherpardson
>Sarah Holland-Batt
>Jane Gibian
>Sandra Mcpherson
>David Berman
>Sean Kilpatrick
>Petrit Halilaj
>Joyelle McSweeney
>Richard Siken
>Julie Chevalier
>Ben Marcus
>Joanne Burns
>Leslie Scalapino
>Dianne Williams
>John Kinsella

>>19936239
Can you post a stand out poem or two from one or two of those folks

Someone post some excerpts of these contemporary books please

>>19936730
The Moon - David Berman

A web of sewer, pipe, and wire connects each house to the others.

In 206 a dog sleeps by the stove where a small gas leak causes him
to have visions; visions that are rooted in nothing but gas.

Next door, a man who has decided to buy a car part by part
excitedly unpacks a wheel and an ashtray.

He arranges them every which way. It’s really beginning to take
shape.

Out the garage window he sees a group of ugly children
enter the forest. Their mouths look like coin slots.
A neighbor plays keyboards in a local cover band.
Preparing for an engagement at the high school prom,

they pack their equipment in silence.

Last night they played the Police Academy Ball and all
the officers slow-danced with target range silhouettes.
This year the theme for the prom is the Tetragrammaton.

A yellow Corsair sails through the disco parking lot

and swaying palms presage the lot of young libertines.

Inside the car a young lady wears a corsage of bullet-sized rodents.
Her date, the handsome cornerback, stretches his talons over the
molded steering wheel.

They park and walk into the lush starlit gardens behind the disco
just as the band is striking up.

Their keen eyes and ears twitch. The other couples
look beautiful tonight. They stroll around listening
to the brilliant conversation. The passionate speeches.

Clouds drift across the silverware. There is red larkspur,
blue gum, and ivy. A boy kneels before his date.

And the moon, I forgot to mention the moon.

>>19936751
Classic Water - Davis Berman

I remember Kitty saying we shared a deep longing for
the consolation prize, laughing as we rinsed the stagecoach.

I remember the night we camped out
and I heard her whisper
“think of me as a place” from her sleeping bag
with the centaur print.

I remember being in her father’s basement workshop
when we picked up an unknown man sobbing
over the shortwave radio

and the night we got so high we convinced ourselves
that the road was a hologram projected by the headlight beams.

I remember how she would always get everyone to vote
on what we should do next and the time she said
“all water is classic water” and shyly turned her face away.

At volleyball games her parents sat in the bleachers
like ambassadors from Indiana in all their midwestern schmaltz.

She was destroyed when they were busted for operating
a private judicial system within U.S. borders.
Sometimes I’m awakened in the middle of the night
by the clatter of a room service cart and I think back on Kitty.

Those summer evenings by the government lake,
talking about the paradox of multiple Santas
or how it felt to have your heart broken.

I still get a hollow feeling on Labor Day when the summer ends

and I remember how I would always refer to her boyfriends
as what’s-his-face, which was wrong of me and I’d like
to apologize to those guys right now, wherever they are:

No one deserves to be called what’s-his-face.

>>19936751
Cool I dig it, but I have seen this posted here before, I will read the second one now, but can you post another poem from one of them in it's place por favor

>>19935393
If you liked this I'd also rec Eileen, I think I may have liked that one even more. It's really short but has a great atmosphere to it.

>>19936751
>>19936763
The only "celebrity" death that really moved me

>>19937277
Sure, pick one. I'd have to take some pics most likely once im home.

>>19935393
i know it's been memed out of existence but that's because it is actually kind of a refreshing read. not life changing or anything, but definitely fresh, an easy summer read.

>>19935393
bump for discussion on literature

Oval by Elvia Wilk
Pseudo future Berlin > pharmaceutical that makes people "be nice" to each other

Me by Tomoyuki Hoshino.
From memory it was about a guy who discovers that an "impostor" of himself has invaded his life.

>>19938156

I'll take one poem from each of them see voo play

>Nathan Sherpardson

>Sarah Holland-Batt

>Jane Gibian

>Sandra Mcpherson

>Julie Chevalier

>Ben Marcus

>Joanne Burns

>Leslie Scalapino

>Dianne Williams

>John Kinsella

>>19938451
Absolutely adored Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

>>19936190
Re: Drive your Plow

The title is taken from William Blake.

The novel follows a strange old woman living up in the mountains, reading William Blake, doing astrology, and investigating a murder.

Pretty fun.

>>19935786
Oh noes it is a normal human girl organ donor so sad! She traded pencil case! 1/10

>>19935720

Just finished this one last month and really liked it and can't really put my finger on why. Had some funny moments and although I saw the end coming it still managed to surprise me with how sever the tone shift was.

