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/lit/ - Literature

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5776693 No.5776693 [Reply] [Original]

Okay, officially this starts Sunday, but I got the thread up early

This is /lit/ club devoted to works written within the last decade.

This week we're reading The Devil All the Time, by Donald Ray Pollock

Epub here
http://libgen.org/foreignfiction/?s=the+devil+all+the+time+pollock&f_lang=0&f_columns=0&f_ext=0


Next two weeks will be Middle C, by William H. Gass.

Week after that, we're reading Canonball, by Joseph McElroy

The week after that is Seiobo There Below, by László Krasznahorkai

Feel free to nominate works for the queue, but please nominate one work at a time.

>> No.5776848

Taipei?

>> No.5776856

You could maybe read at least one female writer?...

>> No.5776877

>>5776693
Okay, just put the hold for this and the next book in the library, i'll read the ebook and then transfer over to physical once I get it.

I really hope this works out. Even /mu/ has consistent threads for trying new music like the /daily/ threads and /bleep/ general, and those work pretty fucking well. It's comic that /lit/ hasn't completely been able to pull the same sort of effort in regards to following through on a consistent bookclub deal (though I hear that there have been a few that worked well offsite). Good luck on this.

>> No.5776922

>>5776693
Oh, also, I'm assuming you mean post-modern in an after-modernism sense rather than the movement.

>> No.5776948

>>5776856
nice b8

>> No.5776971

>>5776922
Yeah, as in period. I don't think anyone would call this 'modernist literature', even though it's not drastically experimental.

>> No.5776973

Mailman by J. Robert Lennon. Just barely makes the cut.

>> No.5776974

>>5776856
Zadie Smith later, maybe.

>> No.5777050

I normally wouldn't bump a thread this young, but I want more people to see this.

>> No.5777210

>>5777050
Bumping once again

>> No.5777215

>>5776973
This looks very good, how do the rest of you feel about it?

>> No.5777303

>>5777215
looks good to me

>> No.5777414

Just downloaded it and will read it in the coming days. Can't say I'm looking forward to it, since I have absolutely no idea on what to expect.

>> No.5777479

>>5777414
I'm going to start reading tomorrow, but I have read the other work by the guy, Knockemstiff.

I'd like to compare him to Gummo, but he's much better. His fictionalized version of Knockemstiff, Ohio (which is also the setting this work, and both take place over a period of decades) is a nightmare of rural isolation, squalor, perversity, ignorance, wretchedness, violence, nihilism. His work would be abjectly bleak were it not for frequent streaks of black humor that blend painful wince with chuckle.

The author himself comes from such a background, and obviously was a lonely brain growing up. He worked in a paper mill as his career, until he enrolled in college at 50, and wrote Knockemstiff a few years later.

>> No.5777514

I just found this and it looks interesting
http://twistedspoon.com/wolf.html
Wolf at the Door, Travis Jeppesen, 170 pp.

>A sculptor dying of a mysterious illness leaves the city behind in order to live out his final days in solitude in a village somewhere in Eastern Europe. His sole contact is with a deaf-mute gravedigger named Vojtech, a golem-like figure who delivers the necessary provisions — when he remembers to show up. A nameless wanderer traverses the barren streets of an unknown city in search of his next prey ...

Author of the critically acclaimed novel Victims, Travis Jeppesen has sculpted an absurdist drama of banal interactions via two parallel stories that never directly intersect, but rather hover interdependently in a polluted atmospheric stasis. Rife with ghosts and illusions perdues, at times violent and scatological, Wolf at the Door confronts fear and devastation, destruction and creation, the decay of both spirit and body with a blend of intense black humor and linguistic inventiveness that dares to ponder what happens after The End: of both art and life.

>> No.5777997

Also,
Sandalwood Death, Mo Yan, 407 pp.
bump again

>> No.5778005

>>5776877
I think it fails due to the investiture required of reading.

>> No.5778019

>>5778005
But I know there are people on lit who read and want someone else to discuss with, presumably that's the main purpose of this board. I just with they would be willing to adjust their backlogs a little bit in order to make room to discuss books. I've seen great discussion on here, I just want to see it become more common, and projects like this are helpful towards that aim.

>> No.5778030

>>5776848
>Feel free to nominate works for the queue
Preferably something by Will Self, though he is a modernist that loathes post-modernism, so not sure it will match your criteria.

