/lit/ - Literature

Mars by Fritz Zorn
I've never seen it mentioned which is odd because it seems especially "lit"

I've actually seen it once or twice though. It's nyrb, not exactly hidden.

No one talks about how great Maurice Merleau-Ponty is except for me.

lit has surprisingly pleb tastes when it comes to history

more people should read this

eugene onegin

>>8198703

>He suffered from depression and never had friends or a girlfriend.

>>8198721
I don't think I've ever seen any Loebs in the bookshelf threads. Also Roman content is almost nonexistent on lit, and any secondary sources on the ancient world are extremely rare. Never seen Syme or Mommsen, and I've seen volume 1 of 3 of Gibbon but nothing beyond that.

Also I remember seeing a sorry 6-7 book assortment of Greek texts get equally praised and criticized by pro and anti Greek posters.

So, yes, you're absolutely right.

The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant.
I'm the only person to bring her up here. I believe she's one of the best short story writers from the past few decades, without having to go over the top with style to advance the art.

>>8198761
Read Mommsen's History of Rome. Sulla was SO cash.

>>8198827
>Mavis Gallant.
she's been on my to read list B)

>>8198713
I'm glad you exists.

Also this.

The most obvious answer is fucking Beowulf.

I never see it here.

>>8198699

"Amazing"
Slow down there sport. I started reading Las Nieves del Almirante and it was a boring boat ride down into the jungle.
Moravagine did it much better desu senpai.

>>8198872
It's more important as a historical text than it is as a work of art. The Greeks meme at least stems from the fact that a lot of modern literature has some basis in it, Beowulf doesn't have a clear literary lineage until recent years when it became popular to write things referential to it such as The Lord of the Rings and Grendal.

>>8198699
This book is one of the few /pol/ recommendations that I actually considered good. Also, bonus points for highlighting the potential upsides of living in an Islamic post-Western society as well.

>>8198942
You must be very new, we've discussed this book quite a bit.
Also, read more Houellebecq, you'll enjoy it even if it isn't about Islam.

If you've seen it before, I probably posted it.

>>8199524

>cover is great but title is shit

I'm conflicted

>>8198887

found this at a used bookstore in melbourne and it really is great

>>8199547
It is a great cover, isn't it? Especially compared to the latest edition.

What don't you like about the title? All the extraneous verbiage at the tail end of it? Just curious.

>>8199524
Nah, I posted my updated copy a few months ago. Really great read, unexpected treasure.

>>8198699

The film is more renown but it's still a good book either way.

>>8199572
Nice, glad to know someone else on /lit/ has read it. Have you read any other Coover? I picked up a hardcover copy of Pinocchio in Venice at a used book store a couple months ago, but it's still in my backlog.

>>8199597
Vurt gets mentioned all the goddamn time.

>>8199613
does it? it's probably me. I never go in the sci fi thread though.

this

>>8198934
I agree with you about it being more important for its historical value, but I genuinely believe it holds up artistically for a modern reader.

>>8199631
It's not always you because it's quite often me. And unless you're the guy who always posts about the once and future king at the same time, you're not him either.

>>8198934
>The Greeks meme

If you think it's actually a meme, I feel sorry for you son

>>8199596
Pricksongs and Descants, A the Movies and The Origin of the Brunists as well. Waiting to tackle Public Burning since I hear everyone thinks it's too long (they said the same of Origin, but I mostly enjoyed the slow parts too). Coover is fantastic and should be read more by the public at large. It still amazes me that I studied postwar American lit in university but we never touched on Gaddis, Gass, Coover, Barthelme.

>>8199569

>What don't you like about the title? All the extraneous verbiage at the tail end of it?

Yes, but I'm sure it has a reason to be there. It's just not appealing at all.

Jame Purdy is great, short stories or Malcolm

>>8199647
But If I'm not you then who is he? I'm definetly not him.

>>8199708
That just leaves him to be you and you to be me.

>>8199647
hey that's me!

someone noticed me in this world.

I would imagine people who liked Stoner would enjoy this

>>8199747
Let's all go jerk off over a feather. Last one to cum has to suck it clean.

