i read the first two Canopus in Argos book but couldn't go on. i liked everything about them except actually reading them. i don't think they're exactly what doris got the prize for tho.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 14 October 2016 20:52 (seven years ago) link
ooh or Saramago
lots I don't know on here, none I actively dislike.
xp
― Οὖτις, Friday, 14 October 2016 20:52 (seven years ago) link
im a bit ambivalent on lessing. golden notebook is pretty great. some of the other books - a proto "we need to talk about kevin" i had to read in school being the worst i can think of - not so good.
― *-* (jim in vancouver), Friday, 14 October 2016 20:53 (seven years ago) link
also lessing basically the opposite of a fun read. good to read on a rainy sunday when you're feeling glum.
― *-* (jim in vancouver), Friday, 14 October 2016 20:56 (seven years ago) link
a scottish person has never won the nobel prize for literature :'-(
― *-* (jim in vancouver), Friday, 14 October 2016 21:17 (seven years ago) link
Bob Dylan?
― legitimate concerns about ducks (Noodle Vague), Friday, 14 October 2016 21:18 (seven years ago) link
is not a true scotsman
― Οὖτις, Friday, 14 October 2016 21:19 (seven years ago) link
apparently he's eligible for everything
― legitimate concerns about ducks (Noodle Vague), Friday, 14 October 2016 21:22 (seven years ago) link
Is Pearl S. Buck still considered a major literary figure?
― Foster Twelvetrees (Ward Fowler), Friday, 14 October 2016 21:23 (seven years ago) link
no, not really
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Friday, 14 October 2016 21:27 (seven years ago) link
i like kipling just fine but rating him over mann, camus, gide, solzhenitsyn, faulkner is a little hard to figure
i have an old abridgment of mommsen's history of rome but have never really cracked it
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 14 October 2016 21:47 (seven years ago) link
kipling isnt in the top 20 on this list for me tbh
― *-* (jim in vancouver), Friday, 14 October 2016 21:56 (seven years ago) link
I probably should take Kipling out of there but I've been re-considering him at the mo. He isn't in the top 20 of mine (if I were to rank them which I won't as I'm not 21 anymore)
Mann - very boring technocratic prose in laying out of the issues in Magic Mountain. Musil was 10x better than this. I want to read his last novel tho'. Death in Venice is great and I do look for the edition of his diaries.
Solzhenitsyn - same but for Soviets. Shamolov and Platonov wrote better prose (partially because they believed in the USSR and were in conflict with it at the same time)
Camus - The Outsider was a bit lucky but I'm told he was v good looking.
Gide - got zilch from his stuff. Rejected the manuscript for Swann's Way, one of the worst literary judgements EVER.
Faulkner - the one guy I want to re-consider.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 14 October 2016 22:08 (seven years ago) link
the fall > the plague > the outsider
― *-* (jim in vancouver), Friday, 14 October 2016 22:09 (seven years ago) link
Read all of those. Didn't hate it or anything..
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 14 October 2016 22:16 (seven years ago) link
kipling was a friggin' genius. there isn't anyone alive who can do everything he could do. i need more kipling.
who is someone who could write fiction and poetry as well as he could? i can't think of anyone.
― scott seward, Saturday, 15 October 2016 00:10 (seven years ago) link
i wanna stay in his house. not cheap but it's right up the road!
