Rolling Contemporary Literary Fiction

re: Lispector/Ocampo - Depressing? Not a word I've seen to describe them both. The Dirty Dust sounds comedic.

In a surge of language proficiency-related optimism I bought an original-language copy of Cré na Cille (aka The Dirty Dust) when I was in Dublin for Christmas...I can't really say anything for the actual story but it's an enjoyable book to read out loud even when you barely understand half the words...

Irish is reasonably challenging language

It is comedic, but everyone in it is dead

The Sixth Policeman?

Good-ish rev of Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens

somehow i only just found out a new zadie smith is coming this november, anybody read it?

Found and its Awesome, thank you contemporary literature:
László Krasznahorkai - Seibo There Below
Wolfgang Hilbig - Sleep of the Righteous
Maggie Nelson - Argonauts
Pere Gimferrer - Fortuny

Found, HYPE:
Chris Kraus - I Love Dick
Mairtin O Cadhain - The Dirty Dust
Han Kang - Human Acts (Jan)
Silvina Ocampo - Thus Were Their Faces

Would've been in the HYPE column due to poor curation (or lack of) but saved my life that weekend:
Clarice Lispector - The Complete Stories

Must Find, *prays to literature god*:
Agustin Fernandez Mallo - Nocilla Dream
Alejandra Pizarnik - Extracting the Stone of Madness
Claire-Louise Bennett - Pond
Arseny Tarkovsky - I Burned at the Forest

Must Find - new items into 2017 if we are not wiped out by Donald Trump's orange hair:

Gerard Van Reve - Evenings
Antonio Di Benedetto - Zama
U.R. Ananthamurthy - Samskara

Not found, not fussed about now:
The Selected Poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Bilingual Edition
Regina Ullmann - Country Road
Roberto Arlt - The Seven Madmen
Mahabhrata - A Modern Re-telling (Carol Satyamurti)
Bae Suah - Nowhere to be Found
Joanna Walsh - Vertigo
Elfriede Jelinek - Rechnitz and The Merchant's Contracts
Elfriede Jelinek - Charges (The Supplicants) (May)
László Krasznahorkai - Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens

Two more on must finds:

Agustín Fernández Mallo - Nocilla Experience (the follow-up to Nocilla Dream, above, just released)
João Gilberto Noll - Quiet Creature on the Corner

Thank you so much for posting these! I feel like so much of the coverage of contemporary fiction that comes my way is so heavily Anglo-American that I have little idea about what's recently been translated into English. So many of these sound great!

I've been meaning to read Krasznahorkai for the longest time and didn't know about the new Elfriede Jelinek books, either.

so many people i've never read that she mentions. she's my bff for this though:

"And I hate every single last one of those Beats, both in poetry and prose."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/books/review/zadie-smith-by-the-book.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbooks&action=click&contentCollection=books®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront

also my bff for mentioning dibs in search of self.

never read zadie either though...

we read Dibs in 5th grade, shit had the whole class bawling :'(

lots of readinglistfodder in that Zadie Smith piece, thx for posting

She's great.

Too bad she can't get anything worthwhile out of *some* Beat writing: finally read On The Road a few years ago, and found it often beautiful---the chapters about experiencing live music especially---and the hang-ups are apparent, acknowledged, never get in the way: we just get a sometimes refracted, sometimes hairline fractured vision of his visions, along with more down-to-earth (and more frequent) social observations. Was also moved by the early diary excerpts published in the New Yorker a while back---much posthumous publication, incl. biographers, and memoirs by female survivors of those scenes---and some of Ginsberg's stuff is good too, like Kaddish, the long poem about his mother, a reading companion for one of my first and best acid trips (at his best when most narrative, especially as a performer, which also may be true of Burroughs; the Kerouac box is pretty cool too).

"Writing novels can make you very stupid — just writing about something that doesn’t exist for three or four years."

Ha

Just crashing through "Grief Is The Thing With Feathers" by Max Porter, which (by the look of the praise slathered all over the cover and the first few pages of the book) was a contempo-lit-craze last year that I missed completely. More than halfway through after less than half an hour's reading on the bus this morning, it seems very good- that's despite being one of the Spectator's Books of the Year 2015.

I have a feeling it's best enjoyed slowly and piecemeal but it's a library book so that's right out.

Have wondered about that, wasn't sure if it was just a cash-in on the Hughes/Plath sensation, like that awful Emma Tennant novel

I have blithely missed the Hughes-Plath sensation I'm afraid (hadn't heard of any relevant Tennant novel!) so that didn't occur to me. I think it's good, it might be very good. To make my mind up I'd probably have to have another go at it (this would be a low-stakes investment since it's a comfortable one-sitting read). I'll see about doing that before it goes back to the library.

