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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 17, 2008 - 11:06am PT
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Perhaps it is just me... my reading waxes and wanes in a predictable pattern, sometimes just to satisfy a curiosity, other times to learn about something, still others just for pleasure. But usually as I "fill up" I am struck by an urge to do something with what I have learned in reading... to realize something out of it, to make something real, to create something new, or synthesized.
That's what I was asking, what do you do with all that reading. Conversing with people over the course of history is a wonderful gift that we have (inevitable, as more people live to day than all those before, or at least close to it, so our chances of existence are higher today than at any other time). But who will converse with you 2500 years from now?
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Apr 17, 2008 - 11:34am PT
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Clouds in a Glass of Beer: Simple Experiments in Atmospheric Physics
Interesting everyday stuff that nobody at a cocktail party understands - but still makes for interesting conversation.
Why do mountains appear grayer when more distant?
Why is there no frost under a tree some mornings when the rest of the lawn is covered?
Why does that little cloud comes out of your bottle of beer when you open it?
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emppeng27
Mountain climber
Denver, CO
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Apr 17, 2008 - 12:14pm PT
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One of the more interesting threads on here in a while; a good reason to pull me out of my posting hiatus. I may not be a Lit PhD candidate, but as a person who reads over a hundred books a year (a pretty even mix of literature/non-fiction) and who will be having his first book published next spring, my .02 on some of the topics covered.
For lit theory it is hard to beat Bloom (his Anxiety of Influence is spot on) though he is a dense read and if your background isn't so strong it can be hard to keep up with him. The Western Canon is a very good place for a general overview of western lit and is much more accessable than some of his other stuff. There is other stuff out there (trying to dredge up the names and authors would be too hard since very little sticks) but lit theory can be VERY dry and most books only require a good skimming and/or a thorough reading of the intro/conclu.
I am VERY selective with the contempo lit I choose to read since the wheat has yet to be separated from the chaff. Some of my favorites include David Mitchell, Ian Mcewan, Martin Amis (despite Yellow Dog), Michael Chabon, some of Lethem, William Vollmann (whose Europe Central is the best book published in the last three decades, rivaled only by Blood Meridian). For more established contempo authors its hard to beat the big five - Delillo, Roth, Pynchon, McCarthy, Updike - though I have to state that Roth I believe is not quite as deserving of his stature, his novels never matching the ambition of the other three (and, as an aside, when it comes to novels, greatness is most readiby dependant of the size of the authors ambition [ie. Gravity's Rainbow, Blood Meridian, Europe Central, Underworld - to name a few PoMo greats]). Much of Updike's writing can be pretty pedestrian as well though the Rabbit series is masterful. You notice that Toni Morrison is definitely NOT on my list. She owes her place to what she is - a black woman -, not what she has written (please do not take this as a racist comment; Marisha Pessl owes her current "it-lit" status as much or more to her attractiveness than to her overwritten Calamity Physics). This is not to say Morrison isn't a good writer - because she is - but even her "great" book Beloved doesn't hold a candle to MOST of the stuff written by the big 5.
For a some international taste, Coetzee (Michael K is overated; Barbarians and Foe are very good), Naipaul (A House for Mr. Biswas is a great book), and Marquez (Hundred Years of Solitude is probably the best book of the last half-century, and this coming from a person who usually hates magical-realism) are a good place to start. Pamuk is also certainly worth reading.
As for when did PoMo begin: 1960s with Pynchon, Barth, et al.
The second wave of PoMo I would argue began with Foster Wallace in the late 80s/early 90s and is being carried forward by the likes of Franzen, Safran Foer (who I despise, BTW, for his squirm-inducing sentimentality and kitsch), Murakami and others.
Of the modernists, Beckett, Borges, Proust (I know its almost become a cliche to call him great since so many literary posers will automaticall mention him to confirm that they are indeed litterateurs) and Kafka stand above the rest in my opinion, and Ulysses is truly an astounding book when you compare it to what came before. Faulkner deserves his place, though Hemingway can be overated at times. I always thought Dos Passos, Steinbeck, and Thomas Wolfe were second rate writers.
Anyways, I don't need to go back through the history of literature but I will add that Moby Dick is a monstrously great book and Dickens was virtually without peer in the latter half of the 19th century. Right now I'm gobbling up a lot of epic poetry (read: Byron, Goethe).
Hopefully that offers up enough to keep this thread going:)
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 17, 2008 - 04:32pm PT
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Roger,
That list is too serious. You gotta mix in some trash to keep it all fresh and exciting.
JL
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 17, 2008 - 05:34pm PT
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Ever hear of SuperTopo, John?
I forgot to include it on my list.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Apr 17, 2008 - 06:15pm PT
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bookworm had a good list of critical studies. Another minor classic in that field is "Aspects of the Novel" (or something like that) by E.M. Forster, a book about novels by a novelist.
There's another work on the shelves in my old room at my folks' house called "The Triumph of the Novel: Dicken, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner" by Albert J. Guerard. Good stuff.
