Also I found myself disproportionately annoyed that Siri Hustvedt's The Blazing World failed to make the shortlist last year, supposedly putting her at the same level as crap like Us and The Bone Clocks. Actually I ended up reading a surprising amount of the shortlist last year and the Joshua Ferris one in particular was dire. Don't think I'll ever understand the appeal of Ali Smith either.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 14 October 2015 08:48 (eight years ago) link
The sdtrack for this: http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/oct/06/the-playlist-reggae-wayne-smith-super-cat-and-shabba-ranks?CMP=share_btn_tw
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 14 October 2015 09:11 (eight years ago) link
I might give it a go as well, though the 700 pages is daunting, and what Matt DC said about Howard Jacobson in spades with a cherry on top.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 14 October 2015 14:46 (eight years ago) link
Got it as a present, am about half way through but haven't touched it for days, I think I've given up. Basically a problem of style. Each chapter has a different narrator from a large and rotating cast, and they're quite short so it's hard to get a sense of immersion when the viewpoint keeps on shifting. Almost all the characters are self-obsessed and carrying giant chips on their shoulders, and they all talk to themselves in extremely self aware prose - "Jesus Christ breathe, Kim Clarke. Breathe in, out, in out, in, out. That's the third time I called myself Kim Clarke without thinking [...]" - so aside from patois to distinguish between Jamaicans and Americans, there's a sameness to them all. Dialogue is rendered verbatim with only a new line/dash to indicate a change of speaker so after half a dozen exchanges I'm pretty much lost as to who is saying what.
Plot wise it seems on the surface to be complex, with local politicians and gang leaders and CIA and regular citizens, all with their own schemes and all tangling with each other, but it doesn't go very deep. It feels like all the different threads are very short, just added for effect, there's no grand narrative waiting to be revealed, no sense of tension. Which kinda would be ok, I wasn't expecting or hoping for a Clancy style thriller, but since I'm not enjoying the style I have no other reason to carry on, no burning desire to find out what's going to happen.
― ledge, Wednesday, 4 November 2015 13:54 (eight years ago) link
b-b-but Michiko Kakutani said it was "epic in every sense of that word: sweeping, mythic, over-the-top, colossal and dizzyingly complex."
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 4 November 2015 14:00 (eight years ago) link
Her dad was much more precise in his language.
― Memes of the Pwn Age (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 4 November 2015 14:01 (eight years ago) link
Irvine Welsh called it the most original book he'd read in years. Doesn't read so much I guess.
― ledge, Wednesday, 4 November 2015 14:02 (eight years ago) link
I called myself Kim ClarkeThe bass player?
― Memes of the Pwn Age (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 4 November 2015 14:05 (eight years ago) link
> Got it as a present, am about half way through but haven't touched it for days
i'm still reading The Famished Road.
― koogs, Wednesday, 4 November 2015 14:10 (eight years ago) link
So anyway here's the clear highlight - at one point the gang go on a cocaine fuelled killing spree and finally their uptight internal monologues loosen up a bit, then they get double crossed and executed, this is one character as he is being buried alive:
Rock! Rock side to side no side only dirt turn over turn over 'bout turn over sad crouch like baby crouch and so you have air I should have fuck the woman I live with no not her some other girl the girl two door down some other girl white girl charlie's angel pussy pink pussy is pink me see me in daddy secret book under the bed which he take out when be think me sleep and go off by himself and make man sound jesus me hard could fuck the ground must fuck the ground fuck fuck fuck want pussy no don't want pussy fuck fuck fuck bend her over and rub the cunt and hoist up the battyhole and sink down the cock and it tight feel like piece of liver wrap 'round you cocky big big like daddy cocky when he fuck me whore mother her back to him she didn't care who sleep and who wake and when she raise up herself daddy cocky like flagpole she raise and raise and couldn't come off but she don't want to come off she slide back down and yelp like puppy pussy cocky balls balls and me never see me father naked and me never see him fuck me mother maybe some other man maybe Funnyboy no he is battyman etc etc
― ledge, Wednesday, 4 November 2015 18:47 (eight years ago) link
I am enjoying this book so far.
― canoon fooder (dog latin), Tuesday, 12 January 2016 15:43 (eight years ago) link
Woody Harrelson in with a shot this year
http://blog.katjakuhl.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/RobertSeethaler-PhotoKatjaKuhl06.jpg
― Just can't get Eno, ugh (ledge), Friday, 15 April 2016 21:28 (eight years ago) link
Whither my img tags
― Just can't get Eno, ugh (ledge), Friday, 15 April 2016 21:29 (eight years ago) link
Double the woody, double the fun.
