Contemporary Literature

[Anonymous No.2318970]

What recent authors should people be reading? I see a lot about Pynchon, DFW, Tao Lin etc, but there are writers I don't see discussed so much: Vladimir Sorokin, Matias Faldbakken, Thomas Bernhard, Michel Houellebecq. I'd like to know a little more about what's been happening in literature over the last 30 years or so.

I've been reading Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard and I'm pretty smitten by his over the top style - his hyperbole and repetition makes me laugh in spite of how dark it often is. That's about the extent of my experience with the authors mentioned, and I'd like to know more.

So, which writers of recent times stand out as interesting/exciting to you? Poetry is of interest as well as prose.

I want to learn something new.

[Anonymous No.2319002]

I've recently gotten into Vollmann. I never see him discussed on here.

[Anonymous No.2319010]

>>2319002
he has an interview in the paris review

i read it. he seems like a mildly interesting guy, i want to read the book about thailand.

also we always discuss houellebecq, it's just that we have nothing to say about him.

[Anonymous No.2319019]

>>2318970

>Tao Lin
>not sure if troll

[Anonymous No.2319025]

>>2319019
I'm not trolling - he's a contemporary writer who gets a lot of attention here. I'm interested in broadening out and hearing about exciting writers I don't see discussed so much.

[Anonymous No.2319032]

>>2319025
there's no chance of that happening.

i'm not joking, /lit/ sucks for discussion in general, and if you're not talking about any of the same two or three dozen writers you're bound to be ignored. the internet in general is shit for discussing literature.

sorry to break it to you

[Anonymous No.2319039]

>>2319032

this is true-ish but hyperbolic

comes down to timing i think -- sometimes somebody else who's read what you read is on sometimes not, /lit/ userbase is pretty small

[Anonymous No.2319042]

>>2319039
not intentionally so, i'm being as honest as i possibly can.

[Anonymous No.2319049]

Your Father on the Train of Ghosts is a GREAT book of poetry by these two poets GC Waldrep and Jogn Ghallagher. They sent poems back and forth by email and took the best of them out for the book.
Ashbury liked it and I interned at the publishing company that put it out last yr.

[Anonymous No.2319053]

>>2319002
I've never heard of him before. What's his appeal?

>>2319032
I think this is on the whole true. Having said that, I came to /lit/ over a year ago as a fresh faced underageb&, and it's helped no end to give me a broader overview of literature. /lit/'s introduced me to many things that I like, so it would be silly to rule it out as impossible.

I'm pretty sure online discussion of literature is better than real life discussion in any case.

[Anonymous No.2319067]

>>2319053
discussing something online is better than discussing it in person?

[Anonymous No.2319073]

>>2319067
When it's books/poetry yeah, because I can take more time to formulate my thoughts. Discussing lit is generally more demanding in my experience. Perhaps that's more to do with my conversational skills than literature itself though.

[Anonymous No.2319079]

Ive heard great things about Ashbery's translation of Illuminations (Rimbaud) recently. I wanna it.
Also, I believe Robert Bly came out with a new book recently

[Anonymous No.2319097]

>>2319049
Also, forgot to mention - this looks really interesting. /lit/ introduced me to John Ashbery, and I read some of his stuff on the Poetry Foundation website. Sometimes I find him very beautiful:
>We are afloat
>On our dreams as on a barge made of ice,
>Shot through with questions and fissures of starlight
>That keep us awake, thinking about the dreams
>As they are happening.
This is one of my favourite passages. Other times he makes me laugh:
>Popeye chuckled and scratched
>His balls: it sure was pleasant to spend a day in the country.

Too often though, I just find him inscrutably difficult. Do I need to understand literary theory to appreciate this guy?

[Anonymous No.2319098]

He cops a lot of shit here but you should definitely read Michael Chabon

[Anonymous No.2319101]

László Krasznahorkai.

[Anonymous No.2319104]

>>2319097
MAN,
Ashbery is cool yet sometimes he builds up these seemingly unrelated poems of phrases and things.
He was quoted saying that he fears "younger people getting stoned and reading his poetry going hey man get a load of this crap"
but I love his Collected Poems, with the pebbles on the cover.
Totally agree that he can be funny and also have almost obscurely beauty lines

[Anonymous No.2319103]

>>2319053
>I'm pretty sure online discussion of literature is better than real life discussion in any case.

it has the potential to be better, but it will never be achieved. you just don't know how to talk well.

