/mlg/ - Modern literature general

[Anonymous No.22046576]

lets talk about contemporary novels that have been published the past 10 years

[Anonymous No.22046586]

>>22046576
Sorry, anon, I do not read YA books like Ishiguro

[Anonymous No.22046896]

>>22046576
This thread is going to languish but it was a good effort and I appreciate you trying to do something other than posting one of the same endless carousel of books that this board likes.

[Anonymous No.22047016]

>>22046576
interested, bump

[Anonymous No.22047051]

[Anonymous No.22047587]

I'm am reading Shy by Max Porter atm and it is the biggest pile of dogshit I've ever read. It's allegedly experimental, but it honestly reads like an ITV drama. I don't think a book has ever made me this angry. And this guy is lauded here in the UK.

[Anonymous No.22047591]

>>22046576
I just read one of /wg/'s book. Not bad.

[Anonymous No.22047596]

>>22046576
Not quite within the time range but is The Pale King any good?

[Anonymous No.22047627]

[Anonymous No.22047665]

Nostalgia is probably one of the best recent works I’ve read. Cartarescu is kino

[Anonymous No.22047675]

>>22047665
kek

[Anonymous No.22047699]

>>22047675
t. Murnanefag

[Anonymous No.22048332]

>/mlg/

[Anonymous No.22048387]

>>22047627
what's it about? is it about city?

[Anonymous No.22048394]

>>22047665
should I read it? what's the story

[Anonymous No.22048419]

>>22046576
Has anyone read The Nix? I think it's the only fiction released in the last decade I've read

[Anonymous No.22048424]

>>22047596
If you already like DFW it's worth it, definitely wouldn't recommend it as your first one of his

[Anonymous No.22048443]

>>22046576
I liked Robert Kolker's Hidden Valley Road as well as Nico Walker's Cherry. Other than that I haven't read much modern literature. I'm hoping to read Bad Blood by John Carreyrou , about Theranos, soon.

It's a little below your cutoff but David Browne's Goodbye 20th Century is in my stack for this year, about Sonic Youth

[Anonymous No.22048446]

>>22048332
little did we know that this era was more sincere than the decade following it

[Anonymous No.22048450]

Apparently this is the incel bible. Is it any good? I've bought it but haven't read it yet.

[Anonymous No.22048680]

>>22048450
Houellebecq is dumb. But typically Whatever is considered the incel handbook.

[Anonymous No.22048987]

>>22046576
Just curious if anyone else on this board has read this or just me.

[Anonymous No.22049135]

Was impressed with pic related.
One poem in particular about watching the submarines come into Devonport, lovely stuff

[Anonymous No.22049581]

>>22046576
Are there any more books like Klara? I like stories about androids/robots in everyday society. Most books about androids are usually full space operas or just very sci-fi which I don't really like.

[Anonymous No.22049634]

>>22048987
I wanted to buy forgot about it, will read at some point

[Anonymous No.22049645]

>>22049581
Most of John Green’s novels. Try The Fault in our Stars

[Anonymous No.22049671]

Bros I just ate a falafel

[Anonymous No.22050372]

I've heard Annie Ernaux is pretty cool.
I recently read The Iliac Crest by Cristina Rivera Garza and I found it interesting. It was pretty short but entertaining read.
Also The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, pretty good portrait of autism.
One I really enjoyed was Carrere's L'adverseire. It's the history of a mythomaniac whose lies went overboard

[Anonymous No.22050415]

>>22046576
I wasn't a big fan of Klara. I thought Ishiguro was blatantly inserting his opinions onto Klara. The major plot twist read like a bad episode of Black Mirror. However, the simple language made it pleasant and accessible read. I don't think there were any sentences that felt off.

I have no idea why this book was in every single bookstore showcase window. I really hope that his The Remains of the Day is better.

[Anonymous No.22050479]

RACHEL CUSK

[Anonymous No.22050621]

>>22050479
I think Second Place was pretty good. I also think it was afraid of itself, or Cusk was afraid to answer any of the questions she posed. The first evidence of this trepidation is her fiddling with this epistolary format then dropping not only the format but the voice of the writer. Solid read though

Anyone read Hernan Diaz's stuff?