I'm interested to see her latest get translated into English. Apparently her Magnum Opus. A bunch of controversy around it when it came out too

>>19940861
>A bunch of controversy around it when it came out too
what, why

>>19935786

I've only read Remains of the Day, which was one of my top reads of last year. I honestly don't know how the fuck he pulled it off. Lots of subtle threads coming together for the end, which is really understaded but I still found quite powerful. He just sort of seamlessly flows through so much memory and reflection by the protagonist that feels incredibly natural and like you are just sitting with him as he recounts his life.

>>19940874

I know some far-right Polish nationalist groups led a campaign against her and the book.

She hasn't published anything since The Books of Jacob, which was 2014. Apparently an English translation November last year so it's going to go on the list. Might have missed the boat like I did when Zemmel's Traum finally came out though :(

First good thread on /lit/ in months. Can't believe I am finding new things to read instead of reading teenagers sperg about women

>>19937018

This one looks fun too. Reminds me of Scots literature but I can tell its not in Scots. Feels much closer to middle english or something?

>>19939166
> pharmaceutical that makes people "be nice" to each other

This sounds really adjacent to something I've been playing with for a while about a sort of dystopia of empathy. Looks good and worth it just to see how someone has done it better than me already

>>19940898
the translation came out like a week or two ago. it's yuge

Really beautiful book

>>19935393
i really like this book and keep coming back to it. the funeral bit in the middle is particularly great. it's refreshing to read something contemporary where the narrator/protag doesn't have to work or worry about their money/career

>>19940903
a lot of the spergs who lament their failings and sexual lust into hatred for women denounce contemporary lit.

>>19940925
It's a mish-mash invented language. The concept is "olde english" but readable by moderns without studying. I found it brings you into the mind of the character. really well. Plot is a post-apocalyptic revenge story with themes around the spiritual aspects of changing environment and culture. I recommend especially for disenchanted anglos.

>>19939205
this sounds interesting. been looking for stuff like this

First half of Patricia Lockwood's No One is Talking About This

Ben Lerner, all three novels

Rachel Cusk Outline Trilogy (haven't read her latest)

Paris is a Party, Paris is a Ghost by David Hoon Kim.

>>19939166
seconding this

i get the impression that the current world of contemporary art and criticism is one of the best places to keep an eye on for more original developments in both fiction and theory (elvia wilk writes mainly for contemporary art journals such as eflux and artforum). another interesting name to come out of of this is tom mccarthy, who's written a few novels which really fit in in this thread

>>19940903
don't worry, that demographic stays far away from contemporary lit. because it is "pozzed" or "cringe", not "based" or "redpilled." perhaps you have heard these terms before. ironically, there was a recent novel called Red Pill, which is decidedly not redpilled.

>>19935720
I read 'Primeval and other times' by her an really enjoyed it. It's one of those books that focuses on a single place for an extended period of time a la 'One hundred years of solitude'. She has a real gift and I believe has won the Nobel prize for literature.

>>19939166
>>19941213
oh and stephanie lacava, forgot to mention her. i quite enjoyed the superrarionals and her forthcoming book is one of the ones I'm most looking forward to in 2022

>>19940800
cool, thanks you sold me on it.

>>19940903
true

The Trip to Echo Spring by Olivia Laing.

Part travelogue, part biography, part memoir. Laing travels the country to visit the homes of six of the best American writers of the twentieth century (Raymond Carver, John Cheever, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald) in search of the answer to a simple question: Why were so many "Great American Writers" also profound alcoholics?

I really dig her style.

>>19935393
I cringe whenever I see the cover of this book. Even if it's actually good, this cover certainly does not inspire me to read it. That being said, the plot sounds extremely similar to my life at the moment, and I will probably read it now that you guys are voicing some level of approval.

>>19942405
The cover makes it seem cringe but it’s a very good read. Quite comfy and the concept is fun. It’s sadgirl lit but in a way that’s enjoyable to read. It’s what Sally Rooney wishes she could be imo.

>>19942495
>It’s what Sally Rooney wishes she could be imo.
uncalled for :(

the idiot by elif batuman is, surprisingly, very good

>>19938140
For me it was him and Daniel Johnston. Oh and Norm Macdonald desu.
>>19939939
Sure. Apologies in advance if the pics post sideways.

What sites you all follow that publish short fiction? Believer, BOMB, HTMLgiant etc

I enjoyed this.

My university library used to have a cart of recently published fiction. Can't believe that was 8 years ago.

>>19941533
I liked this too

>>19935438
I don't see the point unless the title and cover interests you. I mean I'd never take a recommendation for contemporary fiction. If it's good, people will still be talking about it in 20 years. I'll read it then.

>>19935393
damn. can't see the nipple.