[Anonymous No.2319106]

Made a thread about Houellebecq the other day, not a single reply. His latest, The Map and the Territory, is quite good.

[Anonymous No.2319113]

>>2319106
i saw it. i wanted to say something, but i'm barely a single page into les particules elementaires and... well

[Anonymous No.2319133]

>>2319053
William T. Vollmann has written lots of postmodern-y stuff; I'm reading his "Seven Dreams" series right now, which is his take on various moments in American history he saw as particularly important, particularly where interactions between Europeans and Native Americans are concerned. I haven't read much of it yet, but he's really good at description and I look forward to more.

[Anonymous No.2319138]

>>2319104
I don't know how to approach his obscurer poems. I sometimes enjoy them, but on a purely superficial level. I read an article which quoted Helen Vendler as saying she often didn't know what he was on about. How do I stand a chance then?

>>2319106
Houellebecq seems up my alley, but I haven't read him. Where should I begin with him?

[Anonymous No.2319468]

>>2319133
I got bored as fuck reading The Ice shirt. He often goes off into pretentious descriptions of his random boring thoughts and his lust for fat latino strippers, every single book he's ever written has the hotness of prostitutes as one of its main themes or events, even if it's just him watching them at a strip bar or following one home (he interjects stories of himself traveling in the cities in the country he's writing about into the novel, wtfrujokingme)

[Anonymous No.2319475]

>>2319138

I thought Atomised (aka The Elementary Particles) was excellent. It's funny reading something that is so filled with hatred of the human race, especially baby boomers and New Age stuff. It's one of my favorite novels.

Although his most recent one (The Map and the Territory) which I haven't read yet is supposed to be really good. Get that if you like "current" stuff.

Houellebecq is a huge deal in France but never made big waves in North America. I think he is definitely someone who should be discussed more.

[Anonymous No.2319489]

>>2319475

In the UK he's pretty widely read, and discussed, largely because he's such a massive troll and he gets the Guardian's knickers in a bunch every time he releases a new book.

Apparently a large amount of The Map and the territory is cuntpasted from wiki.

[Anonymous No.2319573]

Orson Scott Card.

[Anonymous No.2319577]

I'm always surprised that Jonathan Lethem isn't more beloved of /lit/ -


Possibly because for some reason, part of what I just wrote about him isn't allowed... WTF 4chan?

[Anonymous No.2319585]

>>2319577
I fucking love Lethem. Mothdserless Brooklyn was hilarious and the tourettes thing wasn't nearly as gimmicky as I thought it would, it added a lot of charm and the playfulness with the language made it excellent. I seriously think The Fortress of Solitude is a contemporary masterpiece.

Even his minor work have thei rcharm, You Don't Love Me Yet resonated a lot with me even though it was lacking at parts (the kangaroo, the lack of nostalgic love for the city), and his essay books really do hit the spot for the kind of awkward nerd that's bound to love his shit.

[Anonymous No.2319587]

>>2319577
It won't let you post mo-thder-less due to /b/ or something

[Anonymous No.2319595]

>>2319585

It's just dawned on me that it was the word before Brooklyn that wasn't allowed. I found Essrog to be a really charming lead, and I learned a lot about Tourette's as well.

I've recently bought Chronic City, but haven't yet got round to starting it, largely due to an unexpected and slightly unfortunate glut of shitty fantasy novels.

I think I'll try to root it off the shelves this week.

[Anonymous No.2319647]

Definitely something I'm interested in. I do nothing but read old modernist writers because I can't find anything to compare to them. Only DeLillo and ol' Cormac have really stood up, for me. This is a valid thread for sure.

[Anonymous No.2319769]

>>2319138
just try to get personal with Ashery id suggest.
take your first thought at a line as your best thought like a scantron question. simply let the randomness sink in as this cool way of writing. sounds terrible i know and as if it is something that a reader shouldnt have to do but that IS ash really. he wants you to work a bit kinda like Olson wants you to work or Eliot sometimes does but Ashbery requires nothing actually BROUGHT to his poems, just bring yourself to something like "The Skaters" and read it while thinking of anything at all. it is like a blotter test of what you see in it; a whatever you want thing at times. The man is liked for a reason-- people get him on some level, you just have to find out how you might

[Anonymous No.2320844]

bump

[Anonymous No.2321215]

rebump

[Anonymous No.2321294]

Vollman is interesting and flawed and great.

