[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 2.87 MB, 4032x3024, 20210620_100636.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18492346 No.18492346 [Reply] [Original]

What are you currently reading and how do you like it?
>pic related
I'm only about halfway through it but man this has some of Delillo's best writing. The build up to the central metaphor isn't forced at all, and it's got some of Delillo's better characters.

>> No.18493526

>>18492346
Siddhartha by Hesse and A Sportsman's Sketches by Turgenev. I'm enjoying both but Siddhartha is more thought-provoking, while Turgenev is a little more leisurely. They are both pleasant, and kind of calming reads.

>> No.18493528

I'm halfway through Libra by Delillo, very good and different from the impression I first got from /lit/ of him

>> No.18493530

>>18492346
>>18493528
I'm reading Mao II, just finished White Noise.
It's the summer of Delillo I guess

>> No.18493628

>>18492346
Just finished reading Faust. Enjoyed it a fair bit, though I fear I was reading a pretty poor translation, idk there didn't feel like there was almost any emotion in the text at all, felt somewhat lifeless even. Definitely something I'll have to come back to in the future, and hopefully in a halfway fuckin decent translation next time round. Also been reading a book on Polish lit from 1939 onwards on my work breaks, pretty good, but I definitely say that from what I've read so far the twenty year period between the two world wars produced far better lit in Poland. I think I'll start reading Absalom, Absalom next, or maybe I'll finally get started on Faraon, idk.

>> No.18493656

>>18493530
Same, I've been shilling Underworld for weeks. Weird how it's a trend.

>> No.18494741

bump

>> No.18494919
File: 164 KB, 311x475, 356A3018-1948-422E-A240-27F3843D932D.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18494919

I think it’s leading to a ‘burn the coal pay the toll’ ending

Pretty based to be desu

>> No.18496350

>>18493528
>>18493530
So what is it about Delillo that gets you guys? For me the problem with his work is that it tends to analyze itself in the text, it doesn't always leave much room for the reader. I'm talking about those passages where he'll write directly about what he's aiming for with the book and kind of outright state it flat. For instance, from White Noise:
"Everything is concealed in symbolism, hidden by veils of mystery and layers of cultural material. But it is psychic data, absolutely. The large doors slide open, they close unbidden. Energy waves, incident radiation. All the letters and numbers are here, all the colors of the spectrum, all the voices and sounds, all the code words and ceremonial phrases. It is just a question of deciphering, rearranging, peeling off the layers of unspeakability. Not that we would want to, not that any useful purpose would be served."

Stuff like this doesn't leave much interpretive work for the reader, which is something I enjoy doing. It's expounding on a thesis where I feel like fiction should try to show that through the actions and feelings of the characters rather than state it outright. I don't know, maybe I'm being filtered here, but for me it's almost too easy because he's so open about all of it. The mystery of analysis disappears from it.

>> No.18497376

>>18493530
I didn't really like Mao 2, although it's possible parts of it went over my head. The beginning scene with the mass marriage was very provocative.