― Just can't get Eno, ugh (ledge), Friday, 15 April 2016 21:32 (eight years ago) link
Who is that?
― a hairy, howling toad torments a man whose wife is deathly ill (James Morrison), Saturday, 16 April 2016 00:27 (eight years ago) link
The Luminaries has yet to show up in any New Zealand op shops, v odd.
― albvivertine, Saturday, 16 April 2016 01:41 (eight years ago) link
Xp one of this lot:
The Nobel prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, pseudonymous Italian author Elena Ferrante, Chinese dissident Yan Lianke, Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualusa, Austrian Robert Seethaler and South Korean Han Kang
― Just can't get Eno, ugh (ledge), Saturday, 16 April 2016 04:04 (eight years ago) link
(the url suggests it's Robert Seethaler)
― koogs, Saturday, 16 April 2016 07:26 (eight years ago) link
USA! USA! USA!
http://www.clipartkid.com/images/138/soldier-in-iraq-a-poem-of-life-and-loss-by-jevonte-lockhart-dW4CmJ-clipart.jpg
― scott seward, Wednesday, 26 October 2016 12:44 (seven years ago) link
http://images.buycostumes.com/mgen/merchandiser/uncle-sam-top-hat-bc-32426.jpg
― scott seward, Wednesday, 26 October 2016 12:45 (seven years ago) link
A critique of the 'about novel' and its laurels:
https://this-space.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-end-of-literature-part-3.html
― pomenitul, Monday, 24 August 2020 14:39 (three years ago) link
Remember when John Carey said the modernists wrote works to exclude the masses and that was only a bad thing? Why is this any less of a travesty?
John Carey is an idiot and that book is trash.
― emil.y, Monday, 24 August 2020 14:46 (three years ago) link
Funnily enough I am reading some of Woolf's diaries and thinking about her snobbery, in that she acknowledges it, it's a trait that she thinks about quite a bit instead of just being this monstrous reflex she displays.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 24 August 2020 15:14 (three years ago) link
Oh, there are definitely important discussions about modernism and elitism, it's just none of them come from Carey (source: a huge portion of my academic career).
― emil.y, Monday, 24 August 2020 15:16 (three years ago) link
What is happening when book prizes and the coverage of them has much less concern for the books in themselves than for the identity of the authors and their extra-literary agendas?
i am falling asleep reading this is mostly what's happening
― A Short Film About Scampoes (Noodle Vague), Monday, 24 August 2020 15:18 (three years ago) link
"What is happening when book prizes and the coverage of them has much less concern for the books in themselves than for the identity of the authors and their extra-literary agendas?" - we seriously suggesting this was ever not the case?
lol xpost
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 24 August 2020 15:20 (three years ago) link
I stopped reading at "barbarism" on the assumption it was going to be a pile-up of clichéd handwringing.
― Matt DC, Monday, 24 August 2020 15:21 (three years ago) link
i mean the Booker has always been for lamebrow shit, just because they've had the temerity to put a more diverse range of writers in the longlist doesn't mean they're squeezing out a load of avant garde novels that would otherwise have placed
― A Short Film About Scampoes (Noodle Vague), Monday, 24 August 2020 15:21 (three years ago) link
Defeatist, but yes, exactly.
― pomenitul, Monday, 24 August 2020 15:24 (three years ago) link
Would tend to agree but I have to say I did really love Milkman by Anna Burns. A good winner imo.
― emil.y, Monday, 24 August 2020 15:27 (three years ago) link
Don’t get the sense that tokarczuk or kraznahorkai are pandering to the mass market either but what do I know
― agent brodie canks (wins), Monday, 24 August 2020 15:34 (three years ago) link
i accept that there are noble exceptions i was just making a bad rhetorical point, which is still true in general imo
― A Short Film About Scampoes (Noodle Vague), Monday, 24 August 2020 15:36 (three years ago) link
also the International Prize feels like a different thing
― A Short Film About Scampoes (Noodle Vague), Monday, 24 August 2020 15:37 (three years ago) link
Anyhow, I do think it's fair to argue that easily summarizable novels written by readily assignable authorial identities are likelier to garner the kind of praise that yields household names. Insofar as this has always been the case (including and especially when otherwise claimed), greater nominee diversity is a step forward, but the underlying concern – the triumph of subjects (in every sense of the term) over the work itself – remains. Then again, this myopia is likely embedded into the business of literary awards, and there is no escaping it short of abolishing them altogether (and even then...).
