https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/dec/07/feminist-retelling-of-nineteen-eighty-four-approved-by-orwells-estatehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TN-kDEKxF0
― Mardi Gras Mambo Sun (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 7 March 2022 20:23 (two years ago) link
This author is like Amanda Palmer and Pomplamoose [insert yr other ILX faves here] rolled into one.
― Mardi Gras Mambo Sun (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 7 March 2022 20:25 (two years ago) link
But perhaps this is an injustice to her sui generis originality or lack thereof.
― Mardi Gras Mambo Sun (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 7 March 2022 20:27 (two years ago) link
I thought about it a lot, and questioned my position, and etc But after a while
and etc
― Heez, Monday, 7 March 2022 21:17 (two years ago) link
getting some sort of initial success as a writer must be very much like cocaine
― imago, Monday, 7 March 2022 21:19 (two years ago) link
I still can't believe the Pomplamoose guy is the CEO of Patreon
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Monday, 7 March 2022 22:32 (two years ago) link
ugh, things i didn't know i didn't want to know
― Nedlene Grendel as Basenji Holmo (map), Monday, 7 March 2022 22:33 (two years ago) link
of course he is
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 7 March 2022 23:02 (two years ago) link
like least surprising thing ever
To be fair, in the new one the men don’t all die, they vanish and go elsewhere and behave alarmingly and are visible through unclear means and then at the end they come back.
Haven’t read anything else by her, though.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Monday, 7 March 2022 23:39 (two years ago) link
So are you…recommending it then? You got an advance down under copy?
― Mardi Gras Mambo Sun (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 7 March 2022 23:51 (two years ago) link
Basically a worldwide boys' weekend?
― jmm, Monday, 7 March 2022 23:58 (two years ago) link
Go elsewhere and behave alarmingly
― Chappies banging dustbin lids together (President Keyes), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 00:02 (two years ago) link
it’s written in a goofy made-up lingo by someone who has never heard more than 30 seconds of someone speaking AAVE but thinks they are an expert in it
― castanuts (DJP), Monday, March 7, 2022 4:17 AM (twelve hours ago)
it's like she tried to do a version of the Belter slang from the Expanse novels, which was set in space in the future and combined with enough other linguistic elements to not be racist-cringe, but, she set her novel on Earth, in America, and added in some "pastoral" elements, and it reads like someone took "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ran it through google translate for Expanse Belter and then translated it back to racist-cringe
― sarahell, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 01:27 (two years ago) link
https://www.npr.org/2015/08/27/434970724/the-wake-is-an-unlikely-hit-in-an-imaginary-language
I accidentally bought this without realizing it's written in a (much less offensive) invented version of (I guess) 'old English.' The only way I made it through ten pages was to read out loud and then I decided it wasn't worth the effort.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 01:37 (two years ago) link
how did it compare to Game of Thrones?
― sarahell, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 01:44 (two years ago) link
Less incest presumably. But maybe not.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 01:56 (two years ago) link
If you know any Nordic languages it helps. Lots of the words are just misspelled/modified Scandinavian words. Which of course makes sense (the Danes were there before the French). Anyway, it's a really good book.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 02:27 (two years ago) link
Yeah, got an advance copy. I liked it, but having read it after watching the Y The Last Man TV series meant it wasn't exactly fresh (though it did do a number of different things with the premise). To be honest my main problem was the plot relies on one character being an incredibly charismatic natural leader lots of people are irresistibly drawn to, and it did not sell me on their charms.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 02:34 (two years ago) link
Paul Kingsnorth of The Wake has his own problems, being an anti-vaxxer let-everything-fall-apart accelerationist.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 02:35 (two years ago) link
Basically, my advice is forget everything else in this thread, everyone should read RIDDLEY WALKER, which is brilliant.
haha i like hoban but couldn't deal with that patois either
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 02:37 (two years ago) link
Saw that stuff about Kingsnorth elsewhere. I see that Sandra Newman got some good reviews for The Heavens, maybe I will check that one out.
― Mardi Gras Mambo Sun (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 02:39 (two years ago) link
Kingsnorth may be an accelerationist and a former-conservationist-turned-IRL-prepper (IRL in both senses lol) (also, didn't know about the antivaxxer stuff?) but The Wake is too brilliant a work to flippantly dismiss, and one which very much allows its reader to take a different moral viewpoint to its narrator's
― imago, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 02:56 (two years ago) link
Without giving away any spoilers. And also without giving away any spoilers, lol milo
― imago, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 02:58 (two years ago) link
International Rugby League?
― Mardi Gras Mambo Sun (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 03:00 (two years ago) link
He now lives in rural IReLand! Waiting for the climate apocalypse
― imago, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 03:05 (two years ago) link
Kingsnorth seems about as crazy as Jaz Coleman of Killing Joke (who I believe moved to Iceland at one point, to wait out Y2K). The Wake remains a very good book.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 03:10 (two years ago) link
have you summoned the fire?
