/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15814513]

Is this the best book written in the past 50 years? I think so.
Reductionist midwits need not apply.

[Anonymous No.15814540]

>>15814513
It's definitely a contender. From the Heart of the Country and Life and Times of Michael K also slap

[Anonymous No.15814576]

Ahem

[Anonymous No.15814591]

>>15814540
Yeah, I like Michael K especially, but I think Barbarians just solidifies Coetzee's worldview so much more thoroughly.

>>15814576
This is just incorrect

[Anonymous No.15815170]

I’ve always wondered, what genre would you place this in? It’s always seemed kinda ‘otherworldly’ to me based on the way Coetzee presented the society with his writing style. I wouldn’t venture to call it magical realism or science-fiction, but it doesn’t feel like realistic fiction either.

[Anonymous No.15815198]

>>15814513
>the virgin coetzee
I prefer the Chad Pamuk myself.

[Anonymous No.15815202]

>has his entire career in your path

[Anonymous No.15815206]

>>15815202
>thesaurus and scabby cock
No thanks!

[Anonymous No.15815221]

>>15815206
Find me one other work that includes the very witch of fuck? I'll wait.

[Anonymous No.15815304]

>>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...

[Anonymous No.15815383]

>>15815170
The supposition that fantastical imagery in literature places it in the purview of genre fiction is a recent one and largely driven by the commercialization of art. In this context such terms are not useful.
He reminds me of Kafka and Buzzati. Not explicitly magical, no fantastic beasts crawl out. But the land, the story are so close to the fundamental myths of mankind that it obtains an air of abstraction. I would call it existence-myth fiction, if someone forced me to make a term for it.

>>15815202
I will never understand why Americans are so obsessed with him. His prose is good, sure. But even in the US there are writers on an entirely higher level than him (John Crowley being one example). And what else is there? Over the top characters and stories straight out from a Hollywood action movie? Moral tales stripped of any semblance of substance beyond the primary imagery? I just don't get it. I tried to read a bunch of papers on him, but McCarthy scholars seem to be particularly dumb and unwilling to pursue anything of value in depth.

>>15815304
Krazzy is held back by his obsession with peasants and the old testament. He can't help but write pages and pages about two old women who just so happen to be the least interesting people on the planet. If he just wrote intelligent, intellectual protagonists and not this "muh empathy for the little guys!" bullshit...

[Anonymous No.15815426]

>>15815383
>And what else is there? Over the top characters and stories straight out from a Hollywood action movie? Moral tales stripped of any semblance of substance beyond the primary imagery?
I don't want to talk with you about McCarthy because I just sincerely don't believe you've read him.

[Anonymous No.15815436]

>>15815383
1. Kraz doesn’t really empathize with peasants. The whole point of Satantango is even the Faustian ring leader is just an idiot. But also this a bizarre complaint. The Russian masters dealt with peasantry and retained their aesthetic prowess, for example.
2. Read Seiobo There Below. It deals mostly with patricians, artists, scholars, and the occasional Zen master. Really anything after Melancholy doesn’t deal with peasants.

[Anonymous No.15815444]

>>15815426
Oh, shut the fuck up, I have read The Road, Blood Meridian, and No Country For Old men, and my criticism isn't even unique, retard. It is possible to read an American writer and just not like him, you retarded /pol/tard.

[Anonymous No.15815451]

>>15815444
I’m on board with you anon, the older I get the more I see through a lot of McCarthy’s gimmicks.

[Anonymous No.15815558]

>>15815436
>Kraz doesn’t really empathize with peasants
Oh, occasionally he does, surely he does, I think it is very evident in the Melanholy. But I realize now that I was imprecise in my previous post. It's his characters that is the problem, not his opinion of them.

>Russian masters dealt with peasantry
But what peasantry! I haven't read enough Russians but I find this statement incorrect in spirit, if not literally (I am assuming you are not talking about Tolstoy and such). Dostoevsky - does his characters feel like peasants in the same way that Krazzy's characters do? No. They are much more complicated, much more unusual on a personal level. Crime and Punishment, for example, Roskolnikov and Marmeladov: certainly little people socially and economically. But inwards? Oh, not usual at all. Same goes for much of Gogol and Turgenev. What matters is the mind, the subjective experiences they have, not their social standing. And Krazzy is obsessive about making his characters realistic and simple, his value comes from the interactions of those characters in large groups, individually I find it hard to identify with them. Call it a personal preference, but I like intelligent, self-aware characters, those who see the artistic qualities of their own life.

>Read Seiobo There Below
I will, I will, I have read 5 of his books, and even though I liked all of them, I always find myself lacking the will to continue with him for as long as a year.

>>15815451
Glad we are in agreement

[Anonymous No.15815582]

>>15815304
Correct

[Anonymous No.15815710]

>>15815558
I can concede that a lot of his characters feel hollow, especially in Satantango, but I care more so about the overall effect of that, which is to emphasize the situation, the ambiance, and the psychology of the more important characters. Dostoevesky has a lot of hollow characters, as does Kafka and Faulkner, all of which run in Kraz’s veins. I think in Seiobo you’ll get almost the opposite, the trade-off being the procession of events.

[Anonymous No.15815740]

>>15815710
Oh, the atmosphere, the world are certainly important, but in his novels I just would like to see a rational mind clashing with that world more often. Ah, they feel like props, or like people caught in the flow of a river. I do agree that Krasznahorkai is a very good writer, though. There are only maybe 5 other living writers who I would consider better.

[Anonymous No.15815813]

>>15815740
Who would that be? Always genuinely interested. For myself I’d rank (in no order): Mircea Cărtărescu, Orhan Pamuk, Peter Handke, Salman Rushdie, and J.M. Coetzee, though I wouldn’t hesitate to add Pynchon and/or Nadas on a longer list.

[Anonymous No.15815951]

>>15815813
Oh, that's a very good list. I haven't read Cartarescu but I like all the others except for Pynchon. For me, it is Yu Hua, Coetzee, Murnane, Askildsen, and Quignard. Tokarczuk and Nadas may also figure on there depending on my mood.

btw are you the one who a while ago said Coetzee and Handke could be all time greats if they found more interesting subject matter?

[Anonymous No.15816020]

>>15815951
>Yu Hua, Murnane, Askildsen, and Quignard, Tokarczuk
Where to start with?

Also no I’m not but that sentiment works across the board doesn’t it? Maybe that’s why I’m attracted to Kraz who always has old world extremism in his mind Pynch who at least tries to take big state problems seriously (surveillance, nuclear threat, conspiracy).

[Anonymous No.15816054]

>>15816020
Yu Hua: To Live or The Seventh Day
Murnane: The Plains
Askildsen: idk, he writes short stories, just get any collection you can find
Quignard: Tous les matins du monde
Tokarczuk: Primeval and Other Times
Overall, I would most recommend To Live by Yu Hua, a true masterpiece