[Anonymous No.22050742]

>>22050479
I read Outline Trilogy and Aftermath, thought I'd go through the rest chronologically.
Her 90s novels are poor. The prose is polished af, but she can't work out if she's writing chicklit or something more serious, and falls between two stools.
I suspect it was A Life's Work, and the reaction to that, that made her decide, fuck your romantic comedies I'm being a bad bitch

[Anonymous No.22051391]

>>22047587
Cillian Murphy named it as one of his favourite books. currently, he's adapting Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These. perhaps he'll get the rights from Max Porter, too.

[Anonymous No.22051433]

>>22050415
He's a very popular author and this was his first novel since he won the nobel, it was a big deal.

[Anonymous No.22051509]

>>22046576
bump

[Anonymous No.22052463]

>>22051509
Are we talkin' millenials or zoomers?

[Anonymous No.22052568]

>>22046576
I've shilled Hurricane Season on here a few times so I'll do it again. Didn't much care for Helmet of Horror. The idea was cool, but poorly executed in terms of format and story and everything else.

[Anonymous No.22052579]

>>22051509
wtf is this memeshit?

[Anonymous No.22052670]

might read this or Hurricane Season next after I finish 2666. Anyone have an opinion on either?

[Anonymous No.22053029]

>>22052579
these titles were collected in a thread a while ago

[Anonymous No.22053287]

>>22046576
I fucking hate this book

>>22046896
This is very true. OP should continue this effort but with a different book cover

[Anonymous No.22053798]

>>22052670
I can't speak for 3M but Hurricane Season ended up being actually pretty sad in hindsight, but only if you strongly empathize with the Witch throughout the story. Its prose is formed around long sentences that are basically multiple clauses strung together, almost like a train of thoughts with many asides and flashbacks and side memories. I found it unique in terms of structure, but the actual syntax is about typical for a modern writer, i.e., there aren't going to be many phrases or metaphors that blow your socks off. There is a lot of sex in HS, way more than the violence, but not the kind of erotic sex that makes you horny, more like it makes you feel relieved not to live in poverty.
I should probably just make a short video reviewing this book so people can see all this at once

[Anonymous No.22053817]

take the pondpill

[Anonymous No.22053825]

>>22046576
This is a really great and unique novel

[Anonymous No.22054752]

>>22052670
Hurricane Season was tremendous. Her follow-up Paradis is also equally great

[Anonymous No.22054895]

>>22049135
I read Bioluminescent Baby by her recently, she seems to be one of the better current poets

[Anonymous No.22054920]

>>22053825
I was filtered by the language

[Anonymous No.22056348]

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson, one of the better short story collections I've read in the last five years. Crisp language, hilarious in parts, and lots of feels throughout.

[Anonymous No.22056411]

>>22046576
>Sally Rooney is the reigning monarch of modern lit
>Rupi Kaur is the goddess muse of poetry
>Amanda Goreman is the global conscience of consciousness
>R.F Kuang is just what we need right now and forever
>John Green gets an honorable mention for inspiring the youth to read
Chuds will seethe at the Truth.

[Anonymous No.22056424]

>>22048419
It was alright, though not nearly as good as the blurbs on the paperback cover would have you believe. But then they never are.

[Anonymous No.22056426]

>>22056411
CHECKED!

[Anonymous No.22056804]

>>22049671
mashallah

[Anonymous No.22057081]

I liked Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

[Anonymous No.22057096]

>>22046576
I read Knausgård's new book and it got kind of spooky at the end but most of it was just some guy living a normal life in Norway in the 80's an aggressively pursuing a girl he met randomly and somehow ending up married to her instead of getting arrested

[Anonymous No.22057196]

>>22053798
I'd watch it.

[Anonymous No.22057239]

>>22046576
I think what modern literature sorely needs is a combination of erudition, humanity, and ambition. What we have now is sterile, meaningless experiments on the academic side, sentimental middlebrow moralizing on the popular side, both so very small in their own ways: the former because it is "deconstructed" beyond recognition and rendered incapable of saying anything by the threat of its own critical apparatus, the latter because it is self-centered to an unimaginably shameless degree, never even conceiving of something beyond puerile autofiction.

Seriously, anyone out there with both a brain and a heart should be able to stand head and shoulders above the crowd, because what's there now, barring the last gasps of a few elder statesmen, is just grotesque.

[Anonymous No.22057787]

>>22056411
they will all be forgotten in a decade

[Anonymous No.22057908]

>>22057787
Hell, that anon is already parroting meme authors who are over half a decade old. I haven't heard anyone mention John Green in at least that long, and there's no mention of Colleen Hoover being the bard of women's soulstrings.