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 03:54 (two years ago) link
can anyone (tables is tables?) explain the clusterfuck around sean thor conroe's novel? saw some vague allusions to it on twitter but couldn't traceback. i like his podcast
― flopson, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 09:30 (two years ago) link
The fact it's called "Fuccboi" seems pretty explanatory tbh. Aside from that someone (Sam Pink) claims he ripped off their style.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 09:36 (two years ago) link
It sounds like the novel equivalent of the Anne Hathaway vehicle Havoc (directed by Barbara Kopple of Harlan County, USA fame!)
― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 09:37 (two years ago) link
ok ya just read this https://neutralspaces.co/blog/post.php?id=1136
p good lit drama
― flopson, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 09:49 (two years ago) link
can't say sam pink comes off particularly well there, and the drama undoubtedly gave the book some free promo lift
― flopson, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 09:52 (two years ago) link
James, can you spoil how the novel deals with trans ppl (if at all)?
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 10:35 (two years ago) link
I really enjoyed Sandra Newman's The Heavens fwiw - strangely moving story about a 21st century dystopic woman who believes she is also Amelia Bassano aka Shakespeare's Dark Lady. Had no idea about her previous books.
Fuccboi gets a slightly prudish ("my understanding is that it’s a slang term, about a decade old, for young American men in cities who conduct a caddish heterosexual sex life" it begins, adjusting its monocle) but generally positive review from Christian Lorentzen in the latest LRB https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n05/christian-lorentzen/how-tf-was-i-privileged
― Piedie Gimbel, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 11:19 (two years ago) link
even since lorentzen used the word poptimism in a lazily incorrect and negative sense i have enjoyed imagining him being chased round the room w/a cattleprod to improve his critical thinking one zap at a time
― mark s, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 12:02 (two years ago) link
I will keep that image in mind when I imagine you reading Grimey Simey Reynolds on Talcy Malcy Maclaren in the same issue of the LRB!
― Piedie Gimbel, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 12:15 (two years ago) link
i expect it will be food for thought *adjusts monocle*
― mark s, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 12:35 (two years ago) link
lol:
"And while you a fkn legend to mfkrs who know, it baffles me how many of these so-called literary fucks don’t know your shit. So many people who read my shit are like Yo, that style you doin, how figure that out? To which I’m like, Sam Pink, bitch! Read Sam Pink you New Yorker Paris Review fuck."
― Chappies banging dustbin lids together (President Keyes), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 15:02 (two years ago) link
can anyone (tables is tables?) explain the clusterfuck around sean thor conroe's novel? saw some vague allusions to it on twitter but couldn't traceback. i like his podcast― flopson, Tuesday, March 8, 2022 1:30 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
― flopson, Tuesday, March 8, 2022 1:30 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
The clusterfuck seems to be from any number of sides. One side, the snooty bougeois liberal progressives, think the protagonist is offensive. Another side, the more actually left literary types, think that another stylized novel about a terrible man looking for fucks and redemption is the last thing anyone should ever have to read again. And more conservative types are like, "good heavens, a book not written in the queen's English, by crum!"
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 15:54 (two years ago) link
I mostly don't care, fwiw, because in interviews, Conroe comes off as the most obnoxious asshole I can possibly imagine, an actively disgusting human being, and the excerpts from the novel look like utter shit.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 15:56 (two years ago) link
And the dude got a $200,000 advance, so there's the "guy imitates others in the indie ranks to take major-label money" angle.
― deep luminous trombone (Eazy), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 15:58 (two years ago) link
Like seriously, look up excerpts from the book and you'll find that it is the clunkiest, cringiest straight male "voice of authenticity" that you've ever read. That would be fine if there was an ounce of self-awareness, but there isn't.
If you want to read a guy who is writing in a toxic masculine voice that is actually interesting and aware of itself, read Mike Amnasan.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 15:59 (two years ago) link
The money thing isn't surprising, money begets money and Conroe is clearly from a well-to-do background.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 16:00 (two years ago) link
having a podcast probably didn't hurt
― Chappies banging dustbin lids together (President Keyes), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 16:11 (two years ago) link
I don't really understand the phenomenon of podcasts, I don't listen to them and don't see that changing. If assholes and charlatans keep getting book deals from them, to me that means that they're even less worthy of attention.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 16:13 (two years ago) link
for a writer I'm sure they provide more exposure than a reading at a small bookstore does
― Chappies banging dustbin lids together (President Keyes), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 16:20 (two years ago) link
I liked Sean Thor Conroe more when he was called Atticus Lish
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 16:23 (two years ago) link
Though not THAT much more tbh