also, how does someone get to be "recognised as a new voice in international literature"
― set the controls for the heart of the congos (thomp), Friday, 5 October 2012 17:06 (eleven years ago) link
sorry :/
― Mr. Que, Friday, 5 October 2012 17:07 (eleven years ago) link
we were talking about EB earlier
explores the untrammelled terrains of the secret life
publisher proves how hard it is to hype garden-variety highbrow lit
― Aimless, Friday, 5 October 2012 17:12 (eleven years ago) link
can't wait to be vindicated ... in 2015
― unprotectable tweetz (schlump), Friday, 5 October 2012 19:05 (eleven years ago) link
this is the most excited i've been for something that's three years away since i was a fifteen year old who thought life would be really great when i was eighteen
― unprotectable tweetz (schlump), Friday, 5 October 2012 19:27 (eleven years ago) link
haha wait 2015? they signed a contract for a not-yet-written novel? with someone whose most conspicuous fictional bona fide is making a big deal of not having an mfa?
― set the controls for the heart of the congos (thomp), Friday, 5 October 2012 20:09 (eleven years ago) link
Well, there's always the Wuthering Expectations post about reading The Possessed as a novel: The protagonist’s struggle to transform her arbitrary, fragmented, given experience into a narrative as meaningful as her favorite books - Elif Batuman's novel
― Øystein, Friday, 5 October 2012 20:20 (eleven years ago) link
did a double-talk when i saw this headband/glasses combo on tv:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUylMMk18cs
― some dude, Saturday, 20 October 2012 01:01 (eleven years ago) link
double-take
guy looks more like Marc Maron to me.
― beatboxing for lou dobbs (how's life), Saturday, 20 October 2012 01:05 (eleven years ago) link
I mean, not the headband, which doesn't look like Wallace to me either. Just that the guy's face really reminds me of Maron.
i reread a bunch of biwhm the other day and some of it doesn't work for me at this point, like "octet" came off a little too precious this time, but that first pop quiz is still kind of a gut-shriveler.
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Wednesday, 28 November 2012 22:59 (eleven years ago) link
"octet" is my go-to dfw (along with "good old neon") and i'm pretty sure i know what that says about me. they're both a kick in the guts.
― jed_, Wednesday, 28 November 2012 23:33 (eleven years ago) link
Pop Quiz 4Two late-stage terminal drug addicts sat up against an alley's wall with nothing to inject and no means and nowhere to go. Only one had a coat. It was cold, and one of the terminal drug addicts' teeth chattered and he sweated and shook with fever. He seemed gravely ill. He smelled very bad. He sat up against the wall with his head on his knees. This took place in Cambridge MA in an alley behind the Commonwealth Aluminum Can Redemption Center on Massachusetts Avenue in the early hours of 12 January 1993. The terminal drug addict with the coat took off the coat and scooted up over close to the gravely ill terminal drug addict and took and spread the coat as far as it would go over the both of them and then scooted over some more and got himself pressed right up against him and put his arm around him and let him be sick on his arm, and they stayed like that up against the wall together all through the night.Q: Which one lived?
Two late-stage terminal drug addicts sat up against an alley's wall with nothing to inject and no means and nowhere to go. Only one had a coat. It was cold, and one of the terminal drug addicts' teeth chattered and he sweated and shook with fever. He seemed gravely ill. He smelled very bad. He sat up against the wall with his head on his knees. This took place in Cambridge MA in an alley behind the Commonwealth Aluminum Can Redemption Center on Massachusetts Avenue in the early hours of 12 January 1993. The terminal drug addict with the coat took off the coat and scooted up over close to the gravely ill terminal drug addict and took and spread the coat as far as it would go over the both of them and then scooted over some more and got himself pressed right up against him and put his arm around him and let him be sick on his arm, and they stayed like that up against the wall together all through the night.
Q: Which one lived?