Putting jacques louis david on your cover is cheating. Do you even have to pay for the copywrite at this point?

Decent struggle snuggle fiction

>>19942495
>>19942405
What don't you like about the cover?
Is that the real cover of a physical book exactly as it is?

The Only thing as see that's bad about it is the font style (nor even the colors, just the style) appears to be one that would have been chosen by my 6 year old sister in 1997 for a school project made in Ms paint.

Other than that it is greatky refreshing

Apartment by Teddy Wayne.
Two male college literature students share house. One gets obsessive.

Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash
College wrestler boy loner. Donnie Darko-ish.
(Picrel has a blurb by Hanya Yanagihara, whose A Little Life I didn't really dig, I wouldn't connect the two books personally).

The end of eddy by Édouard Louis
gay coming of age.
A follow up is History of Violence.
I guess more autobiography but I found them very raw and "tough" not sentimental at all.

>>19944008
>gay coming of age
>gay
gay

Windows on the world by Frédéric Beigbeder
Fictionalised account of a dad with two sons in the restaurant at the top of the world trade centre when the planes hit.

>>19939166
I liked Oval, but the end felt kind of rushed. It was excesively focused on the narrator and main character, I guess. The other characters seemed more interesting but it doesn't really explains much.
Maybe because it's a very female centered book I guess

>>19940903
I also had fun reading this one. This was a good book. I hope Otessa Moshfegh publishes her new book soon. She has talent, I also read Eileen and I sort of compare it to Old Neon Lights by DFW

>>19944169
*Good Old Neon by DFW

>>19942495
Why do all ‘depressed nihilistic New Yorker’ novels have the same description less sparse prose? Fucking Tao Lin’s most recent novel is way more shit than this, but I can tell by the first page that they’re written in the same hackneyed vein. They all read like
Depressed person is nihilistic
Depressed person does drugs
Depressed person continues to feel alienated
Some modern societal things are pointed out to emphasize said alienation
End novel
I’m so fucking sick of this genre already. It’s not even the stories that are offensive, it’s just the way they’re written with such a joyless bland style. You can get the same themes across with some actual effort to write poignantly and without the ‘intentional’ minimalism aka shit writing.

>>19943943
A lot of modern pseud chick lit uses this kind of Jane Austen-y cover art. I think it is supposed to appeal to women who want to buy contemporary books that still remind them how they have they have read Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre all the way through or something. I’m not exactly sure how to label this phenomenon but it definitely exists.

>>19944521
Was Ben Lerner the "start" or "crossover" of this trend with Leaving the Atocha Station 2011 (seems more recent than a decade ago).
Tao Lin had already published 5 books before Taipei 2013, and had been compared to Douglas Coupland and Bret Easton Ellis in 2009.
The ""ennui"" ""boredom"" of modern (first world) life is the (non) subject, mirrored in the prose??
Lin and Lerner both poets too.
Idk if this is also "sad" masculinity??

>>19944521
Well, besides the description, My year of rest and relaxation gives a sort of an interesting perspective on materialism and sloth. Idk I liked it not for the premise but for the execution. It has it's flaws but overall it's decent

Is there any contemporary lit that isn't trying to be gross and shock you? Except Ishiguro.

>>19944590
The painting is nice, I'd rather look at a nice painting of classy sexy lady tits on a book cover then anything else I could think of, I was speaking about the font style personally, seems cartoonishly photoshopped uglyly cheesily, hopefully purposefully for some juxtaposed effect

>>19944521
Contemporary urban life is utterly banal and a drag but it's cozy and here's why that's a good thing

Also I think this is a book about covid so there's that

>>19945039
>Also I think this is a book about covid so there's that
its not

>>19944521
because it is the inevitable result of being overly cultured and disconnected from the natural world. living in a large city without accessing the therapeutic benefits of nature is already a sort of violence to the mind, but when you stack on that being inside one's head for the majority of the day, or completely consumed with media, as these literary types writing these books are, it results in a sort of flat numbness that can't help but be reflected in their prose. the same critique is often applied to houellebecq, and many would often respond "but that's the point!"

>>19935786
I fucking hated NLMG but really enjoyed Artist of a Floating World (which alright) and The Buried Giant (which I think is fantastic, though I constantly hear idiotic opinions about how "it's political" and "it's about Brexit"(???))
When We Were Orphans was also ass
Awful choice for the Nobel imo

>>19946486
I live in NYC, am currently on unemployment, my family has money, and I'm a woman. For all intents and purposes, I should relate to this novel and its protagonist, but i can't. I feel intensely alientated 100% of the time, but as a person and
as a writer working on a novel also featuring an alienated female protagonist, I don't want to imbue my prose with numbness, even though I do revel in that feeling in my daily life. I just think writing this way is lazy and the 'but that's the point' cop out is wearing thin. I try to write about my experiences with nuance and feeling, so I can make being dead inside at least sound interesting.