[Anonymous No.22059025]

Has the Ishiguro chart been updated to include Klara? After reading Remains of the Day, I wanted to read the book of his that was supposed reflect a kafkaesque dreamscape, but I could never find it at my local book stores.

[Anonymous No.22059217]

>>22048387
it's a white guy writing a book about writing a book. the over-story is a fictionalized version of his own life, and even this fiction character writes a sub-story that's basically the same idea.

the plot is shit, but there is actually quite interesting commentary on the current state of art (intention vs perception) and also some interesting takes on modern liberalism.

[Anonymous No.22059526]

>>22057908
John Green only got an honorable mention for introducing a generation to reading and R.F. Kuang just published the book of the summer that is also an INSTANT CLASSIC.

[Anonymous No.22060311]

>>22051509
Harassment Architecture is genuinly a good book. Why is it on this meme list?

[Anonymous No.22060345]

>>22051391
>adapting Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These
What a fucking awful idea, the beauty of STLT is in its concisenes. How are you going to pad out a 1.5-2 hour movie when it barely takes that long to even read the book?

[Anonymous No.22060871]

>>22060311
I'd be willing to guess that regardless if it were a good book or not, it's memed here constantly with the likes of say something like fight club or the bible at this point. At least within this board

[Anonymous No.22061124]

>>22046576
Does anyone know where Knausgaard is taking his apocalypse series? Are we going to understand more of what's going on? I've only read Morning Star and thought that the other-world section was very enthralling.

[Anonymous No.22061447]

>>22060311
>harassment architecture
>genuinely good book
you often confuse edginess with iconoclasm and you are wowed by pedestrian "experimentalism" masquerading as cutting-edge aesthetic. you often wonder why so much literature fails to connect with you, and you mistakenly think it's because contemporary literature is shit. the problem is you -- you are a smooth-brained common reader who's memed himself into braindead ideas picked up from anime avis and japanese imageboards. you lack any historical sense but are possessed with unspeakable arrogance. go get a library card and don't come back until you've spent a few years maxxing it out every week.

[Anonymous No.22061553]

>>22046576
I was gonna talk about what I thought were recent books but fuck me they were published 20 years ago. I don't think I've read anything from the past 10 years

[Anonymous No.22061573]

>>22061447
I'm not that guy, I couldn't care less about twitter meme books, but I cordially challenge you to provide some examples of contemporary highbrow literature whose value can be elucidated without referring to Barthes, Derrida, Deleuze, etc. Hard mode: no authors over 50. I am being sincere, I'd be legitimately overjoyed to discover good new authors.

[Anonymous No.22061580]

>>22061573
>picrel
1/3

[Anonymous No.22061586]

>>22061573
>>22061580
>picrel
2/3

[Anonymous No.22061592]

>>22061573
>>22061580
>>22061586
>picrel
3/3

[Anonymous No.22061595]

>>22050372
>I recently read The Iliac Crest by Cristina Rivera Garza and I found it interesting. It was pretty short but entertaining read.
That was one I was going to mention but it was released twenty years ago, kek.
What did you like about it? I might have been too stressed out at the time for that kind of book but I kind of hated it
>The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Some profressor from my city is selling a ton of her books and I saw this among them actually. Name rang a bell, can't tell from where.

[Anonymous No.22061700]

>>22061580
>>22061586
>>22061592
Interesting choices, though none of them up and coming by any stretch of the imagination. Vollmann isn't exactly my cup of tea in his major works but he meets the criteria of being well-read and still retaining a human sensibility, and DeWitt, no doubt by virtue of an unusual upper-class upbringing and education, seems to meet it also. From what I can tell about Milkman, the author seems reasonably literate, the vignette-based structure doesn't appeal much to me but it's valid enough, and the style seems to be interesting yet not ostentatious. The main problem imo is that it doesn't necessarily seem to transcend the restricted horizon - dramatic, aesthetic, moral, philosophical, all of the above - that marks the middlebrow MFA writer and makes them nothing more than a journeyman at best. But I will give it a shot at least briefly, since you were generous enough to engage in good faith and the other two picks are respectable.

[Anonymous No.22062679]

>>22051509
How does one make a chart ? The ones I've made so far were on photoshop and them things took me too much effort to make . I couldn 't find a software or template to save my life .

