White Noise is hilarious. I should read more of this guy
― très hip (Treeship), Wednesday, 30 April 2014 18:55 (ten years ago) link
Libra is hilarious
― idontknowanythingabouttechnlolgeez (waterface), Wednesday, 30 April 2014 18:57 (ten years ago) link
Body Artist, not hilarious.
― That's So (Eazy), Friday, 2 May 2014 04:46 (ten years ago) link
also no good.
― i lost my shoes on acid (jed_), Friday, 2 May 2014 16:00 (ten years ago) link
pro body artist
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Friday, 2 May 2014 16:18 (ten years ago) link
interested in inverse proportion to square root of length really
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Friday, 2 May 2014 16:19 (ten years ago) link
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/06/garbage-everywhere/373118/
― j., Saturday, 21 June 2014 01:16 (nine years ago) link
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/137755/heres-fun-rumor-nobel-prize-literature
^^^the *only* reason to share it between DL and PR is to troll PR one last vast time
per the thread: pynchon rocks and delillo sucks
― mark s, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 20:43 (seven years ago) link
The kind of writer that Pynchon is has never won a Nobel so yeah Delillo (by himself) is a good bet
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 20:57 (seven years ago) link
Well, then it's about time! Oh, if Pynchon wins, I will be dancing all day. And then get astonishingly drunk. Fucking hell, I want Pynchon to win so bad.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 21:17 (seven years ago) link
Oh, just read the article, it's about Philip Roth instead... I think an expert article on the Nobel would know that the prize has actually been split four times (Danes Karl Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan split in 1917) and wouldn't mix up Migeul Asturias with Nelly Sachs. So in conclusion, the article is wrong, therefore Pynchon is destined to win.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 21:25 (seven years ago) link
👍
― mark s, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 21:28 (seven years ago) link
btw I only said that bcz -- when I last looked at the list of winners -- it seemed that the really great writers of a particular movement or undercurrent or scene seldom win: Beckett not Joyce, Kawabata not Mishima, Simon not Duras, Marquez not Borges. So the winner of er American encyclopedic novel should be Pynchon but it'll be Delillo.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 21:40 (seven years ago) link
dude beckett >>>>> joyce
i am not looking forward to the pinefox's return to this thread :)
― mark s, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 21:42 (seven years ago) link
xp. borges is not a boom writer. marquez and vargas llosa both winning the nobel means the boom is one movement where you can say pretty definitively that the best writers from it won the nobel
― ælərdaɪs (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 21:47 (seven years ago) link
I know but I think its fair to say that in people's minds Borges is the father of modern Latin American fiction and a precursor of the boom. I know it doesn't stick.
beckett >>>>> joyce
Flann O'Brien ftw
(Would've agreed, have been off Joyce till I started reading parts of the Wake via that twitter account. But again they aren't like one another anyway, just seen as part of the same 'scene')
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 21:53 (seven years ago) link
LOL now looking at that list on wiki and more exampels: Mann not Rilke, Jelinek not Bernhard, Gide not Proust, Seferis not Cavafy, Canetti not Musil, Pasternak not Tsvetaeva, Saramago not Pessoa.
Even if I like quite a few of the writers that have won its such a load of rub!
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:00 (seven years ago) link
marquez and vargas llosa both winning the nobel means the boom is one movement where you can say pretty definitively that the best writers from it won the nobel
― ælərdaɪs (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, October 12, 2016 2:47 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
except neruda was not a better writer than borges, but you can argue that borges didn't win it for political reasons, sure
i always thought cortazar was a better writer than marquez. llosa wrote maybe one decent book. yet the writer who encompasses all the boom's qualities is the one who did it the worse in my opinion -- marquez
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:01 (seven years ago) link
neruda and borges is the right generation but very different writers. i expect it was more the great mass popularity of neruda that probably swung the judges.
vargas llosa's first three novels are all great imo, and several of his later works are decent
― ælərdaɪs (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:07 (seven years ago) link
best way to look at the nobel prize is as a pretty arbitrary thing that isn't that important other than for that year's laureate and their fans
― ælərdaɪs (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:10 (seven years ago) link
A lot of time the best die young. But Marquez was pretty clearly the right boom winner, if only for Autumn of the Patriarch. I used to love Cortazar, but the latest short story collection I tried and make my way through was severely disappointing. I'd take Juan Rulfo every day of the week instead.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:13 (seven years ago) link
WHERE'S THE FUN IN THAT?
*starts busily reading all the winners in order*
― mark s, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:15 (seven years ago) link
if you listen to old peruvian dudes tell stories, you'll be reminded of vargas llosa, because he just formalized a type of popular storytelling from peru. his works do get more academic, because i guess he was a fan of russian formalism
i kind of got tired of it because i heard a bunch of old peruvian dudes tell stories in the same fashion
weirdly la catedral is the one i think is his only decent book
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:19 (seven years ago) link
Neruda not Vallejo!!
I really liked One Hundred Years of Solitude when I read it a few years ago. Wonder how it stands up today. Pedro Paramo is really good.