DeLillo is very funny and sad.

David Foster Wallace is absolutely my favourite contemporary writer. I'm reading through Pale King and this style just scratches the right itch in me.

Lethem is very good.

Franzen was like a lesser Delillo for me.

[Anonymous No.2321315]

>>2321294


I love how Vollman can draw upon avant literature (i.e. structuring The Atlas as a thematic palindrome), and yet still hit you in that emo heart place hard.

For me, Vollman is a great writer because he is flawed.

[Anonymous No.2321536]

[Anonymous No.2321557]

I'd say this place here, in all its insanity, is a wellspring of contemporary literature.

[Anonymous No.2321576]

Hey German speakers, how do you pronounce Untergeher?

[Anonymous No.2321588]

>>2321576
UNter-gayer

[Anonymous No.2321652]

>>2321315
Absolutely. I'm only a 3rd of the way through Imperial, but he is emo and heartbreaking and radically intelligent and sardonic in his writing and journalism. He capitalizes on his flaws to great effect.

I just really enjoy reading writers who are obviously brilliant and so well-read. DFW and Vollman are almost encyclopediac in their interests and their scope of writing.

By contrast, Franzen just writes about fucked up families. Boring.

[Anonymous No.2322701]

Bump. Anyone have recommendations that don't suck?

[Anonymous No.2322784]

>>2319595

Yes! Lethem is my favorite living author, and I've been tempted to make a thread asking why he's never mentioned on /lit/.

I do think he's letting his ego and cannon aspirations get the best of him lately, though.

Personally I think his best works were his early surrealist works that were basically Phillip K Dick with great prose and a coherent plot arc, i.e. "As She Climbed Across the Table," "Amnesia Moon," and "Gun With Occasional Music."

"The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye" is also an incredible short story collection.

"Fortress of Solitude" and "Chronic City" are great books but I think he's getting bogged down with trying too hard to be a "literary writer." It feels forced to me.

'Mudderless' Brooklyn was probably a good middle point between his "be more literary" aspirations, and his PKD style surrealism.

"You Don't Love Me Yet" is his weakest work, in my opinion. Besides that pathetic pile of self-indulgent essays he just published a couple months ago. Yes I bought it in hardcover.

[Anonymous No.2323774]

bump

[Anonymous No.2324110]

>>2322784
>>2322784
>Besides that pathetic pile of self-indulgent essays he just published a couple months ago.

I just got it out from the library, it's awful. You paid for a hardcover book which prominently features blurbs you can read on Amazon for free.

I've never read Lethem before, not sure if I'm interested in doing so. I only took it out because I wanted to read the one essay where he talks about Bret Easton Ellis and Donna Tartt. As regards those two: he mad. I can't imagine anyone being mad at Donna Tartt.

[Anonymous No.2324254]

I'm personally really fond of Andrzej Stasiuk and Olga Tokarczuk right now. Read Tales of Galicia and Fado from the former, and Primeval and Other Times and currently reading House of Day, House of Night by the later.

Both are contemporary Polish authors who have a strange small town folkish vibe to their writing. It's not really magical realism, imo, but all four of the books I mentioned have a kind of comfortably surreal setting. They also have a way of portraying the towns themselves as characters, which I really love.

I'm hoping to check out Michal Ajvaz soon too, a contemporary Czech author. Amazon summary of The Golden Age by him, if anyone else might be interested:

"The Golden Age is a fantastical travelogue in which a modern-day Gulliver writes a book about a civilization he once encountered on a tiny island in the Atlantic. The islanders seem at first to do nothing but sit and observe the world, and indeed draw no distinction between reality and representation, so that a mirror image seems as substantial to them as a person (and vice versa); but the center of their culture is revealed to be “The Book,” a handwritten, collective novel filled with feuding royal families, murderous sorcerers, and narrow escapes. Anyone is free to write in “The Book,” adding their own stories, crossing out others, or even ap- pending “footnotes” in the form of little paper pouches full of extra text—but of course there are pouches within pouches, so that the story is impossible to read “in order,” and soon begins to overwhelm the narrator’s orderly treatise."