Read Classics instead.

>>19946932
piss off

>>19940966
It reads like something written by Herman Hesse if he was Russian Orthodox and had just found out about postmodernism from reading a Wikipedia article a week ago.

>>19946955
t. Sally roony enjoyer

>>19946932
I do I read mostly 19th century Russian and American literature, but every now and then I feel the inclination to catch up with what’s currently being published to remind myself how inferior contemporary literature is by comparison to the books I ordinarily read. If I sound like a snob, maybe I am, but it’s also kind of a no brainer that Edith Wharton could write circles around this woman about more or less the same thing so why read crap when I could actually enhance my life by reading something that’s deeply significant instead of bland “””bc that’s the point!!”””
Also this woman’s prose isn’t terrible at all it’s just deeply underwhelming when it could possibly be really good.

>>19935487
I’ve read the overstory

I got frustrated around the middle of the book because you realize all the characters are just attractive interesting people and the shit that happens to them is never their fault

>>19943923
>Decent struggle snuggle fiction
what do you mean by this? isn't this a riff on lolita?

>>19946932
might come as a shock, but many people have already read a great deal of classics and want to to read new things

Anyone know any good crime reccs? Fiction or non fiction but recent regardless

has anyone read pic related? i really like the movie

I almost picked up James Ellroy’s new book Widespread Panic, but frontlist hardcovers always cost money I would rather spend on low print paperback editions of obscure books that get mentioned on here.

The latest published works I’ve read most recently were In the Distance by Hernan Diaz which was ok. The premise is that it is a reverse western about a superhuman man traveling East from the Wild West.

The other I read was Klara and the Sun by Ishiguro which I thought was bad and made me not want to read any Ishiguro in the future

>>19947130
>read a great deal
so you read quarter of in search of lost time and want to go back to easier plebshit

>>19935393
I read the Annihilation trilogy of novels by some guy, the one that was adapated into a movie, and it was a very interesting concept that I don't think he delivered on very well.

>>19947192
is it really so hard to believe that there are actually people who've read proust (and tolstoy, gogol, dosto, melville, eliot, faulkner, mccarthy, pynchon, joyce, woolf, and so on) and that not everybody is a dabbler who go through fewer than 10 books a year?

>>19946927

Thank you for doing so. In all of human history no matter how bad one if feeling Art was there to attempt to escape and transform that badness into something possibly invigorating, at least stimulating

Also will you marry me?

>>19947371
>Also will you marry me?
Cringe.

>>19947381
>Cringe
Sometimes people cringe with joy, I have seen women cringe with happy tears when being proposed to. I will take this as a probable yes, and begin planning our wedding arrangements immediately. Where are you thinking for our honeymoon darling?

>>19947411
I'm a cringing bystander you faggot. Not the girl you are trying to 'ironically' hit on.

Get off the internet for a bit.

>>19935457
t. Tao Lin

>>19947381
Just think of how mysteriously romantic that would be to meet your soul mate so randomly on such a forum, would make for a good plotline in our memories and cute story we could captivate our children with.

Here's what I'm thinking for our first date; it's early spring, we get your favorite restaurant to take out and a bottle of champagne and eat and drink in carriage ride around central park, then we make our for a bit and I like your asshole for a while slowly and quickly, deeply and shallowly from behind and front, then we leave central park and go see your favorite opera at the met, we go to a diner after, then a classy lounge bar to see some sultry burlesque performance, then we go to some below earth or penthouse swingers orgy, then we get sushi, then we go see some art house film, holding hands, make out, I put my arm around you, your head on my shoulder, then around 4 am we head back to your place, you didn't notice but I stopped in a supply store and got a tarp so that during cowgirl style sex you could freely urinate only penis at your discretion, then we head to the new York city public library all decked out in our James bond gear and try to steal some rare books, head back to my place and fall asleep bodies intwined, like two perfect angels, like two perfect angles, snuggled, nestled, divine

>>19946927
>so I can make being dead inside at least sound interesting
ultimately though, if that is the condition of your mind, what hope do you have that your writing can escape it? i am not arguing that one can only write about their own experience, I don't believe that. But I also don't believe that something beautiful can grow out of barren soil. The only time I have ever bothered to write is when the ideas are bursting out of me and I feel almost possessed and unable to resist bringing them into existence. I abhor the pampered classes that are overeducated and unstimulated and write simply as an exercise in accruing more cultural capital and bemoaning their petty meaningless lives. whether or not they have anything at all to say.