>> No.5778033

As stated here,
>>5776971
OP only called this 'post-modern' for time period, not as a movement. So it would work, although it has to be short enough to read through in about a week.

>> No.5778035

>>5777514
I like, I like it.

>>5778030
Postmodern is just period, it doesn't mean experimental style in this context. I had thought about including Shark, but I'm trying not choose more than one book at a time, same as everyone else. I chose the first book, which coincidentally is the only one that ISN'T postmodern in style. The rest in the queue were nominated by other posters.

If you'd like to nominate a specific book by Will Self, feel free.

>> No.5778042

>>5778033
Two-week length works too, as you can see I gave two weeks to two of the books in the OP. I don't need two weeks to read them, but they are complex literature and I can appreciate that some people won't want to rush through them.

>> No.5778045

>>5778042
Seiobo There Below is supposed to be listed as two weeks.

>> No.5778058

>>5776693
Are you a little hyperactive? How many projects do you intend to set up at the same time?

>> No.5778082

>>5778058
I don't know. I do know I prefer ongoing projects which entail substantive literary discussion, as opposed to trolley threads, atheism threads, determinism threads. If half the threads here were ongoing project threads, the other half would probably be a lot better.

>> No.5778381

>>5777479
To be honest this seems more intriguing than the one we're reading, I imagine it is as some gathering of modified childhood memories.

>> No.5778545

>>5778033
>OP only called this 'post-modern' for time period, not as a movement

Postmodernism is just a style, a merging of previous styles. It follows from modernism, and can include modernism in the styles it merges. It's a style of architecture, of literature, of music; it's an artistic movement, albeit a pretty shitty one.

Postmodernism stands after modernism, not modernity. If OP was talking about "postmodernity" as a synonym for contemporary, it was a very bad choice of world for a discussion of literature.

>> No.5779099
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5779099

>>5776693
>Unless he had whiskey running through his veins, Willard came to the clearing every morning and evening to talk to God. Arvin didn’t know which was worse, the drinking or the praying.

>> No.5779104

>After that we're reading Cannonball

Whelp this is doomed to fail

>> No.5779304

>>5779099
Dear Jesus,

I love you so, so much. Today I posted the epic hat meme seven times because I am such a good Christian. Please let me in to heaven.

Amen.

>> No.5779474

Captives, Norman Manea, 288 pp.
Published in 1970~ but translated only recently, he's still writing and close to winning a Nobel. If not this book i'm sure he has other, more recent novels.

>> No.5779882

>>5779104
Is it bad or something ?

>> No.5781222

Bump

>> No.5781421

>>5779104
I'd hope that most people on /lit/ could at least get through Cannonball with an understanding of the majority of the material. It's not that hard of a book.

>> No.5781946

>post modern
fucking dropped

>> No.5781983

>>5781946
I want /lit/ to do better than this, I really do. I get that this is trying to be humorous, but it just comes off as desperate and empty.

>> No.5782640

I'm still in the beginning, but I can definitely say I am enjoying the book so far, it feels like some gritty Noir set in one of those small closed communities. I feel like some of the violence portrayed is just for the sake of edginess, however, it doesn't bother me.

>> No.5782912

>>5776693
How are we supposed to read this and the patricians pledge also?

>> No.5783776

bump

>> No.5783791

>>5782912
Get off of /lit/ for a day or two and make reading your primary activity that day. Then it will be worth it when you come back and participate in a rich and meaningful discussion.

>> No.5783831

>>5783791
or i can buy it, ask /lit/ for their thoughts and then never read it

Just bought it. Thoughts?

>> No.5784292

>>5783831
Good on you for supporting a contemporary writer. I know /lit/ really likes pirating books, but for most contemporary reads I really like I tend to purchase them. Especially if they come from smaller publishers.

>> No.5784953

>>5782912
I'd be surprised if there are more than two or three people reading everything in the Patrician's Pledge other than myself.

>> No.5785518

Nearly done with the first book and have to say that it's been pretty good.

>> No.5786826

Bump.

>> No.5787665

>>5782640
Read some more, still feel the same way. Getting to know Willard better and liking him so far.

>> No.5787783

>>5782640
I wouldn't exactly call him 'noir', more like Southern Gothic, although they can overlap. Pollock's work takes place in Ohio, so not really Southern Gothic, but you understand what I mean, I'm sure.

