the indelible Barry moment for me is when the amnesiac guy wakes up on a bus and finds out he's bought a chipper
I'm a bit intimidated by the McCarthy book I have to admit
― Number None, Sunday, 23 April 2017 10:11 (six years ago) link
i actually found it a page-turner. i couldn't leave it alone. ymmv but that was my experience of it and i gave it to a friend who said the same.
― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Sunday, 23 April 2017 10:13 (six years ago) link
he has a 90s compilation of short stories that are entirely original and weird too, called "getting it in the head". he writes about tools and industry and engineering, that kind of thing, in a way i've never seen done by others.
― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Sunday, 23 April 2017 10:14 (six years ago) link
You mean Mike McCormarck?
I loved Claire-Louise Bennett's Pond and v interested to read Eimear McBride - has anyone here engaged with her work?
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 23 April 2017 12:27 (six years ago) link
Anne Enright's "The Gathering" is excellent. I second the Keegan and McCormack recs. Anyone read McCormack's sci-to novel "notes from a coma"? It sounds intriguing
― Well bissogled trotters (Michael B), Sunday, 23 April 2017 14:27 (six years ago) link
Sci-fi
I've only read The Lesser Bohemians among McBride's texts, but I found her prose vivid and rigorous in its attention to sensory experience.
― one way street, Sunday, 23 April 2017 15:40 (six years ago) link
Thanks - I'll check it out.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 23 April 2017 19:32 (six years ago) link
I read " A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing" last year and thought it good (without being bowled over) - it's in the experimental tradition of your BS Johnsons / Ann Quins but I thought it a weakish version of those. Worth a go though, and there are people with far finer tastes than mine who'll rep for it v hard.
― Tim, Monday, 24 April 2017 12:56 (six years ago) link
I think Tim's about right except that I admire the book slightly more than he does. I might not call it fun but I think the writing is intense and distinctive, even if sometimes it's doing something fairly obvious (interior monologue of a fractured self, say).
(- but then I think if you try to describe precisely what it's doing, it's not that obvious, as eg what voice are we really listening to? Not what she says to herself in the moment, not like what Joyce affects to be doing in much of Ulysses, but a more stylized narration of life that doesn't exactly belong anywhere discursively.)
I don't know Quin and don't know BSJ hugely - the other thing is that the lilt, rhythm etc can feel very close to Joyce, including FW, and some other Irish writers. It took me a while to see the Beckett affinity that I think Adam Mars-Jones originally posited.
Haven't read the second book, have heard it is worse.
― the pinefox, Monday, 24 April 2017 13:48 (six years ago) link
It seems there are also people with far finer tastes than mine who will rep for it moderately.
― Tim, Monday, 24 April 2017 14:01 (six years ago) link
I did indeed mean Mike McCormack upthread - somehow I confused him with a journeyman rugby player.
― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Monday, 24 April 2017 14:41 (six years ago) link
I've been meaning to check out mcbride since I saw her talk/read here a few years ago (part of a IS MODERNISM DEAD panel iirc) - seemed interesting, and she did a pretty good job reading a passage from finnegans wake too
many xps to blechh: both - I was saying that I'd read it and recommending it to darragh/thread
― briscall stool chart (wins), Monday, 24 April 2017 15:13 (six years ago) link
what edna o'brien should I read
― prorogue mahone (||||||||), Thursday, 12 September 2019 19:28 (four years ago) link
Country Girls trilogy is key, and any short story collection. Bonus points if you can get a hold of any of the gratuitously nippley 1970s Penguin paperbacks.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Friday, 13 September 2019 01:07 (four years ago) link