Not that I want to be rude to you personally, by all means, continue writing. but I find it interesting that people in your condition focus on capturing a portrait of their condition and reveling in it, instead of seeking drastic solutions to remedy it, considering the resources and opportunities available to you.

>>19947356
>is it really so hard to believe that there are actually people who've read proust (and tolstoy, gogol, dosto, melville, eliot, faulkner, mccarthy, pynchon, joyce, woolf, and so on)
yes because if you actually read and enjoyed those you would not like the slop today

>>19944521
MFA style

>>19947874
You have never read a book from the 21st century have you? Most is absolute shit, just like every generation, but there are quite a few good ones. Pic related is one of my favorite of the past few years.

>>19948132
quite the contrary. houellebecq, mike ma, BAP, the list goes on...

The only contemporary lit I've read was coin locker babies by ryu murakami (which I absolutely loved) and Arnes Nachlass by Siegfried Lenz, which I thought was nothing more than just decent.
I've recently discovered pic related and thought the premise is very interesting. Has anyone here read it?
>In the fall of 1978, on a 640-acre family ranch on Goat Mountain in Northern California, an eleven-year-old boy joins his grandfather, his father, and his father’s best friend on the family’s annual deer hunt.
>Every fall they return to this dry, yellowed landscape dotted with oak, buck brush, and the occasional stand of pine trees. Goat Mountain is what this family owns and where they belong. It is where their history is kept, memories and stories that will be shared again by these men. And for the first time, the boy’s story will be added if he can find a buck. Itching to shoot, he is ready.
>When the men arrive at the gate to their land, the father discovers a poacher and sights him through the scope of his gun. He offers his son a look-a simple act that will explode in tragedy, transforming these men and this family, forcing them to question themselves and everything they thought they knew.
>In prose devastating and beautiful in its precision, David Vann creates a haunting and provocative novel that explores our most primal urges and beliefs, the bonds of blood and religion that define and secure us, and the consequences of our actions-what we owe for what we’ve done.

>>19948132
Houellebecq has absolutely nothing to offer, so it’s no wonder you dislike contemporary literature

>>19948358
that anon is an imposter and you clearly have not read the elementary particle

>>19935487
Transit is even better

>>19947157
Movie is better

How are call of the crocodile and harassment architecture?
Worth reading at all?

>>19949445
fuck off

>>19949522
not even joking desu

>>19949445
>>19949530
Shut the fuck up Frank. No one talks about your book here but you, you obsessed schizo.

>>19935404
Is this actually good
Its on my libraries ebook app.

>>19947130
Every reading is a different reading. Reread and you'll encounter lots of ah ah moment.

/fa/ tourist who listens to alt left podcasts general

how did the literature board of all places become the most close-minded part of 4chan

>>19949922
/pol/ tourists who are insecure about their intelligence

>>19949922
75 years of "open minded" and "cosmopolitan" being made synonymous with embarrassing cringe neurotic bougie new york/LA hipsters and faux activists will get you some people who dislike colorful pastel hipster faggotry pushing milquetoast social critique

>>19949922
How is /lit/ in any way close minded? I see more several paragraph long arguments here than anywhere else for both sides of the coin.

>>19949948
for instance, just look at this dude spouting schizobabble >>19949943 when a couple of people just want to have one single thread that's not about tolstoyevsky or blood meridian

>>19949948
Yeah yesterday had a thread with commies arguing against fascists as opposed to being in their respective hugboxes preaching to the choir, /lit/ is very open minded.

>>19949966
I can see you in half a dozen different threads with your lowercase snarky bitchy tone and empty "can you not right now?" posts. I can tell you're not a woman. I can also tell you're the Savannah Brown thread poster and probably the Sally Rooney one too.

I am amazed by my own skill at detecting tranny energy. I grow more powerful every day. I even have a provisional diagnosis of your specific mental illness.

>>19949985
king schizo has graced us with his presence

>>19950008
I knew it. We meet again, Savannah Brown spammer. I wish I knew what exact discord subculture you come from. I bet I could piece together your entire life story if I knew just a few more facts about you. I already know most of it from the way you type and your catty but still distinctly masculine (faggy) aura.

>>19949333
The elementary particle is the exact book I was thinking of when I wrote that. I have also read Submission, but TEP is so devoid of literary talent it is beyond me that you fools hold him in any regard. Lackluster prose tied up in such a tepid and unsympathetic story with the two main characters without compelling or realistic personalities. Truly mediocre

>>19950041
yeah i'm gonna go ahead and let you keep pretending /lit/ is your personal safe space fiefdom. hopefully mommy will remind you to take your pills at some point

>>19950055
What do you think of Aneantir? I read Soumission but I felt like it was aimed at French upper middle class midwits who are capable of being shocked by something like it. Soft propaganda to further encourage people who are starting to doubt the reigning paradigm, but those people are already half retarded if they didn't do their own doubting long ago. Whereas his earlier stuff at least hit on the ennui he was describing before it was already ubiquitous in stronger forms.