― pomenitul, Monday, 24 August 2020 15:57 (three years ago) link
How many of the books have you read? How many has the blogger read?
― Matt DC, Monday, 24 August 2020 15:59 (three years ago) link
Brb, will read them all and report.
― pomenitul, Monday, 24 August 2020 16:02 (three years ago) link
Then again, this myopia is likely embedded into the business of literary awards
I'd say it's embedded into the very nature of canon building; as soon as you're grasping for some consensus beyond personal taste it becomes about subjects over work. The fact that the blogger thinks this a new development - as opposed to it having been ever thus, but invisibly so - makes me mistrust him.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 24 August 2020 16:05 (three years ago) link
the triumph of subjects (in every sense of the term) over the work itself
As Matt DC points out, the blogger doesn't seem to have any idea of whether this is actually the case, as they haven't read the books. So it's basically a kneejerk reaction to diversity, which makes me, uh, very suspicious of this person, to be charitable.
― emil.y, Monday, 24 August 2020 16:09 (three years ago) link
How about a knee-jerk reaction to the marketing of diversity? Or is that the same thing?
― pomenitul, Monday, 24 August 2020 16:12 (three years ago) link
I skimmed the article, saw the word Knausgaard several times, and closed tab
― imago, Monday, 24 August 2020 16:14 (three years ago) link
xp
it always seems to be an excuse to moan about diversity imo
― A Short Film About Scampoes (Noodle Vague), Monday, 24 August 2020 16:14 (three years ago) link
and almost any novel is described in terms of its subject matter at some point, this piece doesn't really have any clue about the "literary" qualities of the books simply because of how they've been described by reviewers or publicists
also content/style dichotomy, yuk
― A Short Film About Scampoes (Noodle Vague), Monday, 24 August 2020 16:15 (three years ago) link
Yeah I was going to point out that the distinction that's being drawn here is inherently bullshit, but if the blogger in question hasn't read any of the books then he can only be reacting to the subjects.
― Matt DC, Monday, 24 August 2020 16:17 (three years ago) link
Austen and her new-fangled 'about' fic-lite concerning love and friendship can gtf, oh but for real writing like Defoe
― imago, Monday, 24 August 2020 16:20 (three years ago) link
I mean I am sympathetic to the idea that a lot of brilliant books are disbarred from award consideration in favour of simpler ones that hit the zeitgeist a little harder, but that's life yknow
― imago, Monday, 24 August 2020 16:21 (three years ago) link
No, it's definitely not the same thing, but while that may have been their intention, it's not how the piece reads to me. I'd also say that debating the marketing of diversity can lead you to the same place as just debating diversity itself if you're not careful.
― emil.y, Monday, 24 August 2020 16:21 (three years ago) link
(For clarity, "you" is the general you here, and the "same place" is racism. Obviously.)
― emil.y, Monday, 24 August 2020 16:22 (three years ago) link
debating the marketing of diversity can lead you to the same place as just debating diversity itself if you're not careful
I, for one, believe it's a conversation worth having, even as I agree that Mitchelmore wasn't careful enough in his own blog post, which is ultimately dismissive and superficial. As an aside, I almost never feel like I'm walking on eggshells when discussing this in non-anglophone settings (not always a good thing, mind you).
― pomentiful (pomenitul), Monday, 24 August 2020 16:45 (three years ago) link
Lol just had a look at the link just now and Mitchelmore was on twitter vigorously defending Peter Handke's Yoguslav tourism once the allegations came up again when he won the Nobel last year. No wonder he has problems with diversity.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 24 August 2020 16:51 (three years ago) link
Careful.
I live in a little personal pocket cancel culture, as I have an unwritten list of names I will never read, watch or listen to wherever they appear. Mostly anti-Corbyn writers, slebs, blue ticks and TV presenters. (I've never written 'blue ticks' before 😱) Anyone else do this?— Steve Mitchelmore (@Twitchelmore) July 9, 2020
https://balkaninsight.com/2015/08/17/uk-labour-frontrunner-queried-on-kosovo-motion-08-17-2015/
https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/26919
― pomentiful (pomenitul), Monday, 24 August 2020 17:01 (three years ago) link