[Anonymous No.22062691]

>>22059025
>>22062679
> picrel
Yes it has. Not my chart but from the Ishiguro stuff I 've read, I enjoyed Klara the most. Still haven't read The Unconsoled, which I really want to do.

[Anonymous No.22062870]

>>22060311
the only thing all these authors have in common is age and gender. wherever somebody asks where all the young male novelists have gone, this chart will be there
>>22051509

[Anonymous No.22062891]

why did this book infuriate me?

[Anonymous No.22062894]

>>22048450
He and his books are more interesting than any one of his books are good.

[Anonymous No.22062908]

>>22057239
There are so many problems with modern literature. It’s impossible to identify just three things that it needs. Probably the single most important thing, however, is a radical change in our culture. Beautiful flowers can’t grow from impoverished soil. This civilization has gotten so toxic, so devoid of minerals, and frankly, so inhuman if not dehumanizing, that expecting anything really beautiful to grow out of it would be asking for a miracle.

[Anonymous No.22062914]

>>22047699
Obsessed

[Anonymous No.22063430]

>>22062908
I agree with you. I've been hopping around classics like crazy this year and I've noticed that they all are intricately tied into the society, culture, and livelihood of the setting and characters. Ulysses, The Golden Bowl, and Anna Karenina are all perfect examples. Here in the States I don't feel any connection to my society or my culture. I don't even know if there's any culture left for me to align with. I dream more about the culture of my ancestors and my heritage than the culture of my present. I'm not sure if that connection is what modern literature needs, if there's some chord that is waiting to be struck so everyone can say "Aha! Now that's just like my America!", or if everything is so balkanized that we need and decade and a half of wandering, hopeless literaries writing their souls out seeking a reconnection with some kind of culture to belong to.

[Anonymous No.22063923]

>>22062908
>>22063430
Well, the three things are very broad concepts. Anyway you’re probably right, most likely it’s just wishful thinking on my part. But there is definitely still a shared conceptual language, a shared understanding of the historical events that got us here - albeit those are only “shared” in the sense that both sides recognize each other as enemies on mutually understood grounds, but that’s nothing new since the enlightenment.

[Anonymous No.22064836]

>>22046576
Sussy book cover

[Anonymous No.22065364]

>>22062679
>how does one make a chart?
I use ms paint anon

[Anonymous No.22066282]

>>22064836
Shut the frick up

[Anonymous No.22066301]

>>22060311
michelle pls

[Anonymous No.22067719]

what other novels would i like if i enjoyed convenience store woman?

[Anonymous No.22067796]

>>22046576
I will recommend one of the few decent contemporary Mexican poets to anyone who recommends me a decent to good contemporary poet from their country.

[Anonymous No.22067806]

>>22047665
Based. I’m also reading Nostalgia (as an introduction to Cartarescu, before reading Solenoid) and so far so good.

[Anonymous No.22068645]

>>22062891
because it's written by a hideous vile judaic goblin with a soul like a lump of cat shit

[Anonymous No.22068670]

It's literally "nothing happens - the series" but somehow it works. Maybe because it's from the perspective of dying old men.
>>22048987
That one popped up in a best recent literature chart that I saved.
>>22057096
Not checking the spoiler but do you feel like it sets itself up as a sextology well? I believe he's already 3/6 of the way through the series with 2 and 3 already being out in Norway.

[Anonymous No.22069635]

>>22046576
Anyone familiar with Gwendoline Riley? Bears a surprising resemblance to a real author writing real books, but I'll believe it when I see it.

And what about Hernan Diaz? He has decent enough taste in terms of the influences he cites, but his latest seems like a political crowd-pleaser and he was giving some mediocre take about "the nature of capital" or whatever in an interview so I'm not very confident in the depth of his moral imagination.

[Anonymous No.22069739]

>>22047591
Which one?

[Anonymous No.22069742]

>>22048419
I liked it. Wasn't very Pynchon. More Franzen + DFW.

[Anonymous No.22069750]

>>22062891
She blueballed an older guy for free edits.

[Anonymous No.22069752]

>>22069635
I've read First Love and My Phantoms. Both are novellas really, you'll read them in a day so not a huge waste of time if you don't like her.
She's a proper writer, her prose is much better than YA Sally Rooney shite. Its family and relationships, but there's no hugging or learning, it's for adults

[Anonymous No.22069759]

>>22069635
>Hernan Diaz
Always seems interesting, but never compelling enough for me to pick up.
I finished Sacred and Terrible Air. Not sure what happened.
Is Yiddish Policemans Union contemporary?

