[gmku]

Originally Posted by evollove

--I've always had a "problem" with Centaur. Not sure why. Kinda boring, I guess. That one and Poorhouse Fair are my least favorites. Of course, they kick the shit out of 95% of anything anyone else could write. Plus, I'm sure I'll re-read them myself and probably change my mind.

--If you haven't been through all of Nabokov before, including his autobio Speak, Memory, may I recommend getting cracking on the unreads instead of Lolita again? None of my business; just a suggestion.

What's the one Hannah I should read first?

I love Speak, Memory. What else have I read? Transparent Things. Interesting, but not great. I think I tried Ada and got bored. That might be about it, actually. What Nabokov should I go to next?

Personally, I recommend starting with Geronimo. It's his most straightforward narrative, but it is a wild ride, pretty fantastical and sprawling. A great look at the South in the 1950s.

I like Ray a lot, though it's experimental. And his collection of short stories is fantastic--Airships. In fact, maybe start with that and Geronimo. You can delve into a few of the short stories between chapters of Geronimo.

You have to be in the right mood for Updike. I have to be very relaxed, willing to let him pile on the descriptive detail he loves so much. Once I "got" why he was using detail, I could enjoy it. His details don't always have to do with the plot or characterization so much as it is a celebration of the details in everything, the idea of trying to pay attention to everything, to taking in as much as you can.

[evollove]

I really like Nabokov's early, Russian books. They are short and punchy. Might as well start in chronological order, but DESPAIR, DEFENSE, and INVITATION TO A BEHEADING are perhaps my favs. (THE GIFT is his last Russian book. Like ADA, it's great but a tad dull, ifyouknowwhatImean.)

Also, his short story collection is a must have. Seriously. Buy it now.

He did loose his strength as he got older. Post-Lolita, PNIN and PALE FIRE are the only really great ones.

What Martin Amis have you read? His early stuff, at least, strikes me as the prose of Updike's and Nabokov's bastard child.

By the way, I'm almost ALWAYS in the mood for Updike.

I'll get cracking on the Hannah.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by halfeatencake

stuff i'll have to read in the next ~3 years
well, i have to read at least MOST of it
http://www.uni-hamburg.de/iaa/lektue...rikanistik.pdf

nice reading list, "amerikanistic"

except for the niche crap. o well. not your fault.

[ilduclo]

Originally Posted by evollove

I really like Nabokov's early, Russian books. They are short and punchy. Might as well start in chronological order, but DESPAIR, DEFENSE, and INVITATION TO A BEHEADING are perhaps my favs. (THE GIFT is his last Russian book. Like ADA, it's great but a tad dull, ifyouknowwhatImean.)

Also, his short story collection is a must have. Seriously. Buy it now.

He did loose his strength as he got older. Post-Lolita, PNIN and PALE FIRE are the only really great ones.

What Martin Amis have you read? His early stuff, at least, strikes me as the prose of Updike's and Nabokov's bastard child.

By the way, I'm almost ALWAYS in the mood for Updike.

I'll get cracking on the Hannah.

finally got a book of Updikes, early short stories, never read him before.......just picked up one Zola I hadn't read, The Belly of Paris, and another Bolano, Last Evenings on Earth, but still finishing a 400 page history of New World Slavery that, although densely written, as say a textbook, provides so much history that I didn't know, has proven itself well worth wading thru.....

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by halfeatencake

i had to chose between two lists, that's the other one
http://www.uni-hamburg.de/iaa/lektue..._anglistik.pdf

i think i'll read most of the books from the anglistik list too...

oh, you lucky bitch, i wish i had time to read like that these days

and before anybody complains with politically correct platitudes, by "bitch" i mean this:

 

or was it this, i don't remember....

 

anyway...

bitch! you're lucky... all that time to read...

[evollove]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

except for the niche crap. o well. not your fault.

What's "niche crap?"

