post itt writers you think are bad

i'm fond of him too, kate. he had some really great and funny lines! those little poems could have inspired a young Lorrie Moore. don't know if she would admit it. but he had some really good one-liners. even his fiction could be very entertaining and very funny. but he suffers from that shaggy dog hippie persona. probably why a lot of people wouldn't go to bat for Tom Robbins in 2024 either.

i hated brautigan when i fancied myself a young poet (all his stuff seemed so obvious to me) but i’ve come to appreciate him more

lorrie moore is like, a tragedy of a writer to me, her early stuff is so good, a gate at the stairs is like good in parts and abjectly terrible in others, and now she’s completely unreadable

At the California Institute of Technology
BY RICHARD BRAUTIGAN

I don’t care how God-damn smart
these guys are: I’m bored.

It’s been raining like hell all day long
and there’s nothing to do.

come on, anyone would be proud of that one.

see yeah i love that now. maybe i needed to live more

I liked half the stories in Bark; the one about the young woman who has an affair with a old dying man made me cry.

i put down bark and never picked it back up after (iirc) the first story ended with 9/11

brautigan would also do cutesy and sad sack in a way that was not always fun to read. he had his good and bad points.

i put down bark and never picked it back up after (iirc) the first story ended with 9/11

woof!

i don't even remember much about Bark. i should look at it again. i just saw it in a box in the attic.

I don't even remember that story!

anyway I'm sure Moore made a lot of money with Birds of America.

i almost bought that Everyman's Library Collected Stories - intro by Lauren Groff - even though i already own everything in it just to have some sort of official government document of her greatness.

and the stories are in alphabetical order!

brautigan would also do cutesy and sad sack in a way that was not always fun to read. he had his good and bad points.

― scott seward

"At the California Institute of Technology" is a good one!

yeah some of his stuff, like "machines of loving grace", i don't like that one at all. i found "in watermelon sugar" intolerable. "the rivets in ecclesiastes", i like that one a lot. because of course brautigan was going to be into ecclesiastes.

his later poetry doesn't get much of a look-in i've found, and i think that's a shame. i liked "june 30, june 30" (the collection) a lot.

a lot of writers i like the _idea_ of them more than their actual work. i'm in love with the _idea_ of robert walser.

Yeah, that's kind of Kafka for me. I think on the whole he has been a baleful influence on literature.

I've read at least five books by André Aciman and feel like I've basically lost interest in him.

He did lead me to some great writers though (Yourcenar, Djuna Barnes).

My dad was a big Brautigan fan, owned about a dozen of his books. I've never been able to figure it out, because other than his affection for Richard Brautigan my dad was a pure product of the 1950s California desert — bought and fixed up cars, listened to doo-wop and oldies (his favorite song was "The Ten Commandments of Love"), once told me a story about getting shot at for dancing with the wrong girl at a party in Mexico...but yeah, Brautigan really spoke to him somehow.

The sequel to Call Me By Your Name is so gruesome that I wanted to press a pillow against his face.

I enjoy Brautigan a lot. Aesthetically similar to Vonnegut, and there are some very rich insights and pathos in his works. The Tokyo-Montana Express is really heartbreaking in points, and The Hawkline Monster (which Hal Ashby and Tim Burton both tried to turn into a film) is nuts

i just checked and tom robbins is still alive and 91 years old. i guess i thought he wrote more but he only wrote 8 novels. from 1971 to 2003. does anyone still read him? there was the 90s Cowgirls boom thanks to Gus Van Sant and kd lang. he was madcap. kinda feel like he led to t. coraghessan boyle somehow. though that's just going by boyle titles and plots. i don't read his books. brautigan to robbins to boyle? the sons of mark twain.

also: what about william t. vollmann? is he a genius or terrible? his books repel me for some reason. or the thought of reading them does. but i haven't looked in one in years and years. is he big in germany? he must be.

I read the abridged book about violence last year and it was okay

I kind of dig his deadpan-ness

sorry, not the thread defending, sorry

I read Rainbow Stories and Whores For Gloria. Rainbow Stories was OK, but Whores For Gloria sucked. I bought Europe Central in hardcover but never read it and eventually got rid of it. I doubt I'll ever read anything by him again.

Vollmann’s Seven Dreams series and The Royal Family are incredible. You Bright and Risen Angels is nearly impossible for me to get through. There is no one else like him. His nonfiction is often fucking stunning

Vollmann was first published in Germany before an American publisher picked him up. Super nice guy, BTW. At a signing, he offered to take everyone out for drinks afterwards

My UK Picador copy of Trout Fishing in America has an endorsement from Auberon Waugh of all the unlikely ppl.

Another writer I would bracket with Robbins and Brautigan and seems even more discarded = William Kotzwinkle. His ET novelisation is p great!

I enjoyed Vollmann's non-fiction book on Imperial Valley, CA. It's of personal interest to me though since I grew up there, so YMMV.

Kotzwinkle is one of the great cult writers. It’s ridiculous that only one of his works has had a film adaptation, as they’re screaming for the big screen treatment (although Ralph Bakshi tried to make an animated The Fan Man in the 70’s)

If you like Kotzwinkle, Thomas Berger will appeal to you

I wasn't kidding about Kafka. Wherever I encounter that sort of funny/not-funny inscrutable portentous symbolism I curse his name. Give me HP Lovecraft or HG Wells over him any day of the week.

I tried reading Kafka in German but gave up because I don't know German.

