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/lit/ - Literature

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1940994 No.1940994 [Reply] [Original]

Hey /lit/, is this book worth reading?

>> No.1941007

Anyone?

>> No.1941012

it's trash, but sure, might as well give it a look

>> No.1941017

>>1940994

Sure, unless you're a hipster.

>> No.1941016

if you like metatextuality it is. I didn't particularly like it, it felt a bit bland to me. But it isn't a bad book per se.

>> No.1941022

If you want a book that is as annoying, meta, hipster and against you as much as possible, you got your read right there.

>> No.1941036

What is this book about?

>> No.1941048

I think the framework is probably the most coherent matching of form to function that I've ever seen. It's the most well-conceived attempt to mount a metafictional epic that I could imagine.

But it falls apart because the story is bland and the characters are mostly uninteresting.

Whalestoe Letters is still a pretty damn good short story, though.

>> No.1941061

>>1941036

It's about a family who discovers that the inside of their house opens into a bizarre labyrinth.

It's also about commentary on a documentary outlining these events.

It's also about the translation of that commentary into a coherent book.

It's also about that book being reprinted for a second edition.

The stories weave together and the layers overlap, and the book itself becomes the labyrinth that the house opens into. It actually works pretty well for the first half, and then it just crumbles in on itself with nowhere to go.

>> No.1941065

>>1941017
>>1941022

So i'll like the book unless i'm a hipster, but this book is hipster. Okay then.

>> No.1941071

>>1941065

The book tries new things, doesn't succeed at all of them, has a very fervent following because people are attracted to a novel idea decently executed, and also has a very fervent backlash, because people hate over-zealousness for a work that doesn't completely deserve it.

Where pretension and hipsters fit into that, I don't know or care.

>> No.1941079

>>1941071

sanity on MY /lit/?

>> No.1941080

I'm about halfway through and its not bad.

I'm trying to figure out whether a lot of the footnotes are just there to confuse you or lampoon academic literature.

My only complaint is that you get bogged down in a lot of the academic notes, and the actual stories (Truant and Navidson) come in fits and starts.

Would recommend though.

>> No.1941091

>>1941065

Further proof that the word hipster has lost all semantic value, and should be discarded.

>> No.1941099

>>1941091

I don't know about ALL value. It's almost gained a new definition, as a sort of synonym for 'pretentious', but with connotations involving large groups of people, cultural movements, conformity, etc. Pretension en masse, if you will.

>> No.1941826

summary of thread:

you might not like it
then again, you might
either way, this book is still worth reading because of what it sets out to be

it's debatable whether danielewski ultimately succeeds or fails
but he tries, and manages to create something that's interesting enough that you should check it out

>> No.1941832

summary of thread:

you might not like it
then again, you might
either way, this book is still worth reading because of what it sets out to be

it's debatable whether danielewski ultimately succeeds or fails
but he tries, and manages to create something that's interesting enough that you should give it a chance

>> No.1941839

hey, this board is being retarded tonight
how about that!?
fuckin' captchas

sorry for the double post

>> No.1942208

I kept hearing about how great this book was. When I finally started reading it I thought that I must have gotten the wrong one. It's almost unreadable. Trying to get through the prologue was torture.

>> No.1942223

>>1941826
>>1941839
clearly we all are samefagging and cannot have differing opinions. i think the novel sucks; the structure is a nice idea, but oh my god dat dry as sahara prose

>> No.1942237

>>1942208
This book is garbage written for pretentious hipsters who think wading through this retarded tome is work dick-all.

It's on par with "Infinite Jest" or "Finnegans Wake." Skip this gobbler of time, for your own benefit and for mankind's benefit.

>> No.1942270

Not OP, but I'm picking it up from the library tomorrow. /lit/ has had so many threads about it, I figured I needed to check it out myself

>> No.1942271

>>1942237
2deep4u

>> No.1942274

>>1942270
You will quit it in a few days, returning it before it is due. Believe me. Or don't. I don't care.

>> No.1942281

>>1942274
>gives up on books

Yeah, I don't do this because I'm not a faggot.

>> No.1942283

>>1942237
If you think reading Infinite Jest is hard, then you're literally fucking retarded.

>> No.1942307

I bought it about 6 years ago because between /x/'s obsession at the time and one of my friends telling me about it my interests were peaked.

>I still haven't even tried to start reading it and probably never will.

>> No.1942317

>>1941012

>> No.1942324

>>1941071
ok, i hate the book but i can get behind this.

>> No.1942365

>>1942283
ya but he's saying it sucks like IJ, not that it's difficult. IJ's really, really easy.

>> No.1942379

also all of these "postmodern" books are a few hundred years too late. HOL steals the image of the huge black crayon page with children squeezed in the margins from--wait for it--tristram shandy, a much better-constructed work.

my problem wasn't the plot, which was interesting, if not tedious, nor even the formal tricks, which are a dead end, but the terrible prose. danielewski for all his erudition has not taken enough 100 level creative writing classes where they prune the shit from your work. he's self-indulgent, lacks a good grasp of syntax and rhythm, and has an incomplete knowledge of the words he uses. basically he's a debutant, and his sophomore novel--utter shit--proves that he cracked.

>> No.1942386

>>1942365
and finnegan's wake is very, very difficult. big difference there.

maybe i'm being a luddite, but the grandmasters of yore seem to have been better-trained in their craft. pynchon never fucked up a physics equation but wallace can't even get his calculus down, and the french in IJ has got to be a joke, right? Joyce more or less died for finnegan's wake.

>> No.1942402
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1942402

>>1940994
Read this first then read House of Leaves....prepare for complete life-altering mindfuck

>> No.1942405

>>1942402
I've never managed to read more than a few pages of that, mostly because I suspect that it is mysticism for mathematicians. Is there any reason I should give it another shot?

>> No.1942413

>>1942405
personally I kind of think of it in the same way...but it's an easy notion to discard while reading. In that sense it kind of reminds me of Road to Reality or some works by Dawkins. But I personally like reading their books and drawing my own conclusions

>> No.1942417

>>1942413
....but I read the bible for the same reason =/

>> No.1942445

>>1942417
The Bible is a lot more interesting and 'deep' than anything by Dawkins or GEB. There are so many different ways of making use of the bible: learning where expressions like "ivory tower" come from, realizing the influence of Greek philosophy on John's account of Jesus' life (arguably the most important source of Christianities 'phallogocentrism'; would be interesting to analyze in how far this influenced post-Enlightenment symbol-mongers like Saussure, Chomsky and Fodor), or even just to enjoy the Revelation as a Lovecraftian acid-trip.

>> No.1942489

>>1942445
agreed...im glad to someone else enjoy's reading the bible for reasons other than 'cause it's the word of god', or not reading it for the same

>> No.1943275

>>1942445

There was a comedy bit I saw once, where he was basically running through if an intro lit student had submitted the bible to a professor, today, as his own work. It was pretty funny shit.

>> No.1943284

>>1942402
Fuck I have to read it. I'll read anything that talks about how much Bach kicks ass. hell I'm listening to Gould play the 3 part inventions right now.

>> No.1943297

> Borges references are maximum

>> No.1943335

>mysticism for mathematicians

Then you have totally, utterly misunderstood it.