>>8199730

the two Ajax are the weakest supporting characters from the Illiad anyways

no one talks about my main man John Cheever

>>8199636
lol

>>8199659
It can be a meme and still be true, sillypants

>>8199767

What does that have to do with Sophocles' play?

>>8199798

I always thought it was about one of them, what's it about? Only read Oedipus

>>8199790

damn you got me

>>8199661
Public Burning is the only Coover I've read and I didn't think it was too long at all. Expansive, yes, but the more extraneous sections like the description of the New York Times or reports from the Korean War all have their own unique styles and add to the atmosphere of theatrical paranoia. The Rosenburg execution is really a framing device for Coover to portray the attitudes of the time (and foreshadow the developments of the next 20 years), so while it does take a lot of time to get to the execution, the whole buildup is what makes the work worthwhile anyway. Highly recommended. One of my favorite novels.

>>8199805

It's Greater Ajax committing suicide after being slighted by Agamemnon. Thematically it's about the old heroes like Ajax and Diomedes that value strength and such being done away with in favor of the new breed of hero characterized by Odysseus.

>>8199958

Gotta say though his suicide was pretty fucking metal

possibly best book of the 21st century

bought this at a bookstore just because it's nyrb. it did not dissapoint

>>8200195
pft. Maugham is my shit

>>8200202
looks good
I always hear Rebecca West highly praised but am unsure where to start with her.

>>8198703
do you have a link to somewhere I can read it?

>>8198741
typical normies, trying to keep us down

>>8199636
Wildcat is Eli Cash at his best imo

>>8200092
I quite like that.The whole section from working on the boat into the mortuary for reclaimed sea bodies is awesome. Feel like the plotting around his reuniting with his friend is a bit lame, as are the latter stages of the girlfriend drama.

Kind of like how the heroic act at the end is so self-destructive.

Anything by Richard Yates and Hans Fallada.

>>8198942
I dunno. I feel like Houellebecq is too self-indulgent to avoid inserting himself into all of his own books but with Submission, essentially a social satire, I felt it was just embarrassing. The character should be more relevant to the subject matter in a book like this. Houellebecq needs to check his ego. Not the greatest prose either.

i don't think i've ever seen jh prynne or geoffrey hill mentioned on /lit/

>>8200651
>>8198942
so happy his hideous face isn't being spammed here anymore
whenever people, especially american professional writers/critics, write about this book positively or seriously I feel like I'm being pranked

Darkness at Noon to be quite honest senpais

fuck i love the character of rubashov

when he stares at the picture of all the old bolsheviks and he realizes only him up front and no. 1 on the periphery of the picture are still alive I get an abstract feel and thinking about it makes me want to reread it.

This is the most important piece of 20th century Spanish literature, and I've never seen it mentioned here.

Stories of your life and others - Ted Chiang
10/10 the single most engrossing thing Ive ever read. Its a collection of short stories.

I found out about it when I asked my metaphysics professor to reccomend something "bewildering".

>>8200651
I kind of feel the opposite. In stuff like Elementary Particles it's fundamentally about Houellebecq and his character and I don't give a shit. Submission is this massive devastating social upheaval seen from the point of view of someone who sort of rolls pointlessly through it, and that's just funny.

The critical thing is that for all the hype it's not a big major statement book, it's a minor novel, viewing the scenario from a deliberately non central angle. It's actually kind of British in that respect.

>>8200670
i read that recently, it was pretty good

>>8199685
What kind of style/subject matter/etc?

>>8200734
I've read two of his stories and thought they were both shit. The Lifecycle of Software Objects repeats a bunch of traditional cliches and just ends right when it starts to get interesting. Hell Is the Absence of God was an anti-Christian polemic by someone who knows nothing about Christianity and has never met any Christians, it was bizarre.

>>8200672
This. Rulfo was the specter of a haunted Mexico.

>>8199758
this is tight as fuck

>>8198942
>>8200651
The funniest thing about this book's release is all of its critics saying "Oh thank God, I thought it was going to be Islamaphobic!"

Basically proved the author right.

>>8200734
Only read Hell is the absence of God, it was pretty fucking shite

>>8200993
>>8201286
killed that book. more suggestions?

>>8198721

>/lit/ is pleb

Why is that surprising, my first year History major friend??