In short, if you want to understand the evolution of the modern novel, you have to read them: Dostoyevsky, Faulkner, Joyce (who, contrary to what Largo said, is a wonderful story teller--read Portrait of the Artist). Even "Winesburg, Ohio" by Sherwood Anderson is a good example of the evolving modern American novel.
As Woody said, Conrad is great (especially impressive since English was his third language) but his longer books can be a significant investment. Never could get thru Lord Jim and still need to finish Nostromo. If you've never Chekhov's short stories, you really need to: The Lady with the Pet Dog or The Doctor's Visit, etc.
I think the BEST american novel, however, is Moby Dick. Few things even come close. It's just a pain to read through. Ray Bradbury, who used to write reviews for the LA Times put it well when he summarized his daughter rereading it for the third time. He commented that that was a lot of work, and she replied that after reading it a couple of time you know which parts to skip. His other novels like White Jacket and Typee are very good and much easier reads.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 18, 2008 - 10:33pm PT
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Have any of you read Gene Kira's "King of the Moon"? Ok Hemmingway was more screwed up than this author so maybe Hem has more depth to his writing, but I think this is a good read. I think it would make a great cinema flick.
After reading most of your posts I have to say, I read alot and I write and I have been published, but as my grandpa used to say, "You're to deep for me". But it is fun to read all your comments. Are gals allowed to participate in your forum?
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Apr 18, 2008 - 11:14pm PT
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I concur with the original post that the old-timers had to work harder at what they did (similar to the Wall climbers, BTW) and they were better than the more recent writers.
Vulgarity, shock and a nominal Don't-Let-Kids-Or-Grandma-Near-This-Trash genre seems to pervade the new literature.
I guess the National Attention Deficit Disorder has editors and publishers following the same philosophy that causes movie producers to fixate on explosions/car-crashes/wanton-murders.
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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Apr 18, 2008 - 11:27pm PT
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yeah great thread - all the opinions are really interesting
and you know, it's like "you're favorite flavor".
Got mine but haven't read prose fiction in years,
my multi year binge culminating w/ Nabokov...
after that, it all seemed so anti-climactic;
he's was flying so high and so fast, making it look easy.
A grand master, IMHO.
cool stuff everyone!
RE:
"Of the modernists, Beckett, Borges, Proust (I know its almost become a cliche to call him great since so many literary posers will automaticall mention him to confirm that they are indeed litterateurs) and Kafka stand above the rest in my opinion, and Ulysses is truly an astounding book when you compare it to what came before. Faulkner deserves his place, though Hemingway can be over-rated at times. I always thought Dos Passos, Steinbeck, and Thomas Wolfe were second rate writers. "
I'll go along w/ the part on Falkner and Hem,and Steinbeck.
Becket and Proust?
Not for me. No way. I tried.
Kafka?
Just couldn't go there...
Camus. Oh yes.
Celine. Some of the best ever.
Genet. Amazing.
What's cool, IMO is the short stories by
Jack London, way ahead of his time,
very sharp - nothing like reading a "natural".
Katherine Ann Porter, no one wrote better.
Kate Chopin, brilliant.
Don't forget Voltaire, he kicks ass!
My two cents...
I'm a Bukowski disciple, unabashed
so it's no accident I like a lot of the
stuff he liked, too.
Think Erica Jong is really great, BTW,
one of the more important of our time, IMHO.
Remember, if you go for Celine's
companion novels, you won't be disappointed:
Death On The Installment Plan starts off with a
masterful "surrealist" insight as Celine
wanders around Paris "tripping" on a malaria fever,
it's awesome.
You want exciting fun "modern" stuff?
Aleister Crowley, Diary Of A Drug Fiend.
Everyone I've turned on to that
book has thanked me, said it was
nothing like what they expected.
It rocks.
"Boredom Is Not Art"
hahaha!
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 18, 2008 - 11:48pm PT
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I have a great list of future reads thanks to you all. Has anyone read Ecclesiastes 3 lately? (The 7o's song Turn Turn
Turn?) If you read it, it too is a pretty impressive piece of Literature.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 18, 2008 - 11:59pm PT
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Plain Tales from the Hills, Kipling. For simple, personality-driven narrative, no one has ever surpassed this beauty.
Book of Sand, Borges. One of a kind.
Robert M's Tales of the South Pacific. Read it and learn how to craft character (his longer stuff bored me to death).
Romulo Gallegos. Uneven but masterful at his best.
And anyone who thinks Stenibeck is overrated, read Cannery Row very carefully sometime. There's magic in there.
Amado. For the big yarn, one of the best going.
Twain, Roughing it. Arguably the best natural American narrative and the granddaddy of the "ficumentary," aka, literary non-fiction (which is almost always cooked).
JL
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ty-s
Social climber
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Apr 19, 2008 - 03:54am PT
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This is a fantastic thread. I think it's interesting to see what people choose to read, and why. Very few undertake the task of reading, especially in this easy age of TV movies and film "adaptations" of great books. Those who do clearly expect to earn something for their effort, which is why I think there is some frustration at having read through a few hundred pages with little payoff. I can understand.