http://landmarktrustusa.org/properties/rudyard-kiplings-naulakha/
― scott seward, Saturday, 15 October 2016 00:11 (seven years ago) link
God it's actually incredible how much better the Irish are than all the others
― the kids are alt right (darraghmac), Saturday, 15 October 2016 00:15 (seven years ago) link
My keep list would be something like this: the only Harry Martinson I've read is an epic sci-fi poem set on a spaceship, and it was great
1907 Rudyard Kipling 1913 Rabindranath Tagore 1920 Knut Hamsun 1923 William Butler Yeats 1928 Sigrid Undset 1929 Thomas Mann 1930 Sinclair Lewis 1933 Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin 1934 Luigi Pirandello 1936 Eugene O'Neill 1947 André Gide 1948 T. S. Eliot 1951 Pär Lagerkvist 1952 François Mauriac 1955 Halldór Laxness 1957 Albert Camus 1961 Ivo Andric 1962 John Steinbeck 1964 Jean-Paul Sartre (declined the prize)1968 Yasunari Kawabata 1969 Samuel Beckett 1971 Pablo Neruda 1972 Heinrich Böll 1973 Patrick White 1974 Harry Martinson 1978 Isaac Bashevis Singer 1980 Czesław Miłosz 1981 Elias Canetti 1983 William Golding 1986 Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka 1987 Joseph Brodsky 1988 Naguib Mahfouz 1995 Seamus Heaney 1996 Wisława Szymborska 1998 José Saramago 2002 Imre Kertész 2003 John Maxwell Coetzee 2004 Elfriede Jelinek 2005 Harold Pinter 2011 Tomas Tranströmer 2013 Alice Munro 2014 Patrick Modiano 2015 Svetlana Alexievich
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Saturday, 15 October 2016 01:23 (seven years ago) link
Pre-Dylan, Muller and le Clezio seem like the last big mis-steps. Muller can be a good writer, but so utterly humourless, and le Clezio just seems like an overrated sadist.
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Saturday, 15 October 2016 01:28 (seven years ago) link
i need to read more william golding. his post-piggy books always sound really interesting to me, but i always forget to look for them in used shops which is the only place i'd ever find them. plus, he had the best first edition covers ever.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7f/FreeFall.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9c/WillianGolding_TheInheritors.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2f/TheSpire.JPG
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6d/PincherMartin.jpg
― scott seward, Saturday, 15 October 2016 03:29 (seven years ago) link
Actually Evil:
1953 Sir Winston Churchill2016 Bob Dylan
I LOLed
― (SNIFFING AND INDISTINCT SOBBING) (Tom D.), Saturday, 15 October 2016 10:08 (seven years ago) link
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), 15. oktober 2016 03:28 (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I heard a lot of snickering at Modiano as well, or am I remembering it wrong?
― Frederik B, Saturday, 15 October 2016 10:30 (seven years ago) link
I totally forgot until this second that Coetzee won the Nobel Prize, weird
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Saturday, 15 October 2016 12:37 (seven years ago) link
Anyway, Laxness's "Independent People" is one of the most magnificent things I've ever read, thank you Nobel committee for bringing it to my attention.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Saturday, 15 October 2016 12:38 (seven years ago) link
Mann - very boring technocratic prose in laying out of the issues in Magic Mountain. Musil was 10x better than this. I want to read his last novel tho'. Death in Venice is great and I do look for the edition of his diarie
You might respond differently to the translator and Joseph and His Brothers, which I finished three weeks ago and wanted another 1500 pages of. The mountains of historical detail reinvented by a self-consciously 20th century narrator provoked the right kind of dialectical thinking.
otoh Thomas Mann exists so that he can win Nobel Prizes.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 15 October 2016 12:41 (seven years ago) link
Kipling's short stories are rather good: terse little things with a good ear for dialect that I'll pick over Hemingway's these days.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 15 October 2016 12:42 (seven years ago) link
― scott seward, Friday, October 14, 2016
Hardy and Lawrence.
1970 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn1972 Heinrich Böll1973 Patrick White
boy have I given these three a number of chances. Am I reading the right White? What's a good start?
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 15 October 2016 12:46 (seven years ago) link
I feel like Kipling and Yeats are the most imperishable here, but I haven't read most of the list. Kawabata is one I want to check out.
― jmm, Saturday, 15 October 2016 12:49 (seven years ago) link
otoh Thomas Mann exists so that he can win Nobel Prizes.― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 15 October 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 15 October 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
He was born for it! Even now absolutely encapsulates what the Nobel for lit is about and...its not pretty.