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by evollove

What's "niche crap?"

oh this nasty little racist practice of ghettoizing writers by ethnicity or sexual orientation or what not, both marginalizing good writers as provincial and elevating bad writers to the canon because they are some sort of minority.

writers are either good or sucky.

take for example jhumpa lahiri-- she's fucking fabulous. i enjoyed reading "the namesake" immensely. it's one of the few contemporary books i have actually been able to read from cover to cover. and yet she is put in the "asian-american" pile together because she happens to write about the immigrant/first generation experience. she belongs in the contemporary pile instead of all that macsweeney self-indulgent white bullshit (there i go with the ethic shit-- but it makes sense in the context).

similarly, maya angelou... the lady is nice but... why should anyone read her? because she's "african american"? where the fuck is langston hughes? he should go on the modernist pile with all the other good ones.

philip roth and saul bellow, such tremendous figures in, i don't know what category, are put as "jewish writers" whereas woody allen is a "postmodernist". ayayay...

fucking niche/ghetto shit. there is also some crap on "hispanic literature" that nobody should be required to read but it's there because "it's hispanic". yes, my panic.

for the record, i haven't slept since saturday and i'm quite incoherent but my rage isn't. okay maybe it is, but it all makes sense to me.

[evollove]

Kinda sorta makes sense to me. Sorta. Kinda.

Let me be a little incoherent:

For the purposes of a class, I can see why one would read Bellow along with Roth, if anything to compare and contrast.

A writer's background informs the texts. What's the big whoop?

In my experience, it's rare for a writer to be celebrated merely because of background. There are a ton of black writers, but not all of them get into the canon, nor should they. (I agree about the Hughes, by the way.)

The thing is, if the syllabus was just one big list of titles--no catagories--most of the authors would end up on the list anyway, I think (although I disagree with some of the titles: Roth has written better books since GOODBYE, and FALLING MAN is the worst thing Dellio's written in years,for example. Still, a good student of American lit can't avoid reading something by either writer).

"Niche" makes it sound like these minority writers aren't essential to the American Literature story. I strongly disagree.

The only problem I see is when a dumbfuck reader would say something like, "Oh, I don't care for Jewish American writers."

The Namesake dissapointed me, but only because her short story collections are outstanding.

I'm rambling.

[!@#$%!]

namesake was brilliant, i read it before the interpreter of maladies so the stories suffered by comparison, presenting less developed characters. the dad especially i thought was cool as fuck on the inside but an uncool stoic on the outside. and gogol's struggles with his "american" girlfriend and the parallel with the indian girl he grows up with was great-- a kind of aborted-assimilation story with 2 instruments (or 3 or 4, depending on how you count).

of course the minorities belong in teh canon-- they belong at the very fucking center of it is my point.

my problem with literary ghettos is two-fold ("two-handed"?): on the one hand, mediocre writers and poets become canonized by virtue of being members of a "deserving" ghetto, and they subsequently "represent" poorly; on the other hand, great writers and poets who happen to be members of minority groups get demoted to the ghetto instead of being place at the fucking epicenter of literature where they belong--e.g., "kafka, the czech jew who wote in german". a provincial writer?

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by halfeatencake

well, I don't really have time to read, next semester I'll have a shit load of classes and I don't even want to think about all the homework! Also, I need to find a job!

I'll have to read all that in my free time which means I will have to stop watching so many TV shows and films

Ah well, reading is a lot of fun too, so whatever

literature is dead (to me) (not really) (well almost)

why don't you study tv then?

--

reading is a fucking aristocratic pleasure. enjoy it while you can.

--

but tv people make more money :/

[demonrail666]

Good luck with the degree. Looking through the book lists it's a subject I'd have loved to have done myself.

I don't really see what all the fuss is with this niche thing. Of course they're problematic; they can distort or exclude or be reductive but it'd be almost impossible to navigate or organise a topic as broad as literature, without them. There'll always be differences of opinion regarding what's included and what isn't (I thought it odd, for example, that no mention was given to the Beats in the American list) but that just contributes to the fun of debate and highlights the ongoing openness of the canon. No course can cover everything and there's always the case for claiming the validity of something that's left out over something that isn't.

