/lit/ - Literature

>>4123502
It's hard, especially with contemporary stuff. Picking a novel released in the last several decades is a big risk, as the idea of a "canon" no longer really exists, and literature has become so diversified (finally leaving the stupor of postmodernism).

But that risk also makes it kinda fun, as picking apart a book you find shitty can be pretty enjoyable, and it builds your critical reading skills.

/lit/ has a wiki, so that's a good place to start.

http://4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading/Literature_by_origin#United_States

Most nations in that list have a "contemporary" subsection or an equivalent.

http://4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading/Literature_by_type#Contemporary

This is a good list as well, including several works released in the 21st century (my idea of "contemporary").

Really, though, there was some really dank shit released at the start of the 21st century. Orhan Pamuk's "Snow" and Weiss's "Honk if You Love Aphrodite" are my top two favorite novels.

Good luck and happy reading!

Michael Chabon and Salman Rushdie are my favorite contemporary/modern authors. I'd recommend them.

>>4123620
Check out Ben Okri, mosty his fantastic book, The Famished Road.

Murakami is a good introduction. He's the kind of author you'll outgrow, but he's really fun for that first period where he's fresh.

Blood Meridian, Underworld and Stoner are solid, gorgeous books, and I think you can enjoy them without that much experience in modern fiction.

"Avoid Franzen" is also a good introductionary advice.

>>4123502
i thought crying lot was a classic?

>>4124212
He means actual classics, stuff written when Latin was used by more people than just cardinals.

>>4123502
Do you mean Postmodern Literature or Post-Postmodern Literature with modern?

Because Postmodern (Including Crying of 49) ended mostly in 80s with White Noise, Satanic Verses and New York Trilogy being the last masterpieces of the movement.

>>4124201
>"Avoid Franzen" is also a good introductionary advice.
I think /lit/ is a bit hard on him. He's grossly overrated, sure, but I thought The Corrections was pretty enjoyable.

>>4124496
>Because Postmodern (Including Crying of 49) ended mostly in 80s with White Noise

How do you figure? I'd say it persisted until at least 1996 and Infinite Jest.

>>4124506
Infinite Jest was pretty anti-irony though.

Cathedral - Carver
Revolutionary Road - Yates
Rabbit, Run - Updike
The Ghost Writer - Roth
Blood Meridian - McCarthy
The Executioner's Song - Mailer
Herzog - Bellow
The Recognitions - Gaddis
Infinite Jest - Wallace
2666 - Bolano
The Melancholy of Resistance - Krasznahorkai
The Mezzanine - Baker
Wittgenstein's Mistress - Markson
Naked Lunch - Burroughs
Jesus' Son - Johnson
White Noise - DeLillo

>>4124506
>>4124508
(samefriend here) Infinite Jest was, to some extent, a retaliation against the postmodern domination. Hell, one of the main thematic purposes of AA/The Ennet House is to provide a place of true sincerity. See Mikey's speech, p. 958 - 960, especially the ending: "But I'm just glad to be here. I just wanted to get that shit out."

>>4124520
Some good stuff on this list, but:
>The Executioner's Song - Mailer
I don't know. It's very big and often very dry. I fought against it for a few weeks at uni and regretted it. I'm not sure it's a good introduction to anything.

>>4124508
i don't think irony is the sole or even primary defining quality of postmodern fiction. besides, infinite jest is more meta-ironic than post-ironic. wallace beat the postmodernists at their own game. the cultural shift from postmodernism into whatever's next clearly started in the '90s imo, although it's not fully complete even today.

Omensetter's Luck is worth a shout.

>>4124525
Fair enough, yeah. We were using different terminology for the same ideas (I think).
>the cultural shift from postmodernism into whatever's next clearly started in the '90s imo, although it's not fully complete even today.
agree completely.

>>4124525
>. the cultural shift from postmodernism into whatever's next
What IS next? There doesn't seem to be anything to replace it.

>>4124579
tao lin

>>4124506
After Satanic Verses ('89), you didn't really see that many if any big Postmodernist works. I can't think of any in English speaking world, at least, unless we count later works by aforementioned authors such as Mason and Dixon, Underworld, Moor's Last Sixth, Mao II or Libra - I think those works have ascended the cynical postmodernism.

>>4124520
The Recognitions is incredible -- one of my favorites, even -- but also bone crushingly dense and I wouldn't really recommend it to somebody who's not a seasoned reader. Also not really what I'd call contemporary...

>>4124201
I hope I stay pleb forever. I dun wanna outgrow Murakami.

>>4125139
The Mezzanine, Foucault's Pendulum, and Wittgenstein's Mistress were published in the same year as Satanic Verses ('88). From then until 1996, when Wallace released Infinite Jest, Gass, Powers, Pelevin, Leyner, Sebald, Ellis, Murakami, Palahniuk, and Coupland all made significant contributions to the postmodern canon. That shift away from cynicism didn't really become apparent until the late '90s.

>>4126254
It's not pleb to like Murakami, I just find that most people tend to find him a bit repetetive after the first five books or so.

>>4126896
Do people who charge him a pleb actually read 5 of his books to find him repetitive. That seems like a criticism only a fan would charge him with.

>>4127108
I've read one book of his, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and I felt as if I'd 'outgrown' him by about the halfway point.

>>4124579
new sincerity mebe?

>>4127158
I just reached page 300 in Wind-Up and feel exactly the same way. I'm hoping it will pick up soon.

>>4124520
>Revolutionary Road - Yates
I know this is always picked as the best Yates book, but I don't know why; it reads like a standard overly-earnest heavy-handed first novel.

I'd say either his Collected Stories or The Easter Parade is a better starting place for reading Yates. Or for a book more in the style of Rev Road, Cold Spring Harbor has a lighter touch.

Just finished this baby.
I understood most of what he's trying to say, but I miss the big point. What was more important than the bidder's identity? The fact that Pynchon refused to show us means that there's something more important and he can only emphasize it this way. Is it the fact that Oedipa will never stop pursuing 'you know what'?

This was my first introduction to Pynchon, OP, and now I understand the praise he receives here. It's difficult, but if you read it carefully, and some parts more than once, you'll get it. It's not the most difficult book I read. Read it, OP.

>>4127158
ah so you've been so indoctrinated by /lit/'s opinion on him you can't even finish one book by him to form your own opinion. sad

>>4124505
I think the point is that one should not dwelve into his works too early.

Funnily enough I've seen people on /lit/ trying to construct an optimal reading list for people who have never read literature, where after reading five books, one should read Brothers Karamazov, and after 20, Ulysses.

>>4127897
> I miss the big point
But it's there; at least I feel so. I feel like there is a truth, a goal there we cannot see - And that makes me paranoid about the text, it's purpose, it's truth.

>>4129048
I now understand it.
That's genius. The hair on my neck and arm is now most erect. I now get it, and I see what you did.

>>4129034
I wouldn't have bought the book if I was negatively predisposed towards it. It had its merits -- for example the domestic scenes were well done (as you'd expect of a friend of Carver's) and I enjoyed the whimsical tone -- but ultimately it just felt lightweight, insubstantial, and basically lacking a narrative.

>>4124508
according to the author. but you wouldn't get that idea from reading the text

>>4124201

>Outgrowing Murakami

What? He's not master class or anything, but his books never fail to completely absorb me. Wind up bird and the stories in After the Quake are so good.