I don't know, historical novels ain't my bag. My line on translation is that someone who speaks to me will do so even if I come across a translation that is regarded as bad. So if I'm not liking something its either because its something I am not disposed towards or its bad, or I am but I don't like the writing, or these are things I am not ready for just now (on that one Dostoevsky passed me by at 17 but now I'm good with him)
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 15 October 2016 12:54 (seven years ago) link
Historical novels aren't mine either, but I loved the Joseph story as a kid and read Harold Bloom's The Book of J in college.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 15 October 2016 12:56 (seven years ago) link
I'm surprised Milan Kundera didnt get a Nobel Prize
― Neptune Bingo (Michael B), Saturday, 15 October 2016 21:21 (seven years ago) link
or Joyce!
― Neptune Bingo (Michael B), Saturday, 15 October 2016 21:22 (seven years ago) link
Saul Bellow is the only writer on the list I'm not keen on
― Neptune Bingo (Michael B), Saturday, 15 October 2016 21:23 (seven years ago) link
Felix Krull is a hoot
― salthigh, Saturday, 15 October 2016 21:32 (seven years ago) link
yep
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 15 October 2016 21:34 (seven years ago) link
making people listen to Patti Smith is kinda mean, Zim
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 11 December 2016 16:17 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AxfGzW7AdY
this prize wasn't as unjustified as people were saying last year
― treeship 2, Sunday, 7 January 2018 14:47 (six years ago) link
Louise she's all right she's just nearShe's delicate and seems like veneerBut she just makes it all too concise and too clearThat Johanna's not here
this is so mean. has to sting anyone who's been a "rebound"
― treeship 2, Sunday, 7 January 2018 14:57 (six years ago) link
It's more unjustified than people were saying last year, because in the interim Ashbery died and now can never win
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, 7 January 2018 16:07 (six years ago) link
Probably fairer to say he has won the only nobel prize that counts
― very stabbable gaius (wins), Sunday, 7 January 2018 16:10 (six years ago) link
An argument for giving Dril the Prize for Literature - though I suspect this would be complicated by the fact that, iirc, multiple people actually run that account.
The point of the Nobel Prize in Literature is — according to its own stated aims — to honor an author from any country who has produced, as the original Swedish puts it: “den som inom litteraturen har producerat det mest framstående verket i en idealisk riktning,” or, as this line is usually translated: “in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction.”In the past, this translation has been fraught with controversy. The Swedish word “idealisk” can apparently be translated either as “ideal” or “idealistic”, but either way, no one is quite sure what it means. In the award’s early years, writers who had dedicated their careers to aesthetic realism (as opposed to idealism) tended to be passed over. Thus the French poet and essayist Sully Prudhomme won the award in the Nobel's first year, 1901, but his countryman Emile Zola, whose work has proved far more enduring, was never honored. More recently, the phrase “ideal direction” has been interpreted to mean something more like the championing of certain liberal, humanitarian ideals, hence why so many laureates seem to be awarded the prize, at least in part, for their political commitments and beliefs — Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn or Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka challenging the authoritarian regimes they lived under; British playwright Harold Pinter taking a vocal stance against the Iraq War.So does Dril's work move in an “ideal direction”? Upon proper consideration of his work, it would be hard to argue that it doesn't. Dril is a remarkable writer whose work not only helps us understand but helps us to respond to the world in which we are forced to exist.
In the past, this translation has been fraught with controversy. The Swedish word “idealisk” can apparently be translated either as “ideal” or “idealistic”, but either way, no one is quite sure what it means. In the award’s early years, writers who had dedicated their careers to aesthetic realism (as opposed to idealism) tended to be passed over. Thus the French poet and essayist Sully Prudhomme won the award in the Nobel's first year, 1901, but his countryman Emile Zola, whose work has proved far more enduring, was never honored. More recently, the phrase “ideal direction” has been interpreted to mean something more like the championing of certain liberal, humanitarian ideals, hence why so many laureates seem to be awarded the prize, at least in part, for their political commitments and beliefs — Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn or Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka challenging the authoritarian regimes they lived under; British playwright Harold Pinter taking a vocal stance against the Iraq War.