Anything new about Aneantir?

>>19950075
You write like a fag.

any contemporary horror lit?
not existential stuff, just good ol horror scenarios

>>19947136
I've heard Sirens is very good

Mick Herron is okay, I'm a big Le Carre fan (who writes surprisingly believable spy fiction), next to him I found Herron a bit... pulpy?
But Slow Horses was still alright. I might check out the next one sometime.
>unlike le Carre he doesn't require the reader to learn 500 names, codenames, and extremely important plot points extracted from jumbled dialogue dumps

>>19950127
Have heard this is very good. But it might be on that 'existential' side - lots of mania, nothing supernatural as far as I'm aware.

>>19950261
not sure if this is a midwit take, but I feel like existential horror stories are only scary for like the first or second books you read
it has to sneak up on you and make you doubt your reality

but then after that, it just loses its charm

>>19944521
Neurotic narcissists don't have talent, they're all copying the same alt lit shit that was already astroturf 15 years ago. None of these writers is organic, I feel bad for anyone who reads them, you're basically in a MLM scam at the bottom. You are the paypig of the author's glorified selfpublished vanity press book.

>>19947685
>I abhor the pampered classes that are overeducated and unstimulated and write simply as an exercise in accruing more cultural capital and bemoaning their petty meaningless lives.

No argument from me on this. That’s why I’m so sick of the genre. I think I can write about people from this demographic though without it being trite and annoying and I definitely won’t be pandering to the demographic that wants to read the aforementioned slop. I don’t want to bemoan life, I want to live it to the fullest, which is why I started to write in the first place, but if my characters bemoan life they aren’t going to be pillheads who speak like robots. I also want to write prose that’s funny, and while I think women can be funny, the woman who wrote MY year of Rest and Relaxation clearly doesn’t have any sense of humor, which makes it a total drag to read. Put it down and not picking it back up, even to continue my case study of bad writing.

>>19950275
yes but this time it's from a WOMAN'S perspecitve
ooOOo

>>19947411
You seem like my kind of guy. How about Tahiti?

What are the best new racist and antisemitic books of 2021-2022?

>>19947457
This seems like a lot for one date I think we’d have to space it out a bit.

>>19950320
Sally Rooney - I'm Sick Of Being White

>>19950299
>the woman who wrote MY year of Rest and Relaxation clearly doesn’t have any sense of humor, which makes it a total drag to read.
it's a really funny (and well-written) book. her short stories are even funnier

>>19950335
what are rooney's most explicitly antisemitic writings

is she really translating luther's pamphlets into irish

>>19946932
>>19947192
>>19947874
one day you'll get a little older and care a little less about your image and making it your whole personality to be The Highbrow Guy With Good Taste in Literature and you'll realize how cringe this take is.

>>19947356
>and that not everybody is a dabbler who go through fewer than 10 books a year?
some of us have real jobs

>>19950570
Shut up tranny.

>>19950593
normalfags out, this is a place for people who live the literary lifestyle

>>19947356
>is it really so hard to believe that there are actually people who've read proust (and tolstoy, gogol, dosto, melville, eliot, faulkner, mccarthy, pynchon, joyce, woolf, and so on) and that not everybody is a dabbler who go through fewer than 10 books a year?
NTA, but very odd flex here... Only three of those writers are from before the 1900s and Pynchon is still living. I doubt you've read all of Melville and Tolstoy too. Anyway, read contemporary or classical but don't try and justify it in odd ways like that.

>>19935393
Lila, Jack both by Marilynne Robinson
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Ravelstein by Saul Bellow

>>19950603
who else is gonna fund your lifestyle, faggot

>>19950668
i'm dedicating my debut novel to you anon ;-)

>>19950689
what's it about?
you have started it, right?

>>19941125
>Ben Lerner, all three novels
Finished LtAS, and felt very Bret Easton Ellis. Is Topeka school very political?

>>19947117
>the overstory
9 short stories. Amirite?

>>19949445
Eggplant is the best 4chan book so far.

Good thread

>>19940966
That sounds really interesting

>>19951038
Explain the fucking cuttlefish

>>19936050
I don't really get the Knausgard comparison. The Outline Trilogy is nothing like My Struggle. The huge amounts of ellipsis are the opposite of what Knausgard is doing.
Faye is not Cusk. We never find out her husband's or her son's name, how long they were married, why they got divorced etc. There's no confessional aspect.
The structure of the books is more like Sebald than Knausgard

Based thread. Good job, lads

Been getting into Colm Toibin recently. Can't work him out, he can seem so bland and affectless on a sentence level but somehow it comes together as the whole
Has anyone read his non fiction, travel writing stuff?