I'm a master's student in creative writing, and I read so that I can write. When school and work pile up too high, I flounder. When I have time to read, I have time to write, and I get something out of bad books - I believe that I must encounter things I don't like in literature if I am to avoid it in my own writing. I'm not smart enough to know whether I'm making some mistakes without having encountered them before, and I hate encountering them after having let a story rest for six months and changing everything.
The best books, however, are those that inspire me to write. All are, as Largo suggests, vivid or humorous, but I think those traits can appear in different ways. A book that is startling in some way is a book that can make a person focus and think, on any range of topics. The four most recent books I really enjoyed are very different.
Camus's "The Stranger" is an amazing existentialist read - the philosophical bent made me sit, staring at the ceiling for the better part of an hour.
I enjoyed Hemmingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." The simplicity of the writing made me reconsider how well a story can be told, and while I know I will never achieve a writing style that powerful, it makes me want to try.
While "The Old Man and the Sea" is an example of how a simple story can be made brilliant by beautiful writing, Herman Hess's "Siddhartha" is a great example of how ideas can transcend style. The book I read is an English translation of a German book written about an Indian man during the coming of Buddha. It's awkward. It's amazing.
The "Dancing Wu Li Masters" by Gary Zukav is an explanation of theoretical physics that attempts to explain without math. It is a fascinating read, and it made me rethink my role in my own world.
Each book is a favorite of mine, because each caught my attention ferociously, and each for a very different reason. I think that whatever reason a person has for reading a book, whether to learn, be inspired, be saddened, be forced to think - if that book creates a reaction, then it has succeeded for that individual. The preceding books were great reads for me, but my reading goals are different from anyone else's. That's the beauty of reading a variety: if every book we read is great, then every book is average. I enjoy being surprised by a particularly vivid book, but I have to slog through some less inspiring works, so that I'm aware of where my personal bar lies.
And... that's officially a ramble! One more recommendation, then I'm off to bed, looking forward to being hungover. If you have a few hours, read "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," by Brian Selznick. It's a kid's book that reads like an old film feels, and it's an awesome blend of prose and drawings.
-Tyler
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 19, 2008 - 03:22pm PT
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For those of you that write why don't you post a line or two it would be fun to check out your styles.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 19, 2008 - 04:07pm PT
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Guess since it's my idea I should take the lead. If no one follows it will just be a solo.
I am trying to put grief and loss into words so I can better understand it having recently suffered my first serious lifetime loss.
Mourning is a strange creature. It lives deep inside you with no way to get out. Likewise grief, a deep pool with no streams flowing from it to carry away the sadness. But when many friends, old and new, come to the pool and fill their cup, slowly grief drains away.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 20, 2008 - 03:20pm PT
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ok the transition from reading to writing was too big a leap. Just looking for something interesting to do. I had to work this weekend.
Final thread. Has anyone read The Bone People by Keri Hulme?
Fantastic imagination and able to craft the words to go with it.
If you like it you'll read it 'til it exhausts you or you finish the book.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 20, 2008 - 05:24pm PT
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Hi Lynne,
Welcome to ST. I don't think we have ever met, although I know some of the folks from the early 70s (in Yosemite) that are in the JT dino thread
I am sorry for the loss that you are working through--your word sense of friends removing the grief a little at at time seems apt.
BTY, of course you can play on ST with everyone else.
Best, Roger
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samg
climber
SLC
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Apr 20, 2008 - 05:57pm PT
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A few of my favorites:
Kobo Abe
Celine
Pynchon
Joyce
Kenzaburo Oe
Robert Musil
Svevo
Cortazar
William S. Burroughs
Mishima
Thomas Mann
Faulkner
Robbe-Grillet
Andrei Bely
Louis Zukofsky
Borges
Conrad
Kafka
Beckett
Pound
I'm sure I missed a few but they are all excellent.
Musil and Bely seem to have slipped under the radar when it comes to the canon of great modern works, but their novels are just as great as anyone's. Highly recommended. In fact, if you like modernist novels at all they are a must to read.
For a examination of postmodernism and postmodern theory, read Fredrick Jameson's Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 20, 2008 - 07:33pm PT
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Don't forget Willa Cather, who could outwrite just about all of them. And easily.
JL
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 21, 2008 - 12:13am PT
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Largo, I have all of W.Cather's books in my library ( had to special order them )and really enjoyed them, but The Bone People by Keri Hulme will work you. Cather can't work craft like Hume.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Apr 21, 2008 - 04:54am PT
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hey there ed... say, if you read the jake smith ranch series, you will have something quality to share, and very unique... i garentees folks will not forget what you have to say!.... :)
oh, say... and lynn.... i a very sorry for the loss you have recently suffered.... say, i do not know if this was an older person in your life, or younger.... but please:
if you email me, i will send you a free book... .one of my novels that deals with the parting of good buddies, and family memebers, by death, after the folks in the story have shared a life-time of deep friendship..... perhaps there may be something in there that will help you release more of your hurt and free you to press onward.... god bless--once again, i am feeling for your loss....
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