So does Dril's work move in an “ideal direction”? Upon proper consideration of his work, it would be hard to argue that it doesn't. Dril is a remarkable writer whose work not only helps us understand but helps us to respond to the world in which we are forced to exist.
https://theoutline.com/post/7245/give-the-nobel-prize-to-dril
― Simon H., Tuesday, 26 March 2019 14:12 (five years ago) link
Thought it was one person.
In any case scientists often share the prize for a single discovery.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 14:41 (five years ago) link
Longtime co-authors or collectives should absolutely be eligible for a literature prize. dril is Luther Blissett
― A funny tinge happened on the way to the forum (wins), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 17:16 (five years ago) link
oh it's a twitter account? Lmao
― brimstead, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 17:31 (five years ago) link
give it simon hedges
― PaulDananVEVO (||||||||), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 18:13 (five years ago) link
This annual piece feels a bit recycled now.
Anyway good to see Michon make it to the bookmaker list.
Why are people pissing and moaning about this @alex_shephard thing on the Nobel? It's really funny, y'all need to take more drugs or something. https://t.co/rBszYNRdPp— Adrian Nathan West (@a_nathanwest) October 4, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 4 October 2022 07:57 (one year ago) link
So I love Tokarczuk, Saramago, used to love Ishiguro but his last two were rubbish, read one Gurnah which was pretty good, Marquez is fine, Munro is fine but I prefer novels, don't really care for Lessing, not bothered about Coetzee, don't want to read Naipaul... who should I try next?
― ledge, Tuesday, 4 October 2022 08:22 (one year ago) link
sir winston churchill 👶🏻
― mark s, Tuesday, 4 October 2022 08:54 (one year ago) link
Haven't read her but she sounds better than the last two French winners.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 6 October 2022 13:11 (one year ago) link
Pierre Joris:
Oh, well. Another weirdo Nobel Prize in Lit: Annie Ernaux, a good, competent, though pedestrian & safe, French writer of autobiographical fiction. So yes, the prize went to a woman, which is good. But this is a totally safe, intra-european gimmick. Actually this is ridiculous in an era when a really great novelist, Salman Rushdie, suffered from an assassination attempt, when Adonis, the greatest poet & writer in the Arabic language, would have been only the 2nd Nobel (after the novelist Naguib Mahfouz in 1988) in that language, when there are.... oh, forget it, the list of major writers who could/should get it is large & very international.
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:30 (one year ago) link
is this guy fucking kidding? Ernaux is utterly incredible and I say this as a reader who generally shuns memoirs.
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:35 (one year ago) link
The Nobel have not given the award for a writer of autofiction before, and looking at the list they are quite good at representing most facets of modern fiction.
Also the Nobel regards literature as mostly European, male affair. So giving it to more women is good, not bad. Even if Ernaux is European.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:41 (one year ago) link
Shame how Adonis isn't even mentioned now (he was looked at during the height of the Syrian civil war). Assumed he was dead, but no he is 92.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:48 (one year ago) link
I'm at the library and several of her books are here translated. Gonna check out Happening.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:55 (one year ago) link
I have a book of hers I bought but haven’t read her yet - recommended to me by xyzzzz__ funnily enough. Rushdie was a great author before he got stabbed, Nobel committee funnily didn’t take that into consideration.
