| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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I read it a couple years ago, when it first came out in English translation and hardcover. It came back into my mind recently and I picked up a copy for a friend of mine. I was at her house last night, flipping through her copy and reading passages. It is an amazing book. |
checked the online catalogue of my local library. it's checked out. |
i think you'll dig it. |
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light in august wind-up bird chronicles pale fire lolita savage detectives but that's probably because i'm forgetting something, like blood meridian. or tropic of cancer. top five lists are too hard. 'cloud atlas' by david mitchell is another i've read recently that was excellent. |
My favourite book this year has been This is the Way the World Ends. |
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i like to make a distinction between the best books i've ever read versus my favorite books. the best books i've ever read are almost always serious fiction and / or classical literature. my favorite books are sometimes the same as the best books, but sometimes my favorite books are not serious fiction. sometimes they are just original stories that are well written. in no particular order, my favorite books written in my lifetime are the last samurai - dewitt the ground beneath her feet - rushdie the time traveler's wife - niffenegger girlfriend in a coma - coupland the corrections - franzen the human stain - roth i can't think of any more right now. and jesus h christ why the hell is everyone so in love with the road by mccarthy. what a deplorable, unoriginal, boring waste of time. there's not even a story told, it's just one long premise of a story. it seems like he probably came up with a handful of elegantly written sentences that expressed some existential mood swing he was having, and then decided to write a book just to incorporate those sentences. he should have just written a poem instead. i am about 1/3 of the way through water for elephants right now, which is a lovely story, easy reading, but overly formulaic. i'm tired of reading new york times best sellers that read like they were written for the sole purpose of getting a hollywood contract to make the book into a major motion picture. |
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I'm reading Pat Barker's "Border Crossing" right now because I needed a break from all the post-modern magician's acts I was swimming in. "Border Crossing" really doesn't do anything that her "Regeneration" didn't do before and better -- it's the story of the relationship between a psychologist and his charming sociopathic patient -- but her world is solid and she writes crisply and elegantly, without theatrics. It's like eating a simple sorbet after a rich seven-course meal. "Regeneration" is one of my favorites. I think I would say my favorite books of adult fiction are (in no order): "Regeneration" (Barker) "Possession" (Byatt) "The Crimson Petal and the White" (Faber) "At Swim-Two-Birds" (O'Brien) "Light in August" (Faulkner) "The Robber Bride" (Atwood) The last one is iffy. I feel like I'm forgetting something. |
If you've read it and liked it, tell me what I was missing. Did it just start slowly? |
the road definitely benefited from his name being on the cover. i thought it was worth reading, but if i want to talk about mccarthy i'm going to start with other works. i'm reading divisadero (ondaatje) right now. it's good. |
and short stories by a local texas author - and happened to notice a roberto bolano book on the "new arrivals" display. it was called "a little lumpen novelita." so i picked it up. i never did get around to finding a bolano (i'm too lazy to do the tilde) when this thread started. but I read the "novelita." i definitely want to read more of him. |
described as his magnum opus. I don't remember now why I gave up on it, except that I remember it as feeling like a 900-page avalanche. I just got it off the shelf and will try again. There is a stage version of 2666 coming to the Goodman Theater in Chicago some time next year. |
stopped at some point. i could make them a summer reading list. the "lumpen novelita" would be a be a good introductory book. it's a novella, obviously-- short, with chapters maybe 3 or 4 pages long. it reminded me of a book called "the gangster we are all looking for" by le thi diem thuy. i have trouble reading, these days. i read the whole book aloud. otherwise, i forget what i just read. pathetic. but what else am i going to do? |
Ulysses - James Joyce Battlefield Earth - L Ron Hubbard |