[jennthebenn]

Originally Posted by halfeatencake

started jenn's book today in the cafeteria.
i got only to page 13 but i am already in love

 

I hope the romance continues!

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by halfeatencake

well i wanted to study film in melbourne but it didn't work out and it is really heard to get into uni for film in germany (you have to hand in a short film and it has to be pretty good and all my film friends live in melbourne....)
but american literature studies is pretty cool too. i mean, they had a fight club seminar and a star was one at my uni in the last years so i am hoping for good stuff. and i love books and english (i mean my fav brother is from england and i tried to move to OZ in 2010) so american literature studies is a pretty NICE thing to do at uni for me

prolly a good thing you didn't go straight into film. those schools are mostly useless. not a bad idea to start with literature actually. you get a better understanding of character and story and all that.

and i love books, don't get me wrong, it's that it's hard for me to find things i enjoy anymore. i'm like a tired spent jaded whore when it comes to reading.

so what's this story with your having brothers all over the planet? was your dad a traveling salesman? or do you belong to a religious cult?

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I don't really see what all the fuss is with this niche thing. Of course they're problematic; they can distort or exclude or be reductive but it'd be almost impossible to navigate or organise a topic as broad as literature, without them. There'll always be differences of opinion regarding what's included and what isn't (I thought it odd, for example, that no mention was given to the Beats in the American list) but that just contributes to the fun of debate and highlights the ongoing openness of the canon. No course can cover everything and there's always the case for claiming the validity of something that's left out over something that isn't.

sure! i got some sleep so i am less cranky today. ha!

im all for having a fluid canon of course, it's the ghettoization that bugs me. see? "here's the canon-- and here's the cannon for the little people who couldn't cut it but we have to mention them out of political correctness"

zadie smith-- does she belong to contemporary literature or is she an "anglo-afrocaribbean woman writer" (or whatevers)?

--

side note:

the the the hm hm err eh.. oh yes!

i had this friend who studied british literature and being into theory shit she looked at the sociology & institutions & things. one thing she mentioned to me once was that when an irish/scottish/welsh writer/poet was new etc. it was classified as "provincial" but when they got famous they suddenly become "english literature". and funny thing, one of the earliest reviews of joyce published he's cast as some sort of talented irish wildman lololol

ghetto/not-ghetto. burn the fucking ghetto. it's just good/no good.

---

ps - did you notice the "anglistik" list has no ghetto? it's just the american one that does. oy....!

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by halfeatencake

we adopted a boy from england and he moved to the states last year

and what about the ostrogoth i mean ostralian? you said somewhere. "favorite" etc.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by halfeatencake

my 'australian family' = the best people in the world = friends

oh! they are not your brothers but your bros. okay!

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

im all for having a fluid canon of course, it's the ghettoization that bugs me. see? "here's the canon-- and here's the cannon for the little people who couldn't cut it but we have to mention them out of political correctness"

zadie smith-- does she belong to contemporary literature or is she an "anglo-afrocaribbean woman writer" (or whatevers)?

One of the obvious problems with this ghettoisation is that it confines writers from ethnic minorities to what they 'ought' to be writing about, and to the style with which they write it. It's not enough that Zadie Smith should be a black writer, she's also expected to focus her writing on a black topic (or what a largely white literary establishment think is a black topic, or style). We've joked about this in the past, the way that Latin American writers only really qualify as such if they write from a supposedly Latin American 'magical' perspective. We could equally say that being a Jewish writer has more to do with expressing a certain 'Jewish neurosis' that's easily recognised by gentiles, than it has to do with anything else. It must be a real problem for any black writer not that interested in adapting an oral tradition that supposedly underpins their culture, or a Jewish writer not overly preoccupied with their mother, and so on.