[Anonymous No.2325475]

tao lin isn't a troll answer -- he writes good, entertaining stories.

[Anonymous No.2326360]

>>2322784
Love me some Lethem.

What's funny is, I read Chronic City once and hated it. I was so bummed. I just thought it was terrible. But time went by, and the characters stayed in my head, and all these scenes stayed weirdly relevant to my life and I was reminded of them all the time. And finally I read it again, and the second time I liked it a lot.

I find Pynchon works that way a lot too. I don't get much from one reading, but the second reading does it.

[Anonymous No.2326384]

>>2325475
Which is why critics hate you and no one cares about you. You mad, Chao?

[Behemoth !!Twl3DmqEY/B No.2326387]

I liked Whatever by Houellebecq but that's all I've read by him.

My favorite contemporary author is still Will Self. I would suggest Cock & Bull, Great Apes, and The Book of Dave by him. My Idea of Fun and The Quantity Theory of Insanity (short stories) are also fun and at times damn funny.

I've been meaning to read more David Mitchell, especially Cloud Atlas. His first novel Ghostwritten was pretty good.

Murakami gets discussed here pretty regularly.

I also like Colum McCann. Let The Great World Spin was a so-so novel, a bit saccharine-to-maudlin for my tastes, but his book Zoli is really, really good despite its immediate cliche WW2 setting.

John Wray's newest novel Lowboy I enjoyed a lot as well. A very interesting take on youth, individuality, and culture in our time.

[Anonymous No.2326394]

>>2326387
I know you as a poetryfag Behemoth. Do you like John Ashbery? From what I've read of contemporary poetry magazines, an awful lot of it reminds me of John Ashbery.

Also, if you have any poetry to recommend, that would be cool.

[person !.avztqSy6I No.2326397]

>>2325475
Then he wrote Richard Yates and lost all credabillity.

[Behemoth !!Twl3DmqEY/B No.2326400]

>>2326394
Haven't read much of him, to be honest. And oddly enough I don't know of any contemporary poets, I usually read "Best of (year)" anthologies and I'm rarely wowed enough to remember names. I've been mentioning Billy Collins lately because I've been reading some of his stuff, and I like Naomi Shihab Nye as well. That's all that comes to mind at the moment.

[Behemoth !!Twl3DmqEY/B No.2326404]

>>2326400
Oh yeah and Martin Espada, although he's a bit older like Collins.

[Anonymous No.2326413]

>>2326400
That's probably good in my opinion. I worry that he has a bit of a monopoly sometimes.

Here's a free .pdf of a Wendy Xu's chapbook, The Hero Poems:
http://www.h-ngm-n.com/storage/WendyXuTheHeroPoems.pdf

[Anonymous No.2326424]

Paulo Coelho

[Anonymous No.2326434]

Judith Thompson might be my favourite writer working right now. She is absolutely Canada's best living playwright. Very heavy stuff.

I think that Toronto is underrated as a setting for literature; it is a uniquely fucked-up city, and Thompson's Toronto plays ("White Biting Dog", "Lion in the Streets") are probably her best.
If I could find just one person on this board who wants to talk about her, it would make me very happy, but i doubt the average /lit/izen has any interest in the contemprary theatre of Canada, much less when the plays are written by a chick.

[Anonymous No.2326445]

>>2319577
For whatever reason, I never got into his fiction - I don't find it actively off-putting, I just never seem to stick with it - but I always enjoy running into his essays here and there and even when they're nothing really special they make me think he seems like a bro, which is obviously the single most important metric by which a public figure can be judged.

Semi-conversely and -relatedly on a Popular American Lit Fic Novelists Your Dad and Bookstore Employee Boyfriend Like tip, Chabon's nonfiction nearly always strikes me as shitty but I like his novels even when they're kind of lame and he also seems like a bro.

[Anonymous No.2326459]

>>2326424

[Anonymous No.2326470]

>>2326434

plays own and canada owns, if you can link me one of hers i'll read it and post