I haven't started reading it yet because my library has been closed a streak due to Thanksgiving, but I'll get it tomorrow.

Violence is a big theme in Pollock's work, it's a fundamental facet of ignorance and the cycle of wretchedness.

If you read the first story of Kockemstiff, you'll have a better understanding of Pollock's use of violence.

Knockemstiff is here
http://libgen.org/foreignfiction/?s=knockemstiff

>> No.5787805

>>5776974
There are probably better ones

>> No.5787855

>>5779882
lol
>>5781421
You are -vastly- overestimating these people and I suspect you must be a newfag.

>> No.5787863

>>5787805
>There MUST be a plethora of really great women and minority writers somewhere!!!

How many times do you need to be met with a resounding no names before you retards will stop getting offended for the sake of parroting the above fallacy?

>> No.5790390

>>5787783
Got the short stories, will check them out at some point.

>> No.5790484

>>5784953
Well, I am.

>> No.5790738

Finished it yesterday and bought Knockemstiff straight after. Thanks for the suggestion, OP.

>> No.5791594

bump

>> No.5792792

>>5790738
No problem.

Reading this now, I find it a more empathetic companion to Knockemstiff. In Knockemstiff, the people are either items of repulsion, or clowns of the bleakest of black humor, but in The Devil All the Time, it feels like we are called upon more to empathize with their wretchedness.

>> No.5794511

bump

>> No.5795523

bump

>> No.5795746

Damn, i'm working all week so I have to wait until tuesday to get my copy from the library. I'll probably still be able to participate in the main discussion though, whenever that happens. Also, I think the key to success here will just be persistence. If you keep making these threads, people will eventually come.

>> No.5797881

>>5795746
Got my copy yesterday, don't worry, you'll read that sucker fast, and the next book doesn't start until next Sunday, December 7.

>> No.5797890

Do you have any suggestions on similar books ?

>> No.5797937

>>5797890
Knockemstiff
http://libgen.org/foreignfiction/?s=knockemstiff

Like The Devil All the Time, Knockemstiff chronicles several decades in the rural nightmare. Knockemstiff is a collection of short stories.that touch much on the same themes as The Devil All the Time, but the approach is much less sympathetic to the characters, they are dealt a shit hand but they make their own Hell with it. In The Devil All the Time, we sort of feel sorry for them, but in Knockemstiff there's a stronger strain of black humor. Nonetheless, both works are rather bleak.

>> No.5797945

I nominate Laura Warholic by Alexander Theroux

>> No.5797978

>>5797890
You'll notice the difference from the beginning. Both stories start with a father proudly introducing his son to the world of violence, but while there is a faint trace of nobility to it in The Devil All the Time, in Knockemstiff violence is never noble, it's just stupidity and wince as the father and son feel pride in idiocy. Both works dwell heavily on violence as a facet of the cycle of poverty and wretchedness.

>> No.5798744

bump

>> No.5799783

Bump

>> No.5800726

bumping

>> No.5800761

Roberto Bolano would be good in bringing in more readers, as well as being very high quality. By Night in Chile was published in 2000 and is very short, as is the Third Reich. They can also have extensive discussion beyond those texts by seeing how the themes in those novels appear in his other works.

>> No.5800816

I'm wondering, do you think it's a good idea to use names, but only use them in these threads? I can see some merit to anonymity here, but I think we can actually take advantage of the intended use of names (as in, to clarify who is who) in these kinds of threads. Maybe just use a variation of anonymous/no one like ΟΥΤΙΣ does.

>> No.5801040

Well this went well.

>> No.5801220

>>5801040
This isn't the actual discussion thread, as OP stated earlier, but rather an attempt to gather more readers. The actual discussion thread is later this week.

>> No.5801241

>>5801220
I won't be participating in this and I'm skeptical about how popular cannonball will be buT OP has convinced me to read knockemstiff and then possibly this book, at least. I might read middle C with you guys.

>> No.5801262

>>5787805
Karen Russell is my go to.

>> No.5803315

bump

>> No.5803326

How do you have time to do this, the patrician club and learning Greek?

Are you NEET?

>> No.5804791

okay, I got my copy today and have made it through the prologue. I think I'll take notes on what I think and bring them up in the main thread so we have more to talk about there.

>> No.5804830

>>5803326
There is nothing he does except fail

and yes he is

>> No.5804863

>>5804830
How can you say he's failing when there are so many posters participating in this?