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Wednesday, 28 November 2012 23:35 (eleven years ago) link
I think I've given up on The Pale King. I got a good way through it but jesus, once he starts describing the traffic jam on the way into the REC for pages and pages I found myself wondering what I was doing. Should I keep reading or what?
― make like a steak and beef (dog latin), Thursday, 29 November 2012 11:43 (eleven years ago) link
best part is in the second half imo fwiw
― trinidad jokes (some dude), Thursday, 29 November 2012 11:48 (eleven years ago) link
okay, I'll maybe pick it up again. Following up that huge rambling account by the one guy who does Oberol with an even duller account of car park infrastructure felt like a purposefully shitty move to me.
― make like a steak and beef (dog latin), Thursday, 29 November 2012 11:51 (eleven years ago) link
My favorite part is the happy hour chapter, which was pretty close to the end, so yeah, keep reading.
I don't think the sequencing of those two sections was purposefully shitty; had he lived to finish it, I don't think a lot of this stuff would have made it to the final draft, or at least it would have been heavily revised.
― xanthanguar (cwkiii), Thursday, 29 November 2012 14:42 (eleven years ago) link
i was just pretty grateful there was this one last thing to be honest, it'll take a reread until i can make myself dislike any of it
i've been inconvinced by 'octet' for years but i am growing to like that it is there even though i think it fails; it's nice that his various ways of (oy) 'palpating' the issue he's trying to get at are all there in the same volume, even the ones that don't come off
it took until my most recent reread (third? fourth?) to actually make myself read every word of 'i sold sissie-nar to echo', too
― attempt to look intentionally nerdy, awkward or (thomp), Thursday, 29 November 2012 19:30 (eleven years ago) link
yeah i've NEVER made it all the way through that one. or the fake dictionary entry.
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Thursday, 29 November 2012 19:47 (eleven years ago) link
ha, me neither
― beef richards (Mr. Que), Thursday, 29 November 2012 20:49 (eleven years ago) link
thomp, don't you think that 'octet' being about the failure of 'octet' makes it a success? or do you think it's a case of him having his cake and eating it?
it's the way he goes from a casual (faking it) dismissal of its failure (e.g. "the whole mise en scene is too shot though with ambiguity to make a very good pop quiz") in the early part of the story to the devastating (imo) hand-wringing of the last footnote that holds the story's power.
― jed_, Thursday, 29 November 2012 22:24 (eleven years ago) link
reactivated one thread wihout seeing this one.
Anyway: advice for starting Oblivion?
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 30 November 2012 18:31 (eleven years ago) link
what do you mean, advice?
― beef richards (Mr. Que), Friday, 30 November 2012 18:32 (eleven years ago) link
like which story to start with?
I don't read story collections straight through but for this one I'm tempted.
(never read his novels)
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 30 November 2012 18:33 (eleven years ago) link
i was gonna say start with Mr. Squishy
then i looked up the TOC and saw that Mr. Squishy was first
so start with Mr. Squishy
― beef richards (Mr. Que), Friday, 30 November 2012 18:34 (eleven years ago) link
which is nice, because i think you should read story collections in the order presented by the author
― beef richards (Mr. Que), Friday, 30 November 2012 18:35 (eleven years ago) link
RANKING THE SUPERHUNKS SHORT STORIES IN OBLIVION
MR. SQUISHYGOOD OLD NEONTHE SUFFERING CHANNELINCARNATIONS OF BURNED CHILDRENTHE SOUL IS NOT A SMITHYPHILOSOPHY AND THE MIRROR OF NATUREANOTHER PIONEER
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Friday, 30 November 2012 18:40 (eleven years ago) link
imo
skip the title story?
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 30 November 2012 18:44 (eleven years ago) link
if it bores you after a couple of pages, yes
― beef richards (Mr. Que), Friday, 30 November 2012 18:45 (eleven years ago) link
DO NOT. it's incredible.
