Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1999

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Only read Amulet (which is great) and Disgrace. I actually like some of Coetzee's earlier novels more. I'll be voting for 2666 so I think I'll refrain from voting here.

Echo Emily. 90s are a gap but I'm unsure as to what I need to catch-up on.

xyzzzz__, Friday, 8 October 2021 14:01 (two years ago) link

The Pelevin novel is also titled Homo Zapiens, it’s a blast and I’m probably voting for it though I really liked Ghostwritten as well.

JoeStork, Friday, 8 October 2021 14:55 (two years ago) link

The Intuitionist is wonderful. But then again, I remember REALLY liking Waiting, but can't remember anything about it now. Huh, I think just based on my remembered feeling, it's probably Waiting.

Guayaquil (eephus!), Friday, 8 October 2021 15:25 (two years ago) link

Yeah, Waiting. Starting in the Cultural Revolution, a doctor and a nurse fall in love and want to marry, but he's already got a wife back in the village, and to divorce would go against tradition and stability of the People's Republic or something like that. But she keeps trying to get him to do it, and eventually he gives it a shot, with wild results, and there are other incidents and sort of a low-hanging electric fence of tensions and inertia all along the way, as they settle into discontent and become a negative barometer of social changes,but their lives do change too, and it's---tragicomic, except that's a fancy word for the effect---but I can imagine Kafka digging it, in between letters to Felice.

dow, Friday, 8 October 2021 16:32 (two years ago) link

i recall thinking the very end (and build to the end i guess) of cryptonomicon was v cinematic & resultantly obv could/should be adapted to screen. wonder if its ever come close or whats the deal

voted intuitionist

johnny crunch, Friday, 8 October 2021 16:36 (two years ago) link

Disgrace is absolutely Coetzee's best. The Intuitionist was quite the calling card.

Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 8 October 2021 17:25 (two years ago) link

Tarzan's Tonsillitis??

alimosina, Friday, 8 October 2021 19:16 (two years ago) link

Another year in which I barely read anything

Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Saturday, 9 October 2021 00:18 (two years ago) link

Juneteenth it is by default. I have the Gibson book and made it a few pages in but haven’t been in the right state of mind to dig in deep.

Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Saturday, 9 October 2021 00:21 (two years ago) link

cryptonomicon narrowly over ghostwritten. those are the only 2 i've read. both page after page non-stop bangers

flopson, Saturday, 9 October 2021 00:25 (two years ago) link

The Knight Of All Times by Miho Mosulishvili

Unfortunately I don't read Georgian and it hasn't been translated.

alimosina, Saturday, 9 October 2021 01:06 (two years ago) link

the fact that All Tomorrow's Parties is here makes me wonder where Virtual Light and Idoru were 8)

idoru is probably my favourite of the three so this gets surrogate votes

koogs, Saturday, 9 October 2021 11:03 (two years ago) link

(Ghostwritten and Cryptonomicon being the other two i've read. the caves thing makes this hard for me to read)

koogs, Saturday, 9 October 2021 11:07 (two years ago) link

Disgrace is magnificent. So that.

Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Saturday, 9 October 2021 12:29 (two years ago) link

god there's some wrong 'uns on this list

anyway, Q by a country mile

look on my guacs, ye mighty, and dis pear (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 9 October 2021 12:42 (two years ago) link

Tarzan's Tonsillitis??

Sadly disappointing:

Tarzan's Tonsillitis (original title: La amigdalitis de Tarzán, 1999) is an epistolary novel from the Peruvian writer Alfredo Bryce.

Plot summary
It is about the romance between Fernanda and Juan Manuel del Carpio. It tells how life can pass and they keep in touch through the years only by mail. They meet sometimes in different cities of America and Europe but they never stay together for long. So they keep writing each other.

Daniel_Rf, Saturday, 9 October 2021 12:59 (two years ago) link

To the best of my memory as I read all these some time ago: Disgrace is one of those books about people where I can't figure out what makes them tick or why I would want to read about them; Cryptonomicon is probably the second best of the four Stephenson's I've read though I'm not sure I was completely sold on it; Q is an intellectual historical thriller in the Eco mould except with more cynicism, violence, and far left politics, so I'm voting for that. (Though I thought the follow up Altai was far less entertaining.)

ledge, Saturday, 9 October 2021 19:26 (two years ago) link

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

System, Monday, 11 October 2021 00:01 (two years ago) link

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

System, Tuesday, 12 October 2021 00:01 (two years ago) link

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 2000

Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 12 October 2021 11:19 (two years ago) link


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