My concern is that (for a book about grief) there's not enough unhingedness (particularly in the character of the crow)and it feels a bit pat; but the whole point *might* be that the book is about containing the unhinged, about someone just about keeping it together. It might be that the occasional feeling of patness is a very finely judged I'm-not-going-there.

It's surely worth a read.

(One of the main characters in the book is a Hughes researcher; the book says clearly that he's on the Hughes "side" but doesn't go into the fight. One of the things I definitely do like about the book is how good it is on people taking the art they already like and using it to get through difficult times.)

Ok, that does sound like my thing, actually

this is good

Christian Lorentzen on "Obama-lit"

http://www.vulture.com/2017/01/considering-the-novel-in-the-age-of-obama.html

Colson Whitehead on George Saunders' new first novel, which I badly want to read

Has anyone read Joshua Cohen? I'm kind of curious about his Book of Numbers - there's a bit of buzz starting around his new book Moving Kings (which I'm not as interested in, but was just favourably reviewed by James Wood in the NY'er) which reminded me of it.

I'd thought about picking it up when it came out a few years ago but never followed through on it. Any thoughts on him? A lot of the reviews/blurbs seem to place him in a Pynchon/Delillo/DFW lineage but I'm also quite wary about those comparisons given the relative abuse of them over the past few years.

the new yorker review of moving kings was not particularly favorable - he liked cohen's use of language but thought it was kind of a mess otherwise

xp questionable as to if the wood review was favorable, he does call it an unsuccessful novel iirc

yea I read book of numbers, think I posted abt it on the y novels suck now or w/e thread

its dense, id recommend it

i just checked it out as an e-book from the library, i'll report back if i remember

I haven't read any of his books but this review he did of The Instructions was kinda petty: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/books/review/JCohen-t.html

On the other hand, I have friends who basically agree with his assessment (I really enjoyed it though). Can't say if he's protesting too much about the Wallace influence.

Ah, I only skimmed the review - I probably should have mentioned that or avoided generalizing the bits I read through for the whole review :(

Cohen's prose style does seem to interest me (based on the bits I skimmed from Wood's review) and also from the little else I've read about him (+ some of his book reviews).

From my post in 2016 these were all found and were all good-to-amazing:

Claire-Louise Bennett - Pond
U.R. Ananthamurthy - Samskara
Gerard Van Reve - Evenings
Arseny Tarkovsky - I Burned at the Forest
Alejandra Pizarnik - Extracting the Stone of Madness
Antonio Di Benedetto - Zama

Meh:
Agustin Fernandez Mallo - Nocilla Dream

2017 list:
João Gilberto Noll - Quiet Creature on the Corner/Atlantic Hotel
Wolfgang Hilbig - Old Rendering Plant
Sergio Pitol - The Magician of Vienna
Michel Leiris - Night as Days, Days as Night
Ann Quin - The Unmapped Country
Elizabeth Hardwick - Essays
Antonio Di Benedetto - Nest in the Bones
Tsvetaeva - Earthly Signs
Arthur Schnitzler - Late Fame
Pierre Michon - Winter Mythologies and Abbots*

*can't remember the last time I was interested in a contemporary French author - that piece sells it.

My most recent Contemporary etc. experience was A Horse Walks Into A Bar, as described on the Happy Families etc Reading thread. Wondering about some of these now:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/blog/2017/10/04/congratulations-to-our-national-book-award-finalists-for-2017/?aid=randohouseinc32916-20&ref=PRHF4B91C0A799A&linkid=PRHF4B91C0A799A&cdi=49C5BD5957C34D9EE0534FD66B0AC478&template_id=7364

otessa moshfegh is my latest fav in contemporary lit. read both her grisly historical novella 'mcglue' and grody hitchcock crossed with dariah novel 'eileen' this summer, both highly recommended. awarded a fancy prize by rivka g

huh will check that out maybe, luv rivka g

Michon: Winter Mythologies -- thought this was splendid

xxp im loving eileen, good rec flop

Despentes, Vernon Subutex 1: has anybody read it?