― barry sito (gyac), Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:59 (one year ago) link
I do always like the "I was going about my business" moments of people winning a Nobel:
Annie Ernaux with journalists in front of her home earlier. She learned the news through the radio. She said: "I'm very happy, I'm proud, but not shaken" and "I will definitely go to Stockholm." @nytimes #NobelPrize2022 pic.twitter.com/encBCdR2f0— Laura Cappelle (@LauraCappelle) October 6, 2022
See also:
Doris Lessing wins the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature, & this is what she finds on her doorstep.Photo: Shaun Curry pic.twitter.com/isQDz1RlGc— Deny Fear (@dean_frey) October 22, 2018
― The self-titled drags (Eazy), Thursday, 6 October 2022 16:15 (one year ago) link
Also Joris’s reasoning is a joke if he’s going to bring context outside of writing into it cos
Congratulations to my publisher, @7storiespress for publishing in English the brilliant #NobelPrize2022 winner, Annie Ernaux. Happening, about her botched illegal abortion, is more urgent than ever. Buy and share. https://t.co/xyHi097Ci3— Nina Burleigh (@ninaburleigh) October 6, 2022
― barry sito (gyac), Thursday, 6 October 2022 16:21 (one year ago) link
wikipedia on its own entry on pierre joris: "This article is an autobiography or has been extensively edited by the subject or by someone connected to the subject"
perhaps he felt *he* deserved the award for autofiction
― mark s, Thursday, 6 October 2022 16:26 (one year ago) link
Next years' Nobel prize winner: The Wikipedia Community
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Thursday, 6 October 2022 16:28 (one year ago) link
I've finished Kristin Lavransdatter. It took a month! Normally even for such a large book I'd be quicker than that. I never wanted to stop reading though. Each of the three individual books was very good, cumulatively they approached magnificence. Wonderful descriptions of nature; deep, complex, believable characters treated with compassion and generosity; a totally convincing 14th century setting. Eveything in the description many posts above - "attempted human sacrifice, floods, fights, murders, violent suicide, a gay king, drunken revelry, the Bubonic Plague" - happens, but that gives a misleading impression, overall it's much more down to earth. What it does is quietly and confidently capture the simple momentousness of life itself.
There are a few lovely moments which, very occasionally, almost lift it into something more magical or fantastic - the young Kristin thinks she sees a mountain elf; some dreams are written about; someone thinks he sees Kristin leaning over a fence but it's just a tree. Then there's this section which nearly did me in - Simon is riding home in winter, at night, with an arm badly infected from a wound and in a feverish state:
Simon gazed at everything: The full moon was sailing brightly in the pale blue sky, having driven all the stars far away; only a few larger ones still dared wander in the distant heavens. The white fields glittered and sparkled; the shadows fell short and jagged across the snow; inside the woods the uncertain light lay in splotches and stripes among the firs, heavy with snow. Simon saw all this.But at the same time he saw quite clearly a meadow with tufts of ash-brown grass in the sunlight of early spring. Several small spruce trees had sprung up here and there at the edge of the field; they glowed green like velvet in the sun. He recognized this place; it was the pasture near his home at Dyfrin. The alder woods stood beyond the field with its tree trunks a springtime shiny gray and the tops brown with blossoms. Behind stretched the long, low Raumarike ridges, shimmering blue but still speckled white with snow. They were walking down toward the alder thicket, he and Simon Reidarsson, carrying fishing gear and pike spears. They were on their way to the lake, which lay dark gray with patches of thawing ice, to fish at the open end. His dead cousin walked at his side; he saw his playmate's curly hair sticking out from his cap, reddish in the spring sunlight; he could see every freckle on the boy's face. The other Simon stuck out his lower lip and blew - phew, phew - whenever he thought his namesake was speaking gibberish. They jumped over meandering rivulets and leaped from mound to mound across the trickling snow water in the grassy with meadow. The bottom was covered with moss; under the water it churned and frothed a lively green.He was fully aware of everything around him; the whole time he saw the road passing up one hill and down another, through the woods and over white fields in the glittering moonlight. He saw the slumbering clusters of houses beneath snow-laden roofs casting shadows across the fields; he saw the band of fog hovering over the river in the bottom of the valley. He knew that it was Jon who was riding right behind him and who moved up alongside him whenever they entered open clearings, and yet he happened to call the man Simon several times. He knew it was wrong, but he couldn't help himself, even though he noticed his servants grew alarmed.