― jed_, Friday, 30 November 2012 18:46 (eleven years ago) link
hahaha i totally forgot the title story
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Friday, 30 November 2012 18:48 (eleven years ago) link
the title story is pretty damn incredible yes
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Friday, 30 November 2012 18:49 (eleven years ago) link
RE-RANKING THE SUPERHUNKS SHORT STORIES IN OBLIVION
MR. SQUISHYGOOD OLD NEONTHE SUFFERING CHANNELOBLIVIONINCARNATIONS OF BURNED CHILDRENTHE SOUL IS NOT A SMITHYPHILOSOPHY AND THE MIRROR OF NATUREANOTHER PIONEER
tbh I often read the shortest story first in a collection. If I'm reading history I'll skip ahead if I get bogged down in one chapter, then skip back.
I've got a long bus ride so I'll read "Mr. Squishy" first then.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 30 November 2012 18:54 (eleven years ago) link
yeah don't read the short ones first. except maybe incarnations.
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Friday, 30 November 2012 18:57 (eleven years ago) link
i'm kind of OCD about reading short story books in order. i think i feel like i'll inevitably forget to read one of the stories if i just skip around.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 30 November 2012 18:59 (eleven years ago) link
i feel like the best short story collections are better and richer if you read them in order -- like dubliners builds so gradually and perfectly from these odd little sketches and almost throwaway stories to the crushing ending of 'the dead.' i've got a chekhov book that gets pretty much the same effect just by printing the stories in the order they were written. on the other hand, flannery o'connor short story books always have the problem of beginning with 'a good man is hard to find' and absolutely anything else you read after that is going to seem underwhelming by comparison.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 30 November 2012 19:03 (eleven years ago) link
especially the collection with "A Good Man is Hard to Find." A classic single, an almost-classic single ("Good Country People"), plus a half dozen B-sides
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 30 November 2012 19:05 (eleven years ago) link
yo flannery o'connor's "the enduring chill" is a pretty fuckin sick A-side
― black redhead (spazzmatazz), Friday, 30 November 2012 19:32 (eleven years ago) link
who doesn't read short story collections in order??
― attempt to look intentionally nerdy, awkward or (thomp), Saturday, 1 December 2012 11:09 (eleven years ago) link
do you people just hop around novels as the fancy takes you, too?? hey guys what chapter of middlemarch should i start with, are there any i should skip
― attempt to look intentionally nerdy, awkward or (thomp), Saturday, 1 December 2012 11:10 (eleven years ago) link
skip the one where Casaubon dies.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 1 December 2012 12:52 (eleven years ago) link
Short stories are discrete units. Unless they're connected it doesn't matter which you read first.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 1 December 2012 12:53 (eleven years ago) link
Mr Squishee is so amazing. It's like everything about the conspiracy-story condensed into 50 pages.
― Frederik B, Saturday, 1 December 2012 13:14 (eleven years ago) link
I finished "Mr Squisheee" in one sitting yesterday afternoon and am about ten pages from finishing "The Soul is Not a Smithy"
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 1 December 2012 13:17 (eleven years ago) link
yeah the latter really! i mean i wish it did work. and when i read it at sixteen or seventeen i thought it absolutely did work and defined how i thought modern literature ought to operate, so my later reversals of opinion are probably at least in part due to rmde @ 16-17yo me. i don't know, i am coming to be somewhat of a reactionary about the possibility of moral urgency in fiction these days. (the best aspects of infinite jest are where he's just writing his dostoyevsky novel, not those in which he's trying to query or ... palpate the difficulties of writing his dostoyevsky novel.)
incidentally 'tri-stan' turned out, i was convinced as i was reading it, to be a very interesting recapitulation and capstone of the arguments about fiction that are running through the 'curious hair' stories and 'e unibus plurum' and 'conspicuously young'. or i thought so at the time and i cannot remember the argument i formed in my head at all, now.
― attempt to look intentionally nerdy, awkward or (thomp), Saturday, 1 December 2012 13:41 (eleven years ago) link