Not all of his books are good, but Vollmann is excellent when he’s excellent. He is, indeed, a lovely person

I take ivys point that there should be less caping itt but a list of names with zero discussion is about the most boring thing imaginable, cf the posi thread going atm, cf also maybe the lamest thread on this website “things you don’t care about” just a series of there-I-said-it turds useless to anyone, you don’t want that for this thread

would just rather ppl not get defensive (i'm guilty re: sebald!!!). thread can be for sincere investigation and appreciation AND blunt dismissal. also thread policing is fun and stupid

the thread police : live inside my head / come to me in my bed / coming to arrest me!
oh no!!

miranda july's not obscure! she's a bestseller and a marquee name at literary festivals!

She's also got a new novel coming out next month that I am eagerly anticipating.

i've never read july. my friend lent me the first bad man a few years ago, maybe i'll finally read that next

I remember not liking her movie but "poop 2 poop" is an unimpeachable contribution to culture, and maybe that's something a "good" writer would never have attempted.

i like to move it move it

vollman brought a gun to a signing I went to a very long time ago. I can't imagine anyone doing something like that these days.

I dont know that I've ever actually finished one of his novels though i certainly have started most of them. I do like Rainbow Stories which are essays.

i remember the metamorphosis being pretty good in german, that said my german wasn't totally fluent at the time, and is terrible now

Vollmann’s An Afghanistan Picture Show would make a great film. It’s amazing how he is still alive. He’s lived on the razor’s edge more than Hunter S. Thompson

i just read that his daughter died in 2022. that's rough. his face is a fascinating thing to look at. and the cross-dressing thing. wow. i didn't know about that book. yeah, he is quite the unique character. his books always looked like they hurt. like they would hurt me. i know that sounds weird. maybe he's just too intense for me. i mean i guess i'm somewhat fascinated by violence but mostly i run from it. unless its a horror movie. or an action film.

i'm convinced that this stuff will actually drive you insane if you read too much of it but i find it mesmerizing in small doses:

“'Who's that galoot?' I asks th' dub who's slammin' carriage doors at the curb. 'Is he a married man?'

“'He's married all right,” says th' door-slammin' dub.

“Wit that I tears into him. It's a good while ago, an' I could slug a little. Be th' time th' copper gets there, I've got that jolly good fellow lookin' like he'd been caught whistlin' Croppies Lie Down at Fiftieth Street an' Fift' Avenoo when th' Cathedral lets out.”

“Well, I'm not married,” remarked the Wop, snappishly;—“I'm not married; I niver was married; an' I niver will be married aloive.”

“Did youse notice?” remarked the Dropper, “how they gets a roar out of old Boss Croker? He's for racin' all right.”

“Naturally,” said old Jimmy. “Him ownin' race horses, Croker's for th' race tracks. He don't cut no ice.”

“How much do yez figger Croker had cleaned up, Jimmy, when he made his getaway for Ireland?” asked the Wop, licking an envious lip.

“Without comin' down to book-keepin',” returned old Jimmy, carelessly, “my understandin' is that, be havin' th' whole wad changed into thousand dollar bills, he's able to get it down to th' dock on a dray.”

The Grabber came in. He beckoned Slimmy, and the two were at once immersed in serious whisperings.

“What are youse two stews chinnin' about?” called out the Dropper lazily, from across the room. “Be youse thinkin' of orderin' th' beer?”

“It's about Indian Louie,” replied Slimmy, angrily. “Th' Grabber here says Louie's out to skin us.”

“Indian Louie,” remarked the Wop, with a gleam in his little gray eye. “That's th' labberick w'at's goin' to shti-i-ick up me poolroom f'r thim fifty bones. Anny wan that'd have annything to do wit' a bum loike him ought to get skinned.”

“W'at's he tryin' to saw off on youse?” asked the Dropper.

“This is th' proposition.” It was the Grabber now. “Me an' Slimmy here goes in wit' Louie to give that racket last week in Tammany Hall. Now Louie's got th' whole bundle, an' he won't split it. Me an' Slimmy's been t'run down for six hundred good iron dollars apiece.”

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51909/51909-h/51909-h.htm#link2H_4_0005

“Lishten, then.” This came from the Irish Wop, who was nothing if not political. “Lishten to me. Yez can go to shleep on it, I know all about a socialist. There's ould Casey's son, Barney—ould Casey that med a killin' in ashphalt. Well, since his pah-pah got rich, young Casey's a socialist. On'y his name ain't Barney now, it's Berna-a-ard. There's slathers av thim sons av rich min turnin' socialists. They ain't strong enough to git a fall out av either av th' big pa-a-arties, so they rush off to th' socialists, where be payin' fer th' shpot light, they're allowed to break into th' picture. That's th' way wit' young Barney, ould Ashphalt Casey's son. Wan evenin' he dr-r-ives up to Lyon's wit' his pah-pah's broom, two bob-tailed horses that spint most av their time on their hind legs, an' th' Casey coat av arms on the broom dure, th' same bein' a shtick av dynamite rampant, wit' two shovels reversed on a field av p'tatoes. 'How ar-r-re ye?' he says. 'I want yez to jump in an' come wit' me to th' Crystal Palace. It's a socialist meet-in',' he says. 'Oh, it is?' says I; 'an' phwat's a socialist? Is it a game or a musical inshtrumint?' Wit' that he goes into p'ticulars. 'Well,' thinks I, 'there's th' ride, annyhow; an' I ain't had a carriage ride since Eat-'em-up-Jack packed in—saints rest him! So I goes out to th' broom; an' bechune th' restlessness av thim bob-tailed horses an' me not seein' a carriage fer so long, I nearly br-r-roke me two legs gettin' in. However, I wint. An' I sat on th' stage; an' I lishtened to th' wind-jammin'; an' not to go no further, a socialist is simply an anarchist who don't believe in bombs.”

can you imagine? just book after book of that stuff. can you even imagine writing a few pages of it? you would have to be on some pretty strong stuff.

his westerns were just as dense and demented:

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13709/pg13709-images.html