But at the same time he saw quite clearly a meadow with tufts of ash-brown grass in the sunlight of early spring. Several small spruce trees had sprung up here and there at the edge of the field; they glowed green like velvet in the sun. He recognized this place; it was the pasture near his home at Dyfrin. The alder woods stood beyond the field with its tree trunks a springtime shiny gray and the tops brown with blossoms. Behind stretched the long, low Raumarike ridges, shimmering blue but still speckled white with snow. They were walking down toward the alder thicket, he and Simon Reidarsson, carrying fishing gear and pike spears. They were on their way to the lake, which lay dark gray with patches of thawing ice, to fish at the open end. His dead cousin walked at his side; he saw his playmate's curly hair sticking out from his cap, reddish in the spring sunlight; he could see every freckle on the boy's face. The other Simon stuck out his lower lip and blew - phew, phew - whenever he thought his namesake was speaking gibberish. They jumped over meandering rivulets and leaped from mound to mound across the trickling snow water in the grassy with meadow. The bottom was covered with moss; under the water it churned and frothed a lively green.
He was fully aware of everything around him; the whole time he saw the road passing up one hill and down another, through the woods and over white fields in the glittering moonlight. He saw the slumbering clusters of houses beneath snow-laden roofs casting shadows across the fields; he saw the band of fog hovering over the river in the bottom of the valley. He knew that it was Jon who was riding right behind him and who moved up alongside him whenever they entered open clearings, and yet he happened to call the man Simon several times. He knew it was wrong, but he couldn't help himself, even though he noticed his servants grew alarmed.
In other places it's sometimes quite oblique, particularly when speaking of offences against god or morality - adultery and the like. This is when we discover about the gay king:
"Yes, it was clever of you to separate the boy from his mother," said Erlend gloomily. "He's still only a child—and now all of us Norwegian men have reason to hold our heads up high when we think about the king whom we have sworn to protect."“Be quiet!” said Erling Vidkunssøn in a low, dejected voice. “That's . . . surely that's not true."But the other two could see from his face that he knew it was true. Although King Magnus Eirikssøn might still be a child, he had already been infected by a sin which was unseemly to mention among Christian men. A Swedish cleric, who had been assigned to guide his book learning while he was in Sweden, had led him astray in an unmentionable manner.
“Be quiet!” said Erling Vidkunssøn in a low, dejected voice. “That's . . . surely that's not true."
But the other two could see from his face that he knew it was true. Although King Magnus Eirikssøn might still be a child, he had already been infected by a sin which was unseemly to mention among Christian men. A Swedish cleric, who had been assigned to guide his book learning while he was in Sweden, had led him astray in an unmentionable manner.
The sin is unmentionable, but reasonably clear to infer from the third paragraph. But how Erling figures out that's what Erlend is implying in the first paragraph is a mystery to me.
― ledge, Friday, 3 March 2023 11:18 (one year ago) link
Nice weekend write-up.
I have The Hive on order. This is a good review of it
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/03/books/review/camilo-jose-cela-the-hive.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytbooks
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 3 March 2023 20:57 (one year ago) link
oh yeah thanks for the kristin recommendation btw!
― ledge, Friday, 3 March 2023 21:18 (one year ago) link
Glad you enjoyed it (I haven't read it myself)
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 3 March 2023 21:44 (one year ago) link
Kristin Lavransdatter is one of the most impressively convincing historical novels I’ve ever read, just a marvellous book to lose yourself in. The Tiina Nunnally translation is great.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Saturday, 4 March 2023 06:30 (one year ago) link
1967 Miguel Ángel Asturias
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/05/25/the-inventor-of-magical-realism-mr-president-asturias/
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 8 May 2023 22:40 (eleven months ago) link
Among those not mentioned upthread, "The Fall of the King" by Johannes Vilhelm Jensen is really good.