[Anonymous No.22069788]

Reading picrel. 130 pages in and I feel like the story hasn’t even started. God does he take a long time with everything. Blurb said “tragic, compassionate slowburner”. I’m leaning towards “big old yawn”. What am I missing? Did I make the wrong pick for my first Houellebecq?

[Anonymous No.22069792]

>>22069788
Forgot pic

[Anonymous No.22069941]

>>22069752
As an adult I find that hugging often solves a lot of my personal problems, and usually leads to learning

[Anonymous No.22070675]

>>22052568
kek I shill Hurricane Season on here too. I think I can (vaguely) recall some of your posts since I've probably replied to them saying 'based' or some other lazy shitpost in agreement

[Anonymous No.22070692]

Really enjoyed pic related. Europa Editions doesn't get talked about enough when it comes to publishers

>>22053817
Haven't read Pond but I'm reading Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel which is also published by FC. Good stuff so far.

[Anonymous No.22070695]

>>22070692
christ i always do this

[Anonymous No.22071712]

>>22069752
Beautiful, I'll check them out.

How about literary magazines? Poetry and Granta both seem absolutely banal, Paris Review somewhat better but it's less focused on new authors and it's paywalled so hard to really say.

[Anonymous No.22071739]

Reading this now, it's cute

[Anonymous No.22072592]

>>22070675
I think Hurricane Season is just well liked in this board, as much as a contemporary novel can, at the very least. I, a third different anon, have also endeavored to shill the novel. We either were successful or the novel has just become popular by itself.
I still don't think Hurricane Season is her great novel, but I haven't read Páradais, so we'll see. She's still the only contemporary Mexican ––and perhaps Hispanic–– novelist I can confidently say I think is good. I doubt with everyone else.

[Anonymous No.22072700]

>>22049645
Can't tell if trolling.

[Anonymous No.22073587]

>>22072592
What do you think it is specifically that sets her apart?

[Anonymous No.22073601]

i started reading this trilogy
anyone else ever heard of it?
bolano apparently loved this guy before he died

[Anonymous No.22073690]

>>22050415
>I thought Ishiguro was blatantly inserting his opinions onto Klara.
Author inserting his opinions into his characters from his book? I'm shocked.

[Anonymous No.22074284]

>>22073601
Can't see shit anon
I was curious about the author long ago but life got in the way and I forgot about him until now
Bolaño had a thing for praising works by young aspiring writers. I wonder how much they really deserved it.

[Anonymous No.22075064]

>>22073587
Within Mexico many Contemporary writers have begun to write in a bland and generic style, as many have in other countries, and some others have made their writings to read like a mixture of political slogans and buzzword with no real personal style. Melchor has, in contrast, one of the most distinctive styles within Mexican literature. And while I like some other Hispanic writers (Ojeda, for example), I don’t feel so sure a lot of their work will stand the test of time, while Melchor’s I think has a chance.

[Anonymous No.22075778]

His best work.

[Anonymous No.22075816]

>>22048987
Read it. Shit slaps. Surprised it doesn't get talked about more often.

>>22051509
Based on the few of these that I've read, this seems like a pretty poor representation of the young male writers working today.

[Anonymous No.22075906]

Steven Wright, the comedian, just published a novel

[Anonymous No.22075997]

>>22075064
That middle-ground between blandness and overly politicized theory-nonsense definitely seems like the only place where interesting things can happen anymore. Will give her a closer look, thanks.

>>22048987
Just reading about this (and to some extent the same is true of Mathias Enard) sets my soul on fire and gives me hope for the possibility of real, expansive, non-autofiction(!) literature going forward.

>>22075816
Share some names, as I said above I find it really exciting whenever there's a glimpse of something worthwhile on the horizon.

[Anonymous No.22076017]

>>22075906
Wow. I'm a fan of hia stand-up (and his shoet film. He should have directed more.) Will give it a read. Thanks!!

[Anonymous No.22076034]

>>22076017
*his *short
Sorry for the typos.

[Anonymous No.22076278]

Any anons read some César Aira?

[Anonymous No.22076294]

>>22046576

[Anonymous No.22076636]

>>22046576
there is only one good author
his name is f gardner
he write horror classic