Read and done. All good-to-amazing

João Gilberto Noll - Atlantic Hotel
Wolfgang Hilbig - Old Rendering Plant
Pierre Michon - Winter Mythologies and Abbots

2017/8:

NYRB:
Chateaubriand - Memoirs
Curzio Malaparte - Kremlin Ball
Uwe Johnson - Anniversaries
Varlam Shamalov - Kolyma Tales
Marina Tsvetaeva - Earthly Signs
Arthur Schnitzler - Late Fame

Penguin:
Dag Solstad - Armand V/T Singer
Svetlana Alexivech - THe Unwomanly Face of War
Carlo Gadda - Experience of Pain

Archieplago:
Antonio Tabucchi - For Isabel: A Mandala/Tristano Dies
Antonio Di Benedetto - Nest in the Bones

Other Publishers:
Ann Quin - The Unmapped Country
Wolfgang Hilbig -The Tidings of the Trees/The Females
Helen DeWitt - Some Trick
Sergio Pitol- The Magician of Vienna/Mephisto’s Waltz: Selected Short Stories
Emily Wilson - The Odyssey
Gerald Murnane - The Plains

which of these would you rate highest? I'm looking to feed my lit maw.

I'll be curious to hear more about the Quin and DeWitt collections; I don't think Some Trick is supposed to be published in the States before this summer.

The Quin is interesting and has just come out, the editor spent years collecting the stories and fragments: https://frieze.com/article/our-gusts-and-storms

Omar - I've read something by all the writers except Uwe Johnson, Murnane and Chateubriand. The Uwe Johnson is what I rate highest but that's 2000 pages and undoubtedly the one book that will add the most to my life, should I chose to accept it that is.

Next is Chateaubriand, so that.

anyone read the new rachel kushner?

is it out yet? definitely looking fwd to it.

relevant to this thread i read assymetry recently & was v into it

oh true its out may 1

huh plot of asymetry is eerily similar to the kushner

excerpt of megan boyle liveblog to be published (550pp)