― justfanoe (Greg Fanoe), Tuesday, 9 May 2023 15:56 (eleven months ago) link
the one asturias i've read is the president which i liked well enough, didn't realise per what i could read of the article that he started on it in the early twenties which was when he was hanging out with the paris surrealists but makes sense
1960 Saint-John Perse
have a big fat volume of his correspondence, but have never succeeded in tracking down any of his poetry (he gets a footnote in the waste land i seem to recall)
― no lime tangier, Wednesday, 10 May 2023 07:14 (eleven months ago) link
T.S. Eliot also translated his work Anabase.
― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Wednesday, 10 May 2023 10:13 (eleven months ago) link
Not to be weird, but I’d never read Anabase when a blurber for my last book compared my writing to it in a favorable manner. I liked it upon my own reading, tho like said blurber noted, Anabase the similarities end at some shared formal strategies. It’s a pretty easy book to find used, worth it if at all interested.
― Goose Bigelow, Fowl Gigolo (the table is the table), Wednesday, 10 May 2023 17:29 (eleven months ago) link
I read Ivo Andric's Nobel-winner this year, The Bridge on the Drain, it's great.
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Wednesday, 10 May 2023 17:36 (eleven months ago) link
btw Alfred I tried Patrick White too and had the same results. Will probably try again at some point.
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Wednesday, 10 May 2023 17:37 (eleven months ago) link
That's a relief.
I got The Bridge Over the Drina out of the library now.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 10 May 2023 17:43 (eleven months ago) link
Finished Jenny by Sigrid Undset. It's very good, doesn't deserve its reputation - seemingly forgotten in English, though there was a new translation in 1998. It doesn't start too auspiciously - lots of description of clothes as well as landscapes, the characters use first names and surnames more or less at random so it's hard to tell who's who. But it soon develops into a rich psychological work. It feels very transitional - for an early 20th century novel, there are young women living independent lives, they stay out all night drinking, they sleep around (or their male friends do - it's still quite coy about this). Of course people have been doing this since the dawn of time, but in 19th/early 20th century novels, not so much. But they speak like characters in a 19th century novel, very romantically, with that almost artificial sounding articulateness. Jenny in particular is trapped by her idea of a romantic life - this is the driving force of the novel, really. It's ambiguous in many ways - modern and old fashioned, moving and melodramatic, clear at times and at other times quite opaque, the characters sometimes eliciting sympathy, sometimes being quite bewildering. But it's beautifully written and ultimately very moving, even heartbreaking.
― ledge, Friday, 9 June 2023 13:28 (ten months ago) link
I recently read Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz's Palace Walk from 1956, the first novel in his Cairo trilogy, about a family in Cairo during the British occupation in WWI in 1917, with the patriarch of the family imposing restrictions on his family during the war, and his children finding different ways of rebelling
― Dan S, Friday, 9 June 2023 23:19 (ten months ago) link
Annie Ernaux doc making the rounds in London - The Super 8 Years. Basically her husband bought a camera in the early 70's and this is all footage of their lives from then to their break up in the early 80'. Ernaux narrates over it and if you dig her writing you'll dig this. They went on holiday a lot, often choosing their destinations with gauchiste awareness - so very cool footage from Chile, Albania, Soviet Union. Also a bit of London and even a little Portugal, but clearly by the time they went there they were in such a marital crisis that no one felt much like filming, alas.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 26 June 2023 09:41 (nine months ago) link
Excellent piece on Cela's The Hive
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n14/tim-parks/buttockitis
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 5 July 2023 15:10 (nine months ago) link
I alas found it a grind after about fifty pages.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 5 July 2023 15:56 (nine months ago) link
Will try it again in a few weeks.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 5 July 2023 15:58 (nine months ago) link
Probably the first essay that talks about what Ernaux is doing in her fiction in pretty good length.
For me a French author: working class or not, diaristic, a woman, using life, writing flatly...is a thing I have seen before but Haslett talks about how she is able to replace the 'I' with 'We', and she really is very interested in showing how the lived is transformed by the diaries she has issued.
https://harpers.org/archive/2023/10/all-the-images-will-disappear/
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 18 September 2023 18:23 (seven months ago) link