What are you reading?

[mamaboy]

Re: Re:

tom sawyer

[Faust]

Re: Re:



[quote user="mamaboy"]tom sawyer[/quote]</p>

I once asked Christopher Hitchens, who is a huge Mark Twain fan, why Tom Sawyer has never achieved the status of Huckleberry Finn. He looked at me like I just fell out of a tree and said, "It's just a children's book."
</p>

[Real Real]

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[quote user="Magician"]

"suspense is for the intellectually weak"</p>[/quote]



Hahah, good quote.



How many <u>great</u> books actually have <u>surprise</u> endings (not surprise events), endings you weren't meant to see coming?



I can't think of any right now...



Bowles' Sheltering Sky? (that's a good recommendation for SZ, also)



Pale Fire?

[Faust]

Re: Re:

Sherlock Holmes has plenty [83]

[mamaboy]

Re: Re:

[quote user="Faust"]


[quote user="mamaboy"]tom sawyer[/quote]</P>


I once asked Christopher Hitchens, who is a huge Mark Twain fan, why Tom Sawyer has never achieved the status of Huckleberry Finn. He looked at me like I just fell out of a tree and said, "It's just a children's book."
</P>


[/quote]</P>


u kinda right.....(but i would hate to admit it)</P>

[Hali]

Re: Re:

[quote user="Magician"]

Reading "Blood Meridian" literally left me physically tired.[/quote]</p>

That's a pretty good description of the feeling. </p>

</p>

I disagree when you say it's a "slog" though. I can't think of any writers of similar gravity who can sling cleaner prose. Blood Meridian moves fast and while the language isn't colorful or energetic, the subject matter is.</p>

The comparison I'm thinking of here is Pynchon, awfully dense, I have never been able to enjoy it.</p>

I can't think of any other modern authors on the same level (in english), Bloom would say Delillo, but I've never agreed with the fat man there.</p>

</p>

[Real Real]

Re: Re:

Well, I think he meant by "slog" that it was harrowing, emotionally exhausting.



It's interesting that you call McCarthy's prose 'clean' (I've seen it described it that way elsewhere too). I don't really think of it that way - powerful, shamanic, "muscular", chanting are the sorts of words I'd use to describe it. When I think of clean prose (Hemingway), I expect to always be able to know who is doing and saying what...there's an intended preciseness to that sort of writing that I don't think McCarthy wants to have. His writing definitely flows, but you're riding in the flow, not with it.

[Faust]

Re: Re:

Yea, I wouldn't call it clean either. I have to say though - I can see a parallel to Hemingway's writing in The Road. Hemingway said that his writing is like an iceberg - it hints at everything that your mind is supposed to fill in, and I definitely see that with The Road, where the prose is so sparse, but the emotions it triggers are overwhelming.

[Faust]

Re: Re:

Kafka was cooler than we thought

[Magician]

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Haha, saw that stuff about Kafka as well. Would love to read some of it, just to compare it to his more accepted work. The Trial was an important book for me, as I began reading more philosophical/ academic works.</p>

</p>

Thanks Real Real for clarifying about McCarthy. McCarthy's prose was not difficult, the difficulty came from the emotional impact. I like the Hemingway/ McCarthy comparison. I had never thought of it before, but now it seems like a good parallel, especially with For Whom the Bell Tolls</p>

</p>

I agree about Pynchon being horribly dense. I have friends I respect who swear by him, but I personally need an author to meet me halfway.
</p>

</p>

</p>

[Faust]

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/\ I think that's just porn that he looked at, not his writing. Although porn by Kafka would've been awesome. I bet he'd make de Sade look like an amature.

[Magician]

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[quote user="Faust"]/\ I think that's just porn that he looked at, not his writing. Although porn by Kafka would've been awesome. I bet he'd make de Sade look like an amature.
[/quote]</p>

</p>

Thanks! I misread the article in my haste to find sordid details. However I'd still love to look at his porn collection and see how it may have influenced his work.
</p>

[maldoror]

Re: Re:

[quote user="Real Real"][quote user="Magician"]

"suspense is for the intellectually weak"</p>

[/quote]



Hahah, good quote.



How many <u>great</u> books actually have <u>surprise</u> endings (not surprise events), endings you weren't meant to see coming?



I can't think of any right now...



Bowles' Sheltering Sky? (that's a good recommendation for SZ, also)



Pale Fire?[/quote]</p>

Pale Fire, yes (definitely), but I think you're wrongfully conflating surprise endings as in "endings you weren't meant to see coming" with twist endings. Pale Fire falls somewhere between the two, as does e.g., James's The Turn of the Screw. I would say that the ending of Vollmann's Fathers and Crows and Houellebecq's Elementary Particles are true surprise endings, being distinctly <u>not</u> twist endings (although I would also maintain that the latter is the least great thing about an otherwise great book).
</p>

[maldoror]

Re: Re:

redacted

[Real Real]

Re: Re:

Yeah, fair enough (and I agree about Elementary Particles' ending). I should have said "twist" - those twist "a-ha!" endings, not just something surprising. What I meant was that I can think of a number of movies I've enjoyed with true a-ha twist endings, but very few good novels.