How do we drive out the wrong generation menace? Is brutal mockery the only way?

>>19952712
i really want to read his henry james book

>>19949922
>how did the literature board of all places become the most close-minded part of 4chan
Been like that since the start. Was added to late so it never developed its own culture like older boards.

>>19952779
>never developed its own culture
Culture is a contest between cultures - anon.

>>19953063
You think this becuase you are a dumb nerd and think of culture as a 'team' you pick

>>19953110
I didn't pick a culture, culture picked me, and I don't consider teams, it just so happened I was chosen by the winning side, thusly

>>19935404
I'm reading this now. It's weird to read a book that isn't littered with extensive dialogue. I flipped through and nearly every page is wall-to-wall exposition with long sentences. It's pretty easy to read.

>>19935487
this is the best contemporary literature I've read

>>19936050
>>19951905
i agree they are nothing alike.

>>19935457
>>19944521
leave society was really disappointing. I liked trip, not stylistically but purely for the new ideas. leave society reintroduced the same ideas. it would have been better if it was less honed. Sure, it makes sense to use the ideas from the previous book, which was itself a huge departure from his past work, makes sense to expand trip into an autofiction novel, but it needed to represent another formal departure. what made taipei so great was the existentialism, tao's autofic style doesn't work without it. leave society would have been good if it abandoned that style for something new, in my opinion something less minimalistic would have worked - a maximalist novel, akin to my struggle book 6 - autofiction mixed with essay, something more stream of conscious, sprawling. he had the research and the ability to write autofiction, leave society could have been his masterpiece.


>>19944692
leaving the atocha station was fun. i was happy when i finished it and could get ben lerner the fuck out of my head

has anyone here read this collection of short stories? it has gotten a lot of attention from literary critics in my country

>Under Cancún’s hard blue sky, a beach boy provides a canvas for tourists’ desires, seeing deep into the world’s underbelly. An enigmatic encounter in Copenhagen takes an IT consultant down a rabbit hole of speculation that proves more seductive than sex. The collapse of a love triangle in London leads to a dangerous, hypnotic addiction. In the Nevada desert, a grieving man tries to merge with an unearthly machine.

>After the Sun opens portals to our newest realities, haunting the margins of a globalized world that’s both saturated with yearning and brutally transactional. Infused with an irrepressible urgency, Eika’s fiction seems to have conjured these far-flung characters and their encounters in a single breath. Juxtaposing startling beauty with grotesquery, balancing the hyperrealistic with the fantastical—“as though the worlds he describes are being viewed through an ultraviolet filter,” in one Danish reviewer's words—he has invented new modes of storytelling for an era when the old ones no longer suffice.

>>19953277
>it just so happened I was chosen by the winning side, thusly
Lad you are posting on 4chan

>>19935404
(((Melchor)))

>>19954025
Gaspar y el negro Baltazar
arrope y miel le llevarán
y un poncho blanco de alpaca real

>>19954055
Shut up, spic

>>19954071
NO

>>19954113
si!

>>19935487
Seems like a string of short stories with the writer's travel as a narrative device.

>>19950101
And you write like you haven't spoken to a real person in months.

>>19940856
Gay

>>19935393
>>19935393
The Sellout by Paul Beatty in particular is excellent. One of the few laugh out loud funny books I've read

need more romance with male protagonists

>>19935393
fake and gay
pic related

>>19935786
Read a couple months back and holy fuck was it boring. The teenage drama in the book is snoozefest

>>19935393
English version came out in ~2018.

>>19935415
They really should have put it through a better editor. They could cut hundreds of pages and not lose content while improving readability. It's an absolute slog.

>>19935673
European release of the trilogy in May. Cheers. Will check this one out.

>>19956072
Was on the fence about it since I heard a friend say it was a bit crap. I'll pick it up for some laughs.

Check out Sam Selvon, he was writing decades ago but actually got some good laughs out of me. You might find him a bit dated, though. The Housing Lark is a straightforward comedy, The Lonely Londoners is a bit more /lit/.

>>19935404
I can't. Whenever something is set in Mexico or Mexicans are going to be a major part of the book, my mind thinks of trash in the street, fat, brown women, the piss yellow filter, and every building becomes a pueblo.

>>19957835
>Was on the fence about it since I heard a friend say it was a bit crap.
Judging by the fact you used the work 'crap' and you recommended a UK author, I'll assume you're English or Aussie, in which case your mileage may vary on a satire about American black culture.