It's everywhere in culture, from world music to art cinema, to the whole manga craze in the West: that to be considered commercially viable an artist from a minority or marginal background is expected to promote a certain sense of their nationality or ethnicity in a way that foreign consumers can recognise and which satisfies their fetish for some kind of pure, authentic 'otherness'. It's like theme park culture. Go to Stratford Upon Avon and see it's been reinvented as 'Ye Olde English Village', purely to satisfy American tourists who want to wallow in a very American idea of Shakespeare's 'Englishness'.

i had this friend who studied british literature and being into theory shit she looked at the sociology & institutions & things. one thing she mentioned to me once was that when an irish/scottish/welsh writer/poet was new etc. it was classified as "provincial" but when they got famous they suddenly become "english literature". and funny thing, one of the earliest reviews of joyce published he's cast as some sort of talented irish wildman lololol

I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me if that does take place. Although it's a similar problem as before: Joyce is probably just as much fetishised for his perceived 'Irishness' (whatever that may be) as for his purely literary innovations.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

One of the obvious problems with this ghettoisation is that it confines writers from ethnic minorities to what they 'ought' to be writing about, and to the style with which they write it. It's not enough that Zadie Smith should be a black writer, she's also expected to focus her writing on a black topic (or what a largely white literary establishment think is a black topic, or style). We've joked about this in the past, the way that Latin American writers only really qualify as such if they write from a supposedly Latin American 'magical' perspective. We could equally say that being a Jewish writer has more to do with expressing a certain 'Jewish neurosis' that's easily recognised by gentiles, than it has to do with anything else. It must be a real problem for any black writer not that interested in adapting an oral tradition that supposedly underpins their culture, or a Jewish writer not overly preoccupied with their mother, and so on.

It's everywhere in culture, from world music to art cinema, to the whole manga craze in the West: that to be considered commercially viable an artist from a minority or marginal background is expected to promote a certain sense of their nationality or ethnicity in a way that foreign consumers can recognise and which satisfies their fetish for some kind of pure, authentic 'otherness'. It's like theme park culture. Go to Stratford Upon Avon and see it's been reinvented as 'Ye Olde English Village', purely to satisfy American tourists who want to wallow in a very American idea of Shakespeare's 'Englishness'.



I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me if that does take place. Although it's a similar problem as before: Joyce is probably just as much fetishised for his perceived 'Irishness' (whatever that may be) as for his purely literary innovations.

let's fucking burn and destroy culture!

 

[evollove]

[quote=!@#$%!]let's fucking burn and destroy culture!]

I was going to write, "This is all academic. Read what you dig and fuck the rest," but this makes sense too. Glad you slept. There are much more important things to get worked up over than this stuff. (And I write this as someone who bleeds literature.)

One little item: I knew absolutely nothing about Z. Smith when I first read White Teeth, and I assumed she was Indian!

I think ethnic writers choose to write about their ethnicity. Or not. I mean, Paul Auster's Jewish but you'd never know it by reading the fiction.

And even explicitly Jewish writers, for example, take a break now and then. I guess I'm thinking of Bellow's Henderson the Rain King which is not the least bit "Jewish," but there are lots of other examples.

[Bertrand]

I'm finishing Assaf Gavron's Ein schönes Attentat.

It's well conceived, yet I feel embarrassed by what his male characters say/think about their female counterparts.

I'll be reading Eugenides' The Marriage Plot and Jean-Luc Benoziglio's Cabinet portrait (an unemployed estranged man packs up 25 volumes of an encyclopedia in the building restrooms, and stays there to read).

Reading through halfeatencake's list : if you dig Dos Passos, move on to the USA trilogy. If you don't, move on to the USA trilogy.

And on a sidenote, I tried to read Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night in English.
I bought a copy of a Penguin edition and it was reorganized! In its chronological order! How can anyone do that to this book?

The niche thing exists in France too.

[Genteel Death]