>>8201406
suggestions on what ? shite books ?
try Dune with its phenomenally garbage prose and pacing

>>8200672
I just read it the other day, and I found a thread on it a little after I started.

It was excellent though and doesn't seem to be mentioned enough at all.

>>8200195
That is the GOAT maugham novel and a great read in general. Razor's edge is also really cool in spite of the title

The GOAT essayist and all-around comfy man.

>>8201532
>Razor's edge

kidding, i fucking love maugham

>>8198872
Grendel by John gardener is pretty good

I've seen Pelevin's name mentioned, but only in long lists of Russian authors, never in an actual conversations. Never seen this book in particular at all.

>>8201863
Is this ever gonna get an English translation, or am I going to finally have to learn Russian?

>>8201863
i dunno, imo omon ra is pretty mediocre

>>8198703

great book

>yfw tfw no gf and friends intensifies after reading "mars"

>>8201890
Well admittedly I first read it when I was 14, and it blew me away and was one of the books that got me into "real" reading. Going back over it later I've always loved it, but that could largely be nostalgia.
>>8201879
What the fuck, I've never seen this. Thought it was some random image until I looked it up. The only other Pelevin I've read was a collection of his short stories. The one narrated by a shed was surprisingly beautiful.

>>8199780
my biggest influence tbqh
i almost only read short stories though

>>8198699

criminally underrated

>>8202096
isn't that the book he plagarized off that polish dude

>>8198703
>>8198887
Whenever I talk of these, no one cares. They're masterpieces.

But no one on /lit/ even knows this (is it even translated to English?).

>>8200734
I'd never heard of him until a couple months ago when I went to a panel with him and Charles Yu (I went for Charles Yu). I ended up having a pretty long conversation with him afterward. Super smart dude. His writing is OK.

>>8199524
God, Coover is so great. Thank you for actually reading him.

>>8198699
You haven't seen that on /lit/? I used to post that book on here constantly.

>>8201606
There was a thread for Haunted Bookshop months ago, but it only got like two replies

>>8202328
>is it even translated to English?
I have no idea but I've read it in spanish, oddly enough I liked it and I've never had interest in erotica

also, the death of virgil

>>8200672
He truly is amazing and my grandma met young Rulfo, she's from Sayula too.
To this day I still love to hear those stories

>>8202328
>is it even translated to English?
Novel with Cocaïne apparently is. Their loss.

>Les Onze Mille Verges
Clairement. J'approuve

>Log of the S.S. the Mrs. Unguentine

fucking awesome book, pretty surreal yet very concrete, if that's posible at all.

>>8203861
Interesting, as I wouldn't say it's concrete at all. If you liked that, I'd recommend Ice by Anna Kavan.

>>8200636
Kleiner Mann was Nun was... well. You would know.
Disturbing the Peace by Yates was okay. Nothing that I would ever recommend to anyone, but not a waste of time.

Quality thread, anons.

My contribution would be The Doll, by Boleslaw Prus. It is both a precursor to and superior to Döblin, I would say.

William T Vollmann

>>8204903

This book specifically. Although you can't go wrong with any of his.

Henry Green. Best Green

Hopefully these new nyrbs will give him some recognition here.

It's a novel based off the life of Rimbaud. The author was popular in the 50s, but he's fallen off the map since then, which is a shame because he was brilliant.

I challenge you to mortal defiance.

>>8204903
Can't stand Vollman. Edgelord wannabe Pynchon.

>>8204843
concrete in the way the story is told: there's no weird narrative tricks, it's a guy and his wife on a boat and you read very clearly "he did this, then he did that, he built this, then he climbed into the tree". Most surreal books have 'ethereal language' and stuff like that.

>>8204843
>Ice by Anna Kavan
uh, this is shit, sorry to tell you.

>>8205406
I remember seeing one of these when I was a kid for The Time Machine and they put in a whole new story after the Traveller gets away from the times of the morlocks and the eloi. It wasn't that great.

>>8202294

>being this diletante

>>8206729
Why?

>>8199685
>>8200986

I read this book recently, actually. Wasn't taken by his writing at all. It's a bunch of extremely domestic non-sequiturs and bland writing.