Actually I don't know if Latin American existentialism has ever won the Nobel
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:22 (seven years ago) link
juan rulfo is good stuff too
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:26 (seven years ago) link
when i was a kid and into socialism, vallejo really spoke to me, as did all his melancholic verses
neruda always sounded cheesy to me, but i've grown to like a few of his poems
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:28 (seven years ago) link
Yeah I like Neruda but Vallejo is all-time (esp the Spain take this cup away from me cycle) (Ok I suppose Vallejo would've been not that well-known in the 30s but I like to think there is some kind of guilt involved, like lets give Beckett the prize because its safe to do so now Modernism is accepted)
Nobel def go for kinda boring literary careerism if anything: Mann is like the perfect caricature of a Nobel winner. I think Borges didn't win, not bcz of politics (look at Mann's nationalism, Llosa is dodgy isn't he?) but because he wasn't that industrious and way past his best. His repute is based on a dozen short stories and a handful of essays. More than enough given what he wrote but these people are idiots.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:33 (seven years ago) link
it's worth looking through the blurbs they give winners, the phrase "lofty idealism" crops up a LOT :D
kipling and hamsun had *way* dodgier politics than borges or llosa (tho hamsun's turn to the dark side may have been after his prize)
― mark s, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:38 (seven years ago) link
It was after yeah (and it was given for Growth of the Soil which no one gives a shit about)
More dodgy pols: Eliot and LOL Churchill
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:47 (seven years ago) link
oh man llosa is super dodgy, flip flopping. he wanted to run for president in the 90s but he's definitely not a politician and if memory serves, he was considered way too intellectual and not practical enough
you're right about borges, but it seems to me neruda's popularity increased because he was riding the socialist wave that was so big in south america. maybe i'm being cynical but he seemed to play his cards right, whereas borges took a huge gamble speaking out against the atrocities peron committed, but this is the machiavellic attitude of latin american politics that so many leftists are comfortable with
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 22:57 (seven years ago) link
borges was a small c conservative who backed the dictatorship in argentina in the 70s - for a while, was later bit put off by the body count. neruda was a stalinist.
― ælərdaɪs (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 23:03 (seven years ago) link
with all the promises that the peron gov't had made, who wouldn't support it? the difference is when the "body count" was released, borges had the decency to come to his senses
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 23:06 (seven years ago) link
borges never supported peron, but he was p happy with regular old military dictatorship.
― ælərdaɪs (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 23:10 (seven years ago) link
neruda never voiced support, or criticism, of peron.
exactly, which is why i said "he played his cards right"
as they say in spanish, "se hizo el tonto"
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 23:12 (seven years ago) link
Neruda was Chilean.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 23:13 (seven years ago) link
lol they speak spanish there buddy
and jim is referring to borges's meeting with pinochet, but that's a separate argument, and borges said that he had no idea what pinochet was involved in
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 23:15 (seven years ago) link
neruda wasn't political opportunist, he was generally very true to his stalinism. criticizing peron wouldn't have been controversial, and in fact the communists in argentina weren't huge fans.
borges is no angel, as most latin american conservatives of his time he was quite happy for liberal democracy to be overturned if it helped keep the status quo - which in latin america was massive inequality and quasi-feudalism.
― ælərdaɪs (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 23:23 (seven years ago) link
he was a bit squeamish when the bodies started to pile up, which makes him more empathetic than many, but hardly unblemished.
― ælərdaɪs (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 23:24 (seven years ago) link
gotta take off from work, but ya, i don't wholly agree with you
will try to reply later
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Wednesday, 12 October 2016 23:34 (seven years ago) link
we really took our eye off the ball in THIS thread
― mark s, Thursday, 13 October 2016 11:12 (seven years ago) link
took yr 'troll PR one last vast time' line and ran wild
― sktsh, Thursday, 13 October 2016 12:03 (seven years ago) link
ya i'd love to discuss this further with jim but this is not the thread (it involves a lot of political understanding of latin american "left" and "right" and how they're not equal to left and rigth concepts as say americans or canadians think of them)
sorry
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Thursday, 13 October 2016 17:49 (seven years ago) link
we really took our eye off the ball in THIS thread― mark s, Thursday, 13 October 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― mark s, Thursday, 13 October 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
A beat writer won it. My theory holds.
What do I win?
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 13 October 2016 18:56 (seven years ago) link
dylan not cohen
― Har-@-Iago (wins), Thursday, 13 October 2016 19:02 (seven years ago) link
Sorry I just read James Morrison on the other thread. He wins.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 13 October 2016 19:03 (seven years ago) link
ginsberg is considered dylan's life long mentor though and has pretty openly said he is influenced by him
xp
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Thursday, 13 October 2016 19:05 (seven years ago) link
cohen more of a traditional beat poet, though, you're right
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Thursday, 13 October 2016 19:06 (seven years ago) link
ok to bring this back to don delillo: really liked underworld but do you not feel he maybe goes too far with tying everything together with the idea of underworld. like there's some mafia dudes - UNDERWORLD - there's a guy doing graffiti in subway tunnels - UNDERWORLD - there's some nuclear waste being buried in Kazakhstan - UNDERWORLD, etc.
― ælərdaɪs (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 13 October 2016 19:07 (seven years ago) link
xp I was just riffing on xyzzz's "beckett not joyce" &c
― Har-@-Iago (wins), Thursday, 13 October 2016 19:10 (seven years ago) link