[1.jpg] starting today, march 17, 2013, i will be liveblogging everything i do. right now there is no one i talk to frequently enough to disappoint. the only person keeping tabs on my life is me. it’s always been as time has been passing, i’ve been feelhas that’s not the strange thing, i’ve always felt like i’m watching my life, but recently it feels like i’ve as time has been passing, my life has been feeling more like an event i’ve been feeling more like i’m attending the event of my life than actively participating my life has been feeling more like an event i’m attending due to being shackled in secondary/intermediate stage of 1. less like a [person dutifully keeping tabs, look up something re keeping tabs], my participation in my life has been feeling like it doesn’t belong to me or something, like it’s just this event i’m not participating in much, and maybe wasn’t invited. used to expect my life has been feeling like an event i might not have been invited to. i’ve been feeling an equally uncontrollable sensation of my life not belonging to me, it’s just this event i don’t seem to be participating in much, and am slowly discovering i wasn’t invited. i’m starting to get the feeling i wasn’t invited. it’s just this event i don’t seem to be participating in much, and maybe wasn’t invited. to be participating, and so am sort of failing. i witness myself allowing opportunities fading away myself allowing opportunites to fade due to my lack of follow-through on the tasks necessary to complete them, because for whatever reason, it’s hard for me to make myself do things that i know will make me happy sometimes. i can’t control getting older but i can control what i do as i age. also i feel like my memory is deteriorating. i used to like documenting my daily activities. i liked that. lately the things i’ve been doing haven’t felt worth remembering, but i think that could just be a mind trick and if i start writing again, i’ll remember everything is basically the same as however many years ago i felt more satisfied or hopeful or whatever it is i don’t feel now. **THIS IS NOT GOING TO BE INTERESTING** **I AM NOT GOING TO TRY TO MAKE THIS SOUND INTERESTING OR TRY TO MAKE YOU LIKE ME OR THINK ABOUT IF YOU ARE READING OR ENJOYING READING THIS, IT’S JUST GOING TO BE WHAT IT IS: A FUNCTIONAL THING THAT WILL HOPEFULLY HELP ME FEEL MORE LIKE IMPROVING MY LIFE** going to start a little earlier, with what happened earlier tonight: 2:00AM: pushed orange peel down garbage disposal and walked to my room. heard garbage disposal turn on, then dad’s voice announcing ‘oranges smell good’ to empty kitchen and living room. 2:30AM: walked to mom’s room to show parents youtube video of ‘the meaning of life’ by don hertzfelt. during opening credits dad said ‘oh wow, the sundance film festival,’ and ‘a long trip down a birth canal.’ mom gently quieted him. focused on eating my orange. parents laughed in a manner like they felt pressured, maybe, when the cartoons started talking. stars replaced the talking cartoons and dad said ‘oh, well now that made me like it,’ stressing ‘that.’ near the end of the video, a small alien is left alone to look at the stars. mom sounded teary and like she might be smiling. dad talked excitedly about not understanding what the video was trying to say but he really, really liked it, like ‘hoo boy did i ever like that.’ mom said ‘it’s not over yet, mike.’ dad adjusted his posture and said ‘oh! oh no, hush, let’s hush and see what else happens.’ i didn’t look at either parent. the poignant part of the video had passed. i said ‘yeah, so.’ credits scrolled over pretty galaxy-like orbs. i said ‘yeah, the guy, he didn’t use computers to make it.’ dad said ‘oh, no computers? oh wow it was just great, wow, really great, is there some kind of website i can get to, to get to this guy? i really didn’t quite get it but the flavor of it is just so, wow. it’s really something.’ i said ‘i don’t know his website.’ it was hard to look at dad. i said goodnight. mom smiled and dad thanked me again for showing him the movie. i walked back to my room, feeling like i had just missed a crucial, seemingly easily-made three-pointer and the other team had taken possession of the ball. 3:12AM: plugged drain and turned faucets. sat in my room, waiting for tub to fill. dad stood in hallway between bathroom and my room and asked about my symptoms, which stopped a few days ago, and i’m pretty sure were caused by drugs i did in new york. i haven’t wanted parents to worry so i’ve been feigning a slow recovery from a stomach flu. told dad i’m feeling better. he reminded me xanax would help me sleep and i thanked him. placed macbook on chair in front of tub, for ‘bathtub internet viewing station.’ retrieved papaya from fridge. snorted medium-large amount of heroin from cute box given to me by tao, from a recent trip to taiwan. it’s a square made of four smaller squares with lids. almost transparent blue color. tapped baggie until ‘herion quadrant’ was filled with an amount of powder, for next time. undressed and got in tub. 4:00AM: sort of ignored gchat from ex-boyfriend, then responded. he hasn’t yet. washed and conditioned hair. submerged all but eyes and nose under water. felt anemone-like. rubbed fingernails up and down legs and watched grayish flecks of skin float around body. thought about things i said i’d do by monday. replied to two emails with difficulty, typing with one hand and covering an eye with the other. rinsed with fresh water, unplugged drain, toweled dry. ate 1mg xanax. 4:10AM: peeled orange over kitchen sink, feeling calm and warm but also ‘is this…too much…does ‘too much’ feel like this?’ pictured dad in the morning, using garbage disposal and announcing ‘oranges smell good’ like he did earlier tonight, only i’m dead in my bed. 4:30AM: researched heroin/xanax interactions. seems like i’ll probably just sleep a lot tonight. probably wouldn’t hurt to vomit. 4:42AM: used variety of finger pressures/speeds to encourage chunks of mostly undigested fruit into toilet bowl. saw a little fresh blood on thumb. used to be able to vomit by like, tickling the back of my tongue. drank water and jumped/twisted abdomen, to stir anything that had settled, then kneeled for ‘the final emptying.’ legs felt weak. vomit was pretty, shades of orange. realized i was looking at it without thoughts/emotions, but some similarly dominant level of brain activity. flushed toilet. brushed teeth, washed face. ate raw ‘go pecan pie’ granola bar. 5:36AM: the things i’ve done tonight are not things i would normally tell people i did, i think. 6:11AM: stomach is making whale noises. starting to hear distant cars. it’s always bad when you start to hear cars. wish i wanted to masturbate. i feel like, 5000 years old, like leto ii in ‘god emperor of dune.’ 6:35AM: drinking unpasteurized milk mom said ‘comes right from the cow.’ holding four raspberry cookies. probably going to get seconds. 6:51AM: read liveblog from the beginning. forgot i’d eaten ‘go pecan pie’ bar, so i will not be getting seconds after all. thought ‘the helping is beginning already, excellent’ in monty burns’ voice. 6:56AM: looked at facebook and felt sad and bewildered and like ‘shit, what did i do’ about a person i like, who has indirectly communicated negative feelings about me. ‘in my younger, wilder days’ i probably would’ve tried harder to make amends. now i accept not being liked. that’s depressing, seems like faulty logic. when you give up/resign, you think you’re being open-minded because you’re accepting something you’d rather not, but really you’re just less open to possibilities other than ‘i will feel disappointed.’ i could type more about this but it feels better not to. interesting. want to eat two egg mcmuffins and hash browns and orange juice and for it to be night all tomorrow. 8:25AM: woke feeling as bad but not worse than yesterady. ate 1mg xanax for medicinal purposes. toasted ‘bagel thin’ condensed bagel. spread chive cream cheese on half that didn’t burn. want more sleep. smells like burning. 8:45AM: unplugged toaster. troubled by ‘sleeping at sunrise then waking every 2-3 hours until early evening’ routine. going to look at internet and wait for xanax to kick in. 11:00AM: woke to muffled talking sounds punctuated by basso voice of dad, who seemed to be agreeing with something a lot. covered head and macbook with blanket. 3:15PM: my job was to paint the freshmen’s tents pink. i knew earth would explode in a few minutes, because the universe was resetting. this had been shown to me in a kind of pre-flight safety video. the freshman looked human but acted like feral cats. they shared a brain with ‘feral cat concerns.’ i was their caretaker, kind of. they wanted sex with me. told dream to mom. she said ‘are you sure you want to be moving to new york right now?’ i said ‘i don’t know what else to do, i need to do something, i feel like i’m dying.’ spinach, avocado, cucumber, coconut water, banana in blender. mom described plot of murder mystery novel. i looked for another banana or a suitable second banana substitute. mom said ‘i’m so glad you don’t want to be an F.B.I. agent.’ i said ‘yeah, i thought about being one, back when i watched ‘silence of the lambs.’ they don’t let you do drugs though.’ she said ‘what?’ i said ‘it seems too hard.’ 3:53PM: mom said ‘meggie do you want dad to bring home some bananas? he should be home soon.’ i said ‘no thank you, that’s okay, i’ll get them.’ she said ‘it really wouldn’t be a problem.’ i said ‘i know, i know, i just feel like i want to take a drive,’ like napoleon dynamite. ate 10mg adderall. things i need to do today: -write letter recommending myself as if i am tao and he is my employer -ask keith (friend/former boss) if he’ll write short letter recommending me, or if he’ll endorse letter i’ll write as him -ask colin (real estate agent) what time and where in NYC he wants to meet tomorrow -write cover letter for apartment application binder -buy binder for apartment application binder -write article for vice column **TO ANYONE READING: I FEEL TERMINALLY OUT OF IDEAS FOR THINGS TO WRITE BESIDES LIVEBLOG. HARD TO BE FUNNY/CREATIVE. I THINK A PROMPT OR SOMETHING MIGHT HELP. IF YOU EMAIL ME A LIST OF 10-20 THINGS YOU’D LIKE TO READ, WRITTEN BY ME, I’LL PAY YOU SOMETHING. THANK YOU. THEMEGANBO✧✧✧@GM✧✧✧.C✧✧ IF INTERESTED** 4:11PM: texted keith, asked if he wants to get drinks tonight. texted colin. colin is three years younger than me, owns a small business, works tech support for cable company he might also own, has served in military, has yet to but will most surely definitely graduate college. dwarves me with his success. lives in the apartment across the hall from the one i want. 4:17PM: watching video of sam pink reading at KGB. he’s said ‘sour cream’ twice, so far. the lighting is making his face look like ‘what the other hitman would’ve been told not to remember.’ he looks handsome, like grecian god style. people laughed onscreen. sort of remember where i stood in relation to camera that night. would be crazy if i knew where i stood in relation to camera at all times. need to get my ass out the door to buy bananas. he said ‘sour cream’ again. 4:26PM: skipped to kitchen, making a noise like ‘blreelerleeloobleeloolooloo.’ opened four-pack steaz energy drinks and took one as a reward for ‘being so productive so far.’ skipped back to room thinking ‘how will i type blreelerloorlooleeloo’ noise?’ no responses from keith or colin yet. going to read liveblog i’ve written as a reward. this is not a reward. shit. i should just get moving instead. no, allow yourself small rewards, otherwise this won’t work. small rewards. shit. 4:32PM: keith texted ‘Dang. Id love to madge, but I’m afraid I can’t.’ **IF ANYONE READING THIS WOULD LIKE TO WRITE A SHORT LETTER RECOMMENDING ME, LIKE, PRETENDING YOU KNOW ME AS AN EMPLOYEE BUT HAVE COME TO THINK OF ME AS A FRIEND YOU TRUST THE WAY YOU TRUST A NEIGHBOR OR TENANT WHICH ARE BOTH AREAS YOU THINK I COULD EXCEL, COLIN SAID IT WOULD BE GOOD TO INCLUDE THE WORD ‘INTEGRITY,’ PLEASE EMAIL ME, WILL PAY YOU, NEEDS TO SOUND LIKE WE’VE KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR YEARS ** **MY LIFE IS………………………………….JESUS………..FEEL…..JESUS……………. 5:06PM: have been unfocused-ly switching from texts, emails, i don’t know, screens, i look like this right now, imagine this thing greeting you at the gates of hell: [2.JPG] 5:26PM: matthew donahoo has come to my rescue with a sweet letter of recommendation and writing topic lists. masha has started liveblog project. sam cooke emailed list too. my crotch smells like coconut oil.

tl;dr

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/099921862X/

tl;dr