henke on 8/10/2012 at 05:54
I haven't read a book in ages, just listen to audiobooks these days. The Song of Ice and Fire series most recently. On A Dance with Dragons now, it's not as gripping as the early books, but I'm gonna finish it anyway. Got Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash queued up next.
Quote Posted by Angel Dust
Just finished the Denis Johnson short story collection
Jesus' Son...
Ooooh, that sounds pretty interesting actually. Will have to check that one out.
Angel Dust on 8/10/2012 at 06:31
Quote Posted by demagogue
Right now I'm reading Salman Rushdie,
Midnight's Children.
I had a complicated reaction to that book. For the first 100 or so pages I was convinced it was one of the greatest books I had ever written but as it dragged it that feeling moved to boredom to outright dislike, culminating with my pretty much throwing the book down in disgust at the end. However, I do realize that one man's overworked, self-satisfied waffle is another man's treasure* and there was enough that I still grudgingly admired, Rushdie can certainly write, that I've been meaning to give him another shot. I'll put
The Satanic Verses into the reading pile then, unless you guys have a better recommendation?
* I'm a guy who when he found out the original draft of
Infinite Jest was 400 pages longer was disappointed he didn't get that version. Hey look, a footnote!
Thirith on 8/10/2012 at 07:23
Quote Posted by Angel Dust
I had a complicated reaction to that book. For the first 100 or so pages I was convinced it was one of the greatest books I had ever written but as it dragged it that feeling moved to boredom to outright dislike, culminating with my pretty much throwing the book down in disgust at the end. However, I do realize that one man's overworked, self-satisfied waffle is another man's treasure* and there was enough that I still grudgingly admired, Rushdie can certainly write, that I've been meaning to give him another shot. I'll put
The Satanic Verses into the reading pile then, unless you guys have a better recommendation?
* I'm a guy who when he found out the original draft of
Infinite Jest was 400 pages longer was disappointed he didn't get that version. Hey look, a footnote!
Heh. I wasn't a huge fan of
Infinite Jest - it's definitely an amazing accomplishment, but I found the style grating, and I skipped most of the endnotes.
If you ended up disliking
Midnight's Children, you may feel the same way about
The Satanic Verses, since Rushdie does many of the same things in it. I would definitely not recommend the later novels, because they largely feel like Rushdie's imitating himself and not all that well at that.
The Enchantress of Florence isn't bad, but that's mainly in comparison with the novels that preceded it.
Grimus (which he wrote before
Midnight's Children) feels pretty different, but I felt there was very little to like about that book;
Shame (Rushdie's "Pakistan novel", so to speak) is also somewhat different in terms of its tone, and shorter; more satirical and less given to bouts of fabulation than
Midnight's Children.
demagogue on 8/10/2012 at 07:30
Muslims are apparently universally despised around where I am, so I'm kind of reading it as a spiritual protest (I'm keeping to myself). Not that Rushdie is their most sympathetic proponent either, but I at least wanted to read another perspective for them in the region, and from the inside. Also to counter the idea the whole lot is somehow irredeemable. And the fact it opens in a peaceful Kashmir with a seemingly reasonable narrator gives me a little hope... I don't know where it's going with it though. I know the way history went.
Also I'm trying to write my own stuff, and I wanted to take notes from other authors that might be roughly in the same style ... Writing about the real world but still this slightly surreal, otherworldly bent to things. I'm kind of fantasy-fatigued these days and want to find more about real places and situations I don't know much about, and the best parts of the real world can have a surreal quality too.
Edit: It's fine so far. I like a lot of the imagery he uses, and how he constructs scenes and threads. He's not really hooked me with anything compelling so far; it's a bit far from my ken. But again I'm reading it a bit mechanically, to take notes, paying as much attention to how situations are constructed and what works as much as whether I "like" it.
Thirith on 8/10/2012 at 08:05
What I still find amazing about The Satanic Verses is that it's actually remarkably sympathetic to religion/Islam; it's by no means an attack on Islam so much as on fundamentalism and on religion being used as a weapon against others. Rushdie completely lost this differentiation after the fatwa - which is understandable, but IMO it makes his writing sound a lot more like boring harangues.
SubJeff on 8/10/2012 at 15:50
Flashman's Lady.
I'm just going through these. They are such a fun read, exciting and funny and with a lot of history in them. It's genius really.
Sulphur on 8/10/2012 at 16:19
Yeah, so I picked up Infinite Jest, and read the first two pages... which describe a conversation between a bunch of deans, a coach, and the protagonist's uncle about his acceptance into the University's tennis academy. Right. So I closed the book and moved on to A Song of... A Game of Thrones: Book I. I can tell you one thing, while G.R.R. Martin has a great vision for high fantasy and sharply drawn characters, the actual writing is so prosaic and workmanlike it's almost well-nigh textureless, like munching on soggy week-old oatmeal. Makes it a bloody slog to read, when the series was paced like a ripping good yarn.
Infinite Jest is supposed to be a challenging book; okay, so I'm down with that, but someone please tell me that's not because there's so much incidental shit shoved in the crevices of its conversations like the position of the protagonist's ankle and whether he should scratch his jaw or not, but because that shit eventually peels away to what amounts to be a good read.
Next up: Sunstorm, the sequel to Time's Eye, from the late Arthur C. Clarke and some other English dude who wrote some books that are apparently 'hard' sci-fi. Well well, we'll see.
Volitions Advocate on 8/10/2012 at 17:44
I recently finished "The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fjorde. It is a very nerdy book. Kind of an Alt-universe if there was such a thing as time travel and people from the future changed things in the past to make things better. And modern day life is centered around classic literature. The main character (A Heroine named Thursday Next) is part of the police force that protects crimes against literature. My synopsis sucks, but it was a very good read, part Sci Fi and part Cop Drama. Werewolves, vampires, Charles Dickens. Apparently there is more than one book, so I might finish the rest.
Also had to read Silence of the Lambs for a class. Turns out if you saw the movie you really didn't miss much from the book, and I don't normally think thats the case. Lecter is definitely the focus of the series, even if he isn't the big bad guy in this one. Without him there would be no story.
Angel Dust on 8/10/2012 at 21:01
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Infinite Jest is supposed to be a challenging book; okay, so I'm down with that, but someone please tell me that's not because there's so much incidental shit shoved in the crevices of its conversations like the position of the protagonist's ankle and whether he should scratch his jaw or not, but because that shit eventually peels away to what amounts to be a good read.
I would say some of the challenge comes from the length, the amount of characters and stories and the stylistic flourishes as much as for the everything-but-the-kitcken-sink-oh-fuck-it-throw-it-in-there-as-well approach. Having said all that I actually found
Infinite Jest to be the least challenging 'challenging read' that I've ever read, simply because it also has the good grace to be highly entertaining and emotionally engaging at the same time as it is giving your brain a workout. There is always something interesting going on (even that opening scene you describe is not as straightforward as you think it is - keep reading.) and it all builds up to some rather powerful moments. That said, it is dense with detail and frequent digressions, so if DFW's 'maximalist' style isn't your thing, you might have a hard time. I'd say it's worth sticking around until Gately shows up anyway.
Thirith on 9/10/2012 at 04:41
I very much liked the Gately bits, though in comparison I cared even less about the rest, especially the goings-ons at the tennis academy. There were some interesting parts there too (e.g. that thermonuclear war game they play), but little of it engaged me all that much. For whatever reason I've yet to find much American postmodern fiction that I fully enjoy. (And if I was more awake and hadn't just woken up, I'd probably come up with half a dozen titles of US postmodern fiction that I enjoyed. Perhaps after a full night of sleep...)