Ty for the recommendation though, will check Selvon out

I have no idea how you guys find good new shit to read.
99% of book jackets are, "This is the story of a family that moved from Louisiana to Indiana in 1978.", "John was about to learn that this school isn't like his old one.", "This person is/was addicted to drugs and now is again/got better."
I read the synopsis for >>19948236 Either they're going to hide the body and get away with it or the kid's father is going to jail or the kid is going to some sort of correction facility. I don't care. I just don't fucking care. Any of those endings can happen just as easily as the other and it's just a decision the author made for the outcome.

>>19958002
>I have no idea how you guys find good new shit to read.
We come to /lit/
>Any of those endings can happen just as easily as the other and it's just a decision the author made for the outcome
>reading for the plot
ISHYGDDT

moss - klaus modick
gilda trillim: shepherdess of rats - steven l. peck
the faster i walk the smaller i am - kjersti skomsvold
starve acre - andrew michael hurley
at night all blood is black - david diop
you should have left - daniel kehlmann
the dead lake - hamid ismailov
an elemental thing - eliot weinberger
burning down the house - charles baxter
the sleep of the righteous - wolfgang hilbig

Anyone here read The Books of Jacob? How was it? Saw the English translation available on a bookstore, I thought the premise sounded interesting

>>19956969
Looks interesting, did you read it in Spanish? If so, how difficult is the vocabulary?

Has anyone read this one before?
saw it pop up in one of my booktuber's channel

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55825321

>>19957878
funnily enough, that "scene" is very apt for that book

>>19957878
When I think of Latin Americans I either think of a glued-on marble floor, colorful flipflops, and cockroaches, or I think of an American "latina" talking like a fucking retard in monosyllables. Or shrieking Brazilians with dysgenic faces.

As a race, Latin Americans have some of the worst PR.

Could it be the cause of a lack of harsh criticism and quality in a lot of these contemporary books is:

Every year 10s of thousands ( maybe and 10s of thousands) of people graduate from creative writing programs at colleges the country over 100s of thousands of dollars in debt, so to continue to convince graduating higschoolers or others to pursue creative writing programs in college, the mechanism of college English graduates to publishing industry is forced to prop up these "best and brightest" examples of what their rewarded rewarding system has produced?

>>19959291
Man who can't write in elementary English complains about higher education

>>19957882
I'm English but marinated in American culture, so, I think I'll still appreciate it. Thanks lad

>>19957882
I'm English but marinated in American culture, so, I think I'll still appreciate it. Thanks lad

>>19958181
>The struggle for this family in 1978 is a representation of the plight America learning to deal with it's racist history of blah blah blah. When racism is never ever mentioned in the book and the word nigger doesn't appear one time and there isn't a single scene with a police officer or court room.
I can't do that. It doesn't make sense to me. It sounds stupid and it is stupid.
Wuthering Heights is a fun love story with some decent raging, the likes of which I've never seen by a woman in the middle somewhere.

Kino

>>19959216
>Latin American
>race

>>19959564
Complained about higher education? I simply asked a question, what are your thoughts on the content of my question? Or were you really unable to parse any of it?

>>19960084
None of them wear shoes and they all have dirt roads. It's unconscious in their minds. They are connected this way and different from everyone else.
Hence race.

>>19960118
I'm not sure where this meme comes from but everyone I know wears shoes here.

>>19960118
Latin Americans are based shut the f up. Tacos, burritos, enchiladas, nachos, tostada's, empenadas, tamales, warm climate, big booty sexy dancing mama citas, mango, papaya, guava, what else could you ask for?

bumpp

>>19935837
Huh?

>>19935404
Alright, I'll open the epub that's been forever on my Kobo, goddamn it

>>19935701
I hear there's a lot of good stuff coming from LatAm
Me, I just love dictator/CIA shit

>>19960951
>examples are 90 per cent food
Amerifats

>>19950055
You have to have a shitty life to get the most out of his works. The closer you are to his protagonists the better.

>>19958002
Yeah, and Raskolnikov either gets away with the murders or he doesn't. What's your point?

Are any of these lighthearted or happy

>>19962845
Did you read the last few words, what more could you want, besides tasty food, tasty women, and good weather?

>>19963056
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is a really fun, lighthearted read.

>>19963056
Parade by Hiromi Kawakami

>>19962840
I love latam books, also love kgb cia... combining those would make me erect.

>>19964769
I read about one a few days ago. "A young man follows the bloody trail of his CIA father, through Paraguayan torture chambers and the sites of Andean massacres."

I don't know if it's good, or the title for that matter lol

>>19959058
My Spanish isn't that good. English version was enjoyable.

>>19963935
The Nix was really fun and lighthearted. More Franzen than Pynchon.

Yuck, dorky dweeb lit