/lit/ - Literature

>>4168762
Only read One of These Days.
It was alright.

>>4168762
I hope you read them in Spanish

>>4168811
>implying the importance of syntax in Márquez's works are even close in magnitude to the plot, message, etc.

Also, those titles are all translated and they are beautiful. I think it's safe to assume he translates pretty well. Not to mention he's pretty straightforward, anyway.

This seems like a good thread to ask:

What are Latin American writers worth reading? I already know about Borges. Is Latin American lit in general inclined towards magical realism?

>>4168850
You should read Juan Rulfo and Miguel Angel Asturias.
They use magical realism, it's kind of "the thing".

>>4168850
It certainly seems that way, doesn't?

I'm certainly not complaining.

>>4168862
Certainly.

>>4168862
And I'm not uncertainly in agreement with you!

>>4168857
Thank you, anon!

>>4168850
Cortazar

Because his stuff is just boring, written well but not interesting. Maybe it's what's lost in translation.

i only read Love in the Time of Cholera. it was fucking terrible. sappy Flaubert ripoff.

>>4168857

It is not the thing unless you're referring to outdated Boom writers of which there are none.

Please stop commenting.

Read some Jorge Volpi OP.

>be me
>Colombian
>be in middle school
>they shoved so damn forcibly this fucker down our throats in literature class because he's the only Nobel our shitty country has won
>could never enjoy his work
He conjures the atmosphere of a lost town, near the coast, where the climate is obnoxiously hot, that it puts me to sleep.

>>4168850
Érico Veríssimo;

>be me
>Colombian
>be in middle school
>they shoved so damn forcibly this fucker down our throats in literature class because he's the only Nobel our shitty country has won
>could never enjoy his work because I never read it by iniciative, only obliged to
He conjures the atmosphere of a lost town, near the coast, where the climate is obnoxiously hot, so damn well, that it puts me to sleep.

>>4168837
>Also, those titles are all translated and they are beautiful
At least the Melancholy one is badly translated though. Should be melancholic

>>4168850
>Is Latin American lit in general inclined towards magical realism?
Not necessarily. Magical realism got noticed with Marquez and others in what is called "La generación del Boom" or "the boom generation" (I guess) and it was the most noticed internationally. But there are also amazing latinamerican works that don't use magical realism. "The city and the dogs" by Vargas Llosa, "the witness" by Juan Villoro, "the battles on the desert" by Jose Emilio Pacheco and "the savage detectives" by Roberto Bolaño are titles that come to mind, unrelated to magical realism

>>4168918
>sappy Flaubert ripoff.
wut? can you actually expand on this?

>>4168919
I think he meant in those particular writers unlike the person he replied to which seems to actually think that magical realism is still a thing in today's latin america

>>4169077
Thanks for the additional recommendations!

First a sci-fi thread, and now a latin american lit thread. /lit/ is really great, sometimes.

OP, I really liked 100 years of solitude, but cant really get into others that I've tried. Except short stories. What other of his novels is most similar to 100 YOS?

>>4168850
Roberto Fucking Bolaño—I've only read The Savage Detectives so far, but it incredible. Hilarious and sad.

>>4169088
No problem. Hope you find something of your taste there

>>4169077
>Villoro, Pacheco, Bolaño
my nigger
I hope you've read J. C. Onetti, Felisberto Hernandez and Juan Jose Arreola.

>>4168850
i like silvina ocampo. but i don't know if there are any translations of her stuff and i feel like it'd be impossible to translate her anyway... so yeah. It's a refcommendation for those who know spanish.

>>4168936
same, except that i'm not from colombia but i was also forced to read his shit multiple times in school and it was kinda meh.

>>4169127
Only Arreola (fantastic), I already have Onetti on the list but you just gave me an extra name. Will check it out. Thanks, man.

>>4169133
Get ready for Hernandez. If you thought Arreola was trippy and beautiful, Felisberto always seems to walk the line between completely sincere and sarcastic. He's like the 20th century latin american Gogol.

>>4169087
there is no other work like OHOS. Not from him, not from anyone else.

>>4169116
I've not given SD more than a cursory glance in the bookstore, but 2666 is a hell of a read.

>>4169160
(cont)

>>4169077
I don't really understand the definition of 'Magic Realism' but 2666 has a lot surrealistic touches with plenty of dreams and general weird shit going on, so I guess his writing is related to the genre... I do know for sure Bolaño worshipped Borges.

>>4169088
Agreed, very interesting thread

>>4169165
Oh I was talking about one of his books, not Bolaño in general. Haven't read 2666. I do know he worshipped Borges though so it's very possible that some of his works were infected by him. In The savage detectives strange things happen, but that doesn't constitute anything magical. Magical instances defy the logic of the world (Rulfo's Preciado speaks with spirits later realizing he's a ghost himself, Borges discovers a point that contains all points or an infinite library, rock that multiplies, an object unforgettable, etc. Marquez makes an angel fall or two people appear to each other in dreams or mix the story of a family with folk legends. Bolaño does strange things in The savage detectives but nothings that defies possibility so much

>>4169185
Ok, disregard that point then, nothing magical happens up to the point I reached (The final part). Nothing magical at all. Far from it.

>>4169185

I don't see what makes Pedro Paramo magical realism other than the fact that a brown dude wrote it.
If dead people talking to each other is all it takes then Thornton Wilder is the father of magical realism.

>>4169209
Are you serious? I didn't say it's all it takes, I was just giving examples of magical aspects. Apart from the talking with spirits there's an actual disrupting of time (not just the order it is narrated in but the time actually merges and changes as does the space. Rulfo is a very special case though, more related with fol and cristeros

>>4168762
>He also had a knack for titling books.
>lists a bunch of English titles

It's impossible to be this inept.

>>4169246
Lol all those titles are pretty much direct translations into English, not even rustled

>>4169282
>lol the words sound just as poetic when they're translated into another language lol

You have much to learn, pendejo.

>>4169